Another Busy Week Of Preserving.

It is that time of year again, with preserving it is either feast or famine !!
When the produce is there there is no option but to  do what needs to be done so  that you have it  for  everything you want to make or eat   for the rest of the year.
Although we are not dependent on these stores it just makes sense to us to  keep the supplies built up, as we live in a small country town, services are very limited and what  we have available  is rather expensive to purchase.
So, as our tomato crop  was such a failure this year we decided to make a trip to the Narromine Tomato Farm and purchase 50 kgs( about 110) lbs of  tomatoes (cookers or seconds)

We brought them home and got straight into getting them into  my jars.
For about  30kgs of the tomatoes,  we simply  quarter and remove cores or any spots and squash firmly into the jars until no spaces are there( we do not skin these).

I then add a little salt for taste, a squirt of lime or lemon juice  for acidity, wipe rims  and add the rubber ring,lid and clips, and then pop them into my  electric water bath preserver.

The next  15 kgs of tomatoes, I decided that I would make a basil,garlic pasta sauce with. I  Have made tomato sauce and habanero tomato sauce before as a condiment style sauce but not the pasta style.
I decided that the tomatoes I was using for this needed to be  peeled, so I dipped them  quickly in a pot of boiling water and then popped them into iced water in the sink and te peels just  easily slip off.

I then did what I  often do , and didn't read the recipe correctly and processed the tomatoes before cooking them( not sure if it mattered, but will know next time)

Then into the pot with the tomatoes, I added the pre cooked onion and garlic and simmereed until it reduced to the required consistency,

Then  it was bottles, sealed and water bathed  ready to be used when required.

  After the tomatoes were all tucked away safe and sound in their bottles,  I then took all the tomatoe skins that I had removed and  put them into the dehydrator,

 After about 24 hours when they were completely dry, I put them  into the magic bullet processor and powdered them up, this will be a handy   flavour boost for rissoles and meat loaves and soups later on. It doesn't produce much but it all helps.

Another great bi-product was the tomato juice, which we scored a couple of jugs of and enjoyed  drinking ( with added salt and pepper) for a few days.

We ended up with a good supply of tomato products that will see us right through the year hopefully. We are big tomato  eaters and I use them frequently in  meals I make.
My Mum had  told me that the pints of  canned soups that I do for her are really now too large as she is getting older and no longer requires large amounts of food, so she requested that I make her some in smaller jars to reduce waste or the risk of her leaving left overs too long in the refrigerator.

So , I did a big canner load of beef soup in half pints for mum and then the left over in pints for us and topped off the canner load with some chick peas( as they are processed for the same time as  soup with meat) One of these jars of soup, a peice of toast and some fruit  should make a  wholesome nutricious meal for her  with minimal effort.

When we were living on the coast we regularly had a glut of cucumbers and I used to  can a lot of Bread and Butter cucmbers, but out here, this year the  zuchini plants have produced an amazing amount ,

 so I  took a gamble and decided to  use my recipe for the cucumbers ,but to replace them  with zuchini,  but instead of slicing into rings I chose to chop them up a little more rustic and chunky, along with sliced onions.

The  zuchini and onions then went into a large container, salt was poured over,covered with water and left for a few hours.

I then  brought to a boil the  liquid, vinegar,celery seed,yellow mustard seed, sugar and tumeric.
The zuchini,onion mix is then  drained and rinsed and packed into preserving jars and the  hot liquid poured over,

any air pockets or bubbles removed, rubber rings added,lids and clips and water bathed for 20 minutes.

The  zuchini  pickle turned out much better than I had anticipated,  we tried one  yesterday  and  was surprised  to find they were extremely tasty and still retained a fair amount of crunch.

All the   preserving over the last few weeks has been safely  stored away into my pantry, the shelves are once again beginning to fill up.. All the   boxes full of jars that I have been lucky enough to be gifted or purchased cheaply are  finally finding new homes among my other jars, Ball masons and Fowlers Vacola all in together.  There  are not many things as beautiful as rows and rows of glass preserving jars full of colourful food. ( except maybe my grandchildren.) !!!

