Homemaker's Organizer Giveaway

I just had to share with you, who may not have seen this yet, that there is a giveaway going on for this incredible Homemaker's Organizer!

It could also be called a Homesteader's or Gardener's Organizer too because it contains some extremely helpful pages on garden layout, canning inventory, freezer inventory, harvest and preservation records etc.  

Sweet Pepper Salsa Relish

One of my dear friends introduced this basic recipe to me a few years back.  She moved to the Ozarks from the great state of Texas and brought this recipe with her.  From what I hear ... there is a nice restaurant down there that people rave about called the Blue Mesa Grill.  They specialize in Southwestern cuisine.  I'm not exactly sure how my friend got her hands on their Blue Mesa Jalapeno Relish recipe, but I'm telling you, it's absolutely scrumptious!  You can eat it by itself, slather it on hamburgers or any sandwich you please.  We eat it over meatloaf and roast too.  If you sliced everything small enough, it would be great on crackers.

Canning Blackberries

Having just barely gotten past our Blueberry season, the Blackberries are ripening!  These pictured here are the thornless and tame blackberries that are famous for getting bigger than your thumb.  We have gotten truly spoiled with this variety.  

A few weeks back, even before blueberry season was over, a dear friend of ours called to invite us to pick his wild blackberries on his homestead.  I've never seen so many wild blackberries!  There must've been acres of them.  You could pick all week and not be able to tell you picked at all!  We did not hesitate to jump at the chance.  They are delicious!  I have to admit, they are more sweet than these tame ones pictured here.  The only problem with the wild ones is that we braved the thorns and the ticks and the chiggers.  For those of you in the northern territories, chiggers are nasty little critters that you will never forget if you get in a mess of them.  They'll turn your ankle so raw before you ever know what bit ya!

Needless to say, after two trips to the wild blackberry patch to get the most tastiest blackberries I've ever eaten, three nasty tick bites and one round of antibiotics, I think we'll stick to the tame blackberries growing right here on our own homestead.  However, I must say thank you to our dear friend who not only opened his fields to our family, but also fixed us an extremely delicious homegrown meal of grilled steak and chicken fajitas, before we braved the wilds.

My favorite thing to do with blackberries is to flash freeze them on a cookie sheet and then drop them into a labeled freezer bag for future smoothie use.  While looking for new blackberry smoothies recipes, I came across some yummy sounding ones I thought I'd share with you.  

Doesn't this one look delicious??  It is a Blackberry Banana Mint Smoothie from Eat Good 4 Life blog.  We grow all kinds of mint and I'm always excited to find a new recipe that I can use the mint in.  I'll be mixing this one up as soon as this post is finished.

Here is a simple but good Blackberry Banana Smoothie recipe from Taste of Home that only has 4 ingredients.  What an easy breakfast!

Cooking the blackberries down for canning blackberry jam, they look a little more like raspberries than blackberries.  Click the Blackberry Jam Recipe link for my EASY tried and true recipe that we make every year.

The recipe uses 7 quarts of blackberries.  You may not want to make that much at one time, so just figure 1 cup of sugar for every quart of blackberries.  You'll never go back to store bought jam!

Here is a little added bonus recipe, one that I found in searching for new canning recipes.  It is called Maple-Brown Sugar-Bourbon-Blackberries.  YUM!!  Anything that uses brown sugar, maple syrup, cinnamon, nutmeg, and bourbon......count me in.  I do not usually use alcohol unless marinating meat with red wine, but this sounds really good and the alcohol will cook off.  You can find the complete recipe at Life Currents blog.

Now it's your turn!  Tell me what your favorite thing to do with blackberries is!  Leave me a link to your favorite post on blackberries.  

Later this week we will be heading to another friend's orchard to pick peaches.....I can't wait!  The thought of popping open a jar of fresh peaches at the dinner table this winter is pushing me to pick as many bushels as possible!  

Happy Canning!

Preserving Blueberries

Glorious Blueberries!!

Not only are Blueberries totally delicious, they are extremely healthy too.  Blueberries are known to have the highest antioxidant of all fresh fruit.  They are full of Anthocyanin, Vitamin C, B Complex, Vitamin E, Vitamin A, Copper, Selenium, Zinc, and Iron.  In case you need more convincing, see the Top 10 Health Benefits of Blueberries on the Women's Fitness site.

Strawberry Preserves

REST

That is one of the best little words my weary mind and body can eagerly comprehend, especially at this time of year.  It seems after months of planning, preparing and planting the garden, I look ahead into the hot and sticky summer months and realize I've only just begun.

This week has been full of not only an abundance of garden work, but lots of work in the kitchen too.  We are just about done washing, hulling and preserving over twenty quarts of beautiful, luscious, juicy red strawberries.  

Is your mouth watering yet?

We have gone a bit strawberry crazy!

