A Quick "Jam Session"

So, I've had this jar of chokecherry juice in my freezer since August.  I've been meaning to make it into jam/jelly.  I finally did it today.  Possibly my best chokecherry creation to date.

This is not a true, pure straight up chokecherry jam.  I also had a handful of frozen strawberries leftover from some Christmas Jam I made, at you guessed it, Christmas.

I thought they sounded like a good combo, so I thawed them out and put them in with the chokecherries.  But then I ran into my classic jam dilemma.  Just too much for a four jar batch and not quite enough for a six jar batch.  (I use the Ball brand pectin with the flex-batch recipe on it)  I can't just pour out that extra half cup of precious chokecherry/strawberry mix.  Nope that would be wrong.  Immoral.  Possibly illegal.  So I think for a minute.  I dig around in the freezer.  Then, I find it.  A bag of frozen raspberries.  I add another 3/4 of a cup or so, enough to that my measurement comes up to that magic 4-cup line on the measuring pitcher.  The results are just plain wonderful.  

Here's the "recipe" for my clean out the freezer jam.  I think I'll call it Cherry Berry Jam. That sounds good.

Cherry Berry Jam

makes 6 half pint jars full

2 1/2 cups chokecherry juice

1 1/2 cup total strawberries and raspberries, crushed.

1 cup water

9 teaspoons lemon juice

4 1/2 tablespoons low sugar pectin (I use Ball brand)

1 1/2 cups sugar

Mix everything except the sugar together in a big pot.  A Dutch oven sized pot will do nicely.  

Bring to a rolling boil.

Add sugar all at once.

Bring back to a boil and boil hard for 1 minute.

Ladle into hot jars.  Adjust two-piece caps.

Process in a hot water bath for 10 minutes.

Enjoy :)

A New Year Already?

It's 2015.  What?  Wait a sec.  It was January 2014 about 20 minutes ago.  Crazy.

So, yeah, the year flew by.  I really didn't intend to take a break from blogging.  It just sorta happens sometimes.  

Since my last post:

Natalie turned 8.

My girl is growing up!

We made our annual trip to our neighborhood pumpkin patch.

I think I have a picture like this of the kids
from every year of their lives.

Natalie took a picture of us in the corn maze
to mark our 15 year wedding anniversary.

Matt went deer hunting. A lot.  To no avail.  For the first time in many years, we do not have fresh venison in our freezer. Joey tried out deer hunting this year too.  He even helped his uncle Danny haul his deer our of the woods.  It was a long walk for a little guy.

Joey headed out to go hunting,
pointing out deer tracks in the yard.

I started a second part time job as a substitute para for the school district.  I signed up for multiple districts, but have been busier than expected just with the schools right here in town.  I love it.

We hosted Thanksgiving.  My brother and nephew came.  Matt's parents came.  We had a huge turkey.  The whole deal.  It was yummy and fun and relaxing all at the same time.

The kids and I went for our annual Bon Bon day with Auntie Iris.  We made a bunch of different candy which was heartily sampled.

We butchered some roosters.  We wound up with 9 of the 10 chickens we hatched this spring being roosters.  That's way too many for a flock our size.  One went home to the neighbor's coop.  Six more went in our freezer.

We did lots of artsy projects and crafts for various Christmas gifts.  

Auntie Iris's tomato cage tree

Cookie decorating

We spent lots of time with family over Christmas.  Christmas Eve with Matt's family, Christmas Day with mine.  It was calm and relaxing.  Mostly.

The kids watching How to Train Your Dragon 2
on Christmas morning.

Joey gave Natalie a pink tip-up for Christmas.  They got to test it out on the day after Christmas when they went fishing.  She brought home a nice sized pike.  We ate it for supper that night and it was delicious.

Natalie's nice pike.  Caught at an undisclosed location
on a tip-up with shiner minnow bait.

Today the kids went back to school.  It is bitterly cold.  They weren't thrilled.  At all.  When I stopped by Joey's class after lunch to drop off his snack, the room was full of glassy eyed five year-olds.  I had a rare day off today.  Got some errands run.  Did some organizing of my recipes (an ongoing project for the past decade at least) and canned a quick batch of cranberry sauce.  

