Orange You Glad We're Upgrading Our Kitchen?

So I've been busy these past 2 weeks. When we moved into our house, the original kitchen color was an 80's salmon pink...bleh. I had it painted to a favorite terra cotta/burnt orange and now I deeply regret it.

Our oak floors and oak cabinets, with the orange walls....TOO MUCH ORANGE! What was I thinking?

In addition the previous owners installed a dark, slate-colored 6"x 6" tile as a backsplash and around the counter. The final push to start this project was when the entire cap of tiles on the end of the counter fell off last year. Not only did the previous owners choose a crappy tile, the person who installed it did a bad job.

Everything is just too dark and too orange and it's been driving me nuts.

This is my Photoshop inspired upgrade. I downloaded a kitchen image from Pintrest that had the exact layout as mine, but a little smaller, and made the changes I wanted. If this is your kitchen, I apologize and thank you for the inspiration.

Basically, I am:

• Removing the tile from around the counter and installing bead board. 
• Painting the cabinets white and installing new hardware. 
• Removing the old backsplash and installing glass tile. 
• Installing a ducted and vented range hood. 
• Raising the top trim of the old cabinets to where there is less space between the top and the ceiling (no more dust farms). 
• Removing the cabinet to the left of the window and installing open, rustic shelving
• Repainting the whole room to BM's Revere Pewter
• Installing a new light fixture above the sink

I am doing all of this on my own with the exception of installing the range hood ducting in the ceiling and painting. Chances are there will be pieces of ceiling cut out to install the ducting to the outside and I am hiring a painter to patch the ceiling, which will then need painting, and then painting the room. I figure that I will be out of steam at that point and it's important to get drywall patching right. 

So far, things are coming along...updates coming soon!

Spring?

Well, today is the official first day of spring, but this is what we woke up to last Monday morning:

Not very encouraging, I know. We are all a little snow weary this season, as we've had 6 snow storms in the past 6 weeks. It's still a new concept to me and I do enjoy the unscheduled "snow days" from going into the office, but even I'm like, "ENOUGH!"

But even as I type this post, the sun is shining outside, almost all that snow is melted, and the temperatures are supposed to get into the 50's or 60's today. Here's hoping that spring is just a little bit closer.

Sugar Shack

Last weekend, hubby and I took a day trip and headed southwest to Highland County, VA for their annual Maple Festival. We had been meaning to go to this festival for the past couple of years, but never got around to it for one reason or another. It’s only held for the first two weekends in March, and from what I understand, the maple sap used to make maple syrup only flows for a short time here in Virginia. I guess you can’t nail down Mother Nature for an exact date!

From what I gathered, the best maple sap to collect from trees in Virginia is from the ones that grow between 3,000 and 4,000 feet above sea level.  We definitely spent a lot of time driving on twisty-windy mountain roads to find this festival!  Straight from the tree, maple sap (or sugar water) collected from maple trees is made up of approximately 98% water and 2% sugar. It takes approximately 40 quarts of sugar water to make 1 quart of maple syrup, and a good tree will produce 20 quarts of sugar water every 12 hours!

The Maple Festival featured several sugar shacks that demonstrated how to make maple syrup. To make syrup, excess water is boiled away from the sap. Because a large amount of steam is produced when boiling off the sap, it’s not recommended to do this indoors, hence the separate sugar shacks. Making maple syrup on the home front usually involves using one large pot, but at a sugar shack, they use huge troughs filled with sugar water and build very hot wood fires under each trough to boil off the sap.

Can you imagine if you made this much steam in your house? It would be a good way to peel away ugly wall paper!

It was still pretty chilly outside, but the sugar shacks were VERY toasty and smelled wonderful. It was like a hillbilly day spa!

At each stop along the Maple Festival route, there were all kinds of maple-y treats being sold. We enjoyed a few of the local maple donuts that day.

After the festival, we stopped at a local freshwater trout farm and had one of the best fish sandwiches I've ever had. Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture because I was really hungry! Being from Florida, it's not often that I ate freshwater fish. In fact, I don't think I've ever had freshwater trout before that day. All in all, it was a great day! 

Picture from Faces of Farmers.org

Dreaming of Spring

Having cabin fever during the winter gives you a lot of time to catch up on small projects around the house. In this case, hubby and I finished building our new raised vegetable garden beds for the upcoming season. The beds are 10 feet by 4 feet, and when the snow melts we will flip them over and pound the corner stakes into the ground.

