Green beans. That is all

We love to plant a garden and watch as everything shoots up through the ground.  I don’t think much is any prettier than a recently plowed garden with loads of young plants poking up all around.  We eat a lot of our meals out of the garden in a typical summer.  I am a fairly new vegetarian of the year-round sort but we are all pretty much vegetarians in the summer.  Well, most summers.  Not this summer.  We got off to a rocky start with the near constant rainfall that we had during the planting season.  Stuff was late going into the ground…everything but the weeds.  They thrive no matter what.  Couple all of that with the incredible heat and dryness now and we have found the garden to be pretty pitiful.

Just part of the haul

I guess if I had to pick one thing that would succeed in the garden though, it would be green beans.  I love green beans and could almost live on them and mountain dew.  Luckily, the green beans and corn are doing exceptionally well this year.  We picked and canned 34 pounds of green beans last weekend.  It was a marathon canning session ending somewhere around 2 am…a mere 4 hours before the kids usually get up.  Anyhow, we are in the beans this year for sure.  There are tons more following the ones we picked so it will be another busy weekend.  Of course, it can’t all be smooth and easy.  We planted a bag full of bean seed clearly marked tenderette bush beans.  I have no doubt that some of the seeds were in fact tenderettes.  The majority of the beans, however, are some other sort of runners.

Ain't they purdy?

Bush beans grow in a somewhat compact bush where all of the beans can be picked from individual plants.  Folks usually do not have to manage the plants in particular which is one of the reasons we like them.  Runners, on the other hand, send out vines and are meant to be trellised or otherwise tied up.  Thinking we only had bush beans, we didn’t pay any attention to the beans growing like mad in the garden until it was too late.  So, instead of having nice individual rows, we have a freakin’ blob of bean plants chocked full of beans.  With machete in hand, one can venture into the bean jungle and harvest, but it isn’t easy or fun.

They are prettiest in the jars waiting to go into the canner

There is still plenty of growing time left so we may yet be surprised with what the old garden will produce.  It’s all good though.  Even on my deserted island of a garden, I have to one thing I could not bear to do without…Jack Sparrow needed rum…I need green beans, savvy?

 

9 Comments

warren, August 3rd 2011 | Posted in Canning, Food, Garden, WV

Purple fingers

It seems like this time of year finds our fingers all sorts of different colors. It really just depends on what we’re picking at the time. Last night was no different really. A co-worker of Emily’s has a bunch of grapes growing at her house. She has picked a ton and canned/preserved them every way she knows how. That’s where we come in. The grapes are still plentiful so she gave us a bunch of them…and there are more to pick so we are hoping to be able to go and harvest a bunch more. It’s hard to beat real concord grapes I think!

this is just a portion!

We cleaned them last night and are making grape jelly with the ones we have now. Do you remember when you were a kid and even the store bought grape jelly had flavor? I have tried some recently and it seems like the grape jelly is completely without flavor. I guess it’s like everything – homemade is really hard to beat. But gee whiz, the store stuff isn’t even fit for slug bait!

Anyhow, does anyone else gather grapes? What do you do with them? I remember my Mom and Grandma canning grape juice but they always left whole grapes in the jars. It freaked me out because I could have sworn they canned eyeballs!  Oh, and don’t get me started on when they canned whole tomatoes…eeek!  Anyone make raisins or juice or wine? I’ve nibbled on wild grapes but does anyone do anything more specific with them?  I’d love to know what options I may have!

9 Comments

warren, August 25th 2010 | Tags: , ,
Posted in Canning, Food, Nature, WV

81 pounds

We work a pretty big garden at Emily’s grandparents’ place. It’s somewhere around the size of Delaware I think. Planting is always a ton of fun and it looks so pretty when all of the plants are just starting to come up. Sometime in June though, craziness happens there. The tomatoes pop overnight and develop hundreds of little green wonders.  Without any warning at all, they go from green to red (and on to nasty if we’re not careful) overnight!  This year we have somewhere around 55 tomato plants and they each make 1 ton of tomatoes. So, yesterday, in the heat of the day, we crawled out into the garden to weed and pick and work on our tans…and pick tomatoes (and other stuff too…but more on that later)  We picked a good number of tomatoes last week…probably 35-40 pounds. I was pretty proud of that…until this week. We kept picking and picking and picking. We weighed in when we got home (for this week…there’s always next week too!!) and found we had collected 81 pounds of tomatoes.

