Watermelon Molasses for baking-BIG OLD FAIL!

Posted on September 6, 2011 by Just another day on the farm

So in my kichen Gardeners companion, under watermelon, it says, to make an excellent natural sweetener from extra watermelons, cut offe the rinds and white part, make juice from the red flshedby crushing and pressing it, or by cooking and straining it (I crushed it with the same tools as making apple sauce post)

Then boil the juice in a open kettle until its is concentrated in a syrup. It will look like molasses and have a sweet somewhat strong flavor.. Its like making maple syrup in a way, lots of time and cooking required and then watch the last part carefully.. It did thick’n and darken alot.. 40 cups of watermelon juice got me 4 cups of watermelon molasses.

There is only one problem, it tastes AWEFUL!! I mean..blaaaaaaaa, gag, choke, spit and sputter.. I mean I know that a molasses is strong but its still yummy, maple syrup is so good that you could just drown things in it, and even the sugar beet sryup was tasty..this is just yuck!

I can grow watermelons and its going down in the farm book as a possable sugar backup, “Just in case” but I will be having bee’s for honey, making maple syrup and growing sugar beets way before I would consider doing this again..  /Hubby says I have to make something with it -Fine I can see his point but If that flavor is in the item, I am so not eating it.. lets hope the chickens like the taste..

Posted in Food Production and Recipes | Leave a comment

Farmgal Canning Tips

Posted on September 6, 2011 by Just another day on the farm

Just a few of my shelves with canning in my cellar, I have currently have eight sets of four shelves, each shelf can hold 200 pds evenly, each shelve fits four canning box’s for a total of 48 jars per shelve in box’s and up to sixty when not in box’s, In total right now I have room for about 1200 jars.

I have to chuckle when someone wrote, “Did you sleep last week?” when I listed what I had gotten canned in the week” Don’t get me wrong on this, I was very busy and it was very much full-time work, on the other hand, I thought I might give a few tips I have learned either from my grandma/Mom/Aunts or myself over the years when it comes to canning large amounts.

1) Pick/Prep the night before, if its berries to be made into juice, make it the night before, and let it drip overnight,so its one of the first things to be done in the morning, and while its canning, you have lots of time inbetween to do a second round of prepping for what is coming next.

2) Set up your kitchen, have a routine, empty jars go here, sink full of hot soapy water is this one, draining rack goes here, This spot is where the plate/spoons go, this area has the heavy flat towels for hot jars to sit on while working by the stove.. full jars go over there on that big towel that is also draft free. Check your counter heights, are they to low, if so buy what you need to raise them up so that they are at the right cutting and working height for you. Buy anti-fatique mats for the area’s you are going to be standing on most of the time, they are not pretty and they don’t need to stay there when you don’t need them, but when you are spending hours on your feet, they are important. Keep your knifes and tools, clean, and very sharp.

3) Buy and use the right tool for the right job, if you are going to canning 12 jars of pickles, sure feel free to do it the hard way, want to do 80 plus jars, put the 20 dollars out and get a slicer, and learn how to use it well, it will make things go so much faster.. Going to make tomato sauce? or Apple Sauce? or Juice? or Salsa? Buy the right equipment, and you can produce 4x the amount in the same time frame, you not only get more product, but you get a better quality that then goes on to be finished, which again means that it takes less time. For some things.. like onions for pasta sauce.. just peel and throw in the blender, put the funds out for a powerful blender and don’t put the money out for a food proccesser(because I burn out the moter typically once a season, no matter if its high quailty or med quality). Got a couple bushels of pea’s or beans to do, get a sheller for 40 dollars, takes a hours job down to a bushel every 30 to 40 min.. Doing corn on the cob, put out the ten dollars on the corn kennel cutter.

4) Canning has a pattern, use it to your advantage, have a white board on the fridge and jot down your times for what you are processing that day, put down what ratio for your brine or your syrup, have a timer beside it,so you can set it and either hear it in the house, or can take it with you if you are heading out to pick for a few min etc, learn your stove, learn what temps are required to simmer each pot, learn what temps are required to hold the boil lid on, lid off, windy day with draft, time how long it takes to get back to a boil at what temp, example, my big hot water bath canning pot, takes 3 to 4 min at 7 with lid on to go from simmer to roiling boil after Hot packed pint jars goes in.. 5 to 6 min to go to full boil if cold pack/Hot jars goes in, I know to put this extra time on the timer for each batch, this changes just a touch for quarts.