Last year, we started out with 4 raised beds and then added a fifth at the end. It was definitely a learning experience. Our cucumber crop came in like gangbusters, but our tomatoes were struck by early blight from all the wet weather last year and being planted too close together. Later, the tomato plants that survived were ransacked by squirrels. Our bush beans were wonderful, but our beets were a bust from over seeding and not enough thinning (but the beet greens were great!). We planted sweet potatoes that did so-so, mostly we think from not enough sun, and the leeks were pretty successful. And onion slips rotted due to all the wet weather.

Ironically, the most challenging thing we came across from starting a raised bed garden was finding planting medium to fill them. Last year, we had to use purchased garden soil and bagged compost. This past fall, we managed to squirrel away a lot of leaves and started a second compost pile to help amend. We'll still have to purchase some bagged garden soil, but hopefully just this one time to get us started. From that point on, the beds will be amended and built up with compost, leaves, and cover crops.

So, now we have 10, 10' x 4' raised beds and we have a busy season planned. So far, I plan on growing the following vegetables this year:

Tigger Melons
Red Malabar Spinach
Bush Beans
Mammoth Melting Sugar Snow Peas
Giant from Italy Parsley
Butterhead Lettuce
White Stemmed Pak Choi
Paris Market Carrots
Supersauce Tomato
Buttercrunch Lettuce
Sugarloaf Endive
Catalogna Chicory
Black from Tula Tomato
Brandywine Tomato (Suddeth's Strain)
Atkinson Tomato
Druzba Tomato
Cossack Pineapple Ground Cherry
Corvair Smooth Leaf Spinach
Win-Win Pak Choi
Detroit Dark Red Beet
Chioggia Beet

In addition, I have a bunch of flowers and herbs that are going to be planted as well. I'm still on the fence about a fall planting. Last year, I was more than ready to put the garden to rest at the end of the summer season, but for now c'mon spring!

Snowmance

Valentine's Day has been a bust. I was supposed to go into work today, which we were also having a potluck, but the roads are a mess and I'm "working from home". So, what do you do on Valentine's Day when you are snowed in?

You shovel the front walk way and driveway (thank God for nice neighbors with tractors and snow plows).

You retry that Salted Cranberry Grapefruit Jam recipe.

You make a big batch of homemade chicken broth to be used for chicken noodle soup and canned chicken broth.

You bake (although I made these particular pies a long time ago in another kitchen...but you get the picture).

And then, dream of spring.

How to Label and Pack Canned Food for Shipping

Ooof. Too many things to do and not enough time to do them, right? I should have posted this post yesterday, but well, you know. This past Sunday was my annual “Great Cookie Bake Off”. Every year I bake dozens of cookies and package them up with some of my hits from the canning season and mail them off. This is truly a labor of love, as I average anywhere from 10 to 20 boxes to send out.

At this point in my friend’s and family’s lives, more stuff is not necessarily more. We all have everything we need. Cookies and home canned goodies with the occasional gift card are more appreciated and welcomed.  But how do you wrap up those jeweled jars to send to loved ones safely?

Well, I’m glad you asked!

I’ve been sending canned goodies to loved ones for almost 10 years and have not had a jar break or spill yet (knock on wood). It’s a little tedious, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.

Okay, here we go…

1. Labels, Bands, and String:

You know how I feel about peel-and-stick labels stuck to jars. They’re a complete pain to get off if you want to use the jars again, so I use round Avery labels on the lids and I make a hanging tag to include the jar’s ingredients. Over the years, I’ve dabbled in about every way possible to make cute, functional hanging tags and this method is the one I’m sticking with.

First, be sure to put bands on your jars. I prefer to use new or my “non-processing” bands so the jars can look as pretty and presentable as possible. Nobody wants a gifted jar of canned food that looks like it might give them tetanus!  You don’t need to wrench down the band, but a little tighter than “finger tight”.

Second, you will need some cotton string (not nylon) or even yarn. Ribbons work too, but not the satin ones or any that have a slippery material. Basically, you want the material to be able to “grab” onto itself. I cut off about an 18” piece and wrap it around the jar itself just under the band. I’ve tried wrapping the string around the band itself, but it slips off the top.

Next, tie what I call a “chef’s knot” in the string. I use this knot when I’m trussing poultry or roasts. It’s basically a double over-hand (or under-hand) knot that keeps the knot from slipping (think of the first knot you do when you tie your shoe). Tie with this knot tightly to the jar; it should stay in place.