It hass been an exceptionally busy few weeks, but  things will slow down on the preserving front a little now for a while until the next wave of produce hits .

i will get in and catch up on some house work and a bit of gardening  in the interim, so until I  catch you again down the track,

Take care everyone,

Cheers

Jane.

Preserving the Bounty

It's that time of year again when preserving/bottling or canning  hits you full force in the face and knocks the wind right out of you .
We stripped our rosemary bushes that we had to pull out for the plumbing re-route, air dried them in  an old  net curtain

 I then decided that I would  put half of the rosemary  through my magic bullet and powder it up.

It's been really handy, I have already used  it several times in various dishes I make and as we  eat a lot of lamb it goes so well with that.
Brian had grown a row of Nicola potatoes, the same  variety we grew last year down on the coast  with prolific results, unfortunately  they were not quite as productive here, but we still dug a respectable amount.

As tomatoes don't keep that well here in our hot climate, I decided that they would be best utilized  being canned and kept in the pantry.

We  find the canned potatoes  really good, for quick mashed potato, potato salad, and quick put together stews and casseroles.
We had a terrible tomato crop this season and decided to use up what we could salvage

off the plants, so a few weeks ago I picked enough to can  just 6  small bottles of crushed tomatoes. 
On the last pick as we pulled the bushes out,  I  decided that I would make Quetta, a lovely old recipe for a  spicy tomato  relish that has sultanas in it ,.

So I peeled the tomatoes by nicking the skins with a knife, blanching in boiling water and then dropping them into iced water  so that the skins slip off easily. This just makes a nicer finished product, but doesn't affect the taste.

The tomatoes are then  cooked with onion, herbs, garlic ,chilli and sultanas until reduced and then bottled.

The recipe for Quetta is below.

This is  really delicious on cold meats  and with sandwhiches.
At the end of our two week babysitting stint we arranged to  meet our daughter in Newcastle  to swap the children back over, so we took  advantage and took with us out  portable fridge/freezer to go to the  chicken  factory outlet shop to purchase some bulk chicken.

We brought home 24 kgs of chicken drumsticks and 12 kgs of chicken thigh fillets.

The drumsticks we packed raw into number 31 Fowlers Vacola  preserving jars, four to a jar, then added various herbs and spices I had on hand, half filled them with chicken stock, sealed and pressure canned for 1 hr 15 minutes at 15 lbs pressure.
The fillets, we chopped and raw packed into smaller Fowlers number 20 jars, added salt only, no liquid as it makes  it's own under pressure, sealed and pressurecanned 1hr 15 minutes at 15 lbs pressure also.

Canned chicken is delicious, I usually refrigerate the jar  if we are going to use it cold.
below is a jar of  dumsticks  after opening, the juices combined with the marrow bone set into a tasty gel.

This is so lovely to have with salads, or to heat and serve with gravy or other sauces, we have found it invaluable  as a pantry item, wonderful to always have cold meat on hand.
A few months ago  when we slaughtered a steer between us  and the neighbours I had the bones in the freezer to  make stock out of at a later date.
I decided to make  up a batch of beef and red wine stock a couple of weeks ago, so I roasted the beef bones with  garlic and  other seasonings, put  them into a big stock pot, added  celery, onion and carrots, sauces, red wine,water  and practically anything I could find  on hand and then  simmered it away on the stove for many,many hours until  I was happy with the taste.
I then drained all the vegetables and bones off( fed them all to the chooks when cold) and poured the stock into containers and refrigerated them  for two days.

When I removed them from the fridge, I scraped off the set fat layer( which was minimal) and poured the stock( which had jelled slightly in the fridge) back into a pot and heated it up again.

I then filled my hot jars with the hot stock,

They were then capped and sealed and  placed in the pressure canner and processed to meat time at 15 lbs pressure.

