Actually I think it's supposed to be in the 60s today, but I am still craving cold weather food. Here are a few of the things I plan to make this week:
Tonight I am going to do a crazy casserole based on scalloped potatoes, but with cabbage, cheese, and ham added in. I just hate to throw food away and I have a cabbage and some potatoes that need to be used up pretty soon. Not to mention that my freezer is so full I can't get anything else in it, so a bag of ham chunks would make some welcome space. I have a lot of cheese I bought for recipes I didn't make, so some of that is going in, too.
It is definitely time for another round of chili and cornbread.
Soup! I want to make at least two huge pots of soup, with lots of leftovers to can. I'm thinking ham and bean soup and chicken vegetable. I still have two or three quarts of soup adapted from Bernice and Paul Nolls' recipe for Beef Vegetable in the pantry. I didn't use the cauliflower, and next time I will cut way back on the potatoes, but this was pretty tasty soup. Have you visited their website? I just love them to pieces. They were among the first of my canning heroes and have inspired many a jar of homemade goodness.
This weekend I want to make large quantities of stock and get that canned up. I have lots of odds and ends in the freezer and I plan to make a run to the butcher shop for beef soup bones and a chicken or three.
That ought to hold me for a while. What's cooking in your kitchen?
Showing posts with label preserving. Show all posts
Showing posts with label preserving. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Monday, August 15, 2011
Losing Pip, a Preserving List, and a Little Garden Clarity
I haven't been blogging because I am depressed, devastated, bereft, and forlorn. I lost my partner in crime, my travel companion, my sweet little doggie, Pip. My angel went peacefully to sleep in my arms over two months ago. I didn't sleep for 9 days. I want my dog back.
Let's move on, shall we?
Here is a list of what I have put up so far this year:
Canning:
Mandarin oranges in Spiced Syrup - (6) 1/2 pints (These are bitter and horrible!)
Peaches - 7 qts.
Pinto Beans - 14 qts.
Strawberry Preserves - (11) 12 oz. jars
Strawberry/Fig Jam (so good!) - (9) 1/2 pints
Bread and Butter pickles - 6 pints (I grew the cukes!)
Beef/Vegetable soup - 7 qts.
I'm forgetting something, I think.
Not really canning but I did 2 jars of fridge pickles, also with cukes I grew.
Frozen:
2 gallons whole strawberries
1/2 gallon sliced strawberries in sugar
6 c peas (Almost my entire harvest. Need to put in way more peas next time.)
1/2 gallon peaches in sugar
3 cups tomatoes (The first of the Romas)
1 pint of tomato juice
Harvest:
From the garden and patio, I have harvested peas, lots of cucumbers, potatoes, tomatoes, and carrots. A lot of the garden in South Carolina just up and died. The weirdest thing is that the red cabbage I planted in February is just now making heads! That's just wrong, right?
I learned a lot about gardening this year. Most notably, I learned that you cannot successfully have a garden in another state. Life intrudes, and it became impossible to get there, sometimes for a month or longer. I plan to go exploring in that jungle soon to see if I can find my onions in all that mess. Fortunately, we had to cut a big tree down in our front yard at home in Atlanta, and suddenly my greedy gardener's eye sees potential for a garden in right in my own front yard. Raised beds are about to be built for the fall garden. Hopefully I won't be the next Julie Bass. Hey, if a garden in the yard is ok at the White House...
The best surprise for me this year was to find that we have a prolific pear tree in our yard in South Carolina. That thing is huge and so laden with pears some of the branches have broken. I plan to do a lot of canning with those pears. Fruit cocktail, salted caramel pear butter, pear sauce, canned pear crisp filling, just pears in syrup, oh my! We also have a fig tree I didn't know about. FROG Jam and more Strawberry/Fig Jam coming up as soon as they are ready!
I want to put up a lot more soup, more veggies, lots more meat (I did pork last year and it was wonderful!), more beans because the pinto beans are so delicious and easy to make something from. I want to do some kidneys, limas, and white beans, at least. I still haven't done my tomato canning for this year. My tomatoes are not producing so well, so I'm going to have to buy them, but I need to have tomatoes in my pantry, especially my mom's recipe for stewed tomatoes. I need to remember to get a new gasket for my pressure canner!
How goes your gardening and preserving this year?
Let's move on, shall we?
Here is a list of what I have put up so far this year:
Canning:
Mandarin oranges in Spiced Syrup - (6) 1/2 pints (These are bitter and horrible!)
Peaches - 7 qts.
Pinto Beans - 14 qts.
Strawberry Preserves - (11) 12 oz. jars
Strawberry/Fig Jam (so good!) - (9) 1/2 pints
Bread and Butter pickles - 6 pints (I grew the cukes!)
Beef/Vegetable soup - 7 qts.
I'm forgetting something, I think.
Not really canning but I did 2 jars of fridge pickles, also with cukes I grew.
Frozen:
2 gallons whole strawberries
1/2 gallon sliced strawberries in sugar
6 c peas (Almost my entire harvest. Need to put in way more peas next time.)
1/2 gallon peaches in sugar
3 cups tomatoes (The first of the Romas)
1 pint of tomato juice
Harvest:
From the garden and patio, I have harvested peas, lots of cucumbers, potatoes, tomatoes, and carrots. A lot of the garden in South Carolina just up and died. The weirdest thing is that the red cabbage I planted in February is just now making heads! That's just wrong, right?
I learned a lot about gardening this year. Most notably, I learned that you cannot successfully have a garden in another state. Life intrudes, and it became impossible to get there, sometimes for a month or longer. I plan to go exploring in that jungle soon to see if I can find my onions in all that mess. Fortunately, we had to cut a big tree down in our front yard at home in Atlanta, and suddenly my greedy gardener's eye sees potential for a garden in right in my own front yard. Raised beds are about to be built for the fall garden. Hopefully I won't be the next Julie Bass. Hey, if a garden in the yard is ok at the White House...
The best surprise for me this year was to find that we have a prolific pear tree in our yard in South Carolina. That thing is huge and so laden with pears some of the branches have broken. I plan to do a lot of canning with those pears. Fruit cocktail, salted caramel pear butter, pear sauce, canned pear crisp filling, just pears in syrup, oh my! We also have a fig tree I didn't know about. FROG Jam and more Strawberry/Fig Jam coming up as soon as they are ready!
I want to put up a lot more soup, more veggies, lots more meat (I did pork last year and it was wonderful!), more beans because the pinto beans are so delicious and easy to make something from. I want to do some kidneys, limas, and white beans, at least. I still haven't done my tomato canning for this year. My tomatoes are not producing so well, so I'm going to have to buy them, but I need to have tomatoes in my pantry, especially my mom's recipe for stewed tomatoes. I need to remember to get a new gasket for my pressure canner!
How goes your gardening and preserving this year?
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