Third, slip both ends of the string through your tag. I made my own tags with scrapbook paper and printed ingredient’s lists, but you can use store-bought tags or whatever floats your boat. Have a single hole punch on hand in case you need one.

Fourth, tie a simple bow (like tying your shoe). And last, tie that bow in a double knot (another over/under-hand). This keeps the tag from sliding off the string and it also keeps the string from coming untied. This method also ensures your tag will hang straight and not twist around sideways.

2. Bags for Protection: 

Okay, now that we have all our jars labeled and cute, it’s time to get them ready for shipping.

I always, always, always put my jars inside either a quart-sized (pints) or gallon (quarts) Ziplock bag.  Again, I’ve never had a jar break or lose a seal, but it’s better to be safe than sorry. If a seal should break, the bag will hopefully keep it contained and not damage the rest of the box’s contents.  I also try to push as much air out the bag before closing.

3. Bubble Wrap and Boxes:

Next, I use bubble wrap (the perforated type) to completely wrap around the now bagged jar and use packing tape to hold it in place. If there is a lot of air in the Ziplock bag, the jar will kind of jiggle around inside an air pocket and the bubble wrap won’t be as effective. You want the bubble wrap to have as much solid contact with the jar/bag as possible. Tight packing equals less potential damage.

Whew! After all that, I get my boxes ready by first putting a layer or two of bubble wrap on the bottom of each box. I usually lay my jars sideways as the bubble wrap make them unstable.  I put bubble wrap or crumpled newspaper between the jars and the walls of the boxes. Depending on how many jars I’m sending, I usually just lay the jars next to each other side-by-side and put more bubble wrap or crumpled newspaper on top before sealing the box. When I close up the box, I make sure the box is packed tight and there are no air-pockets for things to shift around and get damaged.

Looks like we’re moving, huh? Like I said, this is a labor of love. Each one of these boxes have anywhere from 2-6 jars of canned goods and a box of cookies.  Now I am going to take a nap! 

4. Shipping Them Out:

As far as how to send them out, I use UPS. I have found through painful experience how expensive shipping through the United States Postal Service can be. I have also found that some UPS shipping locations are a little unpredictable on what they say is "allowable" for shipping. Sometimes I tell them the boxes have jelly and jams in them and they are okay, others not, so now I just tell them they are "Christmas gifts". I know that's a little sneaky, but there's nothing more frustrating than to go to one UPS location to have them say "Yes" and another location say "No". Ain't nobody got time for that! 

How to Use a Pressure Cooker: Mashed Potatoes in 10 Minutes!

Whoa! How is it November already?? It seems like this fall has flown by like nobody’s business. Well, since we’re here and it’s only THREE WEEKS AWAY (!!!), let’s start talking turkey…specifically the holiest of all holy days for foodies: Thanksgiving.

And what is one of the number one side dishes for any Thanksgiving Day feast?

Mashed potatoes.

White potatoes, sweet potatoes, either way they have to be cooked first. This post really isn't about a recipe, per say, than it is procedure.  I love using my pressure cooker for making mashed potatoes, and I can have them ready from raw-to-gravied in 10 minutes flat! From scratch! Let’s face it, stove and oven real estate on Thanksgiving Day are very valuable, so anything that can help me free up time and stove top space is a win-win for me.

If you are not comfortable using a pressure cooker, mashed potatoes are probably one of the easiest things to practice on. Be sure to follow the cooking directions for your particular pressure cooker and you’ll be fine.  So, let’s get to mashin’!

First, start out with raw, peeled, and cut Russet potatoes. You can use other types of potatoes, but Russets (or Idaho) potatoes have a higher starch content and less moisture, which then give you a fluffier mashed potato. I cut mine up rather large, as smaller pieces absorb more water, plus it’s easier.  I do not fill up my pressure cooker more than ½ - ¾ full, as per my cooker’s instructions.

Next, I add about 1 cup of water to the pot. I don’t remember what my cooker’s instructions say for water amount, but 1 cup seems to ring a bell (check your cooker’s instructions). When you pressure cook, the little bit of water at the bottom of the pot turns to steam, which is really the cooking agent behind pressure cooking.  If you ‘d like more information regarding the physics and engineering behind pressure cooking, check out Miss Vickie’s site.

I then lock the lid on my pressure cooker, set the burner to med-high, and let the cooker come to pressure. Once the pressure indicator pops up on my pressure cooker (yellow button), I turn the burner heat down to med-low and start timing. After 10 minutes, I do what’s called a “quick release” to vent the steam.