Trying to figure out what to do with all the strawberries even after making strawberry preserves and flash freezing several gallons, we turned to the ever trusty Pinterest for ideas.

First we made the strawberry preserves.

Planting in Winter

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Here it is, the end of the first full week in January and I have been looking forward to being elbows deep in our sewing projects, but instead, it seems that the weather has turned my attention back to the fast approaching growing season.

We can not believe how many beautiful days we are having in January!  The warmest day last week was about 65°, turning my mind to mailing out the seed order.  The thermometer in the greenhouse was reading 80° and my fingers were itching to play in the dirt.

Canning Potatoes

This year has included a huge canning and preserving learning curve for me, but invaluable experience makes it so much easier each time I need to can something and also when I want to tackle a new recipe or type of food to preserve.

We have a full basement in which to keep produce over the winter and I have tried for several winters to keep different things and this year I decided to can the produce instead of being disappointed again.  I have found that it is too humid in our basement to keep things, but I have learned several different tips that I may try in the future.  One tip is to make up a weak bleach/water solution and dip all winter squash including pumpkins in it to kill off any outer bacteria that will begin to cause them to decay.  Another tip is to build a small box that is filled with sand and bury the produce in the sand.  Any barrel would work for this too.  Even with these great ideas, I decided to play it safe this year and simply can everything.  

Besides.....how hard is it to can potatoes?  Seriously?  Not that hard, but of course my first try didn't turn out that good, but the potatoes aren't wasted and they will be delicious used for mashed potatoes.  Sadly though, they won't work for hearty stew potatoes like I wanted them to.

After peeling and cubing the potatoes, I consulted my Ball canning book.  The recipe stated that the cubed potatoes should be boiled for 10 minutes before packing into jars and then process in a pressure canner for 40 minutes (for quarts).  I knew something wasn't quite right when the potatoes were already soft after boiling them, but I proceeded on, following the directions.  A dear friend of mine later confirmed that I shouldn't have boiled the potatoes first, which of course makes the entire process that much simpler......thank you Kathy!  

Anyway... I put the soft, hot potatoes in the jars and covered them with boiling chicken broth and processed them as directed.  I really like the idea of covering the potatoes with chicken broth instead of just water so they will be delicious in soups and stews and the whole jar can be poured into the pot without draining the potatoes.  Most recipes call for adding salt to each jar when canning potatoes, but I didn't add the salt because the chicken broth has plenty of salt in it.  

The potatoes need a simple 40 minutes in the pressure canner and they're done!  I'm so excited about having potatoes already ready to use all winter long!  I absolutely LOVE canning!  

Oh, I almost forgot....as you can see in the first picture, I hadn't removed all of the air bubbles yet.....be sure to try to get all of them out.  I've read that the air bubbles are really ok to have in there, that air bubbles get treated too, but they just look undone to me with large air bubbles in them.  Creature of habit I guess....

I've got another 50 pounds of Yukon Golds to do so off I go!  Have fun canning your potatoes!!

Canning Applesauce

This was my first time ever making and canning applesauce and I have to say that NEVER (hopefully) again, will I purchase applesauce from a store.  Making your own applesauce is an extremely easy thing to do and the reward is incredible!

Canning Apple Butter

It is Autumn here in the Ozark Mountains!  Sadly enough, most of the apple trees are bare this year.  Lots of spring rain, then extreme heat and humidity leading to a drought, seemed to have ruined the Ozark apple crop.  Reports say that the trees that were heavily laden, were stripped bare by critters needing nourishment.  My dear in-law's trees went through this.  The fruit was there one day, then the next it was gone as if it was picked clean in the night.  So needless to say, apples are few and far between and highly treasured in our neck of the woods these days.

Harvest Time in the Ozark Mountains

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As each season comes upon us, we celebrate and treasure what each one holds.  Autumn is no different and I have felt for many years that Autumn is my most favorite season of all.  We cherish the crisp mornings, the warm afternoons, the turning of the leaves and the harvest!  I wouldn't be being completely honest with you though if I didn't mention how exhausted we are by the time winter rolls around and we are just as grateful for the rest that winter provides with snuggling up in front of the fire with a mug of something warm and steamy to drink.  But for now.....there is work to do!

It seems I haven't gotten anything done on this blog except for posting a few recipes here and there and for that, I apologize.  There has been plenty of activity here on the homestead and I have taken many pictures, however, there never seems to be enough time to get everything posted.  I've been stashing posts away to complete through the winter and update everyone on our progress, but I thought I would give you a few ideas of what has been going on around here just this past week....

Of course homesteading isn't complete without canning.... and thankfully a lot of that got done this week.

