My Weblog

Can-a-thon Project Report 5

This is absolutely the last post for today. I really need to get horizontal.

I set those chicken drumsticks to boiling. I emptied the canner. And I filled up 5 trays for the dehydrator. That left 4 empty trays for now, but I just didn't have the juice to do any more. 

I have run up against a BIG problem. I have a lot of butter in the freezer. For a long time now, whenever butter went on sale I bought some and it turned out I was buying it faster than I was using it. But, it was stacked in the very back of a shelf and I didn't know......... There's quite a lot of money tied up in that stuff. I don't know how to save it. I know it can be cooked and turned into ghee which can then be canned. But I've never done it and I'd have to learn how first. Besides, I consider what I have facing me to be an unmanageable amount. 

I'll pray about it and see if the Lord gives me a better solution. Right now, the only thing I can think of is to try to make as much room in the fridge as possible and store some of it there. Pray for me as the battle goes on.

Can-a-thon Project Report 4

Oh, my Lord. I am one blessed woman. This is very hard work and I think about every inch of me hurts. But, I keep finding stuff to can. 

I unearthed enough boneless skinless chicken breasts to fill 3 jars. I also found 10 bone-in chicken drummies. I can't can those as they do not fit in my jars. I tried them in both wide mouth and regular mouth jars (getting desperate, I guess). They are just a smidge too long to allow them to fit down into the jars--they would push against the lids which would be no good. However, I can boil them off, collect the meat and make chicken salad or chicken soup or something. I also found, still fully frozen, a package of about 10 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs. Those I am sure I can can, 2 to a jar, but they'll have to thaw first. By the way, most of the drummies as well as those chicken breasts were still frozen. The rest were still cold. 

If I can manage it, tonight I will get the dehydrator going with as many trays of frozen veggies as possible. I am blessed to be the proud owner of a 9-tray Excalibur dehydrator. 

I really don't think I will lose much. I still have 2 small chickens and that turkey to deal with. And I have 7 or 8 jars ready to go in the canner as early in the morning as I can manage. I have a couple of frozen pizzas that I don't know what to do with and some other odds and ends. I'll sort through those tomorrow. 

I ended up with 10 jars in the canner this round. I'll be honest with you--I am so tired I really don't know what's in there other than 3 jars of ground beef. I feel pretty stupid. I had room for 6 more jars. I should have done some beans--they're easy to do, but I just didn't think of it. I guess I am so tired my brain isn't functioning too well. I only have to hold out about another hour, til the current canner load cools down enough to be unloaded.

Can-a-thon Project Report 3

DESPERATE TIMES: DESPERATE MEASURES

Several hours ago, I had to go dig out my back brace. I haven't gone anywhere near this thing for somewhere near 2 years. It's not gonna fix the problem. I am still gonna hurt while wearing it. But, maybe, in the long run, it will be less sore. Thank God it is not in spasm; that is what I'm trying to prevent with the back brace.

I just closed up the canner on 10 jars of meat. Everything I worked on today had to be lightly saute'd before It could go into jars. Be sides monitoring the canner tonight, I'll be working on cooking some Italian sausage to can tomorrow. I also went into the chicken box and found chicken breasts which need to be done. Those will need to be cut into cubes like the beef and pork roasts were. If I can, I want to do a pork tenderloin. Most folks won't can pork tenderloin, preferring to cook it fresh. I have no time for that. I have barely taken time to eat. There's nothing wrong with canning pork tenderloin--it's just that canning tenderizes tough meats so well, it seems a waste to tenderize tenderloin. Then there is still a turkey to deal with.

i am not at all sure I'm gonna get through this! Also, I'm already into one of the last 2 cases of wide mouthed jars I ordered last week. If I have to I can use regular mouth jars, but I don't want to. I find those best for veggies, soups, stuff that will easily pour out of a jar.

I was happy to find that the packets of meat that were on the bottom of the cardboard boxes in which they were stored are still frozen. Maybe that will buy me past tomorrow? I hope so.

 

Can-a-thon Project Report 2

It's 2AM and I am exhausted. For quite a while now, I've had trouble sleeping. Mostly it's getting to sleep that is the problem. But sometimes when I've slept a couple of hours, I wake up, use the bathroom, and then can't go back to sleep. Many mornings the sun is up and climbing when I finally get some sleep. I pretty much doubt I'll be awake long tonight.

I got one pound of the expensive ground beef in the jar and ready to go into the canner. I've also cut up and jarred up that pork roast. Those jars are stashed in the fridge for now. I also washed up all the dishes and wiped down the dining room table. However the countertop is still a nightmare (I hope that's a figurative statement, LOL.)

