Canning Butternut Soup

 It has continued to be a busy time here in the holler. First frost has come and gone a week early no less and we have had 3 consecutive night of freezing temperatures. We did finally get a small amount of rain but it continues to be really dry for this time of year. Before frost we scurried around picking everything we could. One of those vegetables still out there was Butternut quash. They were growing on vines in various parts of the garden up fences and trellises and left to ripen and the skins harden in the cool weather of fall. Once that frost danger approaches they must be picked though. 

All together I picked about 14 off of 3 vines so not bad for a harvest and plenty for the two of us. This really is one of those plant and forget crops for me. I add plenty of compost when I plant and occasionally train the vines on fences and wires and forget until time to pick. I do prefer to grow the vertically though. 

The first three I picked I peeled then chunked up and covered raw with some rich chicken bone broth then pressure canned for 90 minutes (quarts) at 12 pounds of pressure for my altitude. They turned out beautifully and will be used to make butternut soup once opened, heated and pureed with an immersion blender. Then I will add cream and a flour and butter roux as a thickener for a rich and creamy winter soup. Served with fresh garlic croutons and crumbled crispy bacon bits on top.

The seeds were saved and are drying on paper plates while the largest ones will be used for seed stock to replant for years to come. The extra seeds will be roasted in the oven for snacking. 

With 11 more squash to go I will bake some of these and scoop out the meat to mash and freeze for holiday pies and breads. 

The fall season is beautiful right now with the leaves turning colors and we have been enjoying nightly fires with the cooler temperatures. We have been gathering lots of walnuts and wild persimmons. I still have a bit of canning to do with frozen fruit that was picked earlier in the year. A couple gallon bags of blackberries again need to be made into  pie filling and canned to clear some space in the freezer. We have a pig that is being butchered from a local farmer next month so I need to make room. 

Blessings from The Holler

The Canned Quilter

Plentiful Harvests for Autumn

The days of sleeping at night with an open window under a snuggly quilt have returned. The leaves have started to trickle down again from the trees. I picked the first 6 of my butternut squash yesterday. I love the "pumpkin" pies I make from these. In the past I have chunked these up and canned them in jars but honestly I don't like them that way. The meat of the squash tends to be watery preserved that way. My preference actually is to mash the squash up and freeze it. I may play around with dehydrating it into a powder this year and then rehydrating for pies. We shall see since I have plenty to work with. You have to make sure when growing these winter squash to leave them on the vine long enough for that rind to get good and hard. That is the secret to a long shelf life. 

I have been playing around with the idea of canning chicks of this squash in jars with chicken broth and maybe onions. You could open the jar and simply puree the contents and maybe add cream for an almost instant butternut squash soup. I see some more experimenting in my near future. 

Recipe for Amazing Butternut Pie

My eldest daughter "Fred" came to visit recently bring my grandchildren to spend some time. She had recently butchered and brought me meat builder chickens she had raised along with some fresh pork. O Wise One smoked it last week and I used the smoked chicken to make a couple casseroles for the freezer. The chicken bones had a smoky flavor and I made a small crock pot of smoked chicken broth to use to can. That should give something an interesting flavor. With the smoked pork I had some dry pinto beans laying around so I cooked my pinto beans just until soft then added them to jars along with chunks of the smoked pork and some chopped onions then poured the smoked chicken broth over the top to fill the jars to 1 inch headspace. Then I processed these quart jars for 90 minutes at 12 pounds pressure. Talk about good it made quart jars of pinto beans with onions and chunks of smoked pork. Add some corn bread and a sliced tomato fresh from the garden and you have a great meal. The extra broth I put up in 3 quarts also. Just 1 batch of seven quarts but that is seven meals for us out of one piece of pork. Three freezer casseroles ( 8" X 8") with smoked chicken stashed in the freezer and a little extra broth as a bonus. So all together 10 meals for 2 pieces of meat. 

We picked the last of the Red beans from the garden also and canned 6 quarts of Louisiana Red Beans then pulled up the plants for the compost pile. One more crop finished for the year. I had been low on Red beans and concentrated on growing these to replenish my stock. We had made some homemade rope sausage last month and out in the freezer to go with these beans and also to go with my fermented homemade sauerkraut in the fridge. Louisiana Red Beans and Rice are a comfort food from home for me and we managed to can 60 quarts of them this season to add to the pantry. For the two of us that is 60 meals. 

Mama's Red Bean Recipe

Dill Relish Recipe

My cucumbers are also starting to slow down so I made a small batch of 7 pints of dill relish. I use this for tuna, egg and chicken salads for sandwiches in the winter. This should again last us until the next cucumber harvest next spring/early summer. 

