Bountiful Baskets and Steam Canners

These beautiful pears were purchased through Bountiful Baskets.

We ate many fresh and then it was time to preserve some before they became too ripe. So, the new steam canner was brought out.

I love it!

This is for high acid foods only. 

It is a super canner that reduces the heating up process.  You follow all of the same times as you would with a water bath canner.

Also in our Bountiful Basket was a lovely pineapple.  I cut-up and we are enjoying the flesh and the rind/peel is now becoming Tepache (or pineapple beer - like ginger beer but pineapple)

It's like pineapple soda-pop.  How fun is that!

If you too have Bountiful Baskets available in your area they are a great way to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables.

~a little bird

Seed Starting Has Begun

I have started some seeds for this year's garden. 

Paper Pots with the seeds planted

 

Mini Green House

As soon as these sprout I will put them under grow lights.  Keep your grow lights about two inches above your plants so they don't become 'leggy'.

Foil lined tote with grow light in the top

I am trying to grow onions from seed this year.  They are starting to sprout.  

I have purchased Sweet Spanish Yellow Onion seed. 

Hoping to get a good start before it's time to set them out.  We can have a frost here as late as May 31st.

So our tender plants don't go out until mid to late May and then we cover them for protection.

I need to start some pepper plants as well.

The Family Room decor changes this time of year.  The plastic tablecloth comes out to protect the drop leaf table.  The grow light totes come out etc.  Not the most attractive but, I certainly enjoy the produce.

Happy gardening!

a little bird

 

Lime Preservation Update

 I wanted to do a follow-up post on the limes - it's been a month now so wanted to see how they were doing.

As you can see, they are lighter in color and have swollen some.

Inside they look fine.  I noticed the rind was a bit tough when slicing through.

The biggest thing is they are dry.  There doesn't seem to be any juice to 'squeeze' out.  The flesh tastes good and I put a slice in some hot water to make a tea and it has a wonderful lime taste.  

Last night we had burritos for dinner.  There is no juice to squeeze out, so I put a small amount of the lime flesh in mine, and it was good that way.

Conclusion: They can be sliced and added to a drink hot or cold, the flesh can be used and has good flavor, but if juice is what you want these do not work for that.  

I think the way that I will use them is in tea or in ice water to give it a lovely lime refreshing lift of flavor.  

On a scale of 1 to 10, I would say an 8.  This is a good way of preserving the limes for a longer period of time. 

Lemon and Cumquats

 

This is my lovely lone lemon.

I was given this lemon tree a couple years ago. Last winter it bloomed. 

Since it was in the house for the winter, I used a soft paint brush to pollenate the blooms.

Three small lemons set on but this one made it through the full year to maturity.

My son asked me what I was going to do with my lemon. Good question.  What can you do with a lone lemon?  Use it all. 😉

And I am.

I squeezed the juice and got 50 ml, I sliced the exterior, and I smashed the remaining interior. I will dry the peel and the interior parts to be added to a dry herbal mix for a lovely lemon mint tea.

The juice will be used to make lemon curd.

Lemon Curd

1/2 cup fresh lemon juice

1-1/2 cup sugar

2 eggs

1/3 cup butter

Whisk lemon juice, sugar, and eggs in a saucepan

add butter and cook over medium-low heat whisking continuously until mixture reaches 170 degrees.  Remove from heat and pour curd into a pint jar and refrigerate.

This will thicken a bit more as it cools.

This is such a lovely treat.

Lemon Curd is a fresh sweet addition to scones, toast, pound cake, etc.

If you have bottled lemon juice and would like to can some Lemon Curd for the pantry HERE is the recipe.

Printable PDF for Lemon Curd HERE

Below is the last of the cumquats to be harvested.  I love having some warm weather plants that produce a small harvest that our climate just doesn't allow.  I have the lemon and cumquat trees that go out in the summer to enjoy our beautiful summer climate and then in the fall when the temperatures start to drop too low for their tender sets, I bring them in to the family room to enjoy the warmth of our house.  This sweet little tree produced 20 or so fruits.  And we have all just eaten and enjoyed them as they have ripened.  The cumquat has very sweet peel and very tart interior.  They are natures true Sweet Tarts.  So yummy and the grands have all enjoyed them.  Only four left but what fun it has been to watch them mature and then to enjoy the harvest.

~a little bird

Prayer

 

prayer

  NOUN

1. a solemn request for help or expression of thanks addressed to God.

Do you pray?

I do. 

There are times when prayer is all you can do. There are things happening in our world that we have no control over.  And sometimes we can feel frightened or overwhelmed.  The Holy Bible tells us:

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.

Philippians 4:6 NIV

I think that is our answer right now. We cannot control what's going on but we can share our concerns with a holy God, the Lord God Almighty, maker of heaven and earth. He hears us when we talk to Him and He cares .

 

Garden Planning Time

 

It's that time of year if you have a garden in the north.  

Graden planning time - the time when you sit down with a cup of hot tea and peruse the seed catalogs.  Get out the seed you saved from last year's garden and make a plan for this year.

We have a small garden patch now.  Years ago, when the boys lived at home, we had a MUCH bigger garden.

These pictures are from an older canning book.  The newer books don't have these charts anymore. 

I don't think people garden as much as they did in the past.  But it seems that home gardening is coming back in favor. So, if you are interested, these may be fun to look at. 

 

We don't grow all our own food.  Our little garden patch supplements our purchases.  It is nice to know how the food was grown and processed. 

