Vegas sunset

Week 29

Guess what I've been doing?  BTW, the first pic shows all the poms I have yet to juice!  I made the mistake of telling DH that I saw a tree loaded with big, red poms, while I was walking the dog.  He went over and got permission to pick the entire tree if we wanted.  They were nice and juicy.  I steam juiced almost five quarts last night.  At $1.99 each in the stores and $6 for a pom juice, this is a score!!

Just had my blood drawn. I HATE NEEDLES!!!

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Pomegranate Jelly

Here is the recipe from my friend Robin:

Pomegranate Jelly
3 3/4 cups pomegranate juice (approx. 4 lbs or 10-12 poms)
1  pkg. pectin (use sure-jell, not mpc)
4 1/2 cups sugar

Sterilize jars and lids. Strain juice, add pectin to juice.  Heat to boil. Add sugar and boil 2 minutes.  Skim, and fill jars to within 1/8".  Invert 2-3 minutes. Turn upright. Cool.
DO NOT double this recipe!
Makes (6) 1/2 pints

I don't know about you, but not BWB jelly, especially for gifts, does not appeal to me. It is too easy for whatever to start growing in jelly. I will be using this recipe instead. I'll use Pomona Pectin and a BWB canner.

Pomegranate Jelly
Pomegranates - 8 or 9 large fully ripe pomegranates (or 5 cups prepared juice) That also about 5 lbs of fresh pomegranates. If you want to start with pomegranate juice (5 cups bottled, without sugar added or reconstituted from frozen, without sugar.
Pectin
Lemon juice - The Ball Blue Book recipe does not include lemon juice, but adding 1/4 cup per batch can help improve the set and reduce spoilage.
Sugar - About 4.5 cups of dry, granulated (table) sugar.

More later.  Stay tuned...

Busy Day

Yesterday, I was removing pomegranate seeds and juicing them.  Kudos to my friend Robin for telling me she removed the seeds under water.  Much cleaner, although juice still made it out into a few random spots.  DH brought home a bag of poms from someone at work.  Actually he had asked if anyone had any, and he would take them off their hands.  That's where I have to take the kudos back from Robin.  You see, she gave me a jar of her pomegranate jelly and DH loved it.  "Couldn't you make some jelly like that"?, says he. So yesterday I did a sink full of poms and juiced them.  Then he brings me home another bag when he gets home from work.  "Thanks, dear".  Oh course, he doesn't realize what a time consuming and messy proposition dealing with this fruit is. So today, I had to go to a refresher course for working at the polls on 11/2.  Then I had visits with the RS presidency, then home to process this other bag of poms, and later another meeting I have to go to. I'll post the jelly recipe later.

Lemon Curd

Does everyone know what lemon curd is?  It is a mixture of lemon, sugar and cooked eggs that is fabulous when made correctly.  It really isn't a difficult process, although about half way through the cooking you'll think it's ruined.    The consistency is a creamy, custardardy (it's a word in my world) glob of goodness that can be used on toast or in a dessert.

If you thought you couldn't BWB dairy and eggs you're correct, except for this lemon curd. The University of Georgia has come up with a very specific recipe to make lemon or lime curd. The recipe should be followed to exacting standards when dealing with eggs.  The canned curd has a short shelf life of 3-4 months, but Christmas is coming up.  This would make a great gift to the neighbors with a loaf of fresh bread.

Speaking of Christmas, is everyone done shopping? In my world it is, unfortunately that doesn't translate into the real physical world...

Week 28

Making French Onion Soup

DH had jury duty today, so I stayed home and canned pineapple and french onion soup.  As the weather is cooling down, and it was drizzily, today was a great day for it.

Here's the recipe:
12 cups beef broth
2 tablespoons butter
7 medium onions sliced (I used 5 large)
3/4 tsp garlic powder
2 tsp steak sauce (any kind)
2 tsp salt if desired (My broth was salty so I did not use)

I cut the onions and cooked in the butter until slightly limp.
I divided the onions evenly among the jars. I added the seasoning to the broth, stirred well, and poured into the jars to the fill line. (add water if needed) I pressured canned at 11PSI for 75 minutes for quarts.

To serve, heat oven to 350 degrees. Toast french bread slices. (1 per bowl)
Then set oven to broil. Use an ovenproof bowl, place on baking sheet, and add soup, then a slice of the toasted bread, then cheese, I use mozzarella and provolone, then sprinkle with parmesan. Put under broiler till the cheese turns brown and serve.
My Notes on the soup.
I used a combination of water, bouillion and marsala wine for the broth.  I used a combination of chicken and beef bouillion.  The onions I browned in olive oil in a cast iron skillet.  They didn't cook long enough to carmelize, but they did brown.  I also used 5 large brown onions, instead of 7.  It made more than enough onions.I used a very generous Tbl. of garlic powder with parsley and 2 Tbl. of Worcestershire Sauce and 1 of A-1.