The quick release method is great for dishes that don’t have to depressurize naturally, unlike my Lima Bean Soup. There are many dishes that call for the quick release method, which really makes using a pressure cooker a time-saver.

After the steam has vented and the pressure indicator drops down, I unlock and open the lid AWAY from me. I give the potatoes a poke or two with a fork to make sure they are done (if not, bring back up to pressure and cook a few more minutes). If they are done, I prop the lid back on the cooker allowing for a gap to drain the water and drain. After draining, the potatoes are ready for mashing in whatever way you are used to.

I’m old school and use a hand held masher, leaving a few lumps. Add some butter, cream/milk, salt and pepper, and I’m ready to eat in less than half the time it would have taken me to boil/steam the potatoes to old fashioned way.

Yummy!

The Great Pumpkin Beer Taste Off - 2013 (Round 2)

Okay, round two of the Pumpkin Beer Taste Off took place last weekend. This round was much more interesting than last time…

Smuttynose Pumpkin Ale – Smuttynose Brewing , Portsmith, NH

We were hopeful for this pumpkin beer, as the brewing company is in New Hampshire, which is a great state to be in for all things fall. This beer had a nice, gold pilsner color, but no spice aroma at all. It smelled and tasted very hoppy without any spice/pumpkin anywhere. As a general pilsner or pale ale, this was a good beer, but it didn’t do anything for us for our pumpkin beer quest.

Shock Top Pumpkin Wheat – Shock Top Brewing, St. Lois, MO

Of all the beers we lined up for this round, I expected this beer to be the least “pumpkiny,” but we were very pleasantly surprised. The color was a little darker than a pilsner and there was no spice/pumpkin in the nose, but the taste knocked our socks off! This beer was VERY smooth, with very little hops and had a very, very slight pumpkin spice profile. We found this beer to be a very good and easy to drink. I would serve this beer at a fall BBQ or backyard pumpkin carving picnic in a heartbeat.

Pumpkick, New Belgium – New Belgium Brewing, Fort Collins, CO

We took a little break between these last two beers and the first two, as we wanted our taste buds to have a little break. This beer made us suspicious, as it not only had specific instructions on how to pour the beer, it also stated that it was brewed with “pumpkin juice and cranberry juice”. Hmmmm…

The pouring “instructions” said to pour ¾ of the beer into a chilled, slanted beer glass, and then swirl the last 2 inches of the beer in the bottle to distribute the spices evenly before pouring the rest.  I have to admit I was curious how this would turn out.

The color was a gold pilsner and there was no spice nose to it, but the taste was WTH?? Imagine beer mixed with cranberries and lemongrass…ugh. This might be a good, summer beer, but definitely not a fall-themed pumpkin beer…there’s too much citrus going on and they totally missed the mark on this one.

Alewerks Pumpkin Ale – Alewerks Brewing Co., Williamsburg, VA

Back to our homies in Virginia, we had high hopes for this beer and we weren’t disappointed! This beer had a nice, amber lager color with a very slight hint of pumpkin/spice. The taste was a very nice honey and spice profile, although it tasted like it had a higher-than-average alcohol content (not always a bad thing!). It was a very rich beer and of all the pumpkin beers we’ve tried, this one came the closest to our beloved Shipyard. This one will be close for a final contender.

Okay, so that’s it for this round. Like I said earlier, this one was much more interesting than the last one; we found some good ones! Stay tuned till next time!

Whoa, Mama!

This Saturday, hubby and I went to a small, local farm to pick raspberries and left with over a bushel of tomatoes, peppers, garlic, lettuce, and even a few tiger melons!

The farmer had all this produce wasting away and he didn't want it to go bad so he gave it to us for FREE! He only wanted payment for the raspberries, but we paid him more of course!

The tomatoes alone weighed in at over 60 lbs. All of this loverliness was turned into 7 quarts of tomato juice, 9 pints of salsa, and 5 quarts of pickled hot peppers.

The tiger melons were the most interesting (they're in the bin on top of the tomatoes by the lettuce). I had entertained the thought of growing them this season, but after some research, I read that they didn't have much flavor. Even the farmer who gave us these said they didn't have much flavor. But after sitting on our kitchen counter ripening for 3 days, they were the perfect blend between cantalope and papaya/mango. Exotic and beautiful, just like me! :-)

Busy, busy, busy! Seems like all I am doing this summer is canning, and it feels like it. But whoa, mama!

Why Do I Can and Preserve?