I've been thinking what a good thing it is that just a week to 10 days ago I ordered 3 cases of wide mouth canning jars from Ace Hardware. I hate canning meat in regular (smaller) mouth jars. It's harder to get the meat out of the smaller mouth jars. It usually ends up shredding as it comes out. But, I don't have to face that problem because of that timely order.

I had wanted to load up the dehydrator tonight with as much of the frozen vegetables as i could reasonably squeeze in there. But, I'm just too darned tired and hurting too much to face any more tonight. I'm sure the Advil I took has helped the back pain some, but not enough.

I fixed myself a hot dog for dinner. I also have some very nice canned cole slaw to pair with it. 

Well, manana I will re-enlist in the battle to save my food. I have decided if I can handle most of the food, I will ditch whatever I have to, and take my time waiting to find the best deal I can get on a new/newer freezer. That will relieve some of the pressure. I will bring in some money from the few returns I extended and, by then, we will know for sure the amount of the Social Security cola. In any case, God will make a way. I'm just grateful I found that slighty melted ice cream last night and remembered to check the freezer when I got up this morning. That gave me a head start and enabled me to save a good bit of food so far. I have 16 jars processed. Each jar will give me up to 4 or more meals (depending on how I use it). So, so far, I figure I have saved 60 meals worth of food. I'm quite happy with that.

Can-a-thon Project Report 1

The first canner load is going. It's 16 pints, not 18. Seems I can only get 8 per layer when I use wide-mouth jars. I should know that, but.........

There are 4 jars of ground beef, 9 jars of roast beef, and 3 jars of beans. I had the ground beef browning while I sawed away at those chuck and rump roasts to break them down to stew meat size. Like i said earlier, they're "cheap" roasts. But they'll turn out nice and tender after 75 minutes cooking under pressure. I didn't intend to do the beans but my body ran out of gas. So far today i've stopped for a couple of cups of coffee and a piece of homemade fudge. I need some sort of "fuel"--my facial muscles are twitching and my right shoulder/neck tried to spasm but I changed positions quickly which, for the moment, saved me. I brought the beef box in from the garage. I found 5 pounds of high quality (pasture raised/grass fed) ground beef I got on a manager's markdown. I was hoping to save that as is to make some meatloaves. I guess that idea is gone now. I'll can 1 pound and try to make up as much of the rest as hamburger patties, assuming I can get them into the fridge freezer. If not, I'll have to can that stuff up as well. 

I did what I didn't want to do. I went out and just grabbed some things from the garage. I really wanted to get some things defrosting for the next canner round. I brought in one pound of ground turkey and the little pork roast. I still need to bring in the pork and chicken boxes for a better inventory. I was just too shaky to trust myself to walk and carry a box at the same time.

I am aching a lot now. I finally broke down and took some ibuprofen. I figure the pain isn't going to lessen unless I do the ibuprofen or the Lord intervenes.

Anyway, I'm still working on getting the canner up to temp and I have a horrific amount of kitchen cleaning to do. 

all good things...........

come to an end. I can't complain, except, about the amount of work facing me. It appears my ancient freezer has finally given up the ghost. I bought that freezer 44 years ago and it's been plugged in and doing its job except for about one year. I pulled some ice cream out last night and found some partially melted ice cream When I checked later, I found that my manual defrost freezer had NO ice left on the coils. Uh-oh.

The first problem is how do I pay for a replacement. I think I have that figured out though it's really gonna dictate a whole lot of belt tightening at least through the end of the year. I may not be able to buy anything to put in the replacement for months. Good thing I've been stocking up. It will be nerve wracking, though, to dig into my stash.......

Second thing to deal with is delivery and haul away of the old freezer. I learned to my horror that some companies that promise delivery bring the thing to the house and drop it on the curb. Now, what the heck would i do with that? It HAS to be put in place in the garage. And someone has to haul the old one away, preferably the guys who deliver the new one...........

Next is the challenge of finding something new. The old one is an upright and manual defrost. In an ideal world that is exactly what I would get again. Yes, defrosting it is a nuisance. But, I am pretty well convinced that two factors figure into its long life: 1) no automatic defrost pulling on the motor, and 2) no "energy star" crap on it. my belief is that simple is best when it comes to engineering/mechanics, simple is best. So far I've checked Sears, The Home Depot, Lowe's, and Amazon. I can find all sorts of manual defrost chest freezers, but, apparently, these days manual defrost uprights do not exist except if they are imported from and completely manufactured in China. Honestly, probably 90% of the parts/labor on a GE or Frigidaire probably are contributed by the Chinese. I do have my doubts with trying to deal with a Chinese company over a manufacturer's warranty. Besides, I already feel the Chinese are getting way too much of American money; I have no desire to contribute to the Make China Great Again fund, KWIM?

