Already December

I wish I had far more interesting things to write about but I simply don't. My two oldest girls are spending Christmas with their father and that has left me pretty emotional this holiday season. My youngest child, my son, is 2 and has graduated from nice boy to tornado on feet. I feel like I spend a large portion of my day running after him and so find my computer time even more limited. While I personally enjoy winter I can tell he does not and we hope spring comes early, if only for his sake.

This year for our Canned Family I feel a little short. I managed to make the Cherry Amaretto, Blueberry Butter, Blueberry Grand Marnier, Plum Chutney and White Peach Sauce but that was about it.

I'm already plotting for next year though and have had 3 co-workers beg for a class on canning so hopefully I'll be able to get that going next year. I find canning to be so worthwhile I hope I can pass on that excitement to others. I know they see it differently than I do. I see it as something that may have to feed my family because there are no other options while they can not fathom a world where there may not be jam on the grocery store shelves someday.

Aside from that I spend most of my time paging through seed catalogs these days. I make a plan for the raised beds and then find myself changing it within a week. But all the planning and plotting is in good fun and I haven't even spent a dime yet!

I've been stocking up on the freeze dried and dehydrated food but still feel like it's not enough, mainly because I know that should things go downhill rapidly our family will need assistance and we have already agreed we wont be able to turn them away. Although I know I don't even have 3 months for our own 5 person family when I take into account the rest of the people who may need assistance I worry that we don't even have two weeks of food. It's something we keep working towards though, just keep plugging along, otherwise I begin to feel incredibly anxious.

So that's my update, not much and yet lots of anxiety going around. Hope about you?

Clean up

This weekend we cleaned up the garden and the backyard in general. I was a little sad that I never got my tree but I'll just have that much more to look forward to next year.

Overall my little garden did okay. My tomatoes didn't get nearly as prolific as I had hoped until of course this last couple of weeks. My peas, which I had thought were pretty much dead still gave me a large handful of peas for snack and my carrots ruled the middle square.

I have gotten so many compliments on the taste of my carrots I'm pretty proud. They were Chatenay Red Core and certainly aren't your grocery store carrots. They are short, fat and sweet. In a word they are amazing. I've shared them with friends and family alike and am bringing in this last little bit to work tomorrow to share. I will be getting those again next year for sure.

This year was a good test of what I have patience for and what is just a waste. It also helped me figure out spaced and location for items which is helpful.

Lesson I am most taking with me? While lettuce is incredibly easy to grow we just don't eat it, no matter how healthy I wish we were. With that in mind I don't think we'll be planting that again.

Spinach on the other hand.....I may give that go.

We are due for snow this week but the weather report says it should melt by the weekend. I'm debating if it's too late for fall garlic. What say you my readers?

Holy Cow

Oh my. Apparently my last post was in AUGUST! How the time slips away....

It's rainy and wet here today, our first real indication that fall is upon us. I need to harvest my remaining items tomorrow and I think just clean out the garden and ready it for my garlic planting.

Lessons from this year ....

Tomatoes-

I need a lot more plants. I grew about 6 different plants, 1 beefsteak type, 1 cherry tomato type and 4 roma's. The space they occupied needed to larger, or they needed to be farther away from each other and I should have secured them in cages MUCH earlier. Overall I didn't get nearly as many cherry tomatoes as last year and while I got a decent amount of romas they tended to come in 2's and 3's and I never had the patience to freeze them and save them up to make sauce.

Carrots -

Did awesome. I planted two rows and have eaten several lovely orange babies already and need to harvest probably 10 more tomorrow. Overall I was pleased with the type and will buy those again next year.

Peas -

These were my struggle. Initially they experienced some pea wilt and I thought they were a goner for the year. They managed to come back and did pretty well in production, both the Sugar Snap and the Alaska Pea but overall just not in a quanity that would feed my family for even a meal. Next year I'll raise the height of the fence they grow on.

Cucumbers -

I got a few pickling cucumbers but overall just didn't pay as much attention to them as I should have. I already have a space for them picked out for next year.