Why do I can and preserve?

I often get asked if it’s really worth the time and money savings to can and preserve your own food. In fact, this discussion is often passionately discussed on my beloved Harvest Forum.

The answer is: It depends.

Initially, it’s expensive. You have to buy all the equipment and jars, and if you don’t grow your own food, you have to buy some, if not all of that as well. It takes a lot of time to pick, peel, pit, cut, cook, and eventually process home-canned food, so there’s that. Eventually, you build up a stash of jars and lids and all you really need to do is buy or grow the food, but even then it’s questionable if there truly is savings. Sure, there can be a small amount of savings if you regularly buy the high-quality, organic canned items in the store, but not much when you factor in the time and effort. Time = money and all that.

So, why do I do it?

In truth, there really isn’t that much savings in canning and preserving my own food on an average to small scale. I can and preserve for my husband and myself, plus a few family members and friends as gifts. We have a very small, soon to be prosperous garden, but definitely not enough to feed us completely. We both work full time 40-plus hours a week, so neither one of us have the time to devote to full-time, self-sufficient food preservation.

The answer is: Quality.

I can and preserve because I know EXACTLY what is going in my food and can truly guarantee its ingredients and preparation. I can and preserve because it’s healthy. I can and preserve because I know that what I make tastes a gazillion times better than what I can buy in the store. I can and preserve because I know that the food I’m using didn’t travel 1,200 miles to get to me. I can and preserve because nothing beats the feeling of satisfaction I get from looking at all those pretty jars of yumminess lined up on my shelf…yumminess that I made for my family and the people I love and care about.

That pretty much sums it up for me.

What about you?

Sour Cherry Picking

Last weekend, hubby and I went and did our annual sour cherry picking expedition and picnic. Sour cherries are only available for a very, very short time up here in Virginia (less than 2 weeks), so we make sure to make time to go picking. I’ve rarely seen sour cherries available at the farmer’s markets and if they are there, they cost a fortune, so it’s worth going out of our way. They are also a very delicate fruit, so you will never see them in the grocery store outside a can or freezer case. The orchard we go to charges a dollar a pound, which is a total bargain as far as I’m concerned.

Before last year, I had never even SEEN a cherry tree, much less pick cherries. I was again amazed at picking such wonderful and exotic fruit (to me) that wasn’t citrus. I get the same feeling about apples, pears, and peaches, as I didn’t grew up around these kinds of fruit trees in Florida. Sour cherries are THE ultimate pie and canning cherry to use, as the sour flavor is tamed by all the sugar used in both recipes. To me, the epitome of cherry flavor comes from sour cherries and it’s one of my most favorite fruits.

The orchard was packed and it was a perfect day for cherry picking. Hubby and I initially staked out a tree, and then moved around the orchard to find the “perfect” tree. Some trees had smaller cherries and some bigger, some riper, some greener. We made our way around, occasionally popping one of the darker, riper, less sour cherries in our mouths. In the quieter part of the orchard, we’d pick in silence while eavesdropping in other people’s conversations. I loved hearing what people were going to do with the cherries when they got home. Were they going to make a pie, ice cream, jam? Surprisingly to me, there was an unusually large amount of Middle Easterners in the orchard; I remembered that from last year too. My guess is that sour cherries are very prized in their culture for desserts. My favorite part was watching new comers taste the cherries for the first time then scrunch up their faces and spit them out. I guess they didn’t know they weren’t sweet! We’ve had so much rain this spring that sweet cherries weren’t even available, but that’s perfectly fine by me.

After picking just shy of 30 lbs, we put up a small picnic spot in the shade of one of the trees and enjoyed a bottle of wine while watching young and old sour cherry enthusiasts busy themselves in the orchard. Later, when we got home, we pitted our entire haul and divided it into quart-sized freezer bags for the freezer. This will last us all year for pies, jams, sauces, and whatnot. Raspberries are next!

How to Gift Home Canned Foods

Years ago when I first started canning, not very many people were doing it and it hadn’t received the “in thing to do” popularity that home canning has today. So, I have learned some things along the way about giving my precious home canned food as gifts to friends and family. The purpose of this post is to ensure that your canned goods are going to be well received and eaten, which makes everyone happy!

If you would like some tips on how to pack and ship home canned goods for the holidays, check out my other post here:

How to Pack Label and Pack Canned Food for Shipping

But if you're wondering WHO and WHAT you should give, here’s a few of my suggestions:

Are They Worthy?

