Pumpkin Prep. 101

Jordan brought this amazing squash home a few days ago. She paid 3 dollars for it. It weighed in at 20 pounds. I cleaned the seeds out. Chopped it in wedges, roasted it for about 45 minutes. Let it cool down in the oven until it was cool enough to handle without potholders. Quickly removed the lovely dark red shell, and chopped the flesh into chunks. I put it though my food grinder on coarse grind and in just about 15 minutes I had 12 cups of pumpkin puree. I go through dozens of batches of Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies in a given year. This batch should last me about 6 months. When I make the next batch I will post about it.
Here is one of the reasons I like to Preserve food.

We have responsibility to do our part in living within our means, and using what God has given us to our best ability. And it is so fun!

Herbes de Provence

I thinned out my herb garden today and used my handy dandy dehydrator setting on my "rockin' oven. I created this mixture of

"Herbes de Provo", Utah.
This mixture gave me plenty of yield for the next few months, and it is much cheaper than those fancy herbs at gourmet stores.

2 Tablespoons dried fennel seeds (I LOVE anise-that's what I used)
2 Tablespoons dried lavender leaves
1/4 cup dried marjoram
1/4 cup dried oregano
1/2 cup dried rosemary
1/4 cup dried savory (I used dried tarragon, because that is what I grew)
1/2 cup dried thyme
1 Tablespoon of sage (because I have bushels)

Combine all ingredients and store in an airtight container in a cool , dark place.
This will stay fresh for 2 months. Mine will go in the freezer.



How to use this spice mixture?
Soups, Stews, Roasted Bird of any Kind, Sprinkled on Scones or Biscuits, Foccacia Bread, Potato Salad, Pasta Alfredo, or Spaghetti sauce, Bruschetta. Garlic Bread. Any Giada de Laurtentis recipe.

You can basically use your own good instincts and just be creative. I can't wait to see what this is like in my own creations.

Green Tomato Hot Dog Relish

I Refuse to Let Them Die

Last Friday I was aware that we would have a killing frost in Utah. Knowing this was coming, and knowing I would eventually have to say goodbye to my precious babies, I took action. I up rooted all of my plants except one low yielder. Then I hung them upside down in the garage. This crazy action is supposed to send all the energy left in the leaves and stems directly into growing and ripening the remaining fruit. I did have several green fruits that fell off and I collected them all with great intent. Got out my food grinder and got busy.....


Here is what happened to the Green Tomatoes...

Voila... Green Tomato Hot Dog Relish. I guar-ran-darn-tee that you will not be able to tell there are not pickles in this recipe. I have to give my self a great big pat on the back!

Green Tomato Hot Dog Relish ( I doubled this recipe and it yielded 10 - 1/2 pints)
6 cups finely chopped cored green tomatoes (unpeeled)
2 onions, finely chopped
2 green bell peppers, seeded and chopped
1 red bell pepper, seeded and chopped
1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon kosher salt
1 tsp. whole cloves
1 tsp. celery seeds
1 cinnamon stick,(4 in.) broken in half
2 cups white vinegar
1 1/2 cups lightly packed brown sugar
1 clove garlic
1 Tbsp. dry mustard
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. ground ginger

I sent the onions, peppers, and tomatoes through a coarse grind on my food grinder. Drained off the liquid in the tomato mixture and stirred in the 1/4 cup plus 1 Tablespoon of Kosher salt. Set this all in a glass bowl covered it and let it stand for 12 hours. The next morning I poured it into a strainer and rinsed it with cold water and then squeezed out as much of the liquid as I could.

Tie the cloves, celery seeds, and cinnamon stick in a square of cheese cloth, creating a spice bag, or bouquet garni.

In a large Stainless steel pot, combine the vinegar, brown sugar, garlic, mustard, salt, ginger and spice bag. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring to dissolve sugar. Add drained tomato mixture, stir well and return to a boil. Reduce heat and boil gently, stirring frequently, until tomatoes are transparent, about 1 hour. Discard bouquet garni.

Meanwhile prepare canner, jars, and lids. I quick wash the lids and jars in the dishwasher and leave them in the heat of the dishwasher until needed. I get about 3 inches of water boiling in the canner.

Ladle hot relish into hot jars, leaving 1 centimeter of head space. Remove air bubbles and adjust head space, if necessary by add more hot relish. Wipe the rims, Center lid on jar. Screw band down until resistance is met, then increase to fingertip-tight.

Place the jars in canner, ensuring they are completely covered with water. Bring to a boil and process for 10 minutes. Remove canner lid. Wait 5 minutes, then remove jars, cool and store.

I made some AWESOME Ketchup with the 24 pounds of ripe tomatoes I harvested. 24 pounds condensed into 10 half pint jars. This is really the best thing I have ever preserved, and I will likely make it over and over now that I know how. In case you are wondering what the brown liquid is, it is cider vinegar with a bouquet garni of cinnamon, cloves, celery seed, and allspice. You can leave a comment if you want the recipe for the ketchup.


By the way all of today's recipes are from this simply awesome book. You can click on the picture and it will take you to Amazon where you can read more about it.