Lettuce -

We don't eat lettuce. It grew but I never picked it so it was a waste. Lesson learned.

Pumpkins -

The vine has done well but while I had plenty of blossoms I still have no pumpkins. Not sure where I went wrong on that one but I think I'll attempt this again.

Zucchini -

I didn't even GROW these and I have two huge ones in my kitchen. I have no idea how to even shred the darn things nor do I have equipment to do so. Any ideas? I'd like to do something like a zucchini banana bread but the frankly pornographic size of these things is throwing me off my game.

Blueberries -

One plant died, the other has grown but produced no berries. No surprise there though as this was only it's second year.

I STILL have no gotten my cherry tree (I've decided to plant cherry instead of apple for now). My mother in law is coming to our house tomorrow I think I may try and convince her to go with me and get it. It's October for crying out loud, it's TIME.

Aside from that I'm trying to think of things to do with apples. Any ideas for canning aside from applesauce or applebutter that will expand my food know prep knowledge?

I hate people

Recently I've mention that I work in HR. Which is short for Human Resources. Which, in my case, means I deal with people. All.Day.Long.

I used to really, really like people.

Now I generally hate them.

This has spilled into my private life in a way I was surprised about.

I've been slowly coming to the realization that I hate my neighbors. I hate my suburban life. My neighbor on my left mows AND weed wacks his lawn BOTH days of the weekend. At 7am.

Then neighbors to the right of me feel as if their lives are not complete unless they have a party and invite the entire state of Rhode Island (who feel obliged to show up. EVERY WEEKEND.) and leave their dogs penned up in a crappy homemade 6 x 6 pen attached to my fence. Which means the dogs bark everytime I go outside.

The neighbors across the street hate each other. I know this because I hear them screaming at each other every 2 days or so from the happy spot in my living room. They are both screaming "I hate you." Good times.

The neighbors directly behind me are a blended family who are having trouble blending. I hear them fight with their kids, each other and at nothing. Plus their teenagers like to light fireworks when their parents aren't home.

I can not enjoy my back yard. I can not enjoy my front yard. I can not enjoy the sanctuary of my own home.

So I am done.

I've informed my husband we need to pay off all remaining debt in order to save money/afford a larger mortgage payment and get the flock out of here.

I don't think he minds the idea. He's been looking forward to getting away from barking dogs, angry people and stupid teenagers since he moved in here 3 years ago.

Wish me luck!

Canning Lessons

I may have mentioned this before but in the outside world I work in Human Resources. I solve problems for employees of my company. I'm good at what I do.

I also teach my co-workers proper procedures and practices. Every job I've ever had that was a team environment I have always ended up teaching and training. Which is interesting since I don't ever see myself going into training (an aspect of HR) and the thought of formal teaching makes me roll my eyes.

Recently my teaching and HR world collided with my prepping world in an interesting and mild way.

I was mentioning that I had canned the Cherry Amaretto Jam a few weeks ago and a co-worker said that sounded incredibly interesting. We talked about the process (easy) and I guess I began to get a little passionate about it because the next thing I know she's telling me she'd love to learn how to make it and I'm telling her I'd love to teach her.

Within a few days she was at my house learning to make Blueberry Jam. Well, Blueberry Grand Marnier Jam.

I find making and canning jam to be incredibly easy and so it was that Sunday. It took about 3 hours and she left with 10 half pints of blueberry deliciousness. I traded her one of her pints for one of my pints of Cherry Amaretto.

Monday we brought in bread and the new Blueberry Grand Marnier plus last years Strawberry Vanilla and Carmel Apple Butter.

Which lead to lots of oohhhs and ahhhhhs and "Ohmygoshthisissogood" mumbled around bread stuffed mouths. My ego was thoroughly stoked.

But it also led to more "I can't believe you made that" discussions in which both I and my new canning friend assured everyone that it's not as hard as it looks.

Which led to me offering to do another "Jam session". Probably later this month I'll gather strawberries from the strawberry farm and at least another 3 co-workers and we will make strawberry jam.

