Beef Stew

I'm thinking I need to find my real camera for in the house winter pictures.  Or wait til noon.  Or something.  There's just not enough light in my kitchen right now.

Ok, so I read the manufacturer's instruction book and recipes, cover to cover.  I scoured the net again.  I read blogs and forums and cooking sites.

Near as I can figure, you just need to know the processing time for the 'longest' ingredient.  Any recipe will do.

So my second canning adventure, 6 pints of beef stew.  Processed at 13lbs (I haven't got the heat/pressure ratio figured out on my stove yet, so I'm erring on the side of more pressure than less) for 1 hour 15 minutes (based completely arbitrarily on a few different recipes, no idea what the processing time for my longest ingredient actually was).

I made a big pot of stew for supper, planning to can the leftovers.  Mixed everything in the roasting pan, set the oven for 250°F.  About 2 hours in, I'm reading this forum, where another first timer was also asking questions about beef stew, and the experienced canners told him he was going to have jars of mush.  Oops.  Apparently you can stuff raw.  Who knew?  lol.

Ok, so I checked out my stew.  Potatoes were still hard, and the meat wasn't too far past the defrosting stage.  What the heck.  I jarred it and started canning.

The end result- there is some mush in the jars.  The green beans are looking pretty soggy.  But the potatoes, carrots and meat look pretty good.  So I think It'll be ok.  It has the same orange coloured oily slime around the edges at the top as you see in store bought (one of the reasons I never eat that stuff).  We'll see what Husband has to say when he actually eats it.

The one thing that concerns me, is when I opened the canner, after it depressurized, the smell of the stew was REALLY strong.  I've never smelled my canned goods through the jars before.  Is that normal?  They all have good seals and no smell now.

Turkey for supper tonight.  Turkey soup to can tomorrow!

Pumpkin Treats and Butter

Pumpkin Treats.  Terrible picture.

Of course, the old standbys- Pumpkin Pie and pumpkin bread.  Of the new recipes that interested me, I tried the pumpkin pie squares (yuck.  Worse than pumpkin pie.  Mouthful of mush.  I swear kids and Husband will eat anything.  I can't believe they let me put that in my mouth.), pumpkin brownies (nice, but weird.  I think I'll add more cocoa in the future), and pumpkin sheet cake (this one I like, moist, fluffy cake, almost like carrot cake or spice loaf.  Yummy).

Another crappy picture

And since my Christmas present arrived, I thought I'd try it out by canning something you're not supposed to can...  Pumpkin butter.  7 half pints. 

I stuck my finger in the leftover pot, and as always, I figure it tastes like a bowl full of sugar.  All of my jams, jellies, syrops lately-  they all taste like sugar to me.  I think my sweet tooth is dieing off in my old age.  The kids cleaned the pot out though, so I don't think this stuff will be hanging out in the cold room too long. 

I spent a good chunk of the day yesterday scouring the web for canning recipes.  I found some interesting things to try, but not quite what I was looking for.  My first canning goal with my new pressure canner, is to replace all of those canned soups and stews that husband likes to eat for lunch.  I know I saw a blog not that long ago that had the types of recipes I was looking for, but no luck finding it yesterday.  I didn't bookmark it at the time, because I had no idea that I would be getting a pressure canner.  Crap.  Anybody got any good sites to recommend? 

Taste Test Two

Another taste test, after 16 days of corning.  The colour is better throughout, though batch one (the back of the plate) is definitely pinker than batch two.  It all tastes pretty much the same now.  The second batch might be a little milder, but not too noticeably.  A little saltier than store bought, but otherwise, definitely worth doing!

5 meals in the freezer, 2 we ate.

Pumpkins

Cooler weather means more time inside, and less work to do.  I finally have time to deal with those 6 pumpkins I bought back in October.  Just in time too, it seems.  The one on the right had a couple of bad spots that I had to cut off.

Cleaned out and cut up into chunks in my roasting pan.  I baked it for about 5 hours at 250°F.

A nice bowl of seeds.  Washed, soaked in salt water, then baked below the pupkin for about 20 minutes.

I mashed the pumpkin as it was cooking.  I didn't skin it.  The skin is edible, so I decided to try it out and see what happens.  I run the mashed pumpkin through the magic bullet before using, so that should grind up any chunks that hand mashing missed.

 

 

 Now what to do with it?  Two large pumpkins yielded 11.5 2 Cup servings, stored in 500mL sour cream containers. 

I've frozen it this way in the past, but freezer space is still at a premium.  I'm afraid to even walk into a grocery store right now.  The only way those remaining roosters and turkeys are getting their heads knocked off any time soon is if they're going directly into the oven.