5) Use the pattern, each food you are making is going to take a certain time, lets back it down into the parts.

a) Boil your jars -Heat-Soften your lids or boil your rubber rings for old fashion jars – I don’t use tattler lids so can’t comment there.

b) Prep your foods as required to get them to the canning stage for round one

c) Cook, heat your food, and or cold pack, make and heat your liquid, be it brine or syrup

d) Fill, bottle, lid and into either pressure canner or hot water bath for a set time

e) Time in canners

f) Cooling time for 24 hours in as draft-free spot as possable

6) The key to rapid and successfull turn over is using the time in both C and E to prep and cook the next batch, At some point you are going to want to get off your feet and sit down, doing a prepping kitchen or living room set up, get a table or a series of tables, check those heights again, you can prep while sitting for a great many things, like cutting etc. When I did peppers this past week, It took me 9 and half hours of steady non-stop work to get the dryers full, the first thing canned was the plain peppers but the first sauce was already on the stove simmering away, it was ready when the last batch of the plain peppers was ready, by the time it was ready, the prep work was done for the next batch to go on the stove to cook and simmer down, while that was happening, cleaning and tidying can happen, and it gave me time to do the pepper slices and cubes to be laid out in trays to the freezers, then finish canning the next batch, by then the ones in the freezer was able to broke apart, and bagged up for later use, and the next round ready to go in the freezer..

Use your stove to full advantage, I will waterbath everything that can be done so safely, its has a much more rapid turn around then the pressure canner does, but meat, fish, certain veggies and soup need the pressure canner to conform to the ideal safety standard, but when it comes to getting it done, the water bath canner is the speed demon compared to the pressure canner, but on the other hand, the pressure canner can hold 18 pints in one go, where my biggest waterbath canner that works to let me use the other burners on the stove, only holds half that. You can on average do two full batch’s more in the waterbath canner in the same time it will take you to do the same amount of time in the pressure canner. that heat up and cool off eats up time on the pressure canner.

7) Look at your produce, be very picky on what is used in your canning, I’m going to use pickles as my first example, I cut both ends off and into the non-canning bowl, I don’t want to need to worry if I got the right end off, its a time added that I just don’t need, into the bowl it goes.. by the end I have a big bowl of ends, now I don’t like waste, so they get ground up and made into a small batch of relish of some kind. My second example is going to be about fruit, if I have soft spots that need to be cut out, its not bad, its just not perfect, I will cut it out and put it into a different pot to make into fresh stewed fruit for house use now, the stewing stops the turning process and the cooling and into the fridge gives you a couple extra days to get it eaten and it does not go into the canning batch. What you can so be the very best of what you produced or can buy.

8) Look at large scale canning as your current full-time job, or if you work a full-time job as a very active part time job, kind of like working a part time job at xmas time.. its going to be hot, and busy and crazy and there will be times you so tired but its a job, and it needs to get done.. no stopping until the job is done! If you really need a break, put your head down for a 20 min nap with the timer, and it will go along way to refresh you, as will having a quick shower, or step outside and have a brisk walk up and down the lane, fresh air, sunshine and a short power-walk can give a stong second wind.

9) When you really hit the push come to shove time.. you have two choices- Can though the night, setting the alarm to get up and switch the jars out, or see if you can freeze certain things to do later once the push is over, examples, you can freezer whole tomato’s in bags and then put them frozen under cool running water and slip the skins off and when they thaw, they will be mushy and ready to be made into sauce of any kind. Freeze bags of berries and process them in oct/nov when you have time to do the rest of the process, or get the juice out of the berries, and then freeze the juice and finish the rest of the canning process when things have calmed down. When you have the pepper/tomato push in early fall, remember your root veggies can wait right up until first frosts and later if you bed them down before they need to be dug and put into either root cellar or processed into canning/drying or freezing. Its well worth taking the time to learn what has to come off Now! vs what can hold with no loss of quality, example corn, when it’s ready, it needs to be harvested now and processed as fast as possable, Green beans and little cucumbers, when they are ready, they need to be picked and used, but beets, cabbage, carrots, turnips.. these things can hold.. summer sqaush, uses very quickly.. winter sqaush.. know how to cure it and you have lots of time with no real loss of qaulity.

