Showing posts with label canning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label canning. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Organizing with Mason Jars

Look what I found on Pinterest; a neat organization item made from mason jars...


Cool right? It looked simple enough, so I thought "What the hey?!"


And decided to try it myself. Any good crafty house has got a bit of glitter paint, mason jars and bits for knobs, right?

This one does!


I've already started my canning this year (made sweet pickles yesterday and have relish in the making as we speak), but wide-mouth jars aren't used very often, making them scarce. Two were all I needed for this craft though and polished tiger's eye stones were my accompaniment for knobs.


One for q-tips and bandaids in the other. What do you think? Pass or Fail?

     Take that Pinterest!

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

KAT'S COOKING KORNER: From the Garden

Along with the end of summer, back-to-school beginnings and a return to routine, I have fit in one of my favourite pastimes at present. With Farmer's Markets choke-a-block full of fresh produce and my gardens exploding with tasty new tidbits to try, I have pulled out my canner again. I already have dill pickles, sweet pickles, pickled onions, pickled beets and salsa lining my larder, as well as plenty of jars of jam set aside for school lunches. The new produce of choice this year comes from my Community Garden plot and I have to say, before starting to experiment with it, I was at a loss as to what to do with it. Are you familiar with this member of the nightshade family?


Give up? 

These green fruits, which are surrounded by a papery covering, are related to the Cape Gooseberry, but harken from much further afield. While I grew these in Southwestern Ontario, they originated in Mexico. These firm specimens are identified as Physalis Ixocarpa or Tomatillos

So with the handful of plants that we decided to plant on a whim, producing vast quantities of these small green lanterns, what was I to do with them? Check the internet for recipes, of course! While I suppose I could have asked you, my lovely readers, if you had a recipe or two, I strode into a Google search that turned up millions of recipes. Over 5 million to be exact, but I suspect the vast majority of them were for salsa. Great, but after making a batch of Salsa Verde, what else was I going to do with this sink full of a foreign vegetable? Keep searching, I guess!

Those green bits are tomatillos!
You know what I found? You can make lots of things with tomatillos. I made a few batches of Salsa Verde, the second of which has a nice bite to it compliments of the jalapeƱos and serrano peppers. I made a couple of batches of tomatillo jam, that is delicate and delicious. Just like a marmalade! I made a tomatillo sauce for a fish dish that I cooked up last week, which was to die for. I even added them into my tacos tonight, to fill out the ground turkey, since the kids aren't overly keen on the usual Mexican spices that are called for in traditional tacos. Added a tangy kick, as well as a hint more sauce. Yum! Wowee, what a find! Kid friendly and adult too!

The spices that went into tonight's tacos.
Note the Salsa Verde in this jar 
is already 1/2 gone!
And who knew these slightly lemony tomatoes would be so prolific? Not us! It would seem that when the thick stems hit the ground, they root and send off another shoot to produce more fruit. Bonus! Err, I think. Only last week, I was by our community plot and plucked a cloth grocery bag full of tomatillos. I knew with a certainty that I would be back sooner rather than later to gather more of these green globes, seeing as how there were still plenty of lanterns to be seen and the plant was still thriving. They don't seem to be anywhere near ready to quit! I have a bag full of them frozen and might have to dig up some new recipes to use up the last of the ones that are on my counter, before heading back for more from the garden. Not that I'm complaining though!

So if you have ever thought about trying out a new plant for your veggie garden, this one is worth a try. I'm not sure what made these plants so happy, whether it was the hot season we had, or the lack of attention, but I think that I'm hooked. In case you were wondering, you pick them when the papery coating splits. It will be dry and might even turn brown and peel off. The actual tomatillos have a slightly sticky coating, but are easily rinsed and chopped up. They have a fairly thick skin, but the inner seeds aren't near so wet and slippery as regular tomatoes. For the health conscious among us, they contain vitamin C, protein, carbohydrates and dietary fibre. All in a pretty package to boot. 

