Linda Hoye's Blog, page 175

Canning Zesty Salsa

I decided to try something different with some of the garden produce this year since my pantry shelves have been filling up nicely with things I consider to be staples. We don’t eat a lot of salsa so I debated about making any but, as Gerry said, if we have some homemade we’re likely to eat more of it. Makes sense to me!

I love the fact that the tomatoes, green peppers, and onions all came from my garden and I’m thinking I might have to add a jalapeno plant to next year’s garden too.

Yield: I got 6 pints from this recipe which was derived from the one in the Ball Blue Book.

Ingredients

10 cups chopped, seeded, peeled, cored tomatoes. (I used about 14 cups because that’s what I had available)
5 cups chopped and seeded green peppers (I used about 4 cups because, again, that’s what I had available)
5 cups chopped onions
2 1/2 cups chopped and seeded hot peppers (I used 500 grams of jalapeno that I purchased)
3 cloves of minced garlic
3 tsp. salt (I used Kosher salt)
1 1/4 cup cider vinegar
The recipe in the Ball Blue book included 2 Tbsp. minced cilantro which I omitted because we don’t care for it.

Instructions

Blanche and peel tomatoes.

Chop green peppers, onions, garlic, and hot peppers in food processor and combine with tomatoes in large pot.

Bring mixture to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer until desired consistency is reached. The original recipe said to simmer it for 10 minutes. This is subjective based on the water content of the tomatoes and how thick you want your salsa. I simmered mine for about an hour and a half.

Ladle hot salsa into hot jars leaving 1/2 inch headspace.

Wipe rims to ensure they are clean and apply lids and rings. Process in water bath canner for 20 minutes

For my altitude here in Kamloops I need to increase the processing time by 5 minutes. You need to check the altitude for your location and adjust accordingly.

Canning Sweet Garlic Dill Pickles

When I was canning dill pickles last year I got to the point where I had more than enough jars of dills and I needed to do something different. I used this recipe from Saving the Seasons to make some sweet dills. We really enjoyed these over the winter–they pair nicely with cheese and make a nice addition to the table.

Yield: I used this much syrup for 5 quarts.

Ingredients

5-6 pounds medium-sized cucumbers (This year I used a combination of pickling cukes and some of the cucumbers from my garden) sliced 1/4 inch thick
Garlic cloves – 1 clove per jar
Fresh dill – enough to provide 1 head per jar
7 1/2 cups sugar
2 1/2 cups vinegar
7 1/2 cups water
5 Tbsp pickling salt (I used Kosher salt)

Instructions

Add 1 clove of garlic and a sprig of dill to each jar. Pack sliced cucumbers into jars.

Combine sugar, vinegar, water, and salt in saucepan and heat to boiling.

Pour syrup over cucumbers in jars leaving 1 inch headspace.

Process in a boiling water bath for 15 minutes.

For my altitude here in Kamloops I need to increase the processing time by 5 minutes. You need to check the altitude for your location and adjust accordingly.

 

Canning Cucumber Relish

I grew cucumbers for the first time this year and what a treat they’ve been. We’ve enjoyed them in salads, by themselves, and I added them to the smaller pickling cukes I bought when I made sweet dill pickles. Finding myself with an over-abundance I was delighted to come across a recipe for cucumber relish and I modified it slightly to fit what I had on hand. The cucumbers just keep producing so I expect I’ll be making another batch of this soon.

The original recipe came from Food.com.

Yield: I got four pints from this recipe.

Ingredients

4 cups ground unpeeled cucumbers (about 4)
1 cup ground green pepper (about 2)
1/2 cup ground red pepper (about 1)
1 Tbsp. celery salt
3 cups ground onions
1 1/2 cup. finely diced celery
1/4 cup salt
3 1/2 cups sugar
2 cups white vinegar
1 Tbsp. mustard seeds

Instructions

Chop vegetables using food processer and combine in a large bowl.

Sprinkle with salt, cover with cold water (I added a couple of glasses full of ice as well), and let stand for 4 hours.

Drain thoroughly, pressing out as much excess liquid as you can.

Combine sugar, vinegar, celery seed and mustard seed in pot. Bring to boil and stir until sugar is dissolved.

Add drained vegetables and simmer for 10 minutes.

