Reusable Canning Lids!!!

Tattler Reusable Canning Lids


I ordered some this past winter to try this year. There are plenty of good reviews of these canning lids - look on their "Reviews and Blogs" page for these. Have fun with a new way to be frugal!

Bulk Canning Lids

I've been thinking about ordering some more canning lids for this next harvest, so here is the link to my post from last year.

Bulk Canning Lids

I have not ordered yet, so I can't say for sure what the prices are this year. I can update when I do order.

Anyone else know of a good place to buy bulk lids?

New Granny Miller sites

I have been a huge fan of Granny Miller. I was so saddened when she ended her blog last year. But alas! She is back!!!! She is such an inspiration for me!

http://smallholdersdaily.blogspot.com/

http://homesteadgardenandpantry.com/

http://americanhomecanning.com/

Yay for Granny!!!!

Frost Advisory!

I can tell the seasons are definitely changing in our neck of the woods. The trees are becoming more colorful, the tomatoes are finishing up (yay!), the days are getting shorter and the farmer's are beginning the big harvest. Top that off with our first frost advisory. The low is expected to be around 34 degrees tonight. Time to cover the tender garden plants!

We started our outdoor wood burner for the first time yesterday evening. Works great! No more indoor mess and there should be alot less dusting on my part! One cool thing about this wood burner is that it also heats our water.

Since the weather turned cooler this week, I needed to pull out our light-weight bed comforters and Audrey's footed pj's. Those pj's always look so comfy!

We also started wearing jackets this week. Looks like I better make sure our heavy coats, overalls, hats and mittens are clean and ready to wear!

I canned the last of the tomatoes yesterday. (HUGE sigh of relief!) I will pick whatever is left today and they will be dehydrated this week. I will not try to save the tomato plants from the frost. They have blessed me beyond expectations and anyways, I don't have enough sheets/blankets/anything! to cover all 24 plants. I will try to save the greenbeans, jalapenos and raspberries. The carrots and onions can handle slight freezing so no worries there.

With the major canning done (unless I find a great deal on apples) I will concentrate on getting the remainder of my pantry stocked. This would include things like oils, seasonings, baking supplies and toiletries. Here are some great links that have helped me stock my pantry.

Food Storage Made Easy

Food Storage and Preservation

and a great yahoo group called food-storage:LDS(and friends) Food storage

All three sites are extremely helpful to those wanting to start their own food storage and explaining why alot of us believe in doing so. In my opinion, it just makes sense. I look at it as another form of insurance.

Time to go stir my simmering chili soup and curl up with some sewing and enjoy the quiet while Audrey is still napping!

Updates...

Updated the 2009 Food Preservation Tally and How Our Garden Grows 2009 in the right hand column.
Still busy harvesting and canning, so much that I ran out of canning jars and I am now using my MIL's old ones!!

Knee-Deep in Tomatoes!!

Tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes!!! We have tomatoes!

Seems we are picking about a 1/2 bushel of tomatoes every 2 days. Yesterday hubby helped me puree about 70 pounds of them. Today, it is simmering and being canned into spaghetti sauce.


So far we have done salsa, pizza sauce, tomato soup, tomato/veggie juice and now the spaghetti sauce. The plan is to make more soup, juice and sauce. Then possibly some ketchup. Any other ideas?

Weekend Canning Totals

Pizza Sauce - 40 pints

Spiced Pears - 11 quarts

Done canning until more tomatoes ripen. The cool summer has them lagging behind.

Canning Away

Suddenly, it has become my major canning season.

Yesterday, my mother-in-law came over and helped me put up 23 quarts of peaches.

Today, hubby and I have turned 1/2 bushel of tomatoes into pizza sauce. As I type, it is simmering and becoming yummy! I will let it simmer a bit longer and then the canning starts! The sauce filled an entire canning kettle, so I will most likely be canning some of it tomorrow. Can't wait to see how many pints of pizza sauce we end up with!

The next batch of ripe tomatoes will be turned into soup. I use this recipe from Stephanie at Stop The Ride!

Hope everyone is enjoying their canning season!

Back to work in the garden

Since we have been back home, there has been quite a bit of harvesting going on. I picked 1 gallon of jalapenos and froze them until I start making salsa.