And what did my kids have to say? Dig in!

Open-Face Taco with Tomatillos

Friday, August 13, 2010

Friday Foggy Fuzzy Thoughts

Just about ready to crawl into bed. NO, I lie. I am ready. A cat is snoring away beside me and I wonder why I am not doing the same as of yet. I was up late doing some editing on some writing that I have been plugging away at and hope to turn into a book one day. I love the process, but wish that I could just sit and write, write, write while the words are flowing until I am done. Unfortunately, things like the clock ticking past 1am and the knowledge that two little girls will crawl into bed with me in the AM regardless of what time I go to bed, stops the flow. Then I need to find my muse and mo again. Not tonight though. Both cats are in. I finally returned a call to my sister and should get up in the morning for a potential play date that may or may not materialize. Hopefully my mind will co-operate and just fall asleep instead of swirling around images of what a working world looks like and how I can coordinate it. 

Not even going to go there.  Before retiring for the evening I am going to share some of my recent Becky Home-ecky moments. Here are the fruits of my labours from last week. On the left is some of the batch of sweet pickles I recently made and the right is a one of the jars of dill pickles that is ear-marked for a friend of mine that loved my garlic dills from last year. Put in your orders folks! The corn is tempting me to try my hand at corn relish. The peaches beg to be concocted into an array of yumminess from Peach Amaretto Butter (last year's was delicious but more like syrup- great on pancakes), to peach jam or maybe even peach pickles? Hmm... Must go to sleep. I can dream of my canner and smile.


P.S. This probably wasn't worth the effort of popping by today and I apologize for that, but I will try harder again later. Peace out...
zzzzzz..........

Saturday, August 7, 2010

Wiping the dust off the canner

Wiping the dust off the canner
~


Well, it's that time again. Somehow my day seems to be slipping by without notice, but I am on it. Yup, today is day 1 of pickle making. I bought a whack of pickling cukes yesterday. At 1:30 I am finally ready to start, barring any distractions. Dill pickles should be setting up in shiny jars by the end of the day, with sweet pickles to be made shortly after (or tomorrow?). So no time for wasting; a pickling I go! Happy Six Word Saturday! Hope your day is a success.

Sunday, June 20, 2010

Strawberry Fields Forever


   I was going to extol the virtues of spending time in nature with family. Some bleeding heart stuff about activities with kids and how it brings you all closer  together with memories; blah, blah, blah.... I could have even gone further with delightful pictures of the girls and I angelically stirring a bubbling pot of jam on the stove. Yeah, coulda. If I hadn't just spent the last hour scraping that bubbling jam off the top of my flat top cooker. Did you know that jam turns to concrete when cooked in such a way? mmmhhmm, it does. Yup.


   Well, I still have to put out the garbage and maybe take another crack at some of the concrete embedded into the stove. It might just be one of those memory spots, but hey, the floor under the stove got swept and swiffered when I pulled the stove out to wash the f#@%$#^#$@$#!!!! jam off the side of it. I still have the largest basket and one of the smaller baskets to deal with tomorrow. Perhaps I can manage to splatter the ceiling or walls with red droplets of goo that will make me tear my hair asunder and cry like it is the end of the earth. That is another day though. Happy Father's Day.

Monday, September 14, 2009

Glory days of Fall

As you may be able to guess from my last post, I have been keeping busy the last little while with some canning. I am absolutely tickled by my activities in the kitchen. Today I made strawberry jam. It was made from berries picked yesterday by my children, niece, sister and me. I also have salsa bubbling on the stove as we speak, again from tomatoes selected from the field by myself. Last week, my endeavours were pickled beets and dill pickles. I had never made either, so we shall find out in a few months how my first attempt at pickling went. It is all a very earthy and satisfying process that I am glorying in.

And to top it all off, I have laundry blowing on the line. I am so crunchy granola it is silly. I love it!

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