Pack into jars leaving 1/2 inch headspace.

Process in water bath canner for 10 minutes.

For my altitude here in Kamloops I need to increase the processing time by 5 minutes. You need to check the altitude for your location and adjust accordingly.

She Puts Four Tomatoes In A Glass Jar And This Is What Happens

One of the many things that I find annoying as I scroll through my Facebook feed or browse my Flipboard articles are headlines such as the one above. Have you seen them? Do they intrigue you and entice you to click on the link to find out what happens? They have the opposite effect on me most of the time. Occasionally I’ll give in to curiosity and click the link and, more often than not, find myself disappointed and irritated that I took the bait.  (Oh, it just occurred to me that some of you might have that same reaction to this post. I hope not, but that’s a risk I’m taking today.) Most of the time, though, my stubborn streak kicks in and I scroll on refusing to be taken in by a sensational headline.

As I was thinking about today’s post, for some odd reason this title came to mind. Will it entice more readers than something like An August 21 Canning Update or What I Did On My Summer Vacation? Who knows. For that matter, I have no idea what happens if you put four tomatoes in a glass jar despite the fact that I’ve canned my fair share of tomatoes in recent weeks. There’s so much more to it than just putting things in jars . . . perhaps that’s a story for another day.

Anyway, to the point, I decided to post a quick inventory of what I’ve been spending a good part of my time on recently as I work on restocking our pantry. If you follow me on Facebook you’ve seen my–almost daily–updates showing what’s been happening in the Hoye canning kitchen. I wanted to do something here as it serves as a record of sorts for me. I hope you’ll find it interesting as well. (Maybe you’ll poke around in the recipes I’ve linked to and find some new favourites for your kitchen too!)

A section of one of my canning shelves

I decided to be a bit more organized this year so I took inventory of what I had left on my canning shelf in June; some of which has been used since then. I’ve added links to the recipes for most of the items as a reminder to myself which ones I still need to document here.

Potatoes – 1 quart
Coleslaw – 8 quarts; 1 pint
Green Beans – 8 pints
Strawberry Jam – 2 pints
Cranberry Jelly – 2 pints
Honeyed Onions – 4 pints
Pickled Red Onion – 4 pints
BBQ Beans (Bush’s clone) – 10 pints
BBQ Beans (For cabbage soup) – 8 pints
Quebec Pork Meatballs – 5 pints
Beet Pickles – 4 quarts
Sweet Dill Pickles – 1 quart
Dill Pickles – 4 quarts
Spaghetti Sauce – 1 pint
Peaches – 2 quarts
Vegetable Broth – 7 quarts; 1 pint
Black Pepper Rosemary Apples – 3 pints
Cranberry Mustard – 2 pints
Cherry Pie Filling – 4 quarts
Kidney Beans – 4 quarts; 1 pints
Apple Butter – 1 pint
Watermelon Rind Pickles – 1 pint
Applesauce – 4 pints
Mushrooms – 4 pints

Now, on to the point of this post–a listing of what’s been put up so far this year. My kitchen is a mess but I love waking up to a counter filled with jars of the previous day’s canning effort.

Dilly Beans – 12 pints
Beet Pickles – 17 quarts
Sweet Dill Pickles – 4 quarts
Dill Pickles – 16 quarts
Peaches – 16 quarts; 1 pint
Sungold Tomato Jam – 2 pints; 1- 1/2 pint
Split Pea Soup – 13 pints
Stewed Tomatoes – 4 quarts
Tomato Soup – 18 quarts; 13 pints
Vegetable Soup – 27 pints
Bread & Butter Pickles – 5 pints; 1-1/2 pint
Salmon – 5 pints
Cucumber Relish – 4 pints
Roasted Garlic Spaghetti Sauce – 10 pints
Tomatoes – 3 quarts; 1 pint

The garden is still producing so there will be more vegetable soup, stewed tomatoes, canned tomatoes, and perhaps cucumber relish added to the mix. My second crop of beans should begin bearing in a few weeks so I’ll do more Dilly Beans and will likely freeze more. We’ll purchase apples next month and I’ll do applesauce, apple butter, and maybe some apple pie filling.