(this is about 2/3 of them…in my family room…)

Now I like tomato stuff. We love to make salsa and pizza sauce and just plain old tomato sauce, but 81 pounds all at once is  a bit of a chore.  We are fortunate to have a tomato press but it is still a ton of work processing the little squirting devils!  I really need to get the child labor bit working better…

8 Comments

warren, July 26th 2010 | Posted in Awesome, Canning, Garden

Lots of strawberries…some on the floor

We went to a you-pick strawberry place in Cottageville, WV on Sunday.  It’s about 35 minutes away (though for the kids, it was a 2 year long trip) and was a nice Sunday drive.  We got to Hartley Farms and found a huge field of the biggest and best strawberries I have ever seen (though I didn’t know that part right away).  The proprietor took us over to a row and told us to, “have at it”.  I fully expected to have to search and dig and really work to find a few scrawny strawberries.  We picked 2 years ago at a place closer to home and it was pitiful.  Hartley Farms was $0.55 per pound cheaper and there were hundreds of big fat berries everywhere!

We filled 7 ice cream buckets to overflowing and weighed in.  All told, we had about 32 pounds of berries!  The best part is that the kids even helped pick!  We jumped in the car hoping to get home before Isaac ate every last strawberry.  Though he made a run at eating 32#, we did make it home with a few berries.  All four of us started making jam though the kids were tired after a batch each.  They wanted to take a jar to their teachers that they had made.

Emily and I continued on into the night making jar after jar of jam.  Isaac in particular like strawberry jam so the 43 half-pints we made may last us the year (and may not).  We still have somewhere around 8 pounds of berries to go…not sure if that will be jam or something else yet.  We have a fair bit of cleanup yet to do.  Of course, it is impossible to make jam without making stuff sticky and our floor is sticky indeed.  I have mopped it several times but my socks still leave little fuzzy footprints when I walk in the kitchen.

And by the way, when you make strawberry jam, make sure you use a huge pot to boil your mixture.  We forgot since last time and we boiled a pot of sticky strawberry syrup over the edge of the sauce pan we had and onto the hot burner on our (wretched) glass-topped stove.  You guessed it…it caramelized and tried to burst into flame.  We never saw fire, but our house was full of smoke before I could get the mess cleaned up…so, word to the wise, use a huge pot to boil the mix!  Luckily we had a better pot so subsequent batches were fine!

It was fun to clean up too!

10 Comments

warren, May 24th 2010 | Tags: , , ,
Posted in Canning, Food, WV

This sucks

Vacuum sealing a jarI talked a little about drying beans the other day but I didn’t tell you what we do with the beans once they are dried.  Actually, we dehydrate and dry all sorts of things actually and this applies to everything we do.  As I have said before, I get hair-brained ideas fairly regularly.  I wanted to be able to vacuum seal stuff in jars but I couldn’t see spending the money to get one of the fancy vacuum sealers.  Foodsaver makes attachments for their powered products to evacuate the air from mason jars so I decided to give that a try with a modification of how the air gets removed.  I needed something that sucks! 

Vacuum sealing a jar with a brake bleederI can’t take sole credit for these ideas but I can’t remember where I saw a similar discussion on the idea.  Anyhow, a brake bleeder sucks just fine and, in fact, even has a vacuum guage on it to tell how much it sucks.  My first plan was to integrate the brake bleeder with the mason jar sealer.  Although I wouldn’t want to hand pump a brake bleeder all day long, I can pull a vacuum of 20 inches of Hg in about 30 seconds.  The mason jar sealer works perfectly for that.

Vacuum sealing a jar with an hvac pumpMoving on to bigger and better, Harbor Freight (a cheap tool supplier) has a vacuum pump for evacuating hvac systems.  You simply hook it up to your air compressor and it will draw around 28 inches of Hg.  I couldn’t make it work as well with the jar sealer for some reason though I didn’t try too hard either.  You can (as I did) fashion some sort of a cup-like end for a piece of hose.  You could use a stout film canister or a small piece of tupperware or somehting similar. 

Vacuum sealing a jar with an hvac pumpPunch a hole in the lid of the jar and put a piece of duct sealing tape (the shiny silver stuff, not regular duct tape) on the lid leaving the hole exposed.  Hold the cup over the hole and tape and start the vacuum.  When you are finished, slide the cup off across the tape sealing the hole.  The vacuum will further hold the tape in place providing a great seal. 

Vacuum sealing a jar with an hvac pumpWith a little effort, you could probably use the hvac pump with the jar sealer too so it is worth a try.  My “cup” solution works for things like large pickle jars or other containers that aren’t mason jar sized.

Vacuum sealing a jar with an hvac pumpA traditional vacuum cleaner will not pull sufficient vacuum for this to work by the way.  You’ll need something designed to draw (from what I have read) somewhere around 15-25 inches of Hg to be sufficient.  Also, this is not a replacement for canning stuff that should be canned.  We only store dehydrated stuff this way.  Anyhow, it’s a pretty cool option for storing garden stuff and it can be pretty cheap depending on the junk you have laying around your workshop.