10) Wow, I got to ten already..I will wrap this up then.. Its fine to can a few jars of this or that to learn the process, and to enjoy the wonderful fresh flavors and combos of jam’s and jellies, when you are canning like that, its for fun and pleasure.. but when you are truly putting up for your family and what you get done will effect how much and how you will eat for the coming year, it becomes for me at least about will-power and doing the job right. There are more and more of us that are putting up, not because its family tradition to make those pickles or because you like grandma’s peach jam but because we are growing a large portion of our food for the year, and this is a huge part of the way to preserve it for future use.

This is a homestead Barn Hop Post.

Posted in Canning | Tagged | 13 Comments

Lighting took out modem

Posted on September 5, 2011 by Just another day on the farm

Borrowing a friends to drop a note, will get fixed soon.. so if not around for a few days, its taking longer then I think it will.. Big bad storm, tons of rain, the ponds is full and overflowing..

Posted in Life moves on daily | 2 Comments

Hit the brakes Honey.. is that road kill!

Posted on September 3, 2011 by Just another day on the farm

My poor man, the things he puts up with for his darling wife, as we rounded a curve I spotted the dark shape on the side of the road, then did a double take when I realized it was a big Porupine and it was a hit the breaks, I want quills.. Chirstmas gifts this year are to be homemade!

It was fairly fresh kill, and overall not in bad shape, was able to do a good solid pull and filled a big bowl with quills and a bit of fur, I just did a full back pick and then when I got home , I did a pick though.. I got enough “longs” for six full earing sets, and enough med and shorts for three full necklaces/plus earing work, then I gave the rest to a farmer just down the road. She lets me wild forage on in her forest and I know she makes and sells jewlery at the local pow-pows, so this was my way to say thanks. (plus she has all the gear for me to make my necklaces and has already invited me over to have a coffee and to teach me the new hot designs) As you can see, I am being careful while handling the needles, once they are dried and tipped, they will be much safer to work with.

Want an idea of what the peices typically look like? Here is a example’s from the net.. They are hollow so when you tip them, you can string them if you want, or you can work them into patterns for little box’s or you can work them into leather and bead work as the long middle parts, the ways to use them are many and you have lots of choices from simple clean lines to super fancy!

 

Posted in Carfts an Hobbies | 7 Comments

Farm Book- Aka Keeping records from year to year..

Posted on September 2, 2011 by Just another day on the farm

Ah, our farm book, its a black book, with ratty pages and many many notes, and bad drawings, but its were we keep notes like when the sheep were breed, when they had their little ones, how many lambs born, sex’s color and weights, is a mom a good birthing gal, does she have lots of milk, same with the goats, I have one goat that always has twins, but will only nurse the white babies, the color twin is rejected..for four years running, thankfully I also have a different momma goat that will always adopt the rejected baby, finally figured out to breed the white momma so she will only have white kids and now she will raise both..

When do the hens start laying and how many eggs per day, when do the ducks start laying, when to the different breeds go broody and who is sitting on how many eggs and does she sit until they hatch, I had one girl that sat four times in two years but refused to sit the last week needed, there were chicks in the eggs but she always left them and they got cold and died.. forgive me for qouting the red queen.. Off with her head! Bad hen..

Reports of where things are planted, where things grow wild, where the winds come in seasons, how much rain per year, how early can I push the cold frames, how late can push the cold frames and the hoop house in the fall or spring.

What kinds of plants did better and where, above you will see a copy of our messy drawing of the nursery garden for 2008.. below a section of the big garden, which is broken down into 12 area’s for when it comes to planning out.. you can see that by 2011, we have much neater program, we have legends with letters to explain what each planting is, we have color to show the plants vs the walk ways

So do you have a version of the farm book for your farm, or your garden or your yard? Do you keep track of when you have your first and last frosts each year, do you watch and carefully track your micro climates in your yard and use them to your advantage in the garden?