This, along with the freezer we have filled with crab, halibut, and salmon from Gerry’s fishing trip; a good supply of summer produce I chose to freeze rather than can; and the 60+ bottles of apricot wine Gerry corked yesterday, is a good start to keeping us well-stocked for the winter. Some time ago I considered setting a personal goal of not going to the grocery store for one month and feeding ourselves exclusively from our pantry–with the exception of milk which I need to make yogurt and soy milk which we use in our coffee. I may still do that. November seems like a good time to give it a go. Stay tuned.

The August 19 Garden

I’ve run into one too many cobwebs recently to deny that the seasons are on the cusp of changing. This morning I even sent Gerry into the garden ahead of me to identify, and annihilate, any rogue cobwebs hanging around.

Change is happening in the garden as well, as we ripped out the two big delicata squash plants that were prolific in flowers none of which turned into a squash. I don’t know what the issue was but will need to do some research before next year. I’m really disappointed that I won’t have a pile of delicatas to put away for the winter months.

The tomato plants are massive again this year as you can see by this photograph. Those are all tomato plants around the perimeter and you can see how big they are next to my 6′ tall husband. The Sungolds likely top out at over eight feet! They’re bearing much fruit and, in addition to enjoying them au natural, I’ve made a first batch of Sungold tomato jam and many more tomatoes have found their way into jars in the form of canned tomatoes, stewed tomatoes, and vegetable soup. They continue to keep me busy in the kitchen.

The cucumbers keep coming as do the peppers. We put a batch of the Jimmy Nardello peppers in the dehydrator this morning. I’ll use these in the winter in sauces.

The kale. Oh my, the kale. It’s so tall and, even though we’ve been harvesting and enjoying it almost daily, it continues to grow and produce so I’m going to start freezing some soon along with the rainbow Swiss chard. I planted even more kale and Swiss chard in July so I expect I’ll have plenty to put in the freezer.

In other garden news, the second crop of green beans is doing well and I expect we’ll be harvesting beans in a few weeks. They’ll also end up in the freezer unless I decide to do more Dilly beans.

This hazy-looking photograph shows the area that kept us well-fed for a number of months with different varieties of lettuce, radishes, scallions, carrots, and beets (well, the beets that the voles left for us anyway). I replanted the area mid-July and we’ll be enjoying some more of that wonderful Drunken Woman lettuce in salads before too long, along with radishes, scallions, and carrots.

So, as I said, there is change happening. I’ve been very busy canning, freezing, and preserving my harvest and the harvest of other local farmers I support. There’s talk of back-to-school everywhere and the calendar tells us we’re closer to the end of summer than the beginning. I hate to admit it, but I’m kind of looking forward to a respite from all of the work.

From Seed to Seal

As I was driving home from my community garden plot earlier today, the car filled with today’s harvest, I thought about what I was going to do with the bounty. Big Brandywine and dark Black Krim tomatoes, Rainbow Blend carrots, and Blue Lake green beans, along with Walla Walla sweet onions from the deer proof garden in our back yard would become soup that I can so we can enjoy it in the months to come.

I grow heirloom plants from seed in my organic garden—some of the seed I save from year to year, others I purchase from a reputable supplier. I know where the seed comes from, I know what fertilizer is used throughout the season on the plants (my own vermicompost), and I tend every plant myself. When the harvest begins we enjoy eating from the garden and I also can and freeze the garden’s bounty—often within hours of when the produce is picked. In the middle of winter when I open a jar of vegetable soup I know exactly what’s in it.

As I thought about this I couldn’t help but think about the essential oils I’ve been using, and Young Living’s Seed to Seal process. There are lots of brands of essential oils on the market but Young Living stands alone in this commitment. They own their own farms (you can even visit them if you choose to); they distill the oils that are then tested in their own labs and third-party facilities; and they bottle the essential oils. They’re in control of the quality from Seed to Seal.

One of my favourite oil blends, and one of Young Living’s most popular—Valor–is out of stock right now due to a poor growing season and subsequent shortage of a couple of oils it contains. Young Living could choose to purchase those oils from another supplier, have no confidence in the quality of the oil but still, conceivably, produce and continue to sell the popular oil blend. Instead, they choose to let it go out of stock until the next harvest produces enough oil to create the blend again.

I get that. I respect that.