Picked enough greenbeans to can up 11 pints. The greenbeans are grown in raised beds done in the square foot garden method.


Fours ears of sweetcorn have made their way into our bellies.

One lonely Roma tomato has turned red.


Yesterday we dug up about a 10' row of potatoes. This is what we got:


Here is the big-daddy of all the taters we dug up. I sat it up against a quart canning jar to show it's size.


Then we hit up the one tater tire. We were anticipating quite a harvest from this finally this year. Last year the soil was so dry inside the tires, so this year we stuck a pvc pipe down the middle of the stack and watered down inside the pipe. The soil was nice and moist all the way through as we dug it up. Guess what we found...not many taters...again. So dissappointing! If the other 2 stacks that are still green don't do any better, we won't try this method again. Here is what we got out of the one tater tire stack. They are in a 1 gallon bucket.


Last night I got ambitious and started pulling the onions that were ready. I grow them in raised beds done the square foot method. Here they are sitting on the porch curing.


Here's the biggest onion so far:

Garden Progress

July has nearly blown by us already! One more week and it will be August, where has the summer gone to? Soon I will be knee-deep into canning tomatoes and other goodies from the garden. Have you gotten your canning lids yet? I have!

Here is the thing that my hubby rigged up to water our garden easier.

All he did was put our sprinkler on top of a metal stool that was just sitting in the barn. He had to put a board on top of the seat in order for the sprinkler to sit straight.

The sweet corn is tasseling and setting its silk.


The tomatoes are really starting to put out the fruit! It is all still green, but it won't be long and I will be turning them into paste, sauce, juice, salsa...


I've been canning greanbeans for a bit now. They have slowed up, but we planted more so that we will have a later harvest too. This is my daughter helping me snap them. She is not quite 2, and I really didn't think she would be able to help me like this already! She didn't do it for very long, but I was thrilled to have her help!


I pulled some carrots last week. They aren't all ready yet. We also planted some a few weeks ago for a late harvest.


Some more onions that I planted.


My daughter looking for some raspberries to snack on. They are just about done.


That's all the garden photos I have taken recently. I will add that we also planted some cucumbers to harvest late. All the stuff we planted for a late harvest should make it to maturity by our first freeze. At least we hope it all does!

Things are a bit slow as far as gardening and canning go. Mostly been weeding and watering the garden. We really need some rain. We just received 1/2" yesterday. Until that amount, we have only received 1" this month. Prior to that, we have had very little rain also. Not fun to have to worry about watering the garden every couple of days.

What is everyone else doing in their gardens (flower or veggie)?

Bulk canning lids

Just a reminder since it's that time of year!

The month of June

Looks like another month went by and I did not blog. Sorry for those who actually follow this! It's been quite busy around here to say the least! So for those of you who have been wondering what I've been getting into, here you go.


I have been enjoying spending time with my daughter, I love being a stay at home mom! She will be 2 in early September, time flies! In this picture, she is trying to help me with my baking. She loves to put on her apron and "help" like the big girl she knows she is!


I have made 2 batches of homemade laundry detergent. I haven't made this in years. We really like how well it works and it beats the outrageous price of commercial detergent! I plan on doing a seperate post on how to make this.


Found a wonderful multi-grain bread recipe in Backwoods Home Magazine (my fave mag!). I have tried for several years to find a recipe that hubby and I both like. This is finally it! I should do a sperate post on this also!


This is a Little Tykes play gym I bought for $5 at a garage sale. Had some wear, but that's to be expected! This has really helped me be able to work in the garden and keep my daughter occupied! I keep a list of household and individual needs throughout the year and scour garage sales for them. This year I am really crossing things off my list. I love garage sales!


We are working (slowly) on the landscaping around our house. I have lived here for 6 years, and hubby lived here for 3 years before that, and we never did anything with the yard except mow it! We decided it was high time to eradicate the weeds that took over the former flower beds. This is a planter I put together to help pretty up the porch. I can't stand the prices of pre-made planters, so I buy what I like and throw it together in a dollar store container. The milk can was saved from the metal scrap pile at my in-laws farm.


The strawberries didn't do too bad this year. Certainly not the banner year we had 2 years ago. However, I can't complain as I picked about 2 gallons from our small patch. They were so good fresh, but I froze quite a bit also.


