Been Busy, Busy, Busy

Winter is finally over and spring is here. It's that time of year to get the yard cleaned up and get my garden ready so for the past couple of weeks I have been spending a lot of time out side. After being cooped up in the house most of the winter it sure feels good to get out side and enjoy the fresh air and getting my hands into the nice moist earth. I have been pulling weeds, picking up branches that fall during the winter, trash that people throw out of their cars as they drive by, getting my garden and herb bed ready to plant and foraging for wild spring foods.

So far in the foraging department I have been picking purslane, wild onions and red bud flowers. I use the purslane in soups, stews and salads and I will be making red bud jelly with the red bud flowers. Will also be making lilac jelly in a few more days when the lilacs bloom. I am all for free food and learning to forage is helping me to feed my family better and cheaper. Plus if the time comes when the world as we know it ends and grocery stores are no longer around I will have other ways to provide for my family. :)

I have been doing some canning here and there in the last few weeks. One thing I made for the first time was Mango Chutney. I have never had any type of chutney before so I looked on line for a recipe I thought I might like. I found this one http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Mango-Chutney-230708.

I followed the recipe almost to a T but I used apple cider vinegar instead of white and I didn't have any golden raisins so I used plain raisins. It turned out so good that I will be making more of this soon. Doesn't it look pretty?

I got 5 half pints out of the recipe.

Valdilia onions were on sale up here about 3 weeks ago so I bought 16 pounds of them and made most of them into caramelized onions and canned them. I have already opened one jar of them, heated them up and served over New York Strip Steak. It was so good!

To make the caramelized onions I simply sliced all the onions and put them into two crock pots with a stick of butter in each. I turned the crock pot on low and let it cook for 24 hours. I then drained off the juice and reserved it. Fill the jars with the onions and topped off with enough of the juice to one inch level, wipe the rims of the jars with vinegar, applied the two piece caps and pressure canned for 40 minutes.

Warning: This is not a USDA approved recipe so if you try it you try it at your own risk.

Because my two crock pots would only hold half of the 16 pounds of onions it took me two days to get them all canned since each batch had to cook in the crock pots for 24 hours. So here is a picture of all the canning I got done in two days. Five of the jars are mango chutney and the rest are onions. Since I am the only one that likes caramelized onions in my family these should be enough to last me a year. :)

Next it will be the red bud jelly. This will be my first time making it so I will report back as soon and I get it done. :)

Praying for Boston in the aftermath of the bombings

The thoughts, prayers and love of a nation go out to the people of Boston and the victims and their families of the bombings. May God hold you close and give you comfort in your hour of need. 

Even though we will never know who all the hero's were during this horrific event we has a nation thank you for all you did. If not for you many more may have lost their lives.

Terrorist are nothing more than cowards. They attack stealthily instead of being out in the open. They do not care how many innocent lives they destroy. They do not care how a parent feels to lose a child or a child feels to lose a parent. They do not care if a whole family is killed. They are not brave enough to stand up and fight with words instead of cowardly acts of terror. They may think they that they will bring America to its knees but they couldn't be further from the truth. We might fall but we always get back up, dust ourselves off and then get back to the business of making sure justice is served to those who try to or do harm to us.

This country was founded on the blood of brave men and women who fought for the freedoms we have. For  generations our brave men and women have fought and continue to fight to keep this country free. So terrorist around the world need to remember that even if you knock us down we will come up fighting and we won't stop until you have been brought to justice and pay for what you have done. 

The American spirit will never surrender and will never die! We will not go out quietly into the night but instead if we ever go out it will be with a loud roar. 

Long live the American Spirit. Long live the land of the brave.

More on the ham

When I had the broth done and removed all the scraps of fat, skin and bones I had 10 quarts of stock. Since I already had 9 quarts on hand from other canning sessions I decided to make a ham & potato soup using some of the potatoes I still had from the 100 pounds I had bought. I used 5 quarts of the broth, the leftover cubed ham from my canning the meat and about 4 pounds of potatoes to make the soup with. I peeled and cut the potatoes into large cubes while the broth was heating up and the canner water was getting  hot. I then added the potatoes and ham to the broth, simmered it all for 10 minutes then filled the hot jars with the soup mixture and added a teaspoon of canning salt to each jar. I left a one inch head space to help keep the jars from boiling over. . Wipe the rims of the jars with a vinegar/water mixture, applied the two piece caps and processed at 10 pounds pressure for 90 minutes. I got 7 quarts of nice home made ham and potato soup which I will thicken a little when I heat it up. I may even add some frozen peas and carrots when I use it.