Posted in farm | 2 Comments

Gift Box from mom

Posted on September 2, 2011 by Just another day on the farm

A wonderful box arrived from out west from my momma, in it was a very cute huge warm go to town cream/grey an black fall jacket, and then came the books/magazines..

the copy of the cool Canning magazine she told me about that I could not find out here, can’t wait to try some of those recipes, a old book that was my step-dad’s mom’s, its from the 1920’s an its full of info and hand drawings, I will do a book review on it in the fuure..

I love Grit but there was a new one called Pioneer and it was a very interesting one, lots of info and some really good DIY projects, I liked the one on how to make a game carts to haul out your deer or elk across rough country, because not everyone can afford a quad to do the job.. The hunting and trapping area’s of the magazine were very well done and the four pages on how to deal with frost bite was excellent!

But the book that is bringing me back to it again and again and I can’t wait to try some of the things in it, like making watermelon sugar syrup to replace molasse in recipes is The kitchen Gardeners Companion, A-Z encyclopedia for using the food that you grow by Pat Katz, I need to try some of the idea’s in it and some of the recipes before I am going to give it a rating but man, its got some old and funky but amazing idea’s in it! Like how to make your own cream of tarter when you make homemade wine and big write up on how to make all different kinds of vinagers among many others..

Posted in Family | 3 Comments

Lost my one T.V. channel.. Now I have none..

Posted on September 2, 2011 by Just another day on the farm

Well, our newest TV is about two years old, and I had hoped, maybe just maybe that it would have the new tuner built in,, guess not.. when they flipped over, I lost my one and only good channel.. now to be fair, I was getting three channels, one being local Ontario T.V. but for some reason either you get snow from the start or it would go to snow within a matter of a few min, CBC change never did come in, no matter how much you flipped those rabbit ears, it was always blurry and filled with static, on the other hand, CTV came in like a dream ,bright color, great sound and while I don’t watch much TV, I’m more a CBC radio gal, I did like the fact that I could watch my new Big Bang show! Most of the time, the few shows I do watch, I am a year behind and just get them on DVD sets.

However, I am surprised to see that we almost always turned on the evening local news for the first 20 min, turning it off after the weather, and now its not there, I would sometimes flip on the view at 11 and off again at noon.

Now they say that if I pay my sixty dollars, I can get a converter box and will in fact have many more channels, between 20 to 30 in fact, but I really wonder if I want that many channels, or if I should just get rid of the TV in total.. I mean I like to watch the odd movie or the odd DVD set, and I like my wii, I use it for winter workouts, and to challange my hubbies with some of the wii party-party games, so its not like I would get rid of the TV itself.

I think what we will do is give it a month and see.. did you lose your free TV when they rolled it over? If so, are you planning on getting the digital box? or are you tuning out?

Posted in frugal | 8 Comments

Making Homemade Grape Juice

Posted on September 1, 2011 by Just another day on the farm

Do you grow your own grapes?  Do you hunt for wild grapes? What do you do with your grapes, fresh eating for some? Use the Grape Leaves in cooking? Do you make your own juice, jelly or do you make homemade wine?

We started our mini-vineyard the year after we moved in, and we have had small crops before but this year was the first year we were to get our first big crop and the vines have outdone themselves! We have bowl after bowl of heaping piles of fresh grapes, about half the grapes of ripened at this point, with the rest coming right along, the fresh local grapes are in the store at 4.99 for their baskets, we have picked an amount to date that would cost us about 90 dollars if we were buying them, and as those are regular grapes with no control over what was used on them, vs ours where the only thing that controlled bugs was the huge spiders that made the plants their homes, and boy do the spiders love those grape vines..

Step one for making homemade grape Juice.. Pick the grapes..