I might choose to purchase some of the vegetables I use in my soup too—and, in fact, I do that when I don’t have enough of one thing or another at times. I am, however, fully aware of the fact that the soup I make that contains vegetables exclusively from my garden is a superior product. How could it not be when I’m in control of the quality from seed to seal?

Oh yeah, the other thing I love about Young Living essential oils? They work.

On Retreat

This post was first published at Story Circle Network’s One Woman’s Day blog.

Once a year my husband goes on a salmon fishing trip with a few of his friends. It’s as much of a pleasure for me as it is for him. While he looks forward to fishing and fellowship, and anticipates the salmon, halibut, and crab he’ll bring home, I look forward to time at home replenishing my soul with silence, simplicity, and solitude.

In recent weeks I’ve been planning how I wanted to spend these precious days. I decided that this year I would have a writing retreat and get back to a piece of work I started on last year. I’ve been rereading my outline, making notes, thinking about the premise of the story, and planning where I wanted to take it. I felt inspired and eager to spend a few days with no commitment but to write.

I’m the type of person who likes to make a plan and follow through with it. No one could accuse me of being carefree and spontaneous on a regular basis. So, it was with mixed feelings when I decided to buy fifty pounds of tomatoes, twenty-five pounds of peaches, and twenty-five pounds of pickling cucumbers yesterday–the day before Gerry was leaving, the day before my personal writing retreat was scheduled to begin.

As Gerry hefted the large boxes of produce onto my kitchen counter so I could survey the bounty and snap a photograph I understood that I would spend the next few days, not working on my novel, but in the kitchen canning fruit and vegetables. I realized that I would fall into bed at the end of the days bone weary, with sore feet and a sore back, and that I would sleep well. I knew that I would spend my time creating canned goods instead of chapters.

In reality my plans changed as soon as I saw the flyer showing the produce on sale at the green grocer.  Perhaps it was because the course change was my own doing; or maybe it was because I might be as passionate about canning as I am about writing; whatever the reason I was out of bed before dawn this morning bidding farewell to my husband and chopping tomatoes, eager for my counter-tops to begin filling up with jars full of canned soup. The change of plans didn’t bother me in the least.

As I write this I’m tired and my feet are sore. Maya, my Yorkie, looks at me from her bed across the room with a look that seems to ask why we didn’t get to spend much time outside today. Ah, but there are eighteen quarts and thirteen pints of tomato soup on my kitchen counter, I’m thinking ahead to tomorrow’s canning plans, and I am writing.

It seems I will be able to have both–a writing retreat and a canning retreat—after all. Bliss.

Here’s a post from last year with the recipe and instructions for the tomato soup.

The July 22 Garden

Gardens are a form of autobiography.

~ Sydney Eddison

The garden is looking a little bare in some spots because we’ve been harvesting a lot of produce in recent weeks.

I harvested the last of the green beans a couple of days ago. We’ve feasted on the tender young beans, I’ve got a shelf full of canned dilly beans, and my freezer is home to packets of beans to be saved for another day. Earlier this week I planted another crop of beans and am hoping to get another good harvest before the frost. (Sorry . . . I didn’t mean to mention the “f” word.)

I mentioned before that we were having an issue with the voles chewing on my beets. Curiously, they didn’t seem to go for the Bull’s Blood variety so I left them in the ground the longest. Finally, I pulled them all out and the spot they occupied has been sown with a row of Bright Lights Swiss chard and some more carrots. The carrot harvest continues and we’re enjoying delicious rainbow carrots in salads. We’ve been picking scallions for months and they’re almost finished. I planted another row next to the almost-finished one. I’ve also planted a couple of varieties of lettuce.

It’s been a while since we enjoyed a salad made with lettuce because I’ve been using Swiss chard and kale in salads–both of which are doing well and continuing to produce. I did plant more kale as I’ve read that it’s even tastier after a frost (Sorry . . . there’s that word again.) and want a late crop.

The cucumbers are finally starting to produce. Funny thing . . . I planted two varieties of cukes but they must have cross-pollinated one another because I’m not seeing any of the Crystal Apple cucumbers I was looking forward to. Lesson learned for next year.

