Small batches

Because we are senior citizens and just the two of us in the household, the garden is planned to provide for us and not a lot of extra. But providing for us includes not just eating fresh food, but freezing some vegetables and canning others. Toward this goal, I discovered Marisa McClellan’s books on canning in small batches. Typically, most of the canning I do is done in pints and half pints and since we can’t eat a dozen each of several different jams and jellies, her recipes that make only a few half pint jars each are perfect and provide variety.

The exception is usually pasta and pizza sauces. Generally I save tomatoes until there are enough for a full pot, but it usually still canned in pints. Yes, I did use quarts a few days ago when I thawed and canned the pints that were in the freezer, but that is rare. I will use some quarts for tomatillos or jalapenos that go to Son 1, but rarely for our pantry shelves.

This morning, I noticed that the tomatoes that I was gathering on the kitchen window sill needed to be used and was faced with just freezing them, peeling and coring them and then freezing them, or just going ahead and making a batch of something that could be canned. It was just about 2 1/2 pounds of peeled, cored, and diced tomatoes, so not but about a quart’s worth. I decided that I would just make a small batch of pasta sauce. I had used the pint that was in the freezer, the one that evolves when I use less than a pint or make a batch that is more than the jars ready to can, but not enough for another jar. When the freezer jar is full, it is pretty layers of leftover sauce and then it becomes the next jar to use and is thawed in a saucepan with whatever additions I want to add for that meal.

The tomatoes cooked down to rough sauce consistency, made two pints with a new layer to add to last night’s leftover. The biggest stock pot with a silicone pad in the bottom instead of the deep steamer is tall enough for pint jars, though it only holds 4 or 5 safely. The big canner pot takes so long to heat up it isn’t worth using for only a couple pints or half pints. They were canned, just two lonely pints, but the satisfying pop that signaled they sealed means two more for the pantry shelf while I wait for more tomatoes to ripen.

I guess you can call me a southern woman, I was born and raised in Virginia. I am southern enough for some traditional foods like black eyed peas, collards, and grits, but not southern enough for corn bread without a little sugar in the batter, I detest overcooked vegetables with fat back in the pot, and I can’t tolerate sweet tea. One traditional food I do like, but rarely get is fried green tomatoes. This morning as I was picking a couple more tomatoes to add to the sauce that I was prepping, I plucked a medium sized green tomato and made myself 4 slices of fried green tomato with my breakfast.

I still have not received a shipping notice for the reuseable canning lids, but a friend offered me a box which I declined because of having just bought the flat of 4 ounce jars the same day, but then in today’s mail, an angel sent me 4 dozen brand new regular mouth canning lids. This angel is my SIL, she is an avid canner, far more canning than I do. There was the sweetest note saying she noted back in March that lids and jars were hard to come by, started a quest that found them on Amazon at a price gouging price, then landed a windfall. As she was finishing up about 300 jars of her canning, she shared some of hers with me. I now have enough to finish any canning I will get done this season. I know she must read this blog or she wouldn’t have known my need, so thank you, you are the sweetest.

Winding down

Another month is drawing to an end. As the month has progress, so has my spinning for the monthly Jenkins spindle challenge. The challenge only requires 25 grams, only slightly more than 3/4 ounce to be spun in the month. I have spun along, spinning several samples that I had, they are good to carry in the car with my tiniest spindle; I worked on some Tunis roving that I purchased that is a nice blue with variation from light to darker; and I worked on a 5 ounce braid of Shetland blended with Bombyx in a color blend called Elderberry. That fiber is so smooth and soft and spins very fine.

During the month, you post 4 check in photos of your progress, then a final photo taken on a scale to show how much you spun. I stretched out my check ins this month, posting my 4th and my scale today. I had spun about half of the braid of Elderberry and I wanted to ply it.

My total for the month was 129.54 grams, the ball of Shetland/Bombyx has a small doggie tennis ball wrapped inside that weighs 20.8 grams, so it has to be subtracted from the total on the scale.

After lunch, I started plying that ball on my wheel, figuring it would wait until next month when I finished the braid to fill the bobbin. I was so wrong. I barely got it all on the bobbin, then wound it off on the Niddy Noddy to measure how many yard it made. As I said, it is only about half of the braid. The finished yarn was 24 WPI, very fine, the skein is under 2 ounces and there are 489 yards in the skein.