I don't do much in the way of New Year's resolutions, but if I had to say what my goals are for this year, they would be to blog more and spend more time in my garden.  We'll see how this pans out.

Happy 2015!

Oven Roasted Tomatoes

This morning I finally had time to get around to the basket of little tomatoes I got from my father in law's garden.  There wasn't enough to haul out the canner and make sauce.  I had just a little over a pound to work with.  These are Dennis's own variety of tomatoes that he calls a Long Cherry.  They are bigger than a cherry but smaller than a plum and obviously oblong in shape.  They are nice and fleshy, very little seed goo so they are great for cooking.  Perfect for this particular application.

It's pretty straight forward.  I've found a few recipes for this on Pinterest.  Because my tomatoes don't really fit the criteria of either cherry or plum and they're somewhere in between, I decided to use the recipes as a guideline and not a hard and fast rule. The sites I got the recipes from are oven roasted cherry tomatoes @ Blissfully Content Blog and oven roasted Roma tomatoes @ Food in Jars Blog.

Basically, all you do is wash off any dirt and cut off any shriveled or mushy parts (assuming that you're like me and have had your tomatoes sitting for a bit to finish ripening and then forgot about them.  Otherwise you can skip the whole cutting off the icky parts step).  Then slice them in half the long way.  Arrange in a single layer on a parchment lined rimmed cookie sheet.  Give a generous drizzle of oil and sprinkle of salt.  Most recipes call for olive oil.  I use sunflower oil because it's what I have on hand.  I happened to have a snazzy Himalayan pink salt grinder from Costco, so I used that.  Any coarse salt works.

Put them in the oven at 250 degrees for about 3-4 hours until they have reduced to about 1/3 their original size.  Here's where I'm going out on my own.  Recipes for plum tomatoes say 200 degrees for 10-12 hours.  Cherry tomatoes say 300 degrees for 2 hours.  I'm going to split the difference.  

Let them cool completely then pop the whole pan in the freezer to flash freeze.  Once they're frozen, transfer them to a Ziploc bag and store in the freezer. (The last time I did these, I put some of them in a jar of olive oil in my fridge as the recipe said.  They molded.  I was bummed.  That pint jar had a lot of tomatoes and a lot of good quality -read: expensive- olive oil in it.  I'll stick to freezing them.)

Pull out a few and give them a rough chop and add them to any dish that can benefit from a nice shot of concentrated tomato flavor. I like to toss a few of them in with my carrot/celery/onion at the beginning of making a stew and let them melt in with the other veggies.  If you're a fancy hors d'oeuvres type, you can put them on a slice of baguette with a smear of goat cheese.

Enjoy!

Happy Monday Everyone :)

Marriage and Mayonnaise Cake

Yesterday was our 15th wedding anniversary.  It was a beautiful day.  One of the rare warm October 16th's we've seen. Matt had to work, but the kids and I were home.  It is fall break for them this week.  I took yesterday off, Matt took today off to be with them.

Our wedding anniversary hasn't been much of a to-do in quite some time.  It is generally quiet and just a simple exchange of cards and maybe a little hike or other explorations with the kids on the weekend after. That's pretty much how we roll.  Not a lot of fanfare.  Maybe someday we'll go on an exotic vacation.  Like the water park in Brainerd.  Maybe we'll just stay around home and walk in the woods forever too.  Either way is fine with me.  I kind of like the idea of the woods.  There are no bathing suits required to walk in the woods ;)

This year was much the same, but since I had the day off, I figured we should have a cake to celebrate.  We had just been talking about this cake his mother used to make.  The recipe came from his grandma's friend named Mrs. Renallo (I'm pretty sure I spelled that wrong) and was in their church cookbook.  I've always called it Grandma Brix's chocolate cake, because I got the recipe from her.  Anyway, it's a deep dark chocolate cake made with mayonnaise and topped with vanilla frosting.  It's one of those cakes that requires a glass of milk.   I'll share the recipe.  Everyone should have this.  It's a public service really.

A not so super great picture of a super great cake.
You get the idea though.

