Holiday Baking and Canning

This is my favorite cookbook right now (Thanks Mom!).  This has some great small batch canning recipes for hot water bath canning.  And since it's just me most of the time (with a little guy for half of the week) it comes in handy when I don't want to make a big batch of something.  I decided to make some recipes from the book for holiday gifts - and of course to fill my pantry with home canned goodies!  

The first thing I made was "Your Basic Chunky Tomato Salsa".  It was very easy to make and I even added some cilantro to the mix.  I was able to use up the last of the onion I got from Grandpa's house in Utah and the garlic too.  The funniest part was when I cut up the jalepenos and breathed them in!  Rowdy asked if I was ok!  I now know to get plastic gloves to cut them up for next time - and maybe a mask!

I ended up getting 3 pints and 3 half pints of this - four jars for gifts and 2 pints for my pantry!  A co-worker has already cracked open a jar and said it was delish!  I am sure this recipe will be a keeper. 

This was the first time I have ever used cranberries.  I just love the rich red color of them.  So lovely!  With these beauties I made "Festive Cranstrawberry Jam".  I just loved that this recipe called for me to chop up a whole orange - rind and all!  The smell was grand in the kitchen when this was boiling on the stove! 

And doesn't it look lovely in my new Ball jars?  I was able to get 6 half pints out of this - 3 for gifts and 3 for my pantry.  I was a little stingy with this one.  I can't wait to try it!  The next jam I am going to can is Cranana Jam - yep, you guessed it - cranberries and bananas, yum!

Both of the above recipes can be found in "The Complete Book of Small-Batch Preserving" by Ellie Topp & Margaret Howard.

Now onto Holiday Baking with Grandma White and Rowdy!

There is my kitchen helper - Rowdy.  He is shelling chocolate kisses to use in Peanut Butter Blossom Cookies.  He shelled the whole bag for me.  He was such a big help on Holiday Baking Day with Grandma White! 

His next job was to roll the PB balls in sugar and put them on the pan.  He completed it with ease.  He then helped put the kisses on the cookies!  Voila!  Blossom cookies.

We also made the traditional sugar cookie which he took on sprinkle duty. 

In one day we made PB blossoms, choc chip cookies, sugar cookies, choc chip zucchini bread (where I had a cocoa powder mishap), pb choc fudge, garlic pretzels, and jingle balls (choc covered pb)! 

Most of the goodies went to work as I use these to bribe my employees to do anything I want!  Totally kidding but they do enjoy these treats.  They always ask for the pretzels and jingle balls.  I guess now I am famous for them!  I wish I could take the credit for the recipes but alas, they are not mine.  But they sure are keepers!

  Next up.....I will dabble more into canning cranberry goodies!

Canning Tomatos and Other Stuff

Here is the last of Mom's tomato harvest (I think).  I have been staring at that bag of tomatos in my fridge my Mom gave me trying to decide what to do with them.  Should I make more yummy sauce (which I cracked open the other night and made sketti - yummy!), roast them (did that already), dehydrate them (yep that too)? 

So I finally fired up the canner and texted Mom - "come on over!".  She brought more and we got to work peeling and coring (not so fun for Mom really).  I quartered them, canned them in their own juice, and got 6 pints plus one quart of tomatos.  Not bad really.  They will be great for chili, sauce, or in stuffed peppers.

Mom also brought over some more cantaloupe from her garden.  These little guys are cute and from what I hear quite tasty (of course you won't see me eat one).  They are the perfect size for Rowdy, which he had with his orange themed lunch today (that would be mac & cheese, carrots, and cantaloupe).

Speaking of gardens, I think I am getting down to the end of mine.  I picked the only red pepper I had this year!  And look at those pathetic tomatos!  Oh well, I just sliced up the pepper and it will be frozen with other green peppers for fajitas. 

I was able to get some good tomatos this year from my garden.  I just dehydrated those and put them in a jar.  I can use these for pizza toppings, soups, etc. 

And lastly (since I did put "stuff" in my title), I stayed home with Rowdy today as he is a little under the weather.  Good 'old virus again.  Poor little guy.  He took it easy most of the day and I found him playing with his Thomas Vtech Computer alot.  This is a nice suprise as he is enjoying working on his letters!

You can hear him in the other room.  For instance, the computer will say, "J is for Jar" and he will say, "and jelly and jam"!  My kid is a genius.  But what do you expect, he takes after his Mom, right?



Making Garlic Dill Pickles

The cucumber plant was not doing well so it was time to pick off the cukes we had grown.  They weren't the greatest cukes this year so I decided to try my hand at dill pickles this time.  I used Mrs. Wages Kosher Dill Pickle mix and Rowdy and I added cloves of garlic to the jars for an added zing!   Since the sweet pickles turned out a little mushy (but still pretty tasty) I let the cukes soak in ice water for about 3 hours (this is supposed to help the pickles stay crisp).

Rowdy did a great job as my "dill pickle helper".  He learned how to take a head of garlic apart and how to take the skin off.  He helped put the pickles in the jars and he added the garlic too!  Zoey even supervised! 

I can't wait to try these!  They look so yummy!  But alas, we will have to wait at least a month as they have to sit for awhile.  But it will be worth the wait.  And if not, who cares, it was just really nice to can with Rowdy!  He is so much fun in the kitchen!

Preserving the (Stolen) Harvest!

"Give Me Thine Food And I Shall Can The!"

I have been a canning fool, I tell ya!  Dale is making fun of me, but oh well!  This is fun!

I canned 5 pints of tomato sauce - tomatos, garlic, and onion were from Grandpa's garden while the basil and green peppers were from mine!  I shall call it the famous "Family Affair" tomato sauce!  I also canned 3 pints of pickles.  We will see how they turn out as I didn't let them sit in a brine for 24 hours.  I might have mushy pickles but I will know better for next time.  The tomato sauce, however, came out superb as there was a little bit left so I mixed it with some penne, basil, grilled chicken, and some parmesan for dinner that night!  Delish!

Remember all those peaches I mentioned on my last post?  Well, they have been canned and creamed!  Ice cream that is!  I made 3 containers of Peach ice cream and had enough to can 2 pints of peaches in apple juice!   The canning of peaches is a little bit of a pain because it's a lot of work but I didn't want to waste them.  I think it was worth it! 

I finally ran out of stuff to can and went looking in the pantry to find something since I was on a "canning roll".  I was about to open a can of fruit to can it again (not really) when low and behold I remember the 2 bags of apples Dale had purchased to dehydrate and never got around to!  Apple butter, here I come, uh can, uh whatever!  This stuff is the bomb diggity!  I don't want to give it away!  I just want to stash it away and say "my Precious" over and over! 

Now that I feel like Mrs. Cleaver I think I am gonna go sew me a pretty apron and bake a pie.....nah!  That's too much work!