Start to Finish: A Photo Essay

It is a pleasure when nothing else is on the agenda for a sunny Saturday but getting the tomatoes done, and I can enjoy the whole ritual.  Today I am sharing that with you in photos.  

There are so many lessons in gardening and canning:

Initiative. Starting hard things.
Perseverance. Work from months ago eventually pays off.
Dependability. Doing it whether you feel like it or not.
Planning. There is reward in being prepared.
Freedom. Making your own food is being independent.
Tidiness. Clean up is part of the process, just not part of the fun.
Reward. Satisfaction usually comes at a price!
Payoff. Completing a task is often its own reward.
Appreciation. Simple things make one feel the richest.

I also am happy that I am and have been imprinting my children with the rewards of hard work, and that they will always remember late summers when the house smelled like tomatoes!  

Life sometimes is a grind...but it's worth it all in the end.

In coming winter days, I can look forward to soups and stews 
blub, blub, blubbling away on the stove.  

In other words...

Contentment.

One of the sure signs of late summer is tomatoes coming in and the kitchen full of canning supplies.

I try not to can unless I have a whole bushel ready because the mess just isn't worth it otherwise.  :)

Assembling and gathering all of the supplies and getting everything ready to be organized and make it all go smoothly, is part of the process.

I am thankful for the changes of the seasons we can mark our years by, aren't you?

You CAN Do It! Sun Dill Slices!

Happpppy is what ZINNNNNNIA'S make me!!

My zinnias are gnarly and stubby and this drought hasn't been too easy on them, but I still like to cut a few every now and then!

I have some good news for you!  

For those of you who have made 

SUN DILLS...

You can also make sun dill SLICES with the same recipe that you use for whole sun dills!

The recipe is the same, except, I've found a solution for those of you who do not have grape leaves for this recipe that calls for them, you can substitute powdered alum instead for crispness...

The pickles on the left have cured and been refrigerated and now many have been eaten on hamburgers and with sandwiches.  The only difference between sliced sun dills and the whole ones is that the sliced pickles only need a few days to cure in the sunshine. 


Also, this is such a great way to use those picklers that got left on the plant a little too long!  


I know on those hot days, you can find a giant pickle, where just last night sat a tiny one, they can become large in just twenty four hours! 


Sun Dill Pickles
Spears or slices:  2-3 days in the sun to cure
Whole dills:  Up to a week in the sun to cure



Two half-gallon jars or a one-gallon jar with screw-on lid
Wash pickles, cut out bad spots and leave whole
Grape leaves:  2-3 for each layer, washed OR see below if you don't have access to grape leaves
Fresh dill, washed (use generously!)
fresh garlic cloves
About forty-fifty pickling cucumbers, or enough to fill a gallon jar, packed tightly

In the bottom of the jar start with a layer of 
GRAPE LEAVES, then
Heads of DILL,
1-2 garlic cloves,
Then PICKLES (I use small to medium picklers for this, NEVER large ones.)
Take the pickles halfway up the jar and then start over again with the grape leaves, dill, garlic, and end with the grape leaves on top, under the lid.


Then add this solution to the jar when it's stuffed with the pickles, dill, grape leaves and garlic cloves: 


6-1/2 cups water
3-1/4 cups white vinegar
1/2 c. Kosher salt
***IF NO GRAPE LEAVES ARE AVAILABLE, instead you may use
1/8 teaspoon alum
*stir to dissolve salt and pour over and then seal the jar and set out in the sun for a week (or 2-3 days for slices and spears!), turning the jar once daily for even "curing".  


Refrigerate when done and ENJOY!


**PLEASE NOTE:  the whole garlic cloves turn a blue-ish color in the sun.  This is fine, and the garlic is fine to keep in the jar while you use up the pickles.  No worries!

Use a canning jar with a screw-on lid, this recipe is for a gallon.  I used these half-gallon jars, bought for me by my husband at the hardware store.  I like the wide opening at the top, I can get my hand down in there to pack the pickles in very easily.

A half-dozen of these jars are priced under ten dollars. They work out well, because the half-gallon jars fit into our fridge much more easily.  I'll just put them back into the cardboard case when I'm done and use them again next summer.

Hope your pickles do well!


Please leave any questions you have in the comments section or EMAIL me at 
old centennial farmhouse at g mail dot com.

What are YOU getting from your garden and preserving these days?