After 24 hours when the jars are cold, I  remove the rings, check seals, wah bottles and store in the pantry minus the rings.
This  beef stock I will then use as the base for many other soups and stews that I cook for both eating straight away and canning, it just adds such a wonderful flavour to them.
It has been a big preserving few weeks with more that I will add later.
I have found that the new kitchen works really well for processing and canning  the  wonderful bounty of food that we have been fortunate enough to receive and that my pantry shelves are beginning to  fill up again   and be a great store for us to shop in as needed.
Take care everyone until we meet again down the track,
Cheers
Jane.

A full year down the track. !!!

Long time no see...... and I apologize, there just are not enough hours in the day for me to do everything I want to do and  something has to give.
The two weeks after Christmas was an absolute whirlwind, the tiling on the kitchen floor was finally completed, and then we taped up and got the walls  and door and window trims all painted, unfortunately we still have the ceiling to go, as I had ran out of ceiling white, but I hope to complete it soon.

Hubby then got busy and installed my new dishwasher (which is total heaven to have again. and also installed my great new gas stove.

On the 5th January we celebrated one whole year here of retirement at the farm., One whole year of madness, mess and hard work. Thought I would show a couple of comparison photos of the changes.

The old kitchen , before we knocked out that   gorgeous old fireplace that unfortunately leaked like a sieve  and removed the  fuel stove that was so  worn out it few to pieces as we removed it,  ending the possibilities of using it  outside at a later point.

The new kitchen, all  bright and shiny, I just love it so much.

The old bright green loungeroom and  floral axminster carpet( lovely in its day but  not what we needed now.

we have had an influx of pests and feral animals,  firsly we have had a huge amount of  spiders, but now that the tiling is finished and meets up against the new screen doors, they seem to have slowed.

Last week we had a couple of scorpions( our next door neighbour was bitten on the foot by one in his own loungeroom, and was very painful he assured us.
Next we had a sneaky fox hanging around the chicken coop for a couple of days, so hubby quickly disposed of him before he got himself a free feed.

 And lastly  one night after mopping the floors I walked back through the house only to find this  small stripey snake curled up on the loungeroom floor,

After  a quick capture and some googeling , hubby decided to relocate him to the forest across the road right away from our house.
We had a huge two weeks looking after our grandchildren, while mum had a  vacation in Vietnam with an old friend  and dad had to work ,one 5 years and  the other 16 months.
We had fun in between the hard work, but we were absolutly exhausted by the end of the 2 weeks.

We loved the  chickens and Turkeys,

Loved the pony at the neighbours that she got to ride,

And we were"Lucky" enough to have a poddy calf for a week to  bottle feed.She named him "Tim Tam."

My Daughter bought me home this beautiful little container, I adore it.

Hubby built a new rough shade  area  on the western side of our house where we will hopefully put up a verandah over winter, we set up a small swimming pool for the kids  under there while they were here, as we had 5 days of temperatures above 40 deg C.

We picked  our small crop of peaches early as the flying fox bats were starting to feast on them, but I can't blame them as they were delicious. We are  also being inundated with zuchinnis and cucumbers and gem squash from the garden, which has been lovely, and we also picked our first rockmelon.

We are deperate for rain still here, scoring 20 mm last week, but it barely wet the ground and today while Dubbo  not far away scored a huge 87 mm we only managed 11mm.
Hubby got in and scarified up a small area, hoping that we would get decent rain and then plant seed  after that, but not sure if there will be  enough moisture , with luck we may get another shower over night.

Another job that had to be done was the  removal of an old cockies wire gate and replacement  with a proper metal gate..we recycled a surplus one  that we had removed a few years ago from an unused gateway. The sheep had been pushing through  the old wire gate  and getting into the chicken coop , as we leave the door open for them to free range during the day and  getting their fill of  the  grain and layer pellets.The old blue girl supervised the whole job.

Our building  and  work on the house will be on hold for a while now while hubby moves on with some badly need farm repairs..
I will try to  catch up and do another post in the next few days to keep up with all that we have been doing here.
Take care, until we meet again,
Cheers,
Jane.