When I first started out, I was SO proud to share what I had made with everyone I knew. I remember one year I gave every single person in my office a jar of homemade jam for Christmas. Later, I found out that most of what I gave away was tossed in the garbage because my jars didn’t have a familiar food label on them. When I would share a jar of jam, salsa, pickles, whatever, many people would look at me like I just picked a booger and offered it to them on the end of a stick.

Again, this was BEFORE the recent “Canvolution” took off and many people viewed home canning as something that hillbillies or hippies did. They had no idea that what I was offering was by far better quality, better tasting, and healthier than anything they could purchase in a store. So, much of what I had worked so hard on was tossed away and not appreciated.

Today, more people are receptive to receiving home canned goods, as the craft has received a lot of attention lately; however, I have learned to regularly give my precious and delicious canned goods to people who I think are worthy to receive them. You’ll know who these people are, as they will tell you how much they loved what you gave them last. If you’re lucky, you’ll even get the empty jar back too, which is canning lingo for “Thank you; please refill!” I still share canned goods with people I don’t know that well, usually as “thank you” gifts, but I have learned to be picky about whom I give my canned goods.

Please don’t interpret this as sharing with people who only give me positive feedback. I know the act of sharing is to give without any expectation, and I often do. It’s just that when you spend so much time, money and effort to pick, skin, pit, chop, cook, and can what your making, not to mention if you went further back and grew or raised that food, you learn to be more discriminating and choose to regularly give to people who appreciate what went into what your giving. Now that I live in Virginia, I have found more “jar worthy” people up here as home canning is pretty common, which is wonderful!

Selection and Size

Now, I know you feel that your home-fermented Wild Juniper Sauerkraut is the BEST thing since sliced bread, but your “jar worthy” friends might not feel the same. When giving home canned goods to people you don’t know that well, it’s best to stick to common foods that are less exotic. Usually, this is limited to jams, jellies, and pickles. Relishes are good too, but not too exotic. Once you learn what your friends and family like and they are more open to trying new things, feel free to share that quart of Wild Juniper Sauerkraut! Also, think about presentation. That jar of beef stew may be the bomb, but I bet it looks like a scary science project to someone who is not familiar with how food “really” looks outside of a tin can.

Which brings me to size…

Start with giving pints or half pints as gifts. A big quart of sauerkraut or pie filling can be intimidating to the uninitiated, which may lead to your food not being eaten. Start them slow and small.

Labeling

Another thing I’ve learned about giving canned food as gifts is that people want to know what they’re eating. Not only does this help people identify ingredients they may not like or have allergies to, but in general, people will be more receptive to eating home canned food if they know what’s in it. When making canning labels, be sure to list the name of the item and the ingredients (if they will fit on the label). If an ingredient’s list won’t fit on the label, make a tag and tie it to the jar.

And speaking of labels, for the love of baby Jesus please don’t use the adhesive labels that are meant to be stuck to the sides of the jar! If you have any hope in getting your jars back or don’t want to spend hours scrubbing off adhesive glue, use round labels that are stuck to the lid (which are disposed after the jar is empty). I’ll even admit that I would rather throw an empty jar away (recycle) than spend the time it takes to soak and scrub the label and glue off.

Avery makes round labels that are easy to design and print. If you can swing it, use a laser printer to print your labels so the ink won’t run from condensation in the refrigerator. Labels made with ink jet printers will run.

Quantity and Variety

I’ve been guilty of giving people 7 types of jam all at one time. Unless they have a horrible sugar addiction, a very large family, or a bed and breakfast, most people will take a long time to finish a single jar of jam or jelly. Over the years, I’ve learned to give my regular “jar worthy” friends and family a variety of canned food and not bombard them with 6 quarts of pickles at one time. I’ve also learned to make in quantity of what people like. My salsa, apple butter, B&B pickles and pepper jellies will disappear before the jars are barely cool enough to handle; however, my pickled asparagus, fig preserves, and sauerkraut won’t get second requests (no matter how much I love them, so I make them for me!).

So, there you have it. These are some of my suggestions for successfully gifting home canned goods. With luck, your friends and family will rave and beg for more, but if not, that’s okay too.

Do you have any suggestions for gifting home canned foods?

Don't Make Fun of My Rice Cooker

I have this commercial sized rice cooket that I use for parties and social events. It can make like 60 cups of rice....hey when you need it, you need it! When I bring this into work for pot lucks, I always get teased.

Hmmphf!

Pantry Spring Clean

I need to clean out my larder.