Grandma Brix's Chocolate Cake

4 cups flour

2 cups granulated sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

4 teaspoons baking soda

2 Tablespoons cocoa

1 1/2 cups mayonnaise or miracle whip

2 teaspoons vanilla

2 cups water

Heat oven to 350 degrees

Mix all ingredients together in a large bowl.  Blend well.  Pour in a greased  9 x 13 pan.  Bake for 40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  (I usually have to bake this a while longer than 40 minutes in my oven.  Maybe it's my oven, maybe the recipe needs adjusting.  Not sure.)

Top with vanilla frosting.

That's it.  It's pretty simple and straightforward.  I like that there's no scalding of milk or melting of chocolate involved.  

Make this for the one you love.  You'll be glad you did.

Why I Can't Stop Canning

Caution: Seriousness Ahead.

If you know me or follow me on any social media, you know that I am a pretty enthusiastic canner.  I take a lot of kidding and funny looks from people when I say that I canned_______.  You know that half smile "ok crazy lady" look.  I'm sure people wonder what my deal is.  Well, here is my deal. (And no it's not that I'm preparing for the grid to go down.)

Number one, I enjoy canning.  Plain and simple.  I like the ping of jars sealing.  It is one of the most empowering feelings there is.  You might think that's a stretch, but let me explain.  For every jar of applesauce/jam/pickles/meat/beans etc. that seals, that is one less thing I have to buy with my hard earned money.  No, canning isn't free.  No, it isn't always the cheapest way to get a can of peaches.  But, if you compare apples to apples and look for a glass jar of all natural, (mostly) organic produce with no chemicals in it, then it is tons cheaper.

Number two, I am not so sure about all the so-called safe preservatives in commercially processed food.  If I buy a can of peaches for example, I want a container of fruit preserved with a bit of sugar in water.  I do not want High Fructose Corn Syrup or aspartame or any other currently hip sweetener.  I'll take sugar please.  Either from US grown sugarcane or more locally, sugar beets.  I know what that is and where it comes from.  Yes, I know this is a bit OCD and yes sometimes I curse the day I started reading labels and researching ingredients.

Number three, and here's where the real seriousness comes in, knowing that there is a pantry stocked with a full variety of vegetables, fruits and proteins is very comforting to me.  Several years ago, my husband lost his job.  About the time the economy went in the toilet, the company he worked for sold out to a global manufacturer and that meant downsizing (even though they said that everything would continue as before).  I was pregnant with our son.  It was December.  Up until this point, we had never gone through any seriously hard times.  We were not prepared for how much our world would change if we didn't have that paycheck coming in.  It effected us in every possible way.  No, we didn't lose our house or our cars or anything that scary.  But we had to take a long hard look at our life and cut everywhere we possibly could.  This is not an uncommon story.  At that time, we believed that this was a short term setback and in six months everything would be fine.  Well, it has been six years and we are not back to where we were before in financial terms.  We are slowly gaining ground, but we still have a ways to go.  

One thing we discovered during that time is that all the government programs that are supposed to be there as a safety net when one suffers a catastrophic job loss were not available to us.  

There was no funding for him to go to school and learn a new trade, it was the wrong time of year and all the funding had been used up. 

 There was no medical assistance for us because I have a job that offers medical coverage (never mind that it cost 30% of my gross wages to cover all of us).  

There was no food assistance because I was still working and earning more than the state poverty guideline for our family size (by $100 a month, not counting the aforementioned massive deduction for health insurance).  

We got WIC to cover formula for our baby and a small amount of assistance with daycare.  That was it.  Nothing even close to the amount that theoretically would be available to a family in need.  

The government didn't do jack squat for us.  We were on our own.  I felt so defeated and vowed never to be there again.  

After having survived that experience, we know that it could happen again in a minute.  I could go to work today and find out that my job no longer exists.  And with it would go the bulk of our income and our access to medical care.  Am I paranoid? Maybe.  Am I changed because of this life experience?  You bet.  

Ultimately, all we can do is keep chipping away at the debt we took on and work to not need to take on more if history repeats itself.  We fix what we have, make what we can and buy what we have to.  And yes, we occasionally go out for pizza.

So, yes I can.  I'm eternally grateful to the wonderful people who have shared their knowledge with me.  And I'm willing to teach anybody who shows any interest whatsoever.

It All Started With A SIMPLE Plan...

Today is my half day at work.  I have the morning at home all by myself.  

(It's not as glorious as I thought it would be to tell you the truth.)