Another bumper crop for the year has been yellow squash. 2022 shall be remembered as the year of the squash. I have 5 gallon zip bags of blanched sliced squash waiting to go into vacuum bags for the winter not counting what I have already put in vacuum bags. My plain old yellow crook neck squash was definitely an over achiever this year. These we like to eat with just a touch of bacon and onion smothered in a skillet. Sometimes I may add a sprinkling of shredded cheese over the top. 

I also make a cream of squash soup with chicken broth, pureed squash and cream. A great fall soup to use up those extra squash. For this soup I freeze pureed squash in containers then remove from the containers and vacuum seal to go back in the freezer. Again to free up some freezer space the same idea of canning with chicken broth would work. Another experiment for the future. 

The squash plants too have been pulled up and added to the compost. 

I have 4 giant striped heirloom Italian zucchini named "Cocozelle" on my table awaited to be seeded for seed for next year and the meat I will shred for zucchini bread to go into the freezer. 

So as the temperatures mellow and the leaves begin to fall we start to also forage walnuts from the neighbors walnut tree that we gather every year to put in the freezer for our holiday baking and additions to our morning refrigerator oats. The cycle continues for another year here in the holler. The firewood is stacked, the fall garlic awaits planting next month and the compost piles grow ever larger. Soon shredded leaves will start being added to the compost and they will really swell in size.

Our spring baby ducklings were added to the flock this morning. We kept three little hens. So we now have Tiddly Winks my little pocket duck, Thelma the original hen and Tassy Lou the addition last year from a neighbor. Added to the mix now are Tink, Tilly and Tammy Faye.  Angel is one happy drake with his harem of T's. Angel was named after one of Baby O's past boyfriends. The six little pullets are growing like mad and will replace the hens now in the chicken yard that will be butchered soon as they are at the end of their laying cycle. Their meat and subsequent broth will go into jars for winter meals.

Life goes on and we await the imminent first frost sometime next month. 

Blessings from The Holler

The Canned Quilter

******* Notation

Barbara asked an excellent question about old hens being tough. These old hens are called stewing hens. A stewing hen is a retired egg layer. Stewing hens are an important component for honoring the life cycle of a farm. After several happy years eating grass and bugs, a hen’s egg laying ability naturally slows down, and she’s no longer a productive member of the flock. In order to keep up with the demand for eggs, farms must cull these older hens in order to make space for new layers. Butchering and selling these hens provides a revenue source for farms and allows the hen to continue to provide nourishment, this time in the form of high quality, pastured meat.

Unlike broilers that are raised for meat and fattened relatively quickly, stewing hens have the opportunity to develop very strong bones, and strong, lean muscles. These bones are incredibly mineral rich, and the fat from these hens is full of fat-soluble vitamins and nutrients. Because of their rich nutritional content, stewing hens make excellent stock. A stewing hen’s lean meat contains a high level of connective tissue, which works wonderfully for slow cooked dishes such as stew, soup, and chicken and dumplings.

Tomato Products

As  the rest of the country anticipated a shortage of tomato products in our future according to the recent  exploits of the media here I sit. Hip deep I tell you in nothing other than tomatoes. For the second year in a row a bumper crop of good old homegrown tomatoes. These days my kitchen table, kitchen counters and any other flat surface I can find is covered in seeds drying, vegetables ripening, vegetables waiting to be washed, blanched, chopped, dehydrated, frozen or canned. There is no tomato product shortage in The Holler. 

 

You can find tomatoes as they ripen cooking down in roasters and crockpots waiting to go into yummy dishes of some sort. These will be run through the immersion blender for homemade tomato sauce. 

On the table Rotel tomatoes in pint jars, Quarts of okra and tomatoes, canned chicken, watermelon seeds drying along with ripening tomatoes and green peppers. 

I caught navy beans on sale for $0.50 cents a pound so I bought 5 pounds. Came home and added onions, hamburger, maple syrup and homemade tomato sauce for 24 pints of barbecue beans.

I an also still processing fresh red beans. 

Yesterdays endeavor was taco soup with 3 pounds of dried black beans cooked until soft, 3 pounds of burger, and 3 pounds of corn, add hot peppers and onions chopped along with chili powder, cumin, homegrown garlic  and lots of cooked down fresh tomato sauce and I canned 12 jars of taco soup. 

Yes indeed the tomato products are flowing right now in my kitchen. 