Pea pickin has come and gone! This was my first year growing peas. I was very surprised at the size of these! I grew Early Frosty Peas. They had on average 6-8 peas per pod. There were quite a few with 10 in them! And none of these were tiny peas either. I will definately grow this variety again! I ended up freezing about 6 quart bagfulls.


Raspberries...yummy!!! I bought 2 raspberry plants (or do you call them bushes?) this year. They nursery said they were 2 years old already. I have been picking a steady small handful every couple days for the past couple weeks. They are so good! We are eating them as we pick them. I think my little girl has ate 90% of them!


Then came the greenbeans! The last couple days of June brought me about a 1/2 bushel of beans. I canned them up into 6 quarts and 1 pint.

Then the end of June came and we received some devestating news. I have had a miscarriage. I was only 8 weeks along. This is my second one, the first being before we had our daughter. Words cannot describe how it feels to lose baby. I pray that those around me never have to experience it.

So all in all, I have mostly worked in the garden weeding, picking and putting up the wonderful goodness God has provided us this year. Throw in some garage sales and lots of outdoor play time with my daughter, and it was a pretty good month!

Gardening Away!

The gardening is being done in full force now. I have updated the sidebar to show our progress. We spent the holiday weekend getting most of the garden in. It feels good to have it this far! We are already making plans and changes for next year!
Here is a pic of the garden at the north end. I tried to get in most of the garden so everyone can see how big it is.


Here is the tomato area.

There are 25 Romas. Romas are perfect for sauces and soups. That's my main use for tomatoes. I will also be canning ketchup and salsa with these. I bought 16 plants from the local greenhouse. Only 9 of mine survived out of the 30 that I started from seed. Not too happy about that.

Here's some sweet corn that has come up. I planted 120'of Golden Bantam this year.


Planted 4 jalapeno pepper plants for salsa making.


This is the contraption I made to keep the birds from pecking away at my seeds. I took some tomato cages and tied some old cd's to them. I used those ones that companies send me to sign up for AOL, etc. I don't use them anyways, might as well do me some good! And it's working so far!


Peas starting to bloom. These are Early Frosty variety. I filled one of my raised beds with them. Done square foot method.


The onion and pea bed. All done square foot method.


The bush bean and carrot bed. Beans are Contender. Carrots are Danvers Half Long. Done square foot method. There are 3 green pepper plants in the front.


The tater tires. The middle one didn't get put in as early as the other two. That's why it doesn't have the second tire on it.


Planted 3 blueberry bushes this year. They were from last years crop, so they are fruiting this year for us. Yay!!


Mixed lettuce varieties and some Cherry Belle radishes. Not much here. but dh won't eat radishes and is not a big fan of lettuce. So no need to do much of these.

Now, just praying for some rain!! This hard clay is starting to crack from the lack of moisture.
I will post more pics later, gotta make some supper!

Bulk Canning Lids

Wanted to share a wonderful place to buy bulk canning lids!!
I found this place by way of the food storage group at yahoo. Its called Dutchman's Store. They have no website (pretty sure they are Amish). They sell 345 regular canning lids for $34.95 and 288 wide mouth lids for $35.95. Plus shipping. My shipping charge was $15.00 (west central Ohio). That's better priced than what I can buy them for locally. This is the first place I have come across that sells them in bulk. I can't verify the quality(haven't used them yet), but plenty of the gals on the food storage group like them.
They take phone orders and can take credit cards or they will wait for your check to clear. I sent a check and they were here quickly.
Here is their info for anyone interested:

Dutchman's Store
103 Division St.
Cantril, IA 52542

phone 319-397-2322
fax 319-397-2370
dutchman@netins.net

Canning Jam

I made 8 pints of strawberry rhubarb jam this week. I am trying to clear out some freezer space and can up some things. My goal is to have more stuff canned than in the freezer. I don't want to have to worry about losing food (and money) if we were to lose our electric. We don't have a generator for back up. I also cleaned out our extra frig that we keep in the garage. So it's unplugged and not costing us anything. We will keep it for fall harvest time and for when we have large family get-togethers here and we need the extra frig space. I'm excited to see if it puts much of a dent in our electric bill. Hopefully it makes a difference!