That sounds a little gross doesn’t it? Maybe it’s because the word “lard” is in larder and images of globs-o-grease come to mind. A larder is any storage space used to keep food for a long time, usually a cool space in the basement or cellar. These were big before the days of electric refrigeration, but not so much today. Most people go to the grocery store and keep fresh food week-to-week in the refrigerator or in their kitchen pantry. There weren’t any “leftovers” in the old days either.

For those who home preserve, a larder is a place where you keep your canned goods, which just so happens to be that most people do this in the basement. Not too many people have room for 80 quarts of tomato sauce in their kitchen or pantry, so down to the basement they go. It’s also best to keep home-canned goods in a cool space because the rubber seals could weaken in a hot environment.

For me, I turned a small storage closed in my kitchen into a canning pantry. I guess you’d call it my larder since I don’t have any other place I keep my canned goods for now, plus I find that I’m more apt to use what I have when I can see it every day. I’m on the low side of canned goods, as last year’s canning season was a bust due to us buying a house and moving. But this year….THIS year I have big plans. I plan to make additional shelving in the basement for the overflow that will inevitably happen.

In the meantime, I need to cull out the items I’ve canned a year or so ago that we haven’t liked. I’m also doing this to make space for the following goodies I have my eye on for this year:

Salted Cranberry Grapefruit Jam – Doesn’t this just sound amazing!

Fire Roasted Tomatoes – Every year I can tons of sauce and plain pureed tomatoes, so this would be a perfect addition.

Strawberry Oatmeal Bars – Another great use for all those jars of jam!

Annie’s Salsa – A staple and we never seem to have enough. Last year I only made ONE batch.

Beekman 1802 Blaak Onion Jam – Onion jams are so versatile and this just sounds so complex and delicious.

Pickle Quest 2013 – A never-ending story…last year’s batch of fermented pickles went bad before I could put them up (due to the move). We still have jars from 2011 and they weren’t crisp. FOILED AGAIN!

Roasted Red Pepper Spread – AMAZING with goat cheese, some crackers, and a bottle of wine. Sigh.

Pickled Pepperoncinis – My husband loves these, but for some reason I’ve never made them. That will change…oh, yes.

Quick Pickled Fennel with Orange – In the past two years, I’ve decided that I LOVE fennel. I think this recipe would be fantastic if you mixed it with some shredded cabbage for coleslaw.

Habanero Gold Jelly – Another favorite I haven’t made in eons.

Ugly Couch: Before and After

I have a confession to make, I love ugly furniture. Not just ANY kind of ugly furniture...it has to be furniture with potential to be beautiful. Lately, I've been following Emliy Henderson A LOT and she has inspired me to buy this ugly, neglected, chintz Duncan Phyfe nightmare:

I found it on Craigslist for $150. It weighed a ton (mahogany), it smelled, it was torn up in the back corners from someone's cat using it as a scratching post, and the frame was wobbly. I had a vision. I knew it had the potential to be something exceedingly wonderful.

After 5 weeks and $2K, we picked it up from the upholsterers last Friday. It is now drop-dead GORGEOUS! The material I selected is a light camel colored linen that really shows off all of her sexy curves. I know $2K is a lot of money, but it was worth every red cent. They basically had to redesign the sofa into a new style, and I dropped off little more than a pile of wood for them to work with.

I probably would have spent $2K for a nice, brand new sofa from a furniture store, but instead, I spent $2K on a sofa that would now sell for twice as much as that in an antique store and will outlast ANY brand new sofa that I could buy. Not to mention, I have something that is totally original from anything else I would have ever found in a store. Go me!

Give Me A Hand

So, what’s the difference between a bunch and a hand of bananas?

See, this is why I’ve (mostly) stopped drinking coffee. I end up Googling obscure, useless information that will be permanently burned into my brain forever. But on the brighter side, this gives me awesome mingling skills at parties!

But mostly people think I’m some kind of nerd. Anyway…


My next door neighbor brought me this GORGEOUS piece of edible art yesterday and I almost don’t want to touch it. Almost. I had two of the ripened ones yesterday for a snack as I was doing yard work and I was surprised to find that they didn’t really taste like bananas at all. They had more of a neutral, fruity flavor, with maybe just a hint of “banana-ness” and their texture was meatier than the marshmallowy bananas you find at the store. In my opinion, they were exactly what a banana should be.

I don’t know what kind they are, but I know my husband and I will eat every single one!