I still had 5 quarts and one pint of broth left so I canned them at 10 pounds pressure for 25 minutes. This gave me some nice rich broth that I can use to make soups or pots of beans, cook with rice or what ever else I can think of to do with it. Having a nice home made rich broth on hand is always a good start to a wonderful tasty meal. :)

I forgot to take a picture of the broth alone but here it is with the cold lard next to it and the ham & potato soup behind the lard.

Of the three hams the only parts that were thrown away after I got all the flavor I could get out of them was the fat and skin. My dogs got the bones which they are still enjoying.

I paid right around $27 for the three hams I used for canning and from them I got 19 pints of canned ham, 7 quarts of ham & potato soup, 5 quarts and 1 pint of ham broth plus the 3 - 12 oz jars of lard. Not a bad deal for $27. At least not in my book. :)

Happy Canning folks! It's well worth the effort and you will get a lot of pride and joy knowing that you are able provide you family good nutritious meals because you are in control of what goes into them.

Ham, Ham Broth and Lard

Last week Meijers had Cooks Choice bone in hams on sale for 87 cents a pound. I bought 4 of them. One I  bought for Easter Dinner and the other 3 I bought for canning. Nice looking hams aren't they?

As you can see by the price label I was not kidding when I said I got them for 87 cents a pound. :)

I trimmed as much of the skin and fat off of each of the whole hams and put is aside to make rich ham stock.

Then I cut all the meat off the bones as I could get and tossed the bones in with the skin and fat.

After all the meat was cut off the bones I trimmed all the meat that I got off the bones of excess fat and gristle, then cut the meat into one inch chunks. I decided to raw pack the ham and nit use any broth or water to can it with. I packed the jars as full as I could with the ham.

     
Wiped the jars rims with a mixture of white vinegar and water to make sure there was no grease on the rims to cause seal failure. Applied the two piece caps and processed for 75 minutes in a pressure canner at 10 pounds pressure. I used pints but if I had used quarts I would have processed for 90 minutes.

I got 19 pints of ham from the 3 hams. The meat came out looking more like browned beef then ham but I opened one the next day and it tastes like ham. :) I will be using this ham in baked beans, ham salad, ham and beans and scalloped potatoes. It could even be drained and put on top of a salad or home made pizza.

Even though I got 19 pints of ham I wasn't through there. I still had 3 pints of cubed ham that I didn't can because I ran out of pint jars plus all the fat and meat still on the bones. I decided to make ham broth out of the scraps and set the cubed ham aside.

I placed all the scraps in a big stock pot and covered with water, four carrots, 4 stalks of celery and two bay leaves. I brought it all to a simmer and simmered for 3 hours.

When the broth was done I strained it in to large bowls which I sat in the sinks which were full of ice water to let it chill down before placing it in the refrigerator overnight to let the fat rise to the top and harden. The next morning I took the broth out of the refrigerator and skimmed the fat off and placed it in a sauce pan. 

I heated the fat over low heat until all the water was boiled out then placed the heated lard in 12 jars, wipe the rims of the jars with a water/vinegar mix and added the two piece caps. I has no intentions of canning the lard so I just set the jars aside till they cooled enough to place in the refrigerator. Once the lard had hardened I place it in the freezer for long term storage. I will set in a jar in the refrigerator one at a time and use to make biscuits and corn bread. 

As you can see I did not get all the water boiled out but that is okay. I will be able to scrape that off when I use the lard since it will be congealed. :)

Tomorrow I will show you what I did with the broth and the extra cubed ham. For now let's just say that I got a lot more meals out of a ham then if I just baked it and served it for dinner. Then 87 cents a pound I paid for it went a long way in helping to make sure my family has plenty of good food to eat through the year.:)

Cabbage

Living on a disability income is not an easy thing to do. Especially when you are now bringing in less than half of what you brought home when you were working yet the bills remain the same. You have to cut costs where you can. Buying fresh produce and meat in bulk when I find a good sale is one of the easiest and best ways for me to trim our budget. Plus since I do not use all the chemicals that are in processed foods and convenience foods that you get from the store our health is doing better.