Blessings from The Holler

The Canned Quilter

Canning Gooseberry Pie Filling

 

With gooseberries hanging off the bushes my June fruit crop is gooseberries, plums, rhubarb, strawberries and black currants. Makes for a busy month to say the least. As my service berry/june berry trees and mulberry trees mature that will add 2 more fruit crops to June. 

But I still have frozen gooseberries from last year's harvest. So to make room for the new fruit in the freezer I decided to can some gooseberry pie filling. This will also make it shelf stable for years to come. I use it for pies and cobblers or add it to cake mix for a dump cake or even to the top of cheesecake. It is also great over vanilla ice cream. 

Gooseberry Pie Filling

1 3/4 cups clear jel

7 cups sugar

3 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

7 cups water

1/2 cup lemon juice

7 cups cleaned gooseberries. 

1. Combine clear jel, water and sugar in a heavy bottomed pot and cook until clear and thick.

2. Add lemon juice and stir and allow to cook for a minute or two.

3. Add cinnamon, nutmeg and gooseberries to pot and stir well and allow to heat up. 

4. Hot pack into hot jars and water bath for 35 minutes. 

Blessings from The Holler

The Canned Quilter

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Canning Elderberry Jam

 

Elderberry Jam

( 4 half pints )

4 cups crushed elderberries

4 cups sugar

1 tsp lemon juice

Combine partially crushed elderberries, lemon juice and sugar into a large thick bottomed pot and slowly heat to melt sugar while stirring to prevent sticking. Stir this mixture while simmering until the mixture thickens and either reaches a temperature of 220 on a candy thermometer or does the sheet test on a cold saucer. If it starts to foam I simply add a small pat of butter to control the foam. Once jam has thickened add hot jam to hot jars and seal. Then I process half pints or pints for 10 minutes in a hot water bath canner. Then remove and allow to cool for 24 hours and seal. 

Some tips on jelly and jam making.  As a child I spent many a year at my mother's side watching her make jellies and jams. I have continued with the same process. I take either fresh or frozen fruit and add sugar. Then it is simply a process of cooking it down enough to reduce the liquid in the jam or jelly until it thickens while stirring to prevent sticking and scorching. I do not as a general rule add pectin or Sure Gel. 

Couple things I was taught. 

Do not pick your fruit directly after a rain when they are full of water. That dilutes the flavor and is just that much more moisture to cook out. 

Jelly making is not a process to get in a hurry on. It takes time to cook it down slowly without burning and requires lots of watching and stirring. 

A small amount of butter added to the pot helps with foaming.

While I do own a candy thermometer I just do the sheet or spoon test. This consists of dipping a cool metal spoon into the boiling jelly mixture. Raise the spoon about 12 inches above the pot (out of steam). Turn the spoon until the liquid runs off the side. The jelly is done when the syrup forms two drops that flow together and sheet off the edge of the spoon. This can also be done with a cold saucer placed in the freezer. 

I use this same cup for cup fruit to sugar ratio for blackberries, boysenberries, dewberries, gooseberries and strawberries. 

Blessings from The Holler

The Canned Quilter

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Canning Elderberry Pie Filling

 

The elderberries are blooming and loaded this year. In the most recent freezer clean out I thawed out some and canned some homemade elderberry pie filling. This should make room for the new crop in the freezer. For me elderberry has been a super simple crop to grow and easy to propagate. I dehydrate some for hot tea during the winter as it is supposed to help strengthen the immune system. This is the first pie filling from them I have canned thus far. 

Elderberry Pie Filling for canning (1 quart)

5 cups elderberries

1 cup sugar

1 cup water

1 TBSP lemon juice

1/4 cup Clear Jel

1. Combine water, sugar, Clear Jel and cook over medium heat until thick stirring often to prevent sticking.

2. Add lemon juice and simmer for about a minute

3. Fold in elderberries and simmer for about 5 minutes. 

4. Put in hot jars and seal. Process quarts and pints in water bath canner for 30 minutes. 

***My berries were frozen so I defrosted the berries and strained off the juice and used it as my water. You can add water to the juice the compensate for the difference.)

Blessings from The Holler

The Canned quilter

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Cleaning Out The Freezer

It's been a bit since I posted but I sure have been busy. Summer temperatures have finally gotten here with a few 90 degree days forecasted for next week. Other than that the days have been mild here with cool temperatures and plenty of rain for the garden. With the garden harvest coming in my time has been spent picking and preserving. green onions, peas, turnips and mustard greens. I picked the first of my beets this last week and pickled them and picked my first thinning of baby carrots and canned them. 