I cannot see myself, with a problematic back and at my age, trying to lift boxes or baskets of meat, etc., out of a chest freezer to defrost it. So, much as I don't want to, I think I'm going to have to do an automatic defrost upright and trust the Lord as to it's longevity. I do not believe I have enough faith to trust for a new freezer to last 44 years though.

I've been trying to plot the canning and dehydrating. My first mission has been to chop up into stew meat size pieces some very cheap roasts I have in the freezer. I pulled 4 of them a while ago totaling about 9 pounds. Three are in jars. I have to get the jars warmed up before I can add hot liquid to them. Hot "juice" in cold jars spells many broken jars...... Next, I know there is one smallish pork roast out there. And, there is some, not much, chicken. My freezer contents are sorted into categories: pork, beef, chicken, and fruits/veggies. I believe I am going to bring those boxes into the house and wrap them in blankets to help keep them from thawing. It's a sure thing it's cooler in the house than it will be in the garage today. I also plan to drop the temp somewhat on the a/c thermostat to aid in that. Bringing  the boxes in is also the surest way I know to make sure I don't miss something REALLY valuable, if I own something like that. I will run the canner full which should be about 18 jars at a time. I do have a smallish turkey out there, but I'm thinking I should do that last--it's probably the biggest thing out there and that alone should help to keep it frozen longer. 

I have decided the best course for me is to keep the canner and the dehydrator for as long as there is anything fit to can/dehydrate. Worst comes to worst, I will see what is in the fridge that I can sacrifice in order to preserve something from the freezer. 

I'm trying to maximize my trips in and out and minimize how much standing/walking I have to do. But, my back is already making loud protests. Well, I will do the best I can and the Lord will have to take care of the rest. Now, y next (last, I think) beef roast should be thawed enough that I can cut it up. ray for me. Today, surely, I'll be quoting to myself "they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like the eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint......."

 

Yam Tetris

I got my hands on some more yams and, since they are one of my favorite vegetables, decided to can 'em up for later use. As hot as it's been around here, it doesn't take 'em long to sprout, so canning will preserve them. 

Last time I did yams, I followed the suggestion to blanche them to help remove the peelings easily. The recipe I followed said to blanche them for 5 minutes. I checked them at 5 minutes and saw no evidence of the peels splitting or loosening. So, I let 'em go another minute and still saw no splitting or loosening. However, I didn't want to can sweet potato mush--I wanted sweet potato chunks. So, at 6 minutes I pulled them out and put them in cold water to stop the cooking. When I went to peel them, I was very disappointed to find I still had to use a knife to get the job done.  

With that experience under my belt, I decided just to use my peeler and peel them myself, raw, dispensing with the whole blanching process. They were easier to peel than I remembered, but I am a mess with a peeler--skins flying off in all directions. That meant I really needed to stand at the sink to do the peeling. Then the peels went into the compost bin.

What I should have done is peel one, plop it into a bowl full of water and then peel another. Then I could have sat down, and chopped them all at once. Unfortunately, I chopped each one as I peeled them. So, I ended up spending quite a long time standing on concrete floors (covered in linoleum). Today my back is screaming and my ankles are kinda unfriendly as well. 

However, I avoided what I most feared--an unusable right wrist. I was afraid all that work with the peeler, followed with the knife to chop them up, would cause my formerly broken and oh-so-sensitive wrist to be extremely painful. So, I cut the yams into larger chunks than last time. The result of that was that I ended up "playing tetris" with the cubes of yam, trying to maximize the space in the jars. I don't think I did a very good job of that as I ended up using 4 more jars than I'd planned for. 

In any case, I have 14 jars of yams on my counter. One didn't seal so I'll have some yams for lunch. I'm just grateful to have yams I could save and eat a year or more from now. Quick. My kind of fast food.

I think I may decide to can some vegetable soup sometime in the next couple of days. I have a cheater recipe that ought to be quick and easy but very nutritious.

Yum........

Most of the time, being here by myself, I don't do "meals". I eat, but maybe just a bowl of macaroni and cheese, or a quesadilla, or a burrito, or an entree or soup I froze previously. It just doesn't seem worth the effort to do much more than that. Yesterday, though, I got inspired or maybe it was just that some of the vitamins I take kicked in. I made a big pot of pork, sauerkraut, and dumplings. I ate two helpings and again, as a late night snack, I had another small bowl. And, I now have 6 servings in the freezer. 

