The goings on

I've been up to quite a few things lately, & wanted to write some of them down so I wouldn't forget. On Tuesday we had our (women's church group) Relief Society activity at the Family History Center here in town. Those who weren't signed up on the New Family Search were helped to do so, & the rest of us learned how & became inspired to do our own family history work. Yesterday I spent a good amount of time entering our family information into a pedigree program in the hopes that I will be able to discover forgotten ancestors in the future.

I've also been working on my grandmother's quilt, which she asked me to quilt by hand. I sewed all the squares together a couple of weeks ago, & finally pulled out my quilting hoop & got started. The pattern is fairly simple, it just takes awhile to finish each square. I've included a picture of a square in progress in the hoop, & one of my first completed square. I love how it turned out! The quilt is called the Rose of Sharon & my grandma has had the squares since the 1930's & 40's. Hopefully I can finish it soon!

Sharon has been going through a growth spurt (I think). She seems to have gotten quite long all of a sudden & we were finally able to pull out the 6-9 month clothes (many of which are already too small, since she is just so long). One of her top teeth pushed through last week & the other top one is also working it's way out. They aren't the middle teeth, though, so she's going to be a little vampire soon.

We cut up & canned our half of a cow last weekend. It went pretty quickly since we had so much help. The long part was just waiting for the canners to heat up & cook. As a result of the cow, Jack has been enjoying some nice leg bones. The results of Jack enjoying leg bones, however, is not as enjoyable for the rest of us. He has been so gassy that it nearly knocks you over! There's just nothing quite like a dog fart.

Other than all of that, Sharon decided to explore the diaper pail last night & discovered the poo squishes really well. Needless to say, I did not take any pictures & immediately gave her a bath. Yuck!

Enjoying Vacation

 Well, we are enjoying our sort-of-vacation. Ammon has to spend his days in boring meetings for work, but it sure is nice getting paid to visit family. Today my mom & I went to the Restaurant Depot to get some bulk chicken. No that doesn't mean the chickens were fat, hardy-har-har. We bought 120 pounds of chicken breasts & thighs & are planning on canning them tomorrow once they've thawed. I'm so excited to have canned chicken again, as I used my last jar last week. It is so tasty & tender!
I ran 2 miles on Monday & should have run today, but woke up a little too late & didn't have time. So, I am going to go running tomorrow even if it means that I have to push Sharon in the jogging stroller.
Jack is enjoying playing with my parents' dog, the weather has been pretty nice, my family is crazy, we watched the season finale of Survivor the other day, & we're just having a great time hanging out together.
I'll be adding some more items to my Etsy shop when we get back home, & I bought some new flowers to make into clips. I am really excited about these because the flowers are so bright and summery! See you when I get back home!

A few random pages

I've been wanting to can some soups in preparation for my due date, because I'm fairly certain that I won't really want to be cooking all the time. I love having soups in winter, so I decided to can some. I found this recipe in the book A Guide to Canning, Freezing, Curing & Smoking Meat, Fish, & Game by Wilbur F. Eastman Jr. The recipe follows instructions for obtaining the chicken meat for making this chicken soup. Ingredients are: 10 chickens & 8 quarts of water. Well, needless to say, I did not use 10 chickens, I just used some chicken breasts that I had in my freezer. =)

Here is the recipe that I used with my slight variations:

2 1/3 cups chopped celery

2 1/3 cups chopped onion

2 1/3 cups chopped carrots

7 cloves garlic, crushed one at a time

1 3/4 cups cooked, cubed chicken

7 tsp salt

7/8 tsp pepper

24 1/2 cups hot chicken broth

Now, before you start trying to divide all of this in your head trying to figure out how much goes in each jar, I will explain below.

In seven 1-quart jars, place ingredients in the following order: 1/3 cup celery, 1/3 cup onion, 1/3 cup carrots, 1 clove garlic, 1/4 cup chicken, 1 tsp salt, 1/8 tsp pepper, and 3 1/2 cups broth. Solids should not fill more than 1/2 of jar. Leave 1 inch headroom.

Since I really like chicken noodle soup, I did add about 1/2 cup of cooked egg noodles after I'd added everything but the broth.

Adjust lids. Process in a pressure canner for 75 minutes at 15 pounds pressure (unless you live at less than 1000 ft above sealevel, then cook for 75 minutes at 10 pounds pressure). Let pressure decrease naturally, otherwise your liquid will boil over out of your jars, which is a real bummer. Enjoy!

I think that's it, if you have any questions just leave a comment! Don't you just love how pretty they look with all the ingredients layered like that!

Canning Chicken

My mom and I were able to purchase boneless skinless chicken breasts in bulk for a really good deal, so we decided to can most of it. It is so amazing how simple it is to can meat, so I will explain it really quickly here. We used pint jars.

If they will fit you can put an entire breast into the jar whole, or you can cut it up into chunks (it doesn't really matter because it will just fall apart after it's cooked).

Add 1/2 teaspoon salt to each pint. Some people add water to their chicken, but I've found that it tends to produce it's own juice & is plenty full, so I never add water. Leave about 1/2 inch of headspace.

Wipe the rim of each jar clean with a damp cloth. Put on the lids & rings and place in your pressure canner. We were able to double stack ours, putting a trivet in between the two levels.

Before

Pressure can for 75 minutes (90 minutes for quarts) at 15 pounds of pressure.
After the 75 minutes are up, turn off the stove and move the pot off the burner to cool. Do not release all the steam, just let it cool down naturally. My favorite pressure canner (pictured below) is the Presto 23-Quart Pressure Canner and Cooker Just click on the link to check it out on Amazon where it's a best seller!

During

Once the pressure is completely gone, open it up and you have cooked, canned chicken, ready for casseroles, tacos, quesadillas, soup and whatever else you want! It is so tasty, I could eat it straight out of the jar!
Before

After(Yeah, it looks a little gross, but it tastes wonderful!)

Berry Jam

I made a batch of blueberry jam last night, and it is so wonderful! It's also very easy! I did a third of the recipe and it made just over 1 1/2 pints.

(Blackberry, blueberry, boysenberry, dewberry, gooseberry, loganberry, raspberry, youngberry)

Yield: about 3 pints

9 cups crushed berries
6 cups sugar

Combine berries & sugar in saucepot. Bring slowly to a boil, stirring until sugar dissolves. Cook rapidly to gelling point. As mixture thickens, stir frequently to prevent sticking. Remove from heat. Skim foam if necessary. Ladle hot jam into hot jars, leaving 1/4-inch headspace. Adjust two-piece caps. Process 15 minutes in boiling-water canner.
(I usually don't do a water bath for jams. I just heat the lids and rings in simmering water, then pour the hot jam into jars and put on the lids and rings.)

Canning Beans

I recently decided to try my hand at another item in my pressure canner! I had heard that canning pinto beans is super easy, and I would love to have a good supply of them in my slowly growing supply of food storage (too bad you can't just live on jam and applesauce!). See, in an emergency I really wouldn't want to waste the fuel and time that it takes to make a pot of beans, but they would be a really good source of protein and great energy, so why not can them!

What I did was, using quart mason jars, put in 1 1/4 cups clean, dry pinto beans. Add 1 teaspoon salt, then fill with water, leaving 1 inch of headspace. Put them in the pressure canner, and can at 15 pounds of pressure for 90 minutes. When the beans come out...

They look like this (picture below)! The beans soak up the water and swell up almost to the top of the jar. I have already opened a jar to make refried beans. All I did was dump them in my mixer, add a little salsa and cheese, mix them up and microwave until it melts the cheese. They are so tasty and so easy! Try it!

Edit on March 17, 2012
Here are the instructions for canning pint jars of beans. By the way, this will work with pretty much any kind of beans, not just pinto beans. I've personally tried black beans, kidney beans, and white beans. Black beans are my current favorite!

Put 2/3 cup of dry beans into a pint jar, add 1/2 teaspoon salt, fill jar with water, leaving 1/2 inch headspace. Place lids & rings, then process in a pressure canner for 75 minutes. Let pressure decrease naturally, then remove jars from canner & let cool.

Edit on November 2, 2013
To answer some questions: I have canned other beans using this same recipe. The beans I've done are black beans, kidney beans, pinto beans & white beans. My favorite are black beans & we eat them all the time.
Also, I do not soak my beans before putting them in the jar. I rinse them a little bit (usually) just to get any dirt off, but they go into the jars without soaking. I just use the same measurements noted in the recipe, and have never had any problems with beans soaking too much water or coming out of the jar. They just soak up all the water in the jar & are perfectly cooked every time. I love adding the black beans to tortilla soup!

Here's an Amazon link to my favorite canner. It's a great deal & easy to learn how to use.

Canning Meat

Canning beef in Vernon, AZ on January 17th, 2009.

Prickly Pear Jelly

Since I've started having to ride the afternoon bus with some of the kids in my class, I have noticed a huge prickly pear cactus in front of one of the banks in town. I also noticed that it is covered in ripe fruit. I went into the bank yesterday to ask if I could pick some of the fruit, and the woman said, "Well, for insurance purposes we can't give permission, but after hours if we don't see you take them, how can we know you were here?" So she pretty much said, "No, wink, wink." At 5:30 Ammon and I went back and picked a few pounds of prickly pears so that I could try my hand at making prickly pear jelly, which is very delicious.

Last night I boiled the fruit so that I could mash them to get the juice out and then I made a batch of Prickly Pear Jelly. It is pretty much a bright pink, fuschia color and tastes wonderful! I am thinking I might sell some, so let me know if you might be interested in it. If there is enough interest, I might post some for sale on my craft site.