I also received some corn from a relative that came to visit from down south and I canned 21 pints of whole kernel corn. With fruit hanging outside I went through the freezer and decided to take what fruit that was left over from last year that we had not ate fresh from the freezer in cobblers, yogurt, smoothies and oatmeal to put in jars and make room for the new harvests. This will help make room in my freezer for this years crop and make the fruit in there now shelf stable for future use without relying on the freezer. 

In the photo above are corn and baby carrots that I thinned as well as some pickled beets. Also pictured is canned gooseberry pie filling, canned elderberry pie filling, elderberry jam, plum syrup for pancakes and ice cream topping, blackberry pie filling, and a spiced plum syrup with cinnamon and almond flavoring. 

I will post some of the canning recipes individually as I get time to type them up and add to the canning recipes section.  I still have rhubarb, blueberries, gooseberries and strawberries left to deal with. But that is next weeks projects. And the first of the gooseberries are starting to ripen. 

 

The Small green peas are done now and have been pulled and relegated to the compost piles. In their place are tomato plants just in time for this upcoming warm weather. With the last of the peas I made a nice pot of fresh creamed peas and new potatoes for my husband. It is one of his favorites. 

The green onions have all been pulled and chopped and are in freezer bags ready to use throughout the year. I may plant some more for fall. We eat lots of onions, garlic and other herbs and seasonings. I can always dehydrate them for storing if nothing else. 

We also enjoyed lots of baby spinach salads over the spring season and finally pulled the last of it and froze it for soups and such. I have enough turnips in the bottom of the refrigerator for one more scalloped turnip casserole. Another family favorite. The remaining bok choy has been allowed to set a seed head and I left a couple mustard to flower for seeds as well.  As usual the Jericho romaine lettuce is holding up wonderfully and I have one selected to go to seed also. The onions are starting to bulb up and the broccoli is starting to put on heads. The cabbage are huge and have really had very few bugs so far. 

So in a nutshell it has been a cool, rainy and very productive spring in the garden. With rising grocery prices we have preserved almost everything that we have raised so far and will probably plant a bit more than we usually do. 

We remain healthy and active with taking care of the gardens and lawn and keeping up with the canning. I also was notified yesterday that I am up for jury duty for the next 3 months. UGH! I dread it and think I have PTSD from the last jury duty and seeing all those pictures of that 4 year old boy ran over by a tractor. I still have nightmares. Keep your babies close you mamas out there. 

Well I am off for now and will hopefully have a little more time for blogging as I catch up with all this canning. 

Blessings from The Holler

The Canned Quilter

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I can also be found at

https://thebackfence.freeforums.net/

Canning Pulled Pork

In previous posts I wrote about finding a good sale at the small local owned community IGA on pork butt for $1.69 a pound and buying 20 pounds. This little store is about 10 minutes down the road from me and employs a full time butcher. I try to give them business and keep my dollars in my community. Now on most things they cannot compete with the large stores but they can run some good meat sales. 

 Facing a rainy week last week I wanted to play around with a new to me skill of canning pulled pork. Now if you do a search there are all kinds of recipes and videos on this but I have never done it before personally. There also seem to be several different ways of doing it. Cold packing raw meat, precooking and canning cooked meat. I personally opted to precook my meat. I also used my old stand by pulled pork sauce as the liquid to go into the jar. I noticed some people just use a bottled BBQ sauce and some did not use a sauce but rather just covered with broth. Make it your own. As long as it is pressure canned for 75 minutes pint or 90 minutes for quarts you should be golden. Play with it and do what your family likes.  

I defrosted a couple pork butts from the freezer that had been somewhat trimmed and deboned. It probably was about 4 pounds but after cooking out the juices and fat maybe 3 and a half. 

O Wise One put them in a skillet and just lightly seared them on the outside. 

Then I added them to my largest crock pot and cooked on high for about 4 hours. Just until basically they were barely cooked.

Then we allowed them to cool and cut them into pieces or strips that would stand up in a pint jar. 

I then added them to hot pint jars. I managed to get about 13 ounces of meat to each jar. To each jar I added some sauce. 

Shredded Pork Butt Sauce

1 onion finely chopped

3/4 cup ketchup

3 Tbsp tomato paste

1/4 cup apple cider vinegar

1 tsp paprika

1 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp ground mustard

1 tsp cumin

3 - 4 pound pork Butt

I simply mixed this up and heated it on the stove and put some evenly in each jar over the top of the meat. Then I took my bubble tool and removed the bubbles. If necessary I topped any that needed it up with some hot chicken broth leaving a 1 inch headspace as usual. I debubbled again and wiped my lids really good. Then add lids and rings.