Jammin'

Said one jam pot to the other:  "Are you full?"

It's almost time to make Strawberry Jam! 

Easiest, and most rewarding thing to make for your family...


Our little strawberry patch has served us very well and filled the freezer with jam and berries for over ten years.  After this bearing season is through, they will all pulled and thrown out and we start again with a new patch of plants.  

It's truly amazing what the earth will give us for just a little effort and time.

Nothing, and I mean NOTHING tastes better than a vine-ripened strawberry from your own little piece of dirt.  Anything found in a store has been off the vine far too long and has no comparison in sweetness.


And the little bunnies that live in the patch and have the babies each spring are a bonus sent by God for our delight and enjoyment. 


Even though our patch has looked a little weary for several years and we've just been too busy to do anything about it, it still has given much fruit; and abundant enough to share!  Last year was so so, but the year before we could pick gallons a day out of it.


Strawberries are well worth the work.  


Do you have a patch?

Cozy@Home: Blackberry Jam in Winter

I know, I know, summer is usually jam-making season.


But around here, I make it whenever I take the notion.


Sometimes, I pull berries out of the freezer when we need a batch of a certain kind of jam (strawberry is the most popular around here!).


We also grow raspberries, but never have had blackberries.


Last week, our Kroger had ten for ten on those little packs of fat blackberries.  I got ten.  It was pretty reasonable jam when all I had to add to it was sugar and some pectin--and a few hours of my time. 


After I washed them, I have them a good swirl in the food processor.  I also (mostly) de-seeded it, using my little hand-cranked food mill.  Blackberry is the worst jam with all the seeds, but the birds love the leftover seeds, especially in winter.  


(If I still had my chickens, I'd have run the seeds out to them to eat.  They loved them, too!  I still miss their happy sounds when they knew I had some goodies from the kitchen for them!)

I wish now that I'd bought enough extra to make a big ol' pan o' blackberry cobbler. It's my favorite flavor of cobbler.

What's yours?

PS:  If you really want to make jam, but don't have your own source for the fruit--buy fruit when it's on sale and make that jam!  Or, for jelly, just buy fruit juice and make jelly from that!  It's so good!  

I wanted to tell you that a couple years back I taught a friend from way back how to can.  She has done so well since then and is so proud of her pantry full of canned goods she did herself with her family's help.  The other day I visited her and she sent me home with a jar of pears and a pint of pear preserves.  I was so thrilled!  I can't wait to crack open that chilled jar of pears and enjoy them, and to eat the preserves on my bagel one morning.  I am so proud of you, Robyn!  

Robyn's beautifully done pears and pear preserves, looking as pretty as jewels on my little kitchen shelf...

Tis the Season!

In honor of turning fifty this summer, 
I labeled this batch of salsa "HOT FLASH".  Heh.

I got home from Alabama last Tuesday night...and I took Wednesday to go with Luke to finish school shopping.  


But then Thursday I had to face the music...I mean my tomato patch.  It was like tomatoes had exploded -- no I mean it!  I sucked in my breath and I said "Uh-OH!"!


They had popped all over.  They were on the vine too long.  (Note to self:  August is NOT a good month to leave the house for eleven days when you've planted more than a dozen tomato plants.)  


For every three tomatoes I picked that were worth keeping, I threw out one.  Those were too far gone.  They had split wide open.  I picked for over an hour in the hot sun, like a desperate woman.


Then I headed over to the faucet with a big old washtub to wash those dirty suckers.  That took almost an hour.


Then I made dinner and we dug out all the canning stuff from the basement after we clawed our way through the cobwebs.  It's not a farmhouse without the old, hit-your-head-on-the-low-ceiling and cobwebby basement, you know.


So now I know what happens to tomatoes when they are left to ripen too long.  They try to explode.  And now you know, too.

So needless to say, getting these things preserved was URGENT.  I had to process the almost three bushels of almost over-ripe tomatoes THAT DAY.  If I didn't, they would rot, it was SO HOT outside, high nineties--if I had let them go, they would have exploded in the basket!

Tomatoes look so nice all rowed up...of course, they only look nice when you clean up the HUGE MESS that surrounds it and pose your tomatoes with a nice old pitcher and a clean dishtowel.  Hahaha!!

SO, Mr. Farmhouse helped me during the washing, coring, and blanching process and then I stayed up until almost four in the morning to get the tomatoes canned.  I ended up with 27 quarts of tomatoes.  If he hadn't helped me, it would have taken two days!


