Waste not,want not.!

This week we decided to make up another batch or two of raw packed turkey and vegetable soup , the same as I had made in an earlier post. This is really handy for me on the days that I am here alone, I know I can just grab a jar of soup, tip it out and microwave it in 2 minutes for a piping hot portion controlled ,nutritious,delicious meal.
We  bought another 12 kg box of turkey wings, and we normally use the meaty end for the soup.We trim the meat off the bone, de-skin and chop into bite sized pieces. The mid section of the wing we normally keep for treats for our blue cattle dog Tilly.
This time we had purchased a second  12kg of turkey necks just for her so we decided we would use the  mid wing bits to can for the first time in my Fowlers Vacola Jars. We were able to pack 3 wing bits into each jar(I had to chop off  about an inch off the top of all of them.

So after doing all this, I gathered up all the bits,bones(that I cracked in half with the big meat chopper),skin,little end bits and all the vegie peelings from the turkey soup. I put them in all a big stock pot  with variuos other bits and pieces, garlic, mixed herbs,sauces,salt and pepper, and simmereed the heck out of it for a few hours until it seemed to be ready.

I then took a jug and  poured the contents of the big stock pot  through a colander into a smaller pot.

This was not a fine enough strainer, but was good to remove the bulk. Next I poured the remaining liquid back through another finer strainer to remove the  less coarse  particles.

Then for a third time I strained again, but this time through a couple of thicknesses of muslin.

Next i poured this beautiful honey colored liquid into two big plastic containers and placed them into the fridge overnight so that any fat would settle on top and set so that I could skim it off in the morning.

When I checked this morning, this is what I found, something totally unexpected It had all gone very gelatinous .There was a very small layer of solidified fat which I removed.

I realized that I would have to empty the contents back into a pot and reheat to liquify before canning them.

I then started filling my + No 27 Fowlers Vacola  jars, only to realize that It wouldn"t  fit into the 6 jars that  I had allocated to it, so I swapped over to my No 20 Fowlers jars and was able to fill  15 of those.

The tops of my jars were then wiped clean with paper towel soaked with white vinegar, and the pre soaked rubber rings were placed on checking that they were not twisted anywhere.

Next the lids were placed on firmly and clipped down with two metal spring clips.

Although  I have been recently told that Fowlers information states that only one clip is needed, I like my mother before me have always used two, as do many other preservers I know and have never had any non sealing issues because of that.
 I then processed these jars in the pressure canner at 10 pounds pressure for 25 minutes.(These jars are a little larger than pints so I processed them according to the instructions for quarts).
While they were processing I also did a water bath load of crushed tomatoes in mixed size bottles.

So, here is the final result. I am very pleased with my work, worth every bit. This was the first time I had made turkey stock,I had made chicken and lamb stocks before, but this is by far the best and will not hesitate to make it again in the future. It will be well used in many future meals in this house.
My next preserving project will probably be pea and ham soup and I will post the  story of that down the track a bit.
Thankyou for stopping by, hope you have enjoyed reading a little of what we do,
so until we meet again,
Cheers,
Jane.

Zesty Salsa

Last year I made  salsa and canned it for the first time. It proved to be so popular with our family and visitors that I decided to make the same recipe again this year.I use the" Zesty Salsa" recipe from "The Ball Complete  Book of Home preserving".
It is summertime here in Australian and the tomato season should be in full swing, but to my dismay there are not as many bulk options available yet as there  usually are,  and what is there are at ridiculous prices.

I just happened to be at Harris Farm fruit and vegie market yesterday morning, when they marked down a pile of truss tomatoes and  mixed coloured capsicums. I quickly  grabbed them and brought them home  along with a few other goodies  to make my beloved salsa.
I put a pot of water on to simmer, and ran a sink of cold water and added some ice cubes  and started  by pricking the tomatoes with a metal skewer, dunking them into the simmering water for  about a minute and as the skin splits I pull them out,drop them into the cold water to pull the skins off.

 Skinning the tomatoes does take time , but I think the effort is worth it in some cases. I used to put all the skins and cores into my worm farm or compost but a canning friend Bev, recently told me that she  dehydrates, and powders them to use in all sorts of cooking down the way. What a great idea.!, I froze them yesterday to that at a later point.
It is  at about this point that I whip out my  wonderful Nicer Dicer Chopper to make light work of all the chopping involved in making salsa.

Firstly I chop all the tomatoes  and then next the capsicums. I was supposed to use  all green capsicums but the mixed trays were a heck of a lot cheaper so I went with them instead.

Next I chopped the onions,

and then put on a pair of gloves to tackle the chilli peppers(it's best to be safe than sorry). I only use the mild long greens, so that my salsa can be enjoyed by a big range of people.I split them in half length ways  and then scooped out the seeds(If you like it hotter,you can leave  half of the seeds in)

I then peeled and finely chopped my garlic and my cilantro( here in Australia we know it as coriander.)

Once all the chopping was complete all I had to do was place all my prepared vegetables into pots,add the cider vinegar and salt (I chose not to add the listed optional hot pepper sauce.)

This mix is then brought to the boil over medium-high heat, then reduce heat and gently boil for about 10 minutes or so, stirring often to prevent sticking until the mix thickens slightly.
While this was cooking I laid out my previously washed  jars, I chose to use half pints as that is just a convenient size for us.

When the mix was ready, I then carefully filled my jars leaving approx. half inch head space, de-bubbled and then adjusted head  space again.

I then took some paper toweling soaked with white vinegar and wiped all the jar rims clean, and placed on a lid that I had heated in a pan of simmering  water,and screwed on the bands finger tight.

There were 32  half pints in all, which just makes a good double stacked load in my trusty electric waterbath.I stacked the first layer in ,then topped them with a pizza tray and then added the second layer. I then adjusted the water level so that it covered the top layer by an inch or two,put the lid on and turned on  the power.

This was brought to the boil and on reaching that point was held there for 15 minutes. Once that time had passed I turned off the waterbath, removed the lid and let the jars sit undisturbed for another 5 minutes. I then removed them and placed on a towel covered bench to cool, almost immediately they were pinging,some even before I lifted them out. I had 100% sealing with them,very happy.

I left the jars overnight and this morning removed the bands,washed the jars and the bands, stored the bands away with all the others and labelled the jars.
I then  made the jars look pretty for a photo shoot before packing most of  them back into their original ball boxes to be transported up to my pantry at the farm. I kept about half a dozen to use here.

We eat a lot of salsa, and this  will probably not be enough for the year, but at least it will keep me going for a while.
I will keep my ears and eyes open for more tomatoes as I still want to can some pasta sauce and some crushed tomatoes yet this summer as my stocks of those are starting to run fairly low.It has been extremely hot here in Australia over the last week or two, but I avoided it yesterday and today by doing my errands out and chores really early and then stayed inside cooking and doing catch up on the computer with the air conitioner keeping me  and the house cool..
Thank you for visiting me  while I made salsa, hope you call in again some time.
So until we meet agin,
Cheers,
Jane.

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.