8 Comments

warren, October 24th 2008 | Tags: , ,
Posted in Canning, Garden, Tinkering

End of the Summer Garden

Tomato and pepper harvestWe wrapped up the summer garden last weekend. Mentally, we checked out of it a few weeks ago, completely exhausted from canning and drying and pickling and cooking. Gardening and canning is exhausting work though we both really enjoy it (don’t ask us now, ask us in February) and it gives us a lot of time to work together towards a common goal, chat about the day or the future or our dreams. It provides us with fantastic nutrition and exercise. We have no fear of a vitamin D deficiency in the summer sun. It’s just the right thing for us to do.

It is equally good to put the summer garden to rest though. We get to take a break and enjoy a bit of the work that we’ve done. Hobbit feet?

I don’t suppose to have any real idea of our ancestors who really survived on the land, but I think I feel a small bit of the relief of having food put up, of the rest of fall and winter, and the simple joy of seeing stuff transition from seed to seed.

 

 

 

Dried black bean seed podsOk, enough pondering life. We gathered a bunch of cayenne and jalapeno peppers (will they ever end?!), black beans, green peppers and tomatoes (those are 6 gallon buckets in the first pic) at the close of the garden.  We actually picked several crops of black beans that had dried on the vine over the course of the summer. Anyone pulling up the plants early to harvest dried beans is missing a huge second or third crop.

Mo with beansAnyhow, Emily spent a good part of one evening shelling the last crop of black beans. Mo, our cat loved the seed pods. He chased them all over the place. We dry the beans on a clothes drying rack covered with cotton fabric which is held in place with clothes pins. The cool thing is that the entire rack folds down almost flat and is easy to store.

 

Drying black beansIt’s also a lot cheaper than some of the fancier racks and the cotton fabic can be washed unlike some of the window screen versions that some folks have made.

 Anyhow, we are done with our summer garden.  We are planting garlic tomorrow but that is fairly low key compared to everything else.  ‘Tis good to have a break!

 

 

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8 Comments

warren, October 17th 2008 | Tags: , ,
Posted in Canning, Garden, Thoughts

Tomato Press

Clean tomato pressIf you grow tomatoes, you have to get a tomato press (aka food mill). We used to freeze tomatoes, let them defrost a little, then with numb fingers, slip the skins off and chop them up. This method works fine but oh my heck there is a better way! We found this Velox Tomato Press on the clearance rack at an Ace hardware for $15.00! It’s mostly plastic/nylon but appears to be pretty rugged. For $15.00, if it lasted me a season I figured I was way ahead. Anyhow, we attach the vacuum base to the glass stove top (which we hate, btw) and set up a big bowl to catch the good stuff and a plate to catch the skins and seeds. We quarter the tomatoes and drop them in the hopper. I grind them once, then take the skins/seeds/etc and run them through again. There is a ton of juice/pulp to be had on the second processing so don’t miss this part. 1st run tomato pressI suppose that this $15 tool has reduced our tomato-processing-time by 90% plus we can feel our fingers when we are done! We do tend to make a bit of a mess as tomatoes squirt and squish all over but it is no worse then when we did it by hand. If you are on the fence as to whether the $50 (normally) is worth it, I’d say YES!�
tomato press after a lot of use  Edit:  Sorry…for some reason, comments were turned off for this post.  That should be fixed now…

8 Comments

warren, September 12th 2008 | Tags:
Posted in Canning

Hot peppers

Jalapenos I like hot peppers of various types.  Over time, it seems that my taste buds have become less sensitive.  I remember when jalapenos used to send me over the edge.  Not so much any more.  As a bit of a pepper junkie, I decided that we need tons of peppers to satisfy my cravings.  In the excitement of late winter/early spring seed-starting, we planted hot peppers in sufficient number to feed my entire family for a year.  We planted jalapenos, hungarian wax, cayennes and habaneros. Canned, pickled jalapenos I have been drying pepper rings, I have canned peppers by themselves, I have thrown peppers in salsa, pickles, spaghetti sauce, and on everything I eat fresh.  Still, we have millions and millions of peppers.  I had to resort to something extreme and strange to use up some jalapenos. Drying jalapenos I made jalapeno jelly last night.  I am not exactly sure how you eat this though I have heard it is good on anything with creamcheese. The recipe is pretty simple so it’s worth a try:

Jalapeno jelly
Jalapeno Jelly
3/4 pound stemmed & de-seeded jalapenos�
2 cups vinegar
6 cups sugar
2 pouches of liquid pectin
I de-seeded the peppers for the first batch of jelly but got tired of that so I ground seends and all for the second batch. Anyhow, puree the jalapenos until they are nearly unrecognizable. Boil them with sugar and vinegar for 10 minutes. Make sure you stir constantly and have a big enough pan as this mixture swells a lot and really smokes-and-smells-up-your-house-and-your-wife-has-to-scurry-around-to-deactivate-the-smoke-alarms-since-the-kids-are-sleeping when (I mean if) you boil it over (so I’ve heard). After the 10 minute boil, remove from heat, add pectin and boil again for 1 minute. Powdered pectin does not work very well so do yourself a favor and just use liquid pectin. Ladle into half-pint jars and water bath can for 10 minutes.  You can add green or red food coloring, by the way.  I prefer not to add coloring but you can color it if you’d like.

11 Comments

warren, September 5th 2008 | Tags: , ,
Posted in Canning, Food, Garden

Some Recipes

Salsa before cooking downWe’ve found a few recipes that we like a lot when we can stuff.  A few folks have asked for our the recipes we use so here they are…I credit the sources I know while others remain anonymous. 

 

 We can most stuff in pints because that suits our needs but I suppose you could adapt as needed.  These recipes work for us but you use them at your own risk.   Improper recipes, canning methods, etc can be dangerous.  More likely, with a little care, it will be a good time! 

 

Salsa - from my friend Erin

8 cups tomatoes, peeled, chopped, drained
2 1/2 cups onion, diced medium
1/8 cup canning salt
1 1/2 cups green peppers, small chunks
1 cup jalapeno diced fine
3+ habaneros (to taste…more is better!)
6 cloves minced garlic
2+ tsp pepper
1 small can of tomato paste
1/3 cup vinegar
2 tsp cumin
1/3 cup (or less) sugar
sometimes we add a bunch of cayenne pepper diced fine too…

Mix and boil 10 minutes, put into pint jars and seal in water bath for 10 minutes
Makes 5 pints

Pizza Sauce
12 cups chopped ripe tomatoes (Roma tomatoes give best results)
1 cup chopped onion
3 cloves minced garlic
3 tbsp fresh chopped oregano or 1 1/2 tsp dried
1 tbsp fresh basil or 1/2 tsp dried
2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp black pepper
2 bay leaves
2 tbsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp salt

Combine tomatoes, onion, garlic, oregano, sugar, pepper and bay leaves and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat and boil gently uncovered until very thick (about 75 minutes), stirring frequently. Add lemon juice and salt, stir and ladle into 1/2 pint jars. Water bath can for 35 minutes. Makes 5 half-pints

Zucchini Pickles - Achorn Farm
2 lbs. sliced zucchini
2 medium onions
1/4 cup salt
2 cups white vinegar
1-2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon celery seed
1 teaspoon turmeric
2 teaspoons mustard seed
Place zucchini in a large pot. Add salt and enough water, cover and let stand for 2 hours then drain well. Combine remaining ingredients and bring to a boil. Have glass jars prepared filled with the zucchini and onion then fill jars with boiled liquid, seal jars and boil jars for 10 minutes.

We’ve made this with yellow summer squash too…I suppose anything that will take up the flavors would work!

 

Hot Pepper Spread
28 or so hot peppers
8 regular peppers
1 qrt mustard
1 qrt sugar
1 cup vinegar

Chop peppers, mix ingredients and cook about 20 minutes. Be sure and spray pan with cooking spray as it sticks very easily. Have ready 1/2 cup corn starch. Add just enough water to corn starch to make a thin paste, then add to the pepper mix…let it thicken. Water bath can for 10 minutes in pint jars

10 Comments

warren, August 20th 2008 | Tags: ,
Posted in Canning, Food

Tomatoes

Behold...the tomato!These are some pictures that we’ve taken recently and, for some reason, I just really like them. Tomatoes are going full steam right now so we are making salsa and pizza sauce and debating about making spaghetti sauce. We don’t really have a good spaghetti sauce recipe so we have been hesitant. I sort of have fun just arranging piles of tomatoes and staring at them. I wonder if I have a problem?
Piles of tomatoes!   Tomatoes and zuke pickles!
different types of tomatoes!Anyhow, we planted around 50 tomato plants that we started from seed this spring. I can’t remember the exact mix but we have some ox hearts, mortgage lifters, romas, WV hillbillies, and yellow amish tomatoes.

I really must do better next year about keeping track of which is which!

 

 

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5 Comments

warren, August 13th 2008 | Tags: ,
Posted in Canning, Food
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