School's Out!

Well, my school is :-D  After taking a week to get sick (like I always do when the semester ends) and recuperate, I'm back at it today!

I've got beans snapped (I did that while wallowing on the couch watching tv while I was sick) and ready to go into the pressure canner.  I have a box of Vidalia onions that are about to get sliced and dehydrated once the beans are in the canner.  Other than that I really need to focus on cleaning up this house from where I did nothing but sit on the couch all day for several days.

The one thing I did get accomplished while sick besides snapping beans was laundry.  I would put in a load, watch a tv show, put it in dryer, watch a tv show, get it out and fold it while watching a tv show, then put away and hang up items during the commercials of a tv show ... just round and round and round and round we go - until I have like two loads left to do in the whole house.

Included in focusing on cleaning is making some cleaners ... I'm either out or nearly out of almost everything.  This past month has been brutal on me between the end of the semester projects and finals to focus on, spring planting, kids end of the year activities, visiting the hospital every spare minute (my best friend, BestBean - since kindergarten - had an aneurysm), and just normal daily "have-to's" (like providing food to the masses) - I've let just about everything else go.  So making these cleaners that keep me sane is a must ... the only store bought cleaner I allowed in the house and was generally okay with was some petroleum-free laundry detergent - everything else has been stretched to its limit!

Alright, back to work!

Canning Meat for the First Time

I finally got to use my pressure canner!!  I canned 8 pintes of ground beef.  I was originally going to do our ground venison but then I saw that we had some older beef so I went with the older first.  MrBeans watched a youtube video with me and he really liked what he saw.  So when I slaved in the kitchen ;) to can all of this he was right proud and can't wait for me to do other stuff!

Here are photos of my foray with notes....

My 8 pounds of ground beef beginning to brown ...



Draining some of the meat....


Filling the jars....



Broth in with the meat....



Jar ready to go in the canner ....




Getting started in the canner ....



All finished ....



Not bad for my first batch ;)

Apple Butter

WoooHooo I canned my first batch of Apple Butter!  At first I was going to simply make applesauce BUT I had such a hankering for apple butter that I decided to do that instead :-)

What a process!  I read all the instructions and it seemed fairly straight forward - and it was, don't get me wrong.  It was just pushing the apples through the sieve took fooorrrreevveeerrrr.  Of course, I could have cooked them a little longer than the instructions say to - but I always follow the instructions the way they are written FIRST - then make changes from there.  Change numero uno is to cook the batch of apples longer while in the vinegar and water solution so as to make them mushier to go through the sieve easier.

If I had a food mill it wouldn't be an issue, but I don't, so it is.

It all started with me home sick from church and MrBeans prepping dinner (he grills most Sunday evenings) and Bean2 was doing dishes (amazingly without being asked!).  When MrBeans casually says, "You got some apples about to go bad over here."  So, me in all my infinite wisdom (not) decided to say, "Okay, I'll just go grab my applesauce recipe and make some applesauce."  Because that's what you do when you're hacking up a lung, right? (insert eye rolling here)

Figuring out how many apples made 4 pounds was a tiny bit tricky but I figured it out, chopped them into quarters, added the vinegar and water (after a trip to the garage to get the apple cider vinegar that I use for the animals' water bowls), covered and turned on the heat and set the timer.  Wah-lah!  That was simple enough and didn't take very long.  But then, I was suppose to push through a sieve if I didn't have a food mill.  Umm, that took hours!  Since you have to leave on the peels and leave the cores in - because that's where most of the pectin and flavor is located - it just seemed to take forever.... oh wait, it did!

As a side thought, maybe I'll peel and core the apples, put it all in the pot to boil and then the peels and cores can just come right out .... maybe ...

I finally got 8 cups of pulp squished out, added the sugar and spices and put it all on to boil down to a nice thick apple butter!  I must have done a bang-up job of squishing those apples through the sieve because the recipe was suppose to make just over 3 pints - so I prepared 3 pint jars and 1 half pint jar.  As it turns out, by the time my apple butter was nice and smooth and thick, I had a little over 4 pints.  So I have 3 pint jars, 2 half-pint jars, and one 3/4 full half-pint jar (which is in the fridge to be eaten immediately rather than canned like the others).

So with starting at around 1 pm, I finally finished at around 9 pm!  ... With a break for dinner in there, too.  Though I have to say, I felt rather accomplished!  Oh, on top of making/canning the apple butter, MrBeans and I went through and cartoned all the eggs we've gotten so far (that we haven't eaten or given away yet, that is)... 2 1/2 flats worth.

Here are a couple of photos.... (March 18, 2014 - just saw that the link has been broken - will attempt to remedy this soon)