Last night after blogging I made 10 cups of strawberry jam. Ummmmm, it is good. I also made another 4 pints of pear sauce. The pears are still not all ripe.
Category Archive: food
Winterizing the greenhouse
Yes, except for the tree in the middle, the rest is weeds that grew due to my not getting out there when they were little. September and most of October, they spent trying to see how much they could take over. Now, I’ve been out there, moving them to the compost pile. Does it count that I’ve started now? I want to get the boxes weeded and covered so they’ll be ready to go in the spring, since I didn’t get winter crops in.
Now it’s time to get some strawberry jam made. DH tells me he is out.
Shopping and Sew fun
After a delicious lunch of roasted potatoes, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, carrots, broccoli, and zucchini patties, I was almost too full to carry on with the day.
However, Mary came over – do you like those spiders? We went to Quality’s Sew Fun because we wanted free tickets to the Sew Expo in November and that was the gift for coming.
And we rather liked this apron display.
The program consisted mostly of various handbags and a few table runners and potholders. So we decided to go shopping at JoAnn’s where we found some giraffe print fleece for Mary’s new grandson (arriving in Jan). So now she and I each have another project. She will be making stuffed giraffes and I will make baby a quilt.
Raincoats
These 4 little raincoats just need little snaps down the front and they are done.
And you must be as tired of canning as I am. Today was 20 pints of split pea soup for DH. Often times, that is all he wants for his third meal. It makes life easier when he can just open a jar and heat the contents.
Retreaded husband and food
This morning as I was heating the canning kettle and the oven, we lost power. It was a blessing, we lost it before I started timing anything. Neither the kettle or the oven were yet warm enough. Somewhere between and hour and 1 1/2 hours later, power was restored and I was able to finish the canning I had scheduled for this morning. So now another 8 pints of carrots and 7 of pear sauce are prepared for winter.
And I baked nearly 4 dozen cookies (1 very ripe banana to one cup of oats/ Opt: whatever chips, dried fruit, nuts you choose) Cookies on the left pan are not yet baked and on the right, have just come out. So you can see that they don’t spread. The grandsons will be happy with just chocolate chips in their cookies. So now these are in the freezer for their next visit.
DH wanted to help me which is usually interesting as it sometimes involves teaching him what I have done for years, without him noticing since he wasn’t home.. I often buy food in bulk, meaning 20 or more pounds to a bag, the contents get transferred to glass jars – some to stay in the cooler place and some to bring to the pantry for use. So today we opened quinoa and rice, which I purchased from last week’s co-op buy) and put them in the glass jars. Plus we brought out for use a jar of oats to replace the oats I used in the cookies and some kibble for the bird. I’m not sure whether it is more of a surprise to him that this has been going on for years, or to me that he has never noticed. We did get the food transferred and put in the kitchen pantry where it is easy to use. I think the freezer is another mystery to him. We eat food, which is taken from it, several times a week, and yet it is nearly always full. He has mentioned more than once, that it is difficult to find items in there as it is always full. For instance, the cookies I baked this morning went in the freezer, but it takes awhile for things one doesn’t usually deal with to register. And I think he is becoming more aware of how “extra” space gets filled.
Carrots!
We wish a Happy Thanksgiving season to all our Canadian friends.
I didn’t know how many pints of carrots I’d get out of 3 bags. But I was expecting more like 30 pints. Today, after the exercise routine, I came home and did carrots, and carrots, and carrots. In fact I have been working with carrots since 10.30 this morning and ended up putting the last batch in the refrigerator to process in the morning. There are 56 quarts and I promised DH that I would do split pea soup tomorrow. I’m beginning to be a stranger to the sewing room. But we will be eating this winter and until the next garden season.
The last 8 pints to fill this box are currently processing. As soon as they are finished, I plan to relax and not think about the other 3 large bags of carrots in the refrigerator. Maybe they can stay there a long time. We do use about a pint a week with potatoes. We put potatoes and carrots in the blender, add seasonings and enough broth to give us the consistency for a gravy, sauce, or soup.
TGIF
Another interesting day – but then, most days are interesting. After canning another 5 pints of pears and going to the gym, Mary came over for lunch. Then we opened the Scan-n-Cut. Because neither of us was familiar with the machine, we actually had to read the directions which were given in 7 languages. It was not a case of open and use. We do need to take the lesson on how to operate it. However, we did manage to get this 3.5″ square snowflake cut out of cotton. I probably should put it on something I’ll save, since it is the first thing we managed. We did sign up for the lesson which won’t be until early November.
After giving up on the Scan-n-cut, I started sewing these little rain coats. They also are a bit challenging as one makes and inner coat and an outer coat, sandwiching the hood between. The sleeves and sides are not finished as there is also a ruffle to be put on the end of each sleeve. The directions have one finishing the sides and then just tacking the ruffle on, but I will try to put it in the seam as I did on the hood. I’m not sure why they didn’t do it that way, but it’s possible that I will find out and then the others will be done differently. The first one is always the test case.
Warm wishes quilt with planets
Today was intense. After the workout this morning, I came home and made pear sauce and knowing the freezer is too full to add more fun, I canned some of the grapes I had frozen.
Did you know the grapes would float like this? I filled the jar with grapes and because they grapes are very sweet, I didn’t want to add sweetening. So I just added water and canned them in a water bath. They don’t look the same as the fruit cocktail ones, but then maybe they wouldn’t look so full if it was just grapes. It was a good experiment and since I’ll use them in smoothies, nothing is lost.
After lunch, I headed to the studio as I had cut out a quilt top last night that I really wanted to sew. So I pushed myself and the flimsy is done. It is 59 x 70, which is about the same size as the one I made yesterday. I like this pattern as it is so fast and easy and looks harder than it is. The binding will be the blue color. I see this as going to a kid of any age.
Now tomorrow morning, I must clean all this mess up as Mary is coming over and we will do some embroidering and she will help to fix the quilting machine. And I must get a lunch ready as well.
Canning and food storage
Mother always canned as much as she thought we would eat until the next harvest. I’m sure that was because she grew up on a Midwest farm and if they didn’t put food up in season, they wouldn’t have eaten throughout the winter. I have local grocery stores and at this point, it isn’t as though we wouldn’t eat, but rather a carry over that I am happy to continue. And the food I put up is of better quality and fresher than the store. If we do have a power outage or whatever, we will be good for at least a week. After that we need water (we are on a well), a blender and a cook stove for our breakfasts.
So this morning I canned the beets and as many of the pears as were ripe. There are still 2.5 boxes of them. I didn’t realize that they were bred to keep so long. If I had kept them in a cool dark place, they might have lasted until February. But I purchased them for canning, so wanted them ripe by now. Next year, I will plan differently.
This afternoon we went to get the potatoes and carrots. The farmer had just delivered our orders to the co-op, so they are really right out of the ground. The potatoes should last a good part of the winter and I will can half the carrots now and see how long the others last – or maybe they will just get eaten. I didn’t plant carrots this year, but we do still have potatoes in the garden. So between the ones we still have to dig and these, I’m hoping that will be enough to last.
Beets and cookies
After my Wednesday time at the gym, I came home, made cookies and lunch. Then I picked the rest of the beets in the garden.
They are now cooked, but I ran out of energy to put them in the jars and actually can them, so that will happen tomorrow.