Of course there are pies to bake, and pumpkin bread, but this is a lot of pumpkin to use up, so I went in search of some new recipes to try.  The ones I thought looked interesting are linked below.

Pumpkin Bread

1/2 Cup butter
1 Cup pumpkin puree
2 eggs
1/2 Cup sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
2 tsp cinnamon
1 3/4 Cup flour

Mix everything up to the salt.  Stir well.  Then add the baking soda, baking powder, and flour.  Mix well.  Pour into greased loaf pans.  Bake @ 350°F for 50 minutes.  I play with the flour somewhat, since home made pumpkin puree is not always the same consistency.

Recipes To Try:

Pumpkin Pie Squares

 Pumpkin Cookies

Pumpkin Butter

Pumpkin Lasagna

Beef and Pumpkin Stew

Pumpkin Chili

Pumpkin Soup

Pumpkin Fritters

Pumpkin Pancakes

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

Pumpkin Brownies

Pumpkin Sheet Cake

Chilly Nights

A little chilly last night.  -30°C.  Frost on the INSIDE of the door.  Still no snow to speak of.

Food Bank Drive

The Bigs' school runs a food bank drive every year in December. The first week of the drive is a competition between classrooms. The classroom that hauls in the most donations wins a pizza party.  It's a pretty stiff competition, too.  Some of the teachers encourage their students by matching the donations they bring in.  #1 took about three cans to school every day of the drive last year.  They were running out of room in the classroom, and his teacher was starting to worry about how much it was going to cost her to match it.  They ended up coming in second place!

The second week of the drive, students go door to door around town collecting donations.  Their gym looked like a small grocery store when they were done.  It was an amazing accomplishment!

This year it's an even stiffer competition.  #2 just happens to have the same teacher #1 had last year.  And #1 just happens to have the teacher whose class won last year.  The pressure is on.  Starting in my cold room.  lol.

Last year I suggested a few things that I wouldn't miss to #1.  After he took those items, he helped himself to a couple of cans of whatever he felt like.  He didn't make too much of a dent in our supplies, but it was noticeable.

This year, this morning, I went to the cold room with them and picked out a variety of items that I won't miss. 

Some things I planned for- like the evaporated milk and assorted coffee pouches.  They were offered free with coffee purchases earlier in the year, so I saved them for the food drive.  Some things were a bit of an excess here, like BBQ sauce and salad dressing.  The rest was just a can of this, a can of that.  We won't miss it. 

So I told the boys to take what they wanted out of this selection.  If they haul it all off to school before the end of the drive I'll have to pick out another box full of goodies.

I told the boys to ask when the food bank pick up would be, or if the school has any freezer room.  I have two store bought turkeys that I bought on sale, probably last Easter., that I'd be happy to donate.  I told them to ask if home canned goods would be accepted as well.

Please support your local food bank. 

A long, long, time ago, when #1 was just a baby, and #2 was on his way, we were in a car accident.  Husband suffered acute whiplash and was off work for several months.  We had no food storage.  We had no savings.  The food bank saved us.  It could happen to any of us.  Please give.

Feeding Time

With our wonky weather this year, and serious lack of snow, we are entering December and still mostly taking the hay bales out to the pasture. It's getting harder though, not being able to see rocks and stumps, and the ground's not frozen, so there are a lot of ruts.

We tried out the hay feeder a few times now. It works, mostly. Oscar can climb over the top. Billy goats are a pain, lol. But with all of the ruts around the barn, it makes it hard to walk carrying bales. We need some snow to fill in the pot holes.

Mindy & Dorie

And some way to convince these guys that the hay tastes just as good in the feeder as on the ground. So, please, get out of the way.

Toothless and Casper, butt to butt, Nelly behind, Tori watching Husband in the yard

Toothless is weaned now, and growing well. He needs to put on a few pounds to keep everyone else from pushing him around. He is sprouting some little horns though, so it shouldn't be too long before he gives them hell. He's still a big baby with us though.

Toothless

Toothless and Nelly are serving double duty as the chicken coop heaters this year. It's easier to lead them in, and less likely to cause trouble. And this way I know that Toothless will get enough to eat without being pushed around too much. Nanner invited herself in one night, but then decided it wasn't cold enough outside yet to be trapped inside. If the two of them don't give off enough body heat to keep the pump from freezing, we'll have to start rounding up the goats. I don't think old faithful is going to work this year. Casper isn't quite weaned yet, and I don't think Dorie will be willing to not rip the building down if he calls to her in the middle of the night.  Unless I get desperate, I think she'll remain outside this winter.