Marinara Madness

I always, always, always plant loads of tomatoes. They are easy and fun to grow and obviously the payout is spectacular. This year our spring was so wet and cold that our tomato harvest is about 1 month late. I have lots of different varieties. Look at these orange ones called Sweet Tangerine.

I hate waste, and even though my specific recipe did not call for squash, I added two crooknecks; cut into bite sized pieces. I used a green bell pepper from my garden, a store bought onion, and a large handful of herbs that I have been growing on the deck. Basil, tarragon, rosemary, thyme, marjoram and oregano. Oh, and lots of garlic!
I cut an "X" at the bottom of each tomato to ease the peeling process. I dip the tomatoes in simmering water for about sixty seconds. Plunge them in ice water and slip off the skins. Then, I core the larger varieties. Roma's have small cores, I don't bother coring them. This was the yield from about 15 pounds of tomatoes. I just pureed them in a blender. Remind me to blog about my "rocking" blender sometime.
I have always wanted to make my own Marinara sauce. I got out my super huge soup pot that holds at least 5 gallons, sauteed the onions, bell pepper, squash, garlic in some olive oil. I always adjust the seasonings at every step. I did add the herbs once the saute was translucent, to bring out the oils of the herbs. Then I added the tomato puree and let it simmer, uncovered, until the mixture was thickened and reduced by half. Remember to check for salt and pepper. You will lose salt in the reduction process.A good dishwasher does all the jar sterilization work. Keep the jars warm, and ladle in the Marinara, leaving one inch of head space. Process in a pressure canner; 15 pounds of pressure if you live in altitude above 1,000 feet. I am at 5,000 feet so I processed for 25 minutes. Use 10 pounds pressure at sea level for 20 minutes.

Once the processing is done, the air will bubble up in the sauce for several hours and provide a very strong and safe vacuum seal.

I really like the color of my Marinara thanks to the awesome Sweet Tangerine Tomatoes. Here is my quart jar in the midst of my amazing herbs.

Does preserving your own food save money? No. But I absolutely love the feeling I have when I look in my pantry and see it there. It is like love in a jar. I love the entire process from soil tilling season to wiping clean and putting away the last jar in the pantry. Thank you Lord for our plentiful table.

Pickled Jalapenos (Escabeche)

I special ordered "Biker Billy"jalapeno's from Burpee last spring, because they promised they would be super hot. Oh my, they ARE super hot and they grew super great! I adapted this from Elise at Simply Recipes. It was amazingly easy to make. My version only made 4 pints. I adjusted the herbs more to my taste, and the vinegar as well.

Food Storage 101

The LDS Public Affairs has asked members to blog or email etc... about how they utilize their food storage

I quote:

14 August 2008

"Church Public Affairs is asking Church members to share their experiences with maintaining and utilizing food storage by posting video, text or other content on personal blogs, video-sharing sites like YouTube, social media sites like Facebook, or other Internet sites. Members can then e-mail a link to their story to publicaffairs-slc@ldschurch.org."

I had to give a lot of my food storage away when we moved to Malaysia. It was not safe to keep jarred items I had preserved myself, or canned goods for so long in a storage unit (our movers would not take them anyway). I did keep the dry pack large cans though. I have been rotating through as many of those items as I can. I have noticed that some of the dry pack flour is getting a bit stale though. So I have basically started from the beginning getting my food storage back up.

Here are some tips I have used for years, and what has worked for me when storing food (in no particular order).

• grow a garden

• you can never preserve enough tomato products

• watch the food ads and buy in bulk what your family eats, most of my cereals were bought for only 1.oo a box never more than 2.00 a box.
  
• rotate though the food you store
• keep some sort of record of what you have in storage ( I draw diagrams)
  
• learn how to do your own canning
• teach your children to grab the older products for use first
• you need more than food in your storage, think soap, tampons, antibiotics, water, pet food etc..
• use your storage like a real grocery store. Don't buy 1.00 tuna when you have some in storage that you only paid .50 cents for last spring when you bought it in bulk
• get rain checks at the customer service center if your store is out of something you want
• you may need to shop early in the week, some stores won't do rain checks
• keep a file of successful recipes for your canning. I have found that not all salsa recipes are worth my time for instance, we do have a favorite. But. I will try a new hot dog relish this year that will utilize all the green tomatoes I know I am going to be stuck with because of our slow Spring thaw.
  

Our intention when we came home was that our adult children would not be living with us, and we would turn that extra room into a huge pantry for food storage, Now I have to stuff it under the stairs, what a nightmare...but having said that...

Can I just say how fulfilling it is to open up a jar of food that I have grown, and preserved myself?

I Feel Like a Pioneer

Okay kids, by now you know all things for me are food related. Will you just look at all I got accomplished today!

Look at what came from my garden today.I bought some incredible peaches at the Farmer's Market at Pioneer Park. I made this dynamite Lavender Peach Jam. (I grew the Lavender, thank you)

I even had the energy to make Tiny and her crew some homemade chips, and guacamole.
Tomorrow I sleep in.

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