Good ol’ days – Page 8

Blessings of Habit, Good ol' days, Health, Homemaking, Inspiring, Photos, Who's the mom here?, Womanhood

Get All You Can–Can All You Get, Part 2

Posted on July 26, 2011March 27, 2018 by Katharine

four quarts green beans — Four Quarts Green Beans

Canning Mechanics!

Now let’s consider the canning containers.

It’s not just the food; the jars must also be clean. Some mothers employ children for this chore because they think their own hands will not fit through the mouth of the jar. Actually, a wet, soapy, adult female hand will usually fit into a very warm jar. It is not a bad chore for a careful child, though.

We must take extra care to examine the jars for chips on the rims. Chipped jars will not seal and may even further chip or break altogether, so are useless for canning. You need one flat (or lid) for each jar of food you process and about a dozen or so screw bands (or rings) that aren’t too rusty.

The pressure pan consists of the pan and lid themselves, the rubber gasket (unless it is the metal-to-metal type), the over-pressure plug, the vent tube, the pressure regulator, and the cooking rack. These parts help cause, contain, and control the pressure and temperature of the food. To can the food, we add water to the pan, close it, install the pressure regulator, and apply heat for the recommended time.

The extreme benefits of canning foods are not obvious to us, but before the advent of canning it was usual and quite acceptable that people would die of starvation, malnutrition, or poisoning. With pressure canning we have long, safe storage of any food we need or desire.

Since we’re accustomed to canned foods, the benefit we notice most