I pulled out the Sunburst Scallopini squash plant to make room for the cukes to spread out. We really enjoyed the tasty little sunburst squashes; I’ll have to find a different place for them in the garden next year.

I have two delicata squash plants in this garden. We enjoy that squash and, while they were plentiful when we lived in Washington, I’ve not found that to be the case since we moved back to Kamloops. Solution: I’ll grow my own! I also have one of these plants in the deer-proof garden in our back yard.

We’ve been enjoying the sweet Jimmy Nardello peppers in salads and, recently, on a big plate of nachos. I’ll use these once the tomatoes begin ripening to make sauces with.

The green peppers are just starting to produce some little peppers now. Gerry has already put in a request for a batch of stuffed green peppers when they get large enough.

The tomatoes. Oh my. Nothing in the world tastes as good as a freshly picked still-warm-from-the-sun tomato. I don’t buy tomatoes at the grocery story (or those red facsimiles they label as tomatoes) so this is the only time of year we enjoy them fresh. We’ve had some of every variety except the Federle paste variety; the first of them is almost ready to be picked.

Meantime, we’re enjoying the Sungolds, Yellow Pear, Brandywine, and Black Krim and eagerly waiting for more to ripen.

The garden continues to be my sanctuary, the place I find peace, and–bonus!–the place much of what we’re eating these days is coming from.

Alpine Flowers

Yesterday Gerry and I took a little day trip to the Sun Peaks resort where we rode the chair lift to the top and then hiked some trails enjoying the beautiful alpine flowers in bloom right now.

I chose to go with the macro lens on my camera and so, while I captured images of individual flowers, I didn’t get the overall effect of the beauty that’s up there.

Gerry’s more of a big picture kind of photographer so his images portray the overall experience in a way mine don’t.

I love that we were both at the same place and saw the same things yet our photographs are so different. Capturing images through the filter of our own mind’s eye is one of the joys of photography.

The July 5 Garden

We’re just home from the garden where I picked another bucket of green beans. I decided to grow them after I made dilly beans last year (with beans bought from the farmer’s market) that we enjoyed immensely. I wanted to grow my own this year and make some more.

I chose Venture Blue Lake bush beans and they’ve been great. I’ve been harvesting them for almost a week. We’ve had them for supper, I’ve frozen a few bags, and I’ve even enjoyed the tender young beans raw. These are not the green beans I remember from childhood (read: from tin cans, mushy, and generally yucky).

I had planned on canning this afternoon–dilly beans and more new potatoes–but I’m exhausted from too much time spent in the heat. Thirty degrees Celsius (that’s 86 Fahrenheit) is just too hot to be working in the garden. I usually try to get my gardening done in the cooler early morning hours but it’s Sunday and I have another commitment in the morning. The garden waits for no one, the beans needed to be harvested, and so mid-day gardening it was.

Anyway, I wanted to share a couple of photos to give you a sense of the crazy growth that’s happening right now.

All of the tomato varieties are doing well. We’ve enjoyed the first of the sun-warmed Sungolds already and, as you can see from this photograph, one of my Brandywine plants is a titch taller than me! There are lots of fruit on the vine and we’re anxiously waiting for them to ripen. I’m thankful that Gerry built these heavy-duty cages for me this year.

Those are the Bull’s Blood Beets right in front of me. I harvested the other variety (the name of which I can’t recall and I’m just too dang tired to go and find the seed packet to check) earlier this week and, much to my chagrin, almost every single beet had been well-chewed by voles or some such varmint. So far, the Bull’s Blood ones have been spared and I put some cotton balls with peppermint essential oil among the plants as a deterrent. Will let you know how that works out.

On the other side of the garden the Sunburst Scallopini squash has turned into a behemoth. There’s lots of blossoms and tiny squash forming; it won’t be long before we can begin eating them. You can also see the kale in front that’s we’re harvesting and eating regularly, and more tomato plants in behind.

The heat wave continues and the sky is already hazy with smoke from forest fires. It’s been a very dry year and, with the hot temperatures and many lightening strikes recently, it’s shaping up to be a bad season for forest fires. It is exactly like the Kamloops summers I recall from so many years ago.

Now, I believe there’s a spot on the lawn swing in the shade that has my name on it. I hope you’re enjoying your Sunday afternoon as much as I’m enjoying mine.