Pickles

Posted on January 14, 2014 by Momzoo

Sassy was our pickle girl this year.
This spring she carefully planted the pickle patch.
Through the summer she weeded it carefully.
She took note of the first blossoms and waited anxiously for the first baby fruits to appear.
Then as they started to ripen she picked and picked and picked.
Every few days when she had picked enough cucumbers she diligently scrubbed each one, divided up the dill, boiled the brine and made pickles.

Six weeks later we were able to sample the first batches,
and they were a huge success!
Thanks Sassy for growing us a pickle patch and helping to fill our larder!

Dilly Beans

Posted on January 10, 2014 by Momzoo

The summer of 2013 will always be known as the year of the “bean” at the farm.
We had tons of beans.
Oodles of beans.
It was such a blessing, we had enough beans to eat fresh and can and enough beans to play around a bit.

This year we tried the Dilly Bean.
Canning Dilly Beans was a lot of fun and really simple, which is a huge plus for me, I just don’t have time to play around with complicated canning recipes.
I have lots of mouths to feed!

The preparation is very simple. Simply wash the beans and cut them to the size of your jars, steam them until they are just tender. That’s it.

In clean, sterilized jars place one dried chili pepper, one clove garlic and one half teaspoon dill seed. Pack the beans tightly in the jars, standing on end.

Bring 2 cups water, 2 cups apple cider vinegar and 1/4 cup canning salt to a boil and pour over the beans, leaving about a half inch head space. Screw the lids on tight and flip jars over.

Once the jars have cooled completely, flip them back and check the seal. Store for a few weeks before serving, so the flavors can mix and mature.

Serve cold

Apples and Apples

Posted on January 9, 2014 by Momzoo

Apples are one of my favorite fall fruits. I love everything about them, the colors, the flavors, the many varieties. I especially love that every part of the apple can be used in one form or another and lends itself very well to home preserving.

This year we were able to pick many, many bushels of apples from our neighbors orchard. Unfortunately for me, apple harvest was right around the time we lost our Little Angel, so I wasn’t able to do as much as I wanted. However, Dadzoo came to the rescue and while I watched he canned and cut and dried and buttered and froze all our apples. I’ve been so blessed in marriage.

We did sliced apples in a spiced syrup, dried apples, apple butter and apple pie filling. Had I been able I would have added apple jelly and apple vinegar, but it just wasn’t to be this year. Right now we have four little apple trees that were planted this summer on the farm, we plan on adding a couple more and someday we won’t have to buy our apples but will have big apple picking parties from our very own trees!

A farm girls dream.

Pepper Jelly

Posted on September 11, 2013 by Momzoo

At the first of the season I was gifted two jalapeño plants.
We aren’t really pepper people, but I figured it would hurt to grow some, and maybe I would get enough to make salsa or chili sauce. I then bought some regular bell peppers, just in case I could pull the salsa thing off.

Well it didn’t really work, I never got enough tomatoes the same time I got peppers to make it worth whipping up a batch of salsa, when I bottle things I go big, or go home. If I can’t make a lot, it just isn’t worth it to me.

However, that isn’t always the case for a few specialty items, things I wouldn’t want to have dozens and dozens of jars. Pepper jelly is one of those specialty items. I love pepper jelly, but we don’t eat jars at a time, a dozen lasts us well over a year, so a dozen is what I make.

I mixed two recipes from the Ball Canning Books. I didn’t make a true jelly, because I was way to lazy that day to let the pulp drip for hours to make a clear juice, it is more of a pepper jam.

I cut and seeded my peppers, using about a two to one ratio, more bell peppers than jalapeño, while I like the kick jalapeños give, I don’t like it to be too hot.

Pretty green juice, the peppers all ground up ready to add to the cooking pot, along with sugar and pectin. It looks so pretty and green, but has a little bite if you breath too deeply.

(this is what happens if you get distracted by homeschooling the kiddos and the sugar mixture boils over. I will say, a glass flat top stove makes cleaning up a mess like that a breeze) Pepper Jelly (jam) all bottled up and ready for cheese and crackers this winter.

Drying Tomatoes

Posted on September 10, 2013 by Momzoo

Drying is one of the oldest forms of food preservation.
At the beginning of our tomato season, when things finally started to pick up and the tomatoes came trickling in faster than we could eat them, Lou and I decided the best thing to do would be to dry them.

We didn’t have quite enough to can anything and a few jars of dried tomatoes are nice to have around, they can be added to soups, stews, pastas, stir fries, or eaten as is.

Lou with one of her first baskets of tomatoes, she is my tomato girl and has taken care of these plants from the very start when she planted the seeds.

Striped Cavern heirloom tomato.

The inside of the Striped Cavern. See all the open space, thus the name “cavern”. It doesn’t make for a good saucing tomato, being that there is little flesh, but it has a wonderful taste, very mild and low acid. It was my best producing heirloom this year.

Another pretty yellow heirloom, “Dr. Wyche’s Yellow”. It too is a low acid tomato that is great for eating. I wouldn’t can it, being low acid it would either need to be pressure canned or there would have to be added vinegar. Isn’t that flesh beautiful.

The only prep involved in drying tomatoes is washing and cutting.
Simple and free.

I used my dehydrator, and it took about a day.
A dehydrator isn’t necessary, an oven on a low setting can be used, or they can be dried in the sun.
I dry them nice and crispy. If too much moisture is left in the tomatoes the will go moldy, and since I want them for long term storage I need them very dry.
They will be stored in glass jars in the pantry.