On the Preservation Front: In Jars
I am part of the Harvest Keepers Challenge over at Freedom Gardens, so I’ve been trying to preserve some of the things I’ve grown, been given or bought at the Farmer’s Market. I’m not a big fan of canning, but I do all this to be more environmentally friendly and reduce the frequent flier miles of our fruits & veggies and because it’s much healthier to eat locally and preserve your own. So what have I been preserving in jars?
Chicken Stock. Not just any chicken stock, this is made with locally raised pastured chickens. I bought them from a local farm. They spent several years of their lives laying eggs and when they quit laying eggs they become soup chickens. I bought 3 of these from the farm and made 3 batches of chicken stock. I have 15 quarts of stock in my pantry. These will come in handy for those winter soups.
We use tons of tomatoes in the winter for soups and sauces. So far this summer I have roasted one bushel of tomatoes and frozen them and I have canned 7 quarts of fire-roasted tomatoes, 19 pints of diced tomatoes, 7 quarts of frozen roasted tomatoes, 6 half-pints of tomato paste and 31 pints of tomato soup. 75 lbs of these came from my garden and the rest were bought at the farmer’s market (my mom gave me a few of hers as well).
I also canned 2 batches of elderberry syrup. My mom gave me the elderberries so they were FREE (can’t beat that price). This will be so good in tea & on pancakes. I have 9 pints of elderberry syrup in the pantry (although some of this might be traded with my mom for some of her elderberry jelly). I also canned 5 pints of elderberry jelly.
Remember those pears that my mom gave us? I canned all of those (pears are a tons of work to can, especially organic ones). I ended up with 27 quarts of canned pears, 7 half pints of pear butter, 1 quart of spiced whole pears, and 10 pints of roasted pear chutney. These will come in handy this winter for pre-run & pre-race fuel.
5 quarts of pickled peppers also grace my pantry, as well as 21 pints of peaches. (As you can see by the photo, some of the peppers are already gone, Mr Chiots has been enjoying those on pizza and sandwiches.) I also have 45 pints of applesauce, 25 pints of apple butter, 12 pints of peach chutney, 7 pints of BBQ sauce, 7 pints of sweet and sour sauce, 10 pints of peach salsa, 25 pints of pickled beets, 5 pints of zucchini pickles, 12 pints of green tomato chutney, 10 half pints of hot pepper relish, and 8 half pints of mulled cider jelly. Many of these will be given as gifts during the holidays.
This doesn’t even include all the stuff I have in my freezer or dried. I’ll be going over those later this week.
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Tomato Soup Success
I finally settled on a tomato soup recipe, I chose this one for it’s simplicity. On Sunday evening I made up a batch and canned 13 pints (I did can for longer than the recipe stated, I think the canning times may be a bit outdated, I water bath canned my pints for 35 minutes, I also added 1/2 cup of lemon juice to the soup). So how does it taste – deliciously local!
This will be perfect for a quick meal this winter, accompanied by a grilled cheese of course (but no Kraft or Velveeta here, ours are made with local cheddar from Heini’s or from Colonial Classics Farmstead Cheese (raw milk cheese that’s super local, only a few miles away) on homemade sourdough of course)
I will probably still make Roasted Tomato Garlic Soup, but I plan on making a small batch just for eating and perhaps freezing. I was reluctant to make a huge batch and pressure can it for 70 minutes and risk not liking it. If I have a chance I’ll do that this week and let you know if it’s worth the time.
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Tomato Soup Recipe Anyone?
Anyone out there have a great recipe for tomato soup to can? Mr Chiots and I love tomato soup for a quick meal and I’d like to get away from the canned stuff and go local. I found a few on-line for Roasted Tomato Soup and a Spiced Tomato Soup and this one for regular Tomato Soup. Just wondering if any of my readers had a great recipe they’d like to share? I’m planning on making a few different kinds to see which one we like best.
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When Life Gives You a Wind Storm (part 2)
As many of you know, on the 14th a huge windstorm (remnants of Ike) came through Ohio and left many of us sans electric for a few days. Since Mr Chiots and I both work from home and we didn’t have electric we had a few days of unplanned vacation. I was planning on doing some canning so I had bought a bushel of tomatoes at the Farmer’s Market the Saturday before. I wanted to grill them so I could can a batch of fire-roasted tomatoes (I’m a huge fan of Muir Glen Fire Roasted Tomatoes, they were the inspiration to can my own). Since we had an excess of sticks in the yard and time on our hands, we decided to build another fire last Monday evening and roast up our tomatoes.
Roasting tomatoes is super easy. You just cut the tomato in half and put skin side down on the grill or fire (you can coat with olive oil if you aren’t canning them). When the skins get blackened pull them off the grill. The skins will easily slip from the tomato then all you have to do is process them in your favorite way. I like to crush mine or cut them up and add them to sauce.
I was able to can 7 quarts of fire roasted tomatoes on Monday. Add that to the 7 quarts I did a couple weeks ago and we’ve got the makings for a good many batches of chili or sauce in the pantry.
I had a bit of sauce left over that wouldn’t fit in the jars and I made some pizza sauce, it was so delicious. I think next time I get a bunch of tomatoes a batch of pizza sauce will be in the canner. So what’s your favorite way to use tomatoes?
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When Life Gives You a Wind Storm
When life gives you a wind storm, build a fire with the fallen branches. Chiot’s Run is surrounded on 3 sides by mature woods with towering trees.
When strong winds blow, sticks litter our yard. On Sunday evening, we were hoping just sticks would be littering our yard and not whole trees. We did lose a huge branch from an old oak tree, fortunately the wind was coming from a different direction than normal, so it fell into the woods and not on our garage!
On Monday morning, we went out and picked up sticks all around the yard. We decided since it was cool, it would be the perfect day for a campfire.
I remembered all those poblano peppers I bought at the farmer’s market. I was going to grill them but I decided fire roasting them would be much tastier.
We found 2 old cinderblocks and an old grill grate and fashioned a grill over the fire. The peppers were neatly lined up shoulder to shoulder over the fire.
I grilled several batches (I bought 4 quarts of them at the Farmer’s Market on Saturday). Poblano peppers have a great flavor to begin with and when grilled they’re fantastic. These peppers fire roasted will add that perfect smoky flavor to anything we put them in.
After grilling, I trimmed them and they were neatly stowed away in freezer containers. I can hardly wait to make up a pizza or a batch of chili.
What kinds of veggies do you grill with success?
