Green Beans and carrots.

I have preserved food in one form or another for about 30 years now. When my Mum first passed me on her Fowlers vacola preserver and her bottles(jars) I mainly did peaches, plums and apricots along with tomatoes. One year we grew a bumper crop of green beans and I preserved those too, the only problem was that to do green beans in the Fowlers vacola System you had to Water Bath them in a brine solution for about an hour and  then 48 hours later re-water bath them again for 45 minutes. The outcome was a very soft, very salty jar of beans.
We haven't grown a lot of beans over the last 20 years, just enough to eat fresh or freeze a few, but this year Brian has grown another lovely patch or three of green beans.
We picked three buckets full about two weeks ago and  took them up to the farm and pressure canned  them, great result.
We brought the canner home the other day as we knew we would have a lot of canning to do over the next couple of weeks before we get a chance to return to the farm.

Early  this morning he picked me another bucket of beans , and I prepared them  ready to can.

I also had  a heap of carrots left over from some soup I had been making(I had got the carrots on sale at Harris farm) I chopped them up two and was going to do half the canner  load of each.

Brian then suggested that it may be a good idea to mix the two in each jar. I agreed that this would be very practical, as there is just the two of us, it would be sensible to be just able to open one jar and have both vegetables.So I filled the jars half and half approximately  with the beans and carrots.I did not add any salt to mine but some people do, and I then filled  with water  leaving about 1 inch headspace, I then de-bubbled and adjusted the water levels in the jars.

I then wiped the rims with paper towel and white vinegar,placed on my lids that i had previously simmered in hot water and screwed on the rings finger tight.

After they were all lidded and ringed, I then put them in a double layer seperated by the rack into my pressure canner. Up at the farm I have a gas (propane) stove, but down here on the coast I have a flat glass topped stove  which I am unable to use as I have a  Big 930 AA canner and  it is not recommended  to use it on it.
So we have purchased a gas burner designed for cooking crabs and prawns ect, and decided to use our canner on that outside in a sheltered spot .

We found that this worked brilliantly, although we had to keep a fairly close watch on it to keep to the required 10lbs pressure. We  processed the bean /carrot mix to the carrot  times as they required the longest preserving time.After the  25 minutes had elapsed, we turned the gas off and allowed the canner to cool down, removed the weight, waited a few more minutes and removed the lid.
The result was 19 lovely colourful pints of green beans and carrots.

I have left the jars  on the towel on the bench to cool completely overnight, each one made that sweet ping to tell me that it has sealed and in the morning, I will remove the rings, check seals,wash the jars and rings and store the rings away for future use, label the jars and store them away  in my pantry.
It  always feels good to put a little away, These little jars will be a very handy item to have in my pantry. There is nothing better than  having your own home grown produce  on hand.
I am very tired as I type this, we have had a few very big days of canning, some of which will be included in another entry soon, and I am  nearly ready to call it a night,
So until we meet again,
Cheers,
Jane.

We love Olives,how can you not !!!

Without the beautiful olive, my entertaining  would be dull.
I can't seem to ever have Happy Hour  without at least a few olives, be they marinated  big green Spanish olives, or Kalamata or lovely green olives stuffed with feta or pimentos or the beautiful smaller black Spanish olives, whatever the olive of choice  the nibbles platter just wouldn't be the same  in their absence.
Recently Aldi had  the bargain of the century(or at least I thought it was), they had large jars(907grms) of big fat Spanish olives for $ 1.99.I forced myself to buy 20 jars.

As lovely as these are by themselves(they are a large very meaty good tasting olive) I prefer them to taste of other flavours rather than just of the brine solution that they are in.
So, what I decided to do was  to drain the brine off them, marinate in other flavours  and repack,reseal with water bath and enjoy them later.
So I gathered all my ingredients and equipment together and got started.
I drained all the brine off  and repacked the olives into mason quart jars, I had a little over 8 jars so was able to fill 1 pint as well.