When three a.m. came, I still had around four gallons of crushed tomatoes to go.  I couldn't do it anymore.  I put them in huge jars until the next day or so, I had to have some sleep.


The next afternoon, I had recovered sufficiently to get around to it again and made 16 quarts of awesome salsa!  (Salsa is so much fun to make!)

And you know what?


I'm not done yet...!


I peeked the other day, and yup, there's more ready!


How was your tomato harvest?

The Joys of Summer: Pecks of Pickles!

My "sun dills" are out on the deck sitting on the table, curing and will be put in the fridge on Saturday. 

GARDEN UPDATE:  We are finally starting to realize some reward for our work in the garden.  When first put in, the weather was cold, and very, very wet.  Then we seemed to have about a month of fair weather, and now, it is VERY hot and VERY dry.  It's difficult to keep two good-sized gardens watered, but so far we've been able to do it, thank goodness for a well.  

We are starting to harvest; zucchini, yellow crookneck squash, cucumbers, grape tomatoes, and the potatoes and the onions are just about ready to dig, meaning we may get a second crop in on that same spot.  I have also been getting a TON of peppers, we plant several varieties so we can use them in canning, so a lot of those have been washed, cored and chopped to keep in the freezer until the tomatoes are ready to come in and be processed.  Meanwhile, we can eat as much fresh of all these items as we want.  Summer is truly a wonderful season!


I am making pickles with some of the cukes, I rarely make canned pickles for the shelf, I am more inclined to make these for the fridge, I have better luck with them for some reason.  Today I am sharing a pickle recipe that I can make when I save the pickings for two or three days at a time.  I thought you might like it.

Do you have some cucumbers, but not enough for a whole canner full?   You can make sun dills!  I enjoy making these and better yet, we love eating them!  

But I can do a batch of these sun dills several times a summer.  

They actually turn out tasting better than any canned pickles I've made.

First you'll need a jar with a screw-on lid, this recipe is for a gallon.  I used these half-gallon jars, bought for me by my husband at the hardware store.  A half-dozen of these jars are priced under ten dollars. They work out well, because the half-gallon jars fit into our fridge much more easily.  I'll just put them back into the cardboard case when I'm done and use them again next summer.

The flavor of these pickles is an excellent garlic-flavored kosher--better than your best refrigerated dill at the grocery store.  A deli-dill pickle.  And they have crunch...brought on by those grape leaves!

CONNIE'S SUN DILLS

Two half-gallon jars or a one-gallon jar with screw-on lid
Wash pickles, cut out bad spots and leave whole
Grape leaves:  2-3 for each layer, washed
Fresh dill, washed (use generously!)
fresh garlic toes
About forty-fifty pickling cucumbers, or enough to fill a gallon jar, packed tightly

In the bottom of the jar start with a layer of 
GRAPE LEAVES, then
Heads of DILL,
1-2 garlic cloves,
Then PICKLES (I use small to medium picklers for this, NEVER large ones.)
Take the pickles halfway up the jar and then start over again with the grape leaves, dill, garlic, and end with the grape leaves on top, under the lid.

Then add this solution to the jar when it's stuffed with the pickles, dill, grape leaves and garlic cloves: 


6-1/2 cups water
3-1/4 cups white vinegar
1/2 c. Kosher salt
stir to dissolve salt and pour over and then seal the jar and set out in the sun for a week, turning once daily.  Refrigerate when done and ENJOY!

AND...for those cucumbers that get forgotten and picked too large, and are TOO BIG for being cute little dill pickles, there's this recipe for the fridge for a nice quick sweet/sour pickle to serve for dinner the next day, something quick and fresh.

OVERNIGHT BREAD AND BUTTER PICKLES

7-8 pickling cukes

1 onion, chopped

1 red pepper

1 T. Kosher salt

2 t. celery seed

1/2 c. honey

1/2 c. white vinegar

How about YOU?

GOT A PECK OF PICKLES?!

peck

¹    

[pek]  Show IPA

–noun

1.

a dry measure of 8 quarts; the fourth part of a bushel, equal to 537.6 cubic inches (8.81 liters).

2.

a container for measuring this quantity. Abbreviation:  pk, pk.

3.

a considerable quantity: a peck of trouble.