An added bonus for me is that canning is a hobby that I have always enjoyed. It relaxes me and takes my mind off all the little things that worry me from time to time. And I get the added benefit of knowing when I look at all my jars of food that I am able to feed my family good wholesome meals and not have to worry about running out of food before the next once a month check comes.


The week of St. Patrick's Day cabbage was on sale at one store for 19 cents a pound. For my area that is dirt cheap as cabbage is usually 69 cents a pound around here. I got 6 nice size heads. Below is just two of them.

After cleaning off the outer leaves I cut the heads in quarters and cut out the core.

Then I cut each quarter into pieces.

I blanched the cabbage for 3 minutes in boiling water then using a slotted spoon I filled the jars with the cabbage and packed it down a little. Then I added 1 teaspoon of canning salt and enough of the hot blanching water to come up 1 inch head space. I wiped the rims of the jars to make sure there was nothing on them then applied the 2 piece caps. Placed the jars in a pressure canner and processed for 55 minutes at 10 pounds pressure which is required for my area's sea level.


Canned cabbage does not look at green and pretty as fresh boiled cabbage looks but it tastes just the same and its yummy!

Though you can not see them all I got 15 quarts of cabbage put a couple of fresh meals out of those 6 heads of cabbage. Not a bad deal for about $3 worth of cabbage. I will be using some of this cabbage to make corn beef and cabbage. some for cabbage soup and some just heated up and served.

Canning Corned Beef

Last week corned beef was on sale pretty cheap for my area. I had been to can some for quite a while now and the price finally came down enough to do it. I bought 5 of them. The most time consuming part was trimming all the fat, after that the process went pretty quick. Last night I opened a jar and made corned beef and cabbage with some of it and corned beef hash with the rest. All I can say is that it tasted so much better than the canned corned beef that you buy at the store. YUM!

Here is what the corned beef looked like before I trimmed the fat off.

After trimming. :)

Some of the cuts had fat between layers of meat. So I cut out that fat to. I used a very sharp knife which made it easy to do.

After the fat was removed from the middle of the cuts. I then cut the strips into 1 inch x 1 inch pieces and packed in jars.

Then I packed the meat down nice and tight in the jar to remove as many air pockets as I could. Divided the
pickling seasoning packets between the jars. Wipe the rims really good. Applied the two pieces lids and process them for one hour and 15 minutes at ten pounds pressure which is what is called for in my area. I did not add any water to the jar as the meat had enough of its own juices.

The finished product. Each one of these jars has just over a pound of meat in them. One jar will feed my family of 3 very easily.

For anyone who has never canned corned beef before I would encourage you to try it. Just please make sure to follow the recommend instructions for canning meats in your area of the country. It's better to take time to learn how to can safely then to be sorry later.

Happy canning everyone!

March Stock Up Shopping

As most of you know we live on a limited income and only get our checks once a month. I watch all the ads for the week we get our checks and plan my shopping and menus for the month around what I can find on sale for super good prices. I also watch for good sales on meats, produce and fruit and buy big amounts to can and use for later dates.

This month included a trip to Lowery's Meat Market where I got just under 100 pounds of meat for $188.37. I love their meats. Everything tastes so good and the prices compared to Walmart, Meijers and Harding's are so much cheaper. Plus the meat is better at Lowery's if you want my honest opinion.

Here is a few pictures of the meat I got this month.

In the packages are ground sirloin, spareribs, fresh Italian brats, Cheddar brats, Jim Dean Italian sausage, breakfast sausage, honey loaf  and pepper loaf lunch meats, Colby cheese, cheddar cheese and pepper jack cheese. Of course hubby had to have his hot links and Mississippi smoked sausage. LOL Oh and plus I got two-50 pound bags of red potatoes.

We made a day of going out to eat at Golden Corral for lunch which was great! I have never been there before and then we spent the rest of the day shopping. We went to Lowery's, Walmart and Meijers. I stocked up on two months worth of meat, one month of other items plus some cabbage and corned beef briskets that I canned.

Here are some pictures of some of the other stuff I stocked up on.

All total I spent a little over $375 dollars to buy all that I got. Of course not all of it is pictured here because I didn't have time to take pictures of all of it. I had to get the meat taken care of. Other than buying milk, fresh produce and eggs I won't need to go shopping for another two months. Well that is unless I come across some really good buys in the next two months. LOL

Happy shopping everyone. Hope you are all getting some really good deals. :) Now I am off to split a double decker chocolate moon pie with hubby. I love those darn things but they are not good for my bg levels so we split them.