Well, they will. I'm considering Strawberry Margarita jam. I'm going for a boozy kind of year.

Who would have thought that last year when I make my first batch of Strawberry Vanilla Jam that a year later I'd be teaching corporate women how to make their own?

Prepping sometimes can be funny that way I guess.

White Peach Sauce & Cherry Amartetto recipes

True Texan asked for my receipe for the White Peach Sauce and the Cherry Amaretto Jam and I've been lazy to post them.


Let me first say I don't know that I personally would do the white peach sauce again. It might have just been the peaches but they were such a pain in the BUTT to peal I would be hard pressed to want to go through that again.

10 pounds of peaches, halved, peeled and chopped
3 cups sugar
1 vanilla bean, split and scraped
1 tsp vanilla extract 1/2 cup lemon juice

Cook the peaches down in a large pot. I used my immersion blender to blend the peaches but you could use a potato masher to help them break down and release their juice. I just like smoothness of the blended peaches. Add the vanilla extract and the vanilla bean seeds and the pod so that the vanilla flavor will infuse all the peaches. Stir occasionally.

After approximately 20 minutes over medium heat, the peaches should be fairly well cooked down. Remove the vanilla bean from the pot (making sure to squeeze all the goodness from it).

Taste and add sugar to achieve your desired sweetness. I found a happy, flavorful place at 3 cups, but depending on the innate sweetness in the peaches, you might be able to stop at 2 cups. You could also add peach juice or apple juice to cut the sugar but I'm lazy and tend to just use the white sugar.

Pour peach sauce into pint jars, leaving a bit more than an inch of headspace. Add 1 tablespoon of lemon juice to each jar and stir in with a chopstick or plastic spoon. Wipe rims, apply lids and process for 15 minutes in a boiling water canner.

If you want to make butter from some of the sauce, reserve 6-8 cups of sauce and cook down in a slow cooker (making sure to add 1 tablespoon of lemon juice for every two cups of sauce at the beginning of cooking).

Cherry Amaretto Jam

· 8 cups cherries - pitted and stemmed (about 3 lbs - ish) Ask a question about this ingredient.

· 1/2 cup amaretto Ask a question about this ingredient.

· 1/2 cup water Ask a question about this ingredient.

· 1 1.75 oz package NO SUGAR NEEDED pectin Ask a question about this ingredient.

· 2 tablespoon lemon juice Ask a question about this ingredient.

· 1 tablespoon vanilla Ask a question about this ingredient.

· 1 teaspoon almond extract

Basically I pitted and chopped the cherries and threw them in a pot with the everything but the pectin. Cooked that a bit, hit it with my immersion blender (what can I say, I like my jam smooth), added the pectin and then put it in jars and processed them for 20 minutes since I live above sea level over 1000 feet.

So far, DELICIOUS.

This weekend I will be making blueberry almond butter and teaching a co-worker how to make blueberry grand marnier jam. It's beginning to feel like a lot of the stuff I can this year may include alcohol.

What does that say about my year?

Bite

Earlier this summer I thought my peas were done for. They had this weird yellow wilt going on and my research indicated that they were doomed. That was pretty depressing since the old remedy seemed to double dig and hope for the best next year.

As the summer as continued my peas have rallied and I have been able to pick a handful of pods every couple of days. Normally I stand outside and munch on either the pods whole (I have sugar snap peas in one area), or open the peas and eat them raw (and Alaskan Peas in another part of the garden).

Tuesday though my not quite 2 year old saw me open a pod and raising his hand up to me said "bite?"

So I crouched down and let him pick the small green pea out of my hand. He popped it in his mouth, looked at me and said "MMMMMM".

That right there made the entire raised bed building, filling, planting and water system insanity worth it.

Because you see, he won't eat canned peas from the tin cans found at the grocery store and who can blame him. If you ate one of those and then a fresh pea from the garden and didn't know they were related....well..you would doubt they were related frankly.

Admittedly, my garden isn't producing a majority of our food right now. It might not ever.

But my son ate 20 fresh peas from that garden and loved them.

And that was worth it to me.