And home grown always tastes the very best.

DH has no plans to increase the garden size.

After the boys moved away DH decreased the garden, planted grass, and put up a fence.

He was serious about a smaller patch. 😀

As I plan the garden DH reminds me not to over plan.  I always want to plant more than we actually have room for.  I have even tried to get him to give up some of the flower beds for my vegetables. 

It worked for my pea plant area - maybe it will work again. 😉

I remember my grandmothers working in their gardens.  On hot summer afternoons sitting in the shade, snapping beans or shelling peas. Going out and returning with an apron full of tomatoes, peppers, an onion, chopping it all up for the pot, adding some sugar, spices, and vinegar for a homemade catsup.  It was the very best I've ever had.

This is the closest recipe I've ever found to Grandma's homemade chili sauce.

I don't add the horseradish - Grandma never did.

They made a true impression on me.  I loved watching them as they put together wonderful food for their families.

It was a way of life for them.

Great Information for your Home Apothecary

 

Jump to 30 seconds to skip the intro.

Jump to 30 seconds to skip the intro.

Personally, I would not take comfrey internally.  According to my herb book.

"While traditionally comfrey was also prescribed for internal use, these days such practice is strongly discouraged because comfrey contains pyrrolizidine alkaloids that have been shown to have toxic effects. "

Family Dinner

(Photos public domain)

 I love it when we all get together for family dinner night.  Our D-i-L's have February birthdays.  We had a family dinner night to honor their birthdays.  Getting together as a family is one of my favorite things.  

I love the time spent catching up, laughing, playing games, spending time with the grandchildren, and so on.  Towards the end of the evening, I normally will put a movie on for the kids.  They all gather in the living room, me too, and it's a way to bring the busy down to a calmer pace.  By the time the movie is coming to a close their parents are starting to talk about heading home.  

I am always on the lookout for clean, cute, family movies.  Last night it was Matilda. I also purchased The Wizard of Oz, but we have some young ones that I think it would be a bit scary for yet. (Five and six are still a bit young for those flying monkeys!)

Our dinner was simple home cooked fare.  

Farm cooking is my husband's favorite. His Mom is a great farm cook.  So, meat and potatoes are always a big hit with him.

Since fresh is hard to come by right now in our area, our relish tray was home canned or fermented foods.

Dilly beans, pickled onions, pickled beets, sauerkraut, cheese and crackers, etc.

Dessert was Gluten Free Bread Pudding with Lemon Sauce and Coconut Macaroons.

One of our D-i-L's is unable to have gluten, so these desserts worked out great.

I used the normal bread pudding recipe but used gluten free bread.

The lemon sauce I thickened with arrowroot powder.

Lemon Sauce

1/2 cup lemon juice (fresh or bottled)

1/2 cup sugar

1 tablespoon arrowroot or cornstarch

Mix all together, cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until it thickens.

This is a tart and fresh flavored sauce.

Drizzle a little over your warm pudding and enjoy!

And the Coconut Macaroons are gluten free as well.

2 egg whites, dash salt, 1/2 t. vanilla beaten to soft peaks

slowly add 2/3 cup sugar and beat to stiff peaks

fold in 1-1/3 cups flaked coconut

Drop by the teaspoon onto your parchment lined baking sheet

Bake at 350 for 20 minutes.

It was a yummy dinner, and the family time was delicious!

~a little bird

Strawberry Jam

 My DH loves strawberry jam.  He chooses that before any other and although he will eat other jam on occasion.... his preference is strawberry.  We ran out of strawberry jam.  😐

When I went shopping at Costco, they didn't have Strawberry Jam either.  They had a spread that he has tried before and wasn't all that enamored with.  So today I pulled some frozen strawberries out to make some more jam.  It worked out well.

2 quarts frozen strawberries (I thawed them and blitzed in the food processor)

lemon juice - I used 1/8 to 1/4 cup

7 cups sugar (yes, that's a lot of sugar, but this is jam!)

I brought it all to a boil and cooked until it had jelled.

This yielded 4 pints of jam. 

This is warm jam on a whole wheat roll.  Pretty yummy! 

One jar went to the refrigerator for immediate use and the other three I water bathed (10 minutes for our altitude) for the future.  

~a little bird

Shortages and Empty Shelves...

 

(Above photo public domain)

Have you noticed any empty shelves at the grocery store?

My local store had one bag of dry cat food. (Which I didn't purchase in case someone else needed it.)  They did have dog food but one bag of dry cat food.

The produce section was VERY limited.  And to be honest the little that they had was priced high and didn't look fresh at all.  I bought some lettuce and made a salad.  It wasn't good at all.  I bagged it up to send home with d-i-l for the chickens.

There were other areas in the store that seemed 'normal'.  There was plenty of laundry soap and dish soap.

Yesterday I went to Costco to pick-up a few items.  The prices were up a bit, but not terrible.  They did have dry cat food though - which Louie will appreciate.

There were two areas that really stood out at Costco. One was there was no fresh chicken.  They did have canned, but no fresh.  The entire case where the fresh chicken usually is was filled with bacon.  I wish I had gotten a picture. It was such a weird sight.  The other noticeable area was the produce.  They too, had a much smaller stock of produce than I'm used to seeing there.  Items were placed further apart with more walking space to give the appearance of normal, but if you are used to shopping there you could see the changes.

I don't remember ever seeing shortages before in my lifetime.  I have to admit it is a little disconcerting.  

Are you seeing shortages in your areas?  Wishing you well.  ~a little bird