Have a good weekend!

Homemade Pizza recipe

Finally, after many failed attempts, I have developed a homemade pizza that both my dh and I love! Yay! Here it is:

CRUST
makes 2

4c flour - I use King Arthur unbleached white
1tbsp sugar
2-1/4 tsp dry active yeast(or 1 pkt)
2 tsp salt
1/4 oil - I use canola
1 and 1/3c warm water
seasonings to your taste - garlic powder, onion powder, oregano, etc.

Mix 1/3c warm water and yeast. Make sure the water is not too hot or else you will kill the yeast. Set aside. Mix dry ingredients in a large bowl. Add 1c hot water to dry mix. Add yeast water once it has tiny bubbles on top. Add oil. Mix well.Place in a greased bowl, cover and allow to rise in a warm spot.
Once it has risen some (an hour usually does it), divide in half and roll out onto an oiled sheet. I like to use stoneware because it seems to cook more evenly and it keeps it warm while you serve it. Prick the dough all over with a fork so that it doesn't form bubbles while it cooks. Then I like to prebake the crust in a 400 degree oven for about 3 minutes. Take out the crust and top as you like. Bake at 400 for about 15 minutes, or until it looks done.
An alternative, is to freeze the crust after it is prebaked. Thaw when you need it and top it off and cook it the same as above.

I use homemade sauce made from home canned spaghetti sauce. Yummy!

SPAGHETTI SAUCE - from my sil Diane

16 qts or 1/2 bushel Roma tomatoes
6 med onions - chopped
Puree or blend the tomatoes. put in large pot with the onions. Cook about 1-1/2 hrs on low to med heat - low boil.
Add
2 c veg oil (optional - I don't do this and it turns out wonderful)
8 cloves crushed garlic
3 tbsp oregano
1 tbsp basil
1 tbsp red pepper flakes
1-1/2c brown sugar
1/3c salt
Cook for 1 hr. Add (4) 12 oz cans of tomato paste. It's ready for canning!

One variation I mistakenly made with this recipe, is with the red pepper. One batch I accidentally used cayenne pepper instead! Makes for a hotter sauce, but it tastes wonderful for pizza!

For making into a pizza sauce:
For every 1 pint of the spaghetti sauce use (1) 6oz. can of tomato paste. Mix together to thicken. Spread on the pizza crust.

Enjoy!!!

Not-So-Bountiful Harvest

Well, we dug up the taters from the one stack of tires and here is what we found:

Not what we had hoped for. We haven't tackled the second stack yet. Probably the same results. We think that they probably didn't get enough water. It's been real dry this summer, and with all that dirt, I guess I just didn't water them enough. I did water them every other day. I thought I was doing good. There were lots of roots, just not many taters. We are not going to give up on this method. We plan on trying again next year. We may cut the tires and run a soaker hose through them at the bottom.

The tomatoes are just as pitiful this year. Here is what I have picked to far.

These are supposed to be full sized Roma's. Not so big are they? Note they also have blossom end rot. From what I understand, that comes from a calcium deficiency and water uptake. Again, these were watered ever other day since they are in a raised bed. But it has been dry as I said. Sigh. These poor maters have had a rough year. Fungus (from when we got TOO much rain), tomato horn worms, drought conditions and I'm sure something else will occur yet! To the right of the maters, there is a well-aged over-ripe greenbean. I have let quite a few beans go to seed for saving for next year. I never did this before and I was curious to see how far along they were. Not far enough. They are still quite wet inside.

On the bright side, the carrots look well and I planted peas last week and they are sprouting. Also I have 4 good sized pumpkins. And I have 12 pints and 5 quarts of green beans canned, along with another 6 or so pints to can. So I really can't complain. Except we still need rain.

This is what showed up on my porch today!

I ordered an accessory kit for my Roma strainer, a 1-cup ladle and the catalog was thrown in for free all from Lehman's non-electric hardware store. I love this place. We went there a few years back and I fell in love with it. It is my kind of store! I would much rather shop at Lehman's than Macy's or JCPenneys! I really wanted this kit so I can process berries without all the seeds. Now I can can some blackberry jam! The ladle will help my canning go faster. I've been using a ladle that seems to only hold 1/4 cup. It took forever to fill jars.