I then made up a solution in a jug of white vinegar,red wine vinegar,white wine vinegar and water and set this aside.
To each quart jar I then added  about half a teaspoon of minced garlic,quarter teaspoon minced chilli,1 teaspoon of Italian herbs,half teaspoon salt, a squirt of lemon juice and a drizzle of olive oil.
I then filled the jars with the vinegar solution.

I over filled the jars a little and will note next time to allow more head space.
I then de-bubbled the jars,simmered the lids, and wiped the jar  rims with paper towel dipped in white vinegar.

Next I placed the hot lids (at great personal pain to me,as I had left my magnetic wand up at the farm) onto the jars and screwed on the bands until they were finger tight.

After all were capped I then placed them into the big electric Water Bath preserver, covered them with tepid water,covered and waited for them to come to the boil.

On reaching boiling point I then started timing for 15 minutes. When the time was up, I turned off the preserver, removed the lid and allowed the jars to sit in the water for several minutes.
I then grabbed my trusty jar lifters and removed all the jars out onto a folded bath towel on my kitchen bench to cool.Shortly after removing the jars they all made that lovely "Ping" that we all wait with bated breath to hear.

So on the bench they will sit, for another 24 hours, after which I will remove the bands,check the seals are intact, wash  and label the jars and store  away in my pantry for future use down the track.
This is less than half of my bounty from Aldi, so I will probably repeat this activity tomorrow with the rest.
So ,until we meet again,
Cheers to all,
Jane from Aus.

Curry in a hurry

I haven't been on line much this week as we have been up at the farm, and for some reason the internet service up there was really bad this time. So I decided to wait until I returned to so called civilization to write up a couple of entries to the blog.
My ready meals in the pantry are always in much higher demand in the cooler months and the pantry is starting to get a little empty, so thought I would make up a new batch of curried sausages,using our own homemade  lamb and rosemary sausages instead of bought ones.
So to start with I par boiled the sausages and cut them up into smaller rings,which is just a good  size  and ready to eat.

I then chopped, 1 kilogram of onions, 4 kilograms potatoes, 1.5 kilograms of carrots,200 grams dehydrated peas and one large bunch of celery with my trusty  chopper  that I really couldn't live without and  put all the vegies in a big pot with 4 quarts of previously canned chicken stock(or whichever stock i have available.

To this I then add, a couple of desert spoons of minced garlic, a heaped teaspoon of minced chilli, a good handful of dried herbs, and I added 3 pints of previously canned tomatoes,salt,pepper and  I then add a variety of sauces( i usually keep my just empty sauces specifically for this, add a little water,and  wash them out into the pot.) I also then add curry powder to our taste( a few tablespoons usually to a pot this size) There  should be enough liquid to totally cover all ingredients,if not add water or stock)
I then cook this mix  in the big pot until the potatoes are  just tender, I then add the sausage pieces back into the pot and heat through.

I then prepare my jars, rings lids ect according to normal Ball instructions and fill my jars. I choose to use quart jars for this as I find that 1 quart jar just does us a meal perfectly, either on toast or with rice or pasta  or other vegies.
I then place all my jars in the pressure canner,mine holds 14 quarts or 19 pints and process at 10lbs pressure(for my altitude) for 90 minutes. With this batch I think I may have filled the jars just a smidge too high with the mix as I had a bit of leakage during processing, something I will watch closer next time. The photo shows the overflow  in the canner.

I placed all the jars on a towel on the table and waited for that magical ping, they all sealed beautifully, I left them the required 24 hours and then removed bands, washed and labeled them and they are now tucked safely away in the pantry for future  quick lazy yummy meals.

When I am ready to open one of these jars, I empty into a saucepan, heat for 10 minutes,  and decide if I want to eat this as a stew like consistency or thicken it. If it is the latter I mix up a paste of plain flour, curry powder and water and stir into the saucepan and stir until thickened and heat through, being careful to avoid the flour mix clumping. We enjoy it both ways, although my personal preference is to thicken it.
We had a lovely break away, the weather is certainly cooler, we had about half an inch of rain which was very welcome and life is good.
Cheers to everyone until we meet again,
Jane