I used a different kind of sauerkraut. I've always just used canned sauerkraut. But, when I tried to buy some of that, Kroger's substituted some fermented sauerkraut, It was packaged in a sealed plastic bag. It was really salty compared to what I usually have. But I kept diluting the "juice" (brine) and adding some brown sugar 'til it had that sweet 'n' sour taste that is a part of my Pennsylvania Dutch heritage. It was particularly delicious, spiced up with some caraway seeds. I was fortunate enough to have 2 very meaty country ribs in the freezer which cooked up really nicely and added a lot to the flavors in the pot. 

At first I couldn't figure out why "fermented" on the bag was so important. Then I remembered that I'd canned some sauerkraut which was really just chopped cabbage, a very mild brine, and then into glass jars and into the canner. Everything was boiled for a while and then it was shelf stable. What I had yesterday was actually salted down, the juice extracted, and then the concoction left out, unsealed, at room temperature to "ferment". In other words the micro-organisms in the bagged sauerkraut were not subjected to heat. And, heat actually kills those gut friendly micro organisms. 

Flash flood.......

Yep, some parts of Vegas actually got rain. Not here, of course. I actually got a call from a ministry, to which I once contributed $5, checking to see if I was alright, or if I'd been washed away in the "flood". If you hear about a "flood" in Vegas, let me explain. This is not like one might experience on the east coast. Vegas sits in a pocket surrounded by "mountains" (about 9000 feet max). Water is subject to the force of gravity. It rolls downhill. More than that, our ground is hard-packed, sun-baked clay. Nothing sinks in. It flows across the surface on its race to the lowest elevation. That's what it did the other day. Mostly it was The Strip that had problems and that's nothing new. They've been working on "flood control" in this area for the 40 years I've lived here. Back in the mid-90's there was a flood, the water rolled down the hills, and the next thing we knew, the cars in the Caesar's Palace underground parking garage turned into bumper cars, floating around down there.  Apparently that happened again this week. So much for "flood control", No doubt, one day they'll figure out how to make the water flow uphill..........

Anyway. this fine Christian lady from a fine Christian ministry, called me in hopes I hadn't experienced some form of devastation from the flood. Nah, I'm uphill from The Strip. I'm in that area where the water just flows right on past. I am sure the lady was prepared to call down help for me from the angels, and from God himself, and I had to tell her I'm sitting here all safe and sound. Even worse, there was no evidence of rain here.........

 

Oh, darn, another sunny day.......

It started out overcast, which I celebrated. Not that I thought we had a chance of rain........ Rather, hoping that the overcast might keep the temperature below 100. But, no, we're at 102 (in the shade) already. It will probably get a little hotter before the sun sets. I'm very tired of feeling hot and sweaty. Yes, I have air conditioning. Yes, the air conditioner is running. Of course I have the temp set as high as I can stand it to save on the power bill. 

We are in what Nevada calls its "monsoon season". That generally lasts from mid July til the end of August, but rarely results in rain. Of the next 14 days, there are 6 that are marked "mostly sunny". The rest are marked "partly cloudy". I think it rained somewhere in the area one day last week. As usual, this place did not get enough to wet the visible area of concrete around the house (driveway, front porch, and patio). 

For a while now, I've been trying to figure out how I could put solar on this place. For various reasons, I've more or less abandoned that idea. I felt bad about that decision til I read an article from the UK the other day. It stated that in England's heatwave, where they are having temps up to 100 and are finding problems with their solar. Seems they've found that with every degree of heat over 77, the solar systems are less and less effective. Even more concerning, they are experiencing spontaneous combustion of the solar panels in extreme heat. I just checked and in the next 14 days, we do not expect to see 77 or below, not even at night. The thought of turning myself inside out to figure out how to get solar holds much less appeal that it did a few days ago...........

I was remembering something a few minutes ago. Sometime in the early 80's my parents came for their summer visit. My mother came armed with a bottle of nitro glycerin because she was experiencing a lot of pain and had been diagnosed with angina pectoris. It seemed that daily, by late afternoon or evening, we were all gathered around the couch, praying, while she lay there, putting nitro pills under her tongue. It was a very high-stress, fearful time. My kid may have been too young to realize what was happening, but, believe me, my father and I were on pins and needles. She went through this for a good 12-15 years. Then they removed her gall bladder which was full of large gall stones. Suddenly, no more "angina" pain. 

I wish I could tell you her angina was "healed". I DO believe in divine healing and have personally seen it and experienced it in my own life. Instead, it was a misdiagnosis which was not discovered for more than a decade. To think of the amount of pain she endured and the amount of stress, we, her family, experienced, really makes me angry. There are many reasons why I don't like doctors. This is one of them. Don't trust them, never will...........