I pressure canned my pints for 75 minutes in the pressure canner at 12 pounds pressure ( for my altitude). 

I ended up with 8 pints for about 3 pounds of meat. 

Full disclosure even though I did try to remove most of the fat it is impossible to remove all of it. So in each jar once cooled any remaining fat will rise to the top of the jar and form a fat layer. I simply took a spoon and removed that layer and sent it to the big dogs as a treat on top of their food. Anything you can meat wise even some soups and such you will see this fat layer and I just try to keep it to a minimum. 

Once that fat layer is removed the meat shredded beautifully and I just simply added the sauce in the jar back to the meat and heated. One pint was perfect for us for making 2 pulled pork buns. One for each of us and served with a pint of those BBQ beans I canned the other day warmed up and some oven sweet potato fries from last years sweet potatoes. It was a perfect meal for two. 

At the end of the day we really liked this recipe and I will do some more of these. You just cannot beat these for convenience especially for two people. A great quick lunch or supper. Next we are going to try these on baked potatoes. 

If you give this a try come back and let me know how they turn out for you and what changes if any you make.

Blessings from The Holler

The Canned Quilter

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I can also be found at 

https://thebackfence.freeforums.net/

 

Canning Ham And Bean Soup

Another of my rainy week canning sessions using up some of my sales that I ran across this month already. Ham and white bean soup is one of our favorite soups. Add a sandwich or salad and another of those great and hearty stick to your ribs kind of meals. 

3 pounds chicken at $0.39 a pound = $3.90

I started out with a ten pound bag of chicken legs and thighs that we caught on sale recently for $0.39 cents a pound. We thawed out 1 bag and trimmed them up and placed on a baking sheet and baked until done. 

Then we took the meat off the bones and the bones and skin went into a crockpot for a nice big portion of fresh bone broth. 

The extra chicken meat went into quart jars and was canned for later use. I also kept some out for a pot of chicken and noodles for that night for supper. 

Two bowls of broth went into the fridge that night for the fat to rise to the top overnight as it cooled and was skimmed off the following morning as a treat for the dogs. 

3 Great Northern Beans $1.35 = $4.05

3 pound bags of great northern beans were soaked overnight in hot water and the next morning boiled until just soft and then drained. 

3.5 pounds chunked smoked ham at $1.99 per pound = $6.96

Another sale item we found recently was Cure 81 smoked boneless hams for $1.99 per pound. I bought 3 for the freezer. This was a great sale on a great product. We cut up approximately half of the ham or about 3.5 pounds into half inch chunks. 

Next we layered the cooked beans into jars filling to a little over half full. Then we added on top ham, chopped onions and a small amount of celery chopped small. I wanted to end up with about 2/3 of a jar full of additions. Since the ham was smoked and already salty we did not add any salt. It can always be salted when opened and heated. 

Then each jar was filled with heated chicken broth leaving a one inch head space. Do not forget to remove those bubbles. 

Wipe down those rims good and add lids and rings. I processed my quarts for 90 minutes in my pressure canner. 

Remove jars and allow to cool overnight. Wash and label sealed jars for storage. My end result was 14 quarts of hearty ham and white bean soup. A quart makes 2 generous helpings of soup and perfect for the two of us for a meal. Add a small salad or maybe a sandwich and we are in heaven. Instant lunch or supper meal just heat and eat. 

The total cost is $14.91 cents. Not counting the jars or lids and 2 onions and a small amount of chopped celery. I haven't bought new jars in years and buy lids every time I see them but many of my lids are years old. But remember those jars are good for a lifetime. Don't forget those extra 3 quarts and one pint of chicken we canned as well that is just a bonus of producing that rich bone broth that is included in that total cost. Each one of those 3 quarts of chicken will make a pot pie which is another 3 meals as a bonus. Remember that this reflects some GREAT sales though. 

Final approximate cost of each quart jar of soup.

$1.07 per quart (32 ounces) or  a meal for 2 people. That is $0.53 cents per person or rounds up to about 4 cents an ounce. 

A 19 ounce can of Campbell's chunky bean and ham soup $1.98 or 10.4 cents an ounce at Walmart according to their website today and it is out of stock at my local store. I am sure that 10 cents an ounce reflects the cost of can, transportation and middle and retail profit though. 

How's that for keeping it real. 

Blessings from The Holler

The Canned Quilter

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I can also be found at

https://thebackfence.freeforums.net/