The Joys of Summer: Peach Preserves + A GIVEAWAY!

Summer in a jar.

Peach Preserves.

I make several kinds of preserves in the summer.  Peach is special, more rare.  It's beautiful to look at and tastes wonderful:  like peach pie filling.  I add a little cinnamon and nutmeg even though the recipe doesn't call for it, simply because I think it gives it a better flavor, more homemade.

I use my jams for ourselves and also to share with our grown kids, and also for gifts, any time of the year.

Who in your family or list of friends wouldn't enjoy getting a beautiful jar of this amber Peach Preserves for a birthday or for Christmas?  

I bought this basket of peaches at a flea market in Tennessee during my last visit to Alabama.

When I bought them they were just under ripe, and so by the time I made it home with them, they were PERFECTO!

There is not a lot of fruit required to make a single batch of jam.  This recipe required four cups of fruit, I was a little short, so used the trick of adding a little fruit juice to the fruit to make it to the four-cup mark on the measuring cup.

Before making jam, though, there is the necessity of preparation of not only the fruit but your equipment.  Canning kettles need to be hunted up, washed and filled with water to boil.  

Also the jars and lids and rings must be found, the rim of the jars must each be checked for chips or knicks, then washed (I use the sterilizing setting on the dishwasher).  

The kettle or sauce pot to cook the jam in must be brought out, as well as the utensils like jar lifters, magnetized ring and lid lifter, spatulas, large spoons, anything used in the whole process.  Everything just goes better if you have it all out and ready.  

The apron goes on and a  (sticky) mess gets made.  It's nice if you're going to the trouble of making the jam, to make more than one batch, or more than one kind, simply because of all the tools and mess your must gather.  Cleaning up takes a while and making more than one kind is beneficial.

Scored, scalded, and peeled peaches.

First you score the peaches and scald them, so that you can easily peel them.  Don't score them around the "equator", just score them around the "line" from top to bottom, that the peach already has.

Have your boiling water ready to go.  Pop the scored peaches in the water for just a few minutes and then remove with a large slotted spoon or scoop to a colander and throw some ice on top.  


Let them cool enough so that you can peel the peach by pulling back on the skin at the split you cut.


After skinning, pull the halves away from the peach pit and discard the pit.  

Slice the peaches, and then mash them to a consistency you like with a hand potato masher.  Put the fruit into the kettle.  Turn on low heat.  

Sniff. 

Smell that heavenly smell.

Sniff again.

Then get back to work, woman!!


(I found these jars last fall on clearance for 75% off at Lowe's!  A box of six cost me 1.50.  I bought as many as they had, as I am always giving canned salsa or jams as Christmas gifts.  I am really enjoying some of the new shapes of jars that BALL is offering.  These adorable and squatty jars hold two cups.  But how cute are they?) 

Here's the recipe from the BALL BLUE BOOK:

PEACH PRESERVES


4 C. sliced, pitted, and peeled peaches (say that fast, ten times!)
(4 cups = about four pounds)
1 package powdered pectin
2 T. lemon juice
7 c. sugar (I thought it was a little bit too much sugar!)
***I also added a little bit of cinnamon and nutmeg, just to taste***

Combine peaches, powdered pectin, and lemon juice in a large saucepot.  Bring to a boil, stirring gently.  Slowly add sugar, stirring thoroughly to dissolve.  Return to a rolling boil, stirring constantly.  Boil hard for one full minute, stirring constantly.  Remove from heat, and skim foam if necessary.   Ladle the hot preserves into hot jars, leaving 1/4" head space.  Use a wet paper towel to wipe down the rim of the jar.  Adjust two-piece caps.  Process ten minutes in a boiling water bath.

Remove to a heat-safe surface to sit still until sealed.  

If you have any questions about the process of making jam, please ask in the comments section.  I will answer in the comments section.

In honor of this beautiful flavor of SUMMER IN A JAR...

I am GIVING AWAY the 2010 version of the BALL BLUE BOOK!

shown in the above photo.

Need one?

Leave your name in the comments section as well as your email address.

I will draw the winner and announce it Monday of next week!!

I hope you will venture out this summer and make a new (to you) flavor of jam or jelly or preserves!

It's FUN!

MAKE SURE I would have a way to reach you by email if your name is drawn.  If you are a blogger, make sure your email is enabled on your blogger profile.  

Good luck!  Happy jam-making!