It is gorgeous and I still have 2 1/2 ounces left to spin. I am going to end up with over 1000 yards of this yarn. And the kicker is, I don’t knit with lace weight yarn. I guess when the rest is spun, the skeins will go in my shop. It will take me all of next month to finish spinning that braid.

The morning harvest had lots of beans, a few peppers, 1 tomato, 2 cucumbers. As I was doing dinner prep, I blanched and froze two more gallon bags of beans, plus cooked some to go with our dinner and set aside a bag to take to daughter tomorrow. The third planting of beans are blooming, but beans aren’t forming quite yet, so we will have beans in the freezer and lots more to enjoy.

The morning began foggy. It is always interesting to look out the back and not see the next ridge and then later, it is visible again.

Stay safe everyone.

And the shelves fill

Yesterday’s tomatoes, became today’s pizza sauce. I still don’t have the lids I ordered, still can’t purchase anything but wide mouth ones locally, but I grabbed the 8 regular mouth ones I found on new jars in the basement and made pizza sauce. I tripled the recipe which says it makes 2 half pint jars, but from experience, I know it makes more than that, so I put 8 half pint jars in the biggest stockpot with the strainer basket, that is all that will fit and all the lids I had. It was set to boil to sterilize the jars and later can them and I poured boiling water over the scored and cored tomatoes in two batches. Once one batch was peeled, cored, and diced, the seasoning was added and it started cooking down as I added the second batch of diced tomatoes. When it is a rough sauce, thick enough for pizza, it is ladled into the jars, sealed, and put in the water bath to can.

The sauce filled the 8 jars and there was a pint left, so it was put in a wide mouth pint with a new lid and it will go in the freezer with the pasta sauce, peas, and beans.

I will make pasta sauce from the remaining tomatoes that are harvested this season, there were several more turning pink that I saw when I went out to let the hens out this morning.

As I write this, I hear the satisfying pop of sealing lids on the counter in the kitchen. There will be 15 half pint jars on the shelves and the pint in the freezer. With the quarter pint that went into the freezer with the last batch, that is more than enough for a pizza a week for the next year.

The Tomatillos from yesterday, though enough for a batch of sauce, were frozen until I get more lids. Son 1 likes the Tomatillo/Jalapeno sauce as green salsa, so I will probably can it for him to use, the first batch will provide enough for my cooking needs. As the Tomatillos are producing prolifically now and will until a frost, I will probably make a batch of Tomatillo Pepper jam which is a good substitute for a barbeque glaze or as a condiment on a Charcuterie plate. Then any more after that will just be frozen for soup or canned halves in quart jars for the same purpose. They can be added to chili or pozole.

Yesterday morning, I took stock of the dry goods in the house, consolidated jars, washed a dishwasher full of dusty jars, and made a list of pastas, soups, rice, and cereals that can be bought in larger quantities and stored so that we will have to make fewer trips to town if Covid increases here or if we have a bad winter. We will make a large grocery run this week and then keep a close eye on the daily reports on both the virus and the weather. I worry a bit that so much has been frozen with the hurricane that is about to slam Texas or Louisiana with current tracking showing it may turn east after landfall and hit us with some wind and rain next week. We don’t have a generator to keep the freezer going. If I were to plan this house again, the water catchment system that was to be used to water livestock we never got, would be exchanged for a whole house generator that would at least keep the freezer, refrigerator, and well pump going during power outages. Though I don’t like canned vegetables, if I could get lids, the pasta sauce in the freezer could be thawed, boiled, and canned. First we couldn’t get toilet paper, flour, and yeast. Now you can’t get canning lids. I have never canned pasta sauce in wide mouth jars, and usually use pints, but I might can it in wide mouth pints, and if I can get my hands on a dozen regular mouth lids, I could do quarts, I have plenty of jars.

The garden continues to provide. Last night I opened a jar of last year’s applesauce and noted it was canned on 9/19/2019, so it is only a few short weeks until the fruit on the trees is ready to harvest and make into fruit sauces and jams.