 

Step Two, sit down and carefully pick the grapes off the vine, cleaning as you go, then wash them with cool water and allow them to sit draining for ten min, then put them into your steel cooking pot, either wash your hands well and crush them out, or use a big sturdy potato masher, some of the books say to add water to cover, I don’t, I want my juice to be super strong, I will add the water when I make it into drinking juice later, I want to use as few canning jars as reasonable.

I find with some crushing of the grapes, I get juice to come about half way up on the grapes, simmer at a med-heat till cooked though-about 30 min, then you have two choices, you can either a) carefully pour (remember its hot and will splash) the hot grape mush into a big linen jelly bag and hang over a bowl to drain in for at least two hours up to overnight, what you are left with will look this (if you are using dark blue grapes) The Choice number 2, is to use your hand powered machine with the grape screen, this post show’s it at work using the tomato sauce or apple sauce screen.

Step 3, jar up and put in the fridge for a day to allow the juice to settle, carefully pour out the top juice, leaving as much of the particles on the bottom to stay there, measure your juice and put into your big steel pot, bring up to a slow simmer (don’t boil the juice) you can add sugar to your taste if you want, personally I am quite surprised at how acid tasting my homemade grape juice is, the taste is amazing, and I tend to put 2 cups of juice for every cup of sugar for my canning juice.

Step 4, Prepare your hot pint jars, and fill with your hot grape juice, and hot water bath for 20 min, cool and store in your dark cool cellar, I personally find it quite strong and we use it 3 parts water to 1 part of our homemade juice for drinking.

Posted in Canning | Tagged , , , , | 14 Comments

Green Peppers, Red Peppers, Hot Peppers..

Posted on August 31, 2011 by Just another day on the farm

Well, I am working my way though 37 pds of Red Peppers, 41 pds of green peppers, 3 pds of hot peppers, to which I also have lots of onions and tomato’s to use if needed.

I have green pepper drying, about ten pds or so frozen, I am canning 12 pds of green peppers, and put 10 pds of red peppers into Red Pepper Pasta Sauce. Another 11 pds into spicy Green tomato/Green Pepper Pasta sauce, and the rest is being dice or sliced for the freezer or dryers. In the photo above, had just a touch of my Red Pepper Pasta Sauce left after filling the last jar so had it with a bit of fresh bread, yummy..

My Red Pepper Pasta Sauce

  • 10 pds of red peppers
  • 3 pds of roma tomatos
  • 3 pds of white onions
  • 1 whole garlic or about 8 big cloves
  • 1 or 2 hot peppers, seeded out depending on the heat you like, add more or less.
  • 2 cups of white or apple vinager
  • 3 cups of white or brown sugar
  • 3 tbsp of  canning salt and fresh cracked black pepper

Put them though the blender, and then simmer for at least 4o to 60 min till thicken to your tastes, then can, while most books say that peppers need to be pressure canned, between the vinager, sugar, I have always waterbathed canned this sauce.

 

 

Posted in Canning, Food Production and Recipes | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments

Baby Fisher -No you can’t have rabbit tonight for dinner!

Posted on August 30, 2011 by Just another day on the farm

What a flap, what a noice coming from my birds and the strangest whap-whap sound, creak of metal and the a riot of hounds at the windows, the guard goose was in full scream/honk mode, the birds where in ulta freak out, and out I went with, a “WHATTTTTT!| and here was the answer trying to break into my rabbit hutch, which just happens to be right beside the big bird pen.. in fact its attached to it to help prevent it from moving in really bad storms and high winds.

Snagged this photo from the Wikipedia, cuz I was to busy reacting and chasing, it was a very small Fisher, and from what I have read and heard this is about the time that the young ones head off on their own, so I am guessing this is either a) a young one, or b) a female as it was of female size.

I really startled it, it was half hanging down on the rabbit hutch trying to break into a door, and it got a pan thrown at it and driven down the lane and back into the wooded forest where it belongs.. I would love to tell you I put a little buckshot in it behind but alas, its a protected creature in our neck of the woods.

To be honest, It totally freaked out and was very sure it didn’t want to mess with me and just wanted to get as far away as possable, lets hope that it does not come back, but I will set up the trail camera to see if it does, and then if need be a live trap can be set up and I can call to have it removed and taken away.

Posted in farm | 7 Comments