I thought I'd give the house a quick once over since it is guaranteed to stay that way for at least 7 hours until everyone gets back home.  Shouldn't take me more than an hour. Tops.

I said to myself, "Self, where should I start?"  

"The kitchen" I said.  "It'll be quick" I said.  Just a few dishes.  And whip up some more ranch dressing mix to get the empty jar off the counter.  Easy peasy.

But then, I decided I wasn't super in love with the ranch dressing mix recipe I used the last time and maybe I should find a new one.  There are a million of them on Pinterest.  No problem.  I found one in a reasonable amount of time.  So, I'll just pull out the ingredients and whip this up.  Lickety split.  Over and done, right. 

 Wrong.  I found a few half containers of the same herb or spice and decided that would never do so I combined them.  Then I found odds and ends baggies of bulk spices I bought along the way and felt compelled to put them in nicely labeled glass jars.  Then I sorted everything back into its proper bins and went to put it away. 

 But the shelves were dirty.  Can't have that now.  So, I wiped off the shelves and rearranged everything.

OK, now it is an hour later and I still haven't completed my super easy ranch dressing mix.  Seriously.  I'm annoying myself right about now.

The recipe said to grind the spices together for a smoother dressing/dip.  So, out to the shed to pull out my newly acquired 1972 food processor so I can grind my ranch mix.  That part goes pretty quickly and without incident.  But then it looks like this recipe makes more than will fit in my original jar.  So, back to the shed for a bigger jar.  I pour the nice ground up herb packed ranch powder into the jar only to find out that it really wasn't that much after all and it will fit back into its original container.

Now, nearly two hours in, I have my little jar of ranch dressing powder complete, a nice clean spice cabinet and my second batch of dishes done for the day.  

I probably won't get the whole house done today.  Just a hunch...

The Best Tomato Sauce (in my humble opinion)

Yes, it is full on canning season here.  My dining room currently looks like I raided the farmer's market.  Which I kind of did....But anyway.

Last year, my friend Erin told me about this amazing tomato sauce her mother makes.  Her mother is and absolute genius when it comes to making something out of nothing, so when she told me about this great stuff her mom made when she visited last summer, I knew I had to try it.  There is no going back for me now.  This sauce is a staple in my pantry.  I have searched the world over (you know, Pinterest) and not found another recipe like this one.

Like a lot of recipes that are handed down in families, it is rather loose in its measurements.  The amounts of the ingredients can be adjusted to personal taste or what you have available.  I have found that while tomatoes are precious to gardeners, zucchini is abundant and can be had for almost nothing.

Henceforth, I put zucchini in my sauce to add bulk and stretch the tomatoes.

Here's how I make my version of Beth's Amazing Change Your Life Tomato Sauce:

25 lbs tomatoes

5 medium size green bell peppers

2 good sized onions

5 ribs celery

1/2 of a big zucchini (about 3 cups of shreds)

salt

Blanch, peel, core and de-seed the tomatoes.  Yes this is a lot of work, but it saves hours of cook time trying to boil out all the extra liquid. My tomatoes reduced from 25 lbs down to 15 lbs once all the extra parts were removed.

Roughly dice peppers, onions and celery. 

Shred zucchini, skins, seeds and all

Dump it all into a big pot.  Probably the biggest pot you have.  This makes a lot.

Bring to a boil, then simmer, stirring often so it doesn't burn on the bottom, until it looks sort of thick.

Turn off the heat and either puree with a stick blender, or pour in batches into a blender or food processor.

Return to giant pan and cook it down some more.  Once it's as thick as you want it, pour into hot quart jars.

Put 1/2 teaspoon of salt in each quart jar before putting the lid on.

Process in a water bath canner for 45 minutes.

Makes 7 1/2 quarts.

You can certainly make this in a smaller quantity.  I went big because as you may have gathered, we really like this stuff.

This sauce makes a perfect base for spaghetti sauce (add a little garlic & Italian Seasoning)

Chili (add your favorite chili seasoning)

Goulash (add a bit of paprika)

Tomato soup (add a bit of hamburger, garlic, and some cheese tortellini)

 Thank you Beth and Erin for teaching me so much about canning.  I don't know what I'd do without your wisdom :)