Hot Turtle Love

Last year, I suspected that Barry the Boxturtle might be a Barbara when I spotted him laying eggs. Yah think???

But there was a part of me that said, "Wait a minute, could it be that we have TWO resident turtles?" And this past weekend pretty much confirmed there is indeed a Barry and a Barbara.

Get a room you two!

The Good and The Bad - Part II

I’m not sure you can tell in the picture, but that is a bathtub FULL OF CUCUMBERS.

A couple of years ago, I learned the hard way that pickling season in Florida does not equal the same pickling season for the rest of the country. At the time, I experimented with a fermented pickle recipe, which required several days of open air fermenting, adding new brine, and skimming scum.

All my pickle peeps were claiming these pickles were the bee’s knees, so I promptly went out and picked up 3 bushels of fresh cukes. I was anxious to have quarts and quarts of delicious, home-fermented dill pickles, so I gave it a shot.

Now, by the time early-season cukes are ready in Florida (May), the weather is already on the verge of hot-as-balls. As of this past weekend, the temps were already in the mid-to-upper 90’s, so you can imagine what temperatures like this can do to fermenting cucumbers. After the third day of my “pickle experiment,” my husband and I walked into the house to a smell that resembled fresh road kill and rotting vegetables. The fruit flies were having a party, and we weren’t invited.

It took many trips to the compost pile and many hours of cleaning, scrubbing, and disinfecting to clean up the mess. Now, several years later, I know that fermenting vegetables require very COOL temps, and we have a very short, if any, window of opportunity in the Sunshine State. I did; however, successfully make some awesome sauerkraut this past winter!

Pickle season is upon us again, and I am looking forward to another stab at making the perfect pickle. I’m almost there!

Beware of Strange Bags of Leaves

So, on the way to Leu Gardens to get our membership the other day, I take one of the back roads through one of the urban neighborhoods. Along the way, I spot the BIGGEST bag of oak leaves at the end of someone's driveway, waiting for trash pick-up. I think to myself, "Hmmmm...if that is still there when I come back, I'm going to totally grab it!"

Once I am all set up at Leu, I take the same route home. Sure enough, the huge-ass bag of leaves is still there. So, I pull into the driveway, pop the hatch on my PT Cruiser, put the seats down, and heave this 55 gal bag of the most beautiful, mulched leaves into the back of the car. It barely fit! And to make it more interesting, the people who bagged it used the most flimsiest bag material ever created. Grocery store bags are tougher than this bag was. Wet wonton noodles are tougher than this bag was! So, it tore a little, but AHA! I put a blanket down before lugging this thing in there....GO ME!

So, I'm just proud as a peach at this point. I hop back in the car and cruised on down to 17-92 to go home. It's traffic light after traffic light, and I knew I had a good 30-45 min to get home. At about the 3rd light, my throat starts feeling gritty, and my sinuses start turning on the water-works, I cough a few times and it hits me....WAIT A MINUTE, AREN'T I ALLERGIC TO OAK????!!!!

I panic like a caged animal. What do I do? Do I pull over and redump? How am I gonna drive 45 minutes with the equivalent of a biological bomb in my backseat??!! My frugal mind says, "Tough it out. Roll the windows down. Take the expressway." So, I do, knowing I'd probably be home in half the time.

So, maybe in my urgency to avoid drowning in my own snot, I might have been going a little fast. Maybe the blasting sound of going down the expressway with all four windows open distracted me. I don't know. But, somewhere between 65-75 mph, a tornado of leaves and dirt erupts from the back of my car. LEAVES EVERYWHERE!

Leaves in the console,
Leaves in the dashboard,
Leaves at supper time!

AND DIRT! Holy shitmotherfuckersonofabitch!!!! I pull over, but the damage is done. The inside of my car looks like a compost pile and I curse a blue streak any sailor would be proud of. Thank GOD I didn't get pulled over by the cops!

So, I get back in the car, roll the windows up to a manageable choking level and s-l-o-w-l-y drive home. It took me over 2 hours to clean out all those fucking leaves with our shop vac and the car will still need serious detailing.

Did I mention my husband gets home tonight from a business trip??? I've got some 'splaining to do!

Oh well, at least this wasn't as bad as the time a package of cheese rolled out from a grocery bag and got stuck under the driver's seat....for a WEEK!

Sigh.

Wafflely

A good friend of mine is getting married next month and I am going to make her wedding cake! I'm nervous because I've never made a cake for someone that really had to count. It's a pretty simple cake, but still....ACK!

I love weddings!