Report on the Potatoes

My DH and I tried them and neither one of us liked the taste.  It had a weird flavor that did not taste like normally cooked potatoes.  Back to the drawing board.

Tators

I finally got around to canning potatoes today.  Very simple.  I chunked them and dropped them in water and fruit fresh to keep them from turning dark, then into the jars with hot water salted with sea salt.  They are then pressure canned for 35 minutes (pints) @ 10 lbs. psi.  The large bag of potatoes does not go to waste and if I want mashed potatoes all I have to do is run them through a ricer, add milk and butter, and heat.  Maybe 10 minutes at the most.  What a time saver.

What Have I been Doing All Week?

I'm not sure, but I'm been busy. 

Back to Basics

What can be more basic than wheat?  I have decided that I need to get back into eating wheat.  I got out of the habit in Utah (of all places) and need to mix it in with my morning granola. A cook way of cooking up wheat is in the crockpot.  I mixed together 1 cup of wheat, 1/2 tsp kosher salt and 4 cups of water.  You cook it overnight (8-10 hours) and it is ready in the morning. I drain it, and put the rest in the fridge and use as needed. If you have it already made, you are more apt to use it in your recipes.  How about sprinkling some in soup or on a salad?  Start out slowly and your body with thank you.

Auctions

I put a couple of auctions up, if anybody would like to see.  Ebay auction

Ebay Auction #2

Good Old Meatloaf

Are you ever in the mood for comfort food, like meatloaf.  I was today.  Since we were having the missionaries over for dinner, I knew I could make a large meatloaf and not have to worry about a ton of leftovers.

I found a recipe on the Internet and played with it until I came up with this one.  It was actually quite good.

All the ingredients were items from my pantry.  I only one I purchased was the lean ground beef.

Pantry Meatloaf

2 pound lbs. lean ground beef or a pork & beef mixture
2 Tbl. prepared Mustard
2 Tbl.A-1 steak sauce
1 tsp.sea salt
1 cup dry bread crumbs or oatmeal
2 large eggs
1/2 cup milk
3 tablespoons Tbl. parsley flakes
1 small onion minced
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1/2 cup Ketchup
2 tablespoons Teriyaki sauce

SAUCE:
Mix 1/2 cup ketchup with 1/4 cup brown sugar and about the last 20 minutes of baking time put this sauce on top of the meatloaf. These are additional amounts of both Ingredients for the sauce.

Instructions:
Mix all meatloaf ingredients together. Blend well. Pat meatloaf into a 9" loaf pan or make into small individual loaves for single use later. Spread remaining sauce mixture over top of meatloaf. Bake in 400 degree oven for one hour.
My Notes: I used 6 grain cereal mix in place of the bread crumbs. I had run out of fresh eggs, so I didn't use any. I also used dried chopped onions instead of fresh. I made a shallow well on top of the meatloaf and put the sauce on at the beginning of the cooking time. I finished cooking about 1/2 hour before serving to allow the meatloaf to cool slightly.  I sliced it, covered with foil, and put it back in the oven till serving time.

Beef Barley Soup

On my Maybe Canning page, I have added recipes that interest me, but I don't know when I'll get around to them.  Does that make sense?  Today I made time to can Beef Barley Soup.  We are such wooses here in SoCal.  It was about 65 degrees and sprinkling and I decided it was soup weather.  I went to Paul Noll's site and made the beef barley soup.  He gives you simple to follow directions and lots of photos.  Since the soup contains vegetables and meat, it has to be pressure canned. This recipe makes 11 quarts.  I followed it and made 20 pints.  A pint is enough for my DH and me.  If I have company I can just open more pints.


Here are the ingredients:
3 Pound Boneless Roast, Roasted and Diced.
7 Quarts water.
4 Medium onion, chopped.
15 large carrots, diced.
2 Cups Pearl Barley.
8 stalks Celery, chopped.
9 Cloves of Garlic, chopped.
3 Tablespoons vegetable oil.
1 Cube Margarine.
3 Bay leaves.
1 Tablespoon Tarragon.
2 Tablespoons Oregano.
2 Tablespoons Salt.
1 Tablespoon Black Pepper.

If you're wondering about the above pic, it was from the hilarious Soup Nazi episode of Seinfeld.

Week 28

Toast  =



Strawberry Lemonade   +



It actually feels a bit like Autumn in SoCal.  It's a drizzily morning.  A nice relief after the hot and humid past couple of weeks.  What's on tap for this week?  I don't know yet, any suggestions?  I did post a link to a new recipe on my Maybe Canning Recipes page.  That is where I put recipes I'd like to try when I get around to it.





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