We can never have enough green beans canned.  A friend of mine with five children cans 140 quarts of green beans every year.  When I first heard that, my jaw dropped,

Autumn Fried Apples

 For the record, I am crazy about our new cast iron ware that I got for my birthday.....thank you Mom and Dad!  Since it's apple season, we gathered a few bushels and proceeded to make some Apple Butter (future post) which called for 5 1/2 pounds of apples per batch.  Our wonderful, helpful daughter was having so much fun peeling the apples with the awesome (everyone should have one) apple peeler, that she got ahead of me and we had some leftover, peeled and sliced apples.  Seriously though, everyone should have one of these apple peelers, they peel, slice and core all at the same time.  (Thank you for mine Mom and Dad in law!)

Anyway....back to the leftover apples and our new cast iron ware.  At some point I had seen where someone (if I could remember who I'd give them credit for it)  had fried up some apples in their cast iron skillet, so with great excitement I melted about 3 tablespoons of butter in the skillet, layered in the apples while sprinkling them with brown sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg.  While having it on medium heat, I turned the apples until they were covered with a beautifully golden glaze and the apples were soft when pierced with a fork.  I have to say....YUM!!!  Wonderfully yummy on homemade ice cream.  It might even be a good glaze on meats if there is any left...which is doubtful in this house.

Peach Butter and Spiced Peach Butter

I absolutely love the changing seasons and each new harvest that the good Lord gives us.  We were blessed with getting some extremely sweet and juicy peaches this season and I decided to make a good sized batch of Peach Butter.  It was a new learning experience for me, but it wasn't too hard and now I've learned an even easier method than the one I used for the first two batches which I'll share with you.

For one batch of Peach Butter or Spiced Peach Butter you'll need

Fresh Garden Veggies for Dinner

Fresh picked sweet corn, there's nothing that says summer more!  We can make a meal out of just sweet corn and we practically did last night except for the fact that we had so many other fresh vegetables to use that we more or less over did it at the dinner table!  There has been a blessing of zucchini, crookneck squash, and sweet peppers......so for the first time this year I put them together in a stir fry.  Delicious!!

When you've made all the Zucchini Bread you care to make,

Autumn Harvest in Amish Country

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Nothing says Autumn more than an Amish wagon loaded down with the fall bounty of pumpkins, squash and gourds, a crisp wind and the crisp autumn leaves falling .  The harvest has been tremendous and the local Amish wagons are a testimony to that.  We are truly blessed to live in an area where we can learn so much from our wonderful neighbors.  They know the true meaning of heirloom seeds and how to grow just about anything.

Autumn Pumpkin Pie made with Heirloom Banana Squash

This year has been full of exciting discoveries in the garden and in the kitchen.  Has anyone ever heard of Heirloom Jumbo Pink Banana Squash?  I never had before this year and what a delightful find!  They are extremely easy to process for fresh use in any pumpkin recipe or to store in your freezer and the result is a much sweeter, smoother and lighter squash than pumpkin.  One squash goes a long way too.  This one I worked up today measured 24" long, I'm not sure how much it weighed but they can weigh from 10 to 40 pounds.

Simply begin by cutting the squash into lengths and then slice each of the lengths in half.

Scoop out the seeds and membranes.  In order to save the seeds to grow your own Jumbo Pink Banana Squash, wash the seeds with water in a strainer and spread out on a sheet of wax paper to dry.  Let the seeds dry in a cool, dry location for about a week before storing.

Place halves, cut side down, on foil lined baking sheet.  Bake in the oven at 350 degrees for about 40 minutes or until you are able to easily pierce the outside with a fork.  Take them out of the oven and let them cool.  Thursdays are baking days for me, and to save some time, sometimes I'll bake these up the night before and after they cool, put them in the fridge until the next morning.  

After the squash has cooled, simply scoop the insides into the food processor and blend until creamy.  I blend three to four halves at a time.  At this point, you can either spoon the squash into freezer bags or use immediately in any recipe that calls for pumpkin or squash.  Today I spooned it into a big tupperware container, used 4 cups of it for pies and put the rest of it into the fridge.  I couldn't even tell I had used any from the container, that's how much of it one squash will make.  No more buying canned pumpkin at the store, using it, eating it and then hearing on the news that there has been a recall!  Here is the Pumpkin Pie recipe I use and let me tell you that it is scrumptious!  The secret is the maple syrup!

Pumpkin Pie made with Banana Squash

• 2 eggs
• 2 cups of squash (or one 15 oz. can of pumpkin)
• 1 cup evaporated milk
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup maple syrup
• 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
• 1/4 teaspoon salt 

In a large bowl, combine all ingredients; beat until smooth and pour into the crust.

Bake at 425 degrees for 15 minutes.  Reduce heat to 350 degrees and bake for 45 - 50 minutes longer or until crust is golden brown and top of the pie is set.  Test for doneness by inserting a knife into the pie, if the knife comes out clean, it's done.  Cool on a wire rack for 1 hour.

Now I'm sure someone else can make a prettier pie than this one, my disposable pie pan wasn't big enough for this recipe as you can see, I filled it too full.  Just know that the recipe is more than plenty for a good deep pie.  Another nice touch to this pie, which I didn't do, is to add Maple Whipped Cream on top of it.

Maple Whipped Cream  (Very Good!)

1 cup heavy whipping cream

2 Tablespoons confectioners sugar

1 Tablespoon maple syrup

1/4 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice

Beat all ingredients until stiff peaks form.  Spoon onto pie and enjoy!

Everyone be sure and let me know how you like the recipe!!

Preserving the Apple Harvest

The good Lord has truly blessed us with an abundant apple harvest here in the Ozarks this year.  We have been picking apples for several weeks and there is still another few weeks of harvesting to go.

One of the best things I have been taught about preserving apples, is to simply cook them down and can them to keep for any other recipe I might use them for.  Instead of taking the time to make applesauce, apple butter, apple juice or apple cider when the apples are falling off the trees, I quickly can them up for whatever I choose to do with them after the snow flies.

These apples were not sprayed and aren't the prettiest looking apples I've seen.  In fact I sure wouldn't have paid money for them and

I questioned if it was even worth my time to work them up.  As you can see, they are covered in spots.  I was sure pleased to see the beautiful jars of golden apples when I was done with the first batch.  They were a sight to behold considering my doubts to begin with.  It made me think about what my life looked like before God began His process in me.  My life sure wasn't pretty, in fact it seemed to be one big black spot, but God cared enough to pick me up off the ground and work with me, processing me through sanctification into something that He can use for His glory.  I may not be as pretty yet, as the beautiful jar of golden apples, but I sure feel like it these days!  

I need to quickly add a thank you to my dear mother in law for giving me a wonderful ceramic knife for my latest birthday that came with a terrific peeler which will quickly whip around an apple creating one long peel.  Without it, I wouldn't be getting so many apples worked up as I have, however, as many apples as I've worked with this year, an actual apple peeler will be on my gift list for next year!

Preserving Apples 

Begin by filling a large bowl about half to two-thirds full of water and then mix in a few swigs (1/4 cup) of lemon juice.  This is what you will slice your apples into in order to keep them from turning brown while you work up enough apples to cook.

Then peel, core and slice the apples putting them right into your bowl of lemon water.  About this time, I load my jars into the dishwasher to sterilize.  If you hot water bath your jars, a good time to do that would be while the apples are cooking down.  I place the lids in a small saucepan of boiling water when the apples are almost ready, to sterilize them.

Slice enough apples to fill your biggest pot with.  Put the slices in the pot and then depending on the size of your pot, pour in one to two cups of water.  The water is simply to keep the apples on the bottom from burning before the apples release their own juices.  The pot I use is only a 20 quart pot, which I fill to the top and add 1 1/2 cups of water to it.  *Update Option:  Use apple juice in place of water*   Place the pot on medium low heat and allow to simmer until you are able to pierce the apples with a fork.  It doesn't take very long, maybe 15 to 20 minutes or less depending on the size and thickness of your pot.

When filling up the jars with the apple slices, I try to get as many slices into the jars with as little liquid as possible and then pour the liquid over the slices.  Leave 1/4" head space, wipe the tops of the jars clean and put on the lids.  Process according to your canner's instructions.

Happy canning!  Please let me know if you have any questions! 



 

Sweet Pepper Salsa

Anxious to pickle up the banana peppers, I began the process eagerly.  After an unwise choice of not wearing gloves when cutting up some hot peppers several years ago, I am very careful to slip them on even for jalapenos.  Did I consider wearing them for the banana peppers?  Yes I did, however, how hot can banana peppers be?  

After slicing 3 quarts of them, my hands began to feel very warm.  I touched one of my fingers to my tongue (quick test to determine pepper heat, not exactly the smartest way)  and wow, I knew I was in trouble.  The rest of the evening was spent attempting to remove the heat from my fingertips and scolding myself for not using a little more

Secret Gift and the Coming of Autumn's Harvest

After a few weeks of wandering off to secretly work in the shop, my dear husband presented me with this today!  He is so clever and I am very pleased with it!  After weeks of getting back into the swing of homeschooling, and the weather not being able to decide if it's autumn or summer, my temperament has been showing wear.  This time of year seems to be the busiest with the blessing of a good harvest, there

Harvest Festival

Today was the first Harvest Festival of the season and what a beautiful day it was here in the Ozarks.  Blue sky, mild temperatures, a cool breeze every now and then, good southern bluegrass music and friendly faces, what more could one ask for today?  Nothing, that's what.  After a wonderful morning with a great lesson from Ephesians 4:31-32, we headed for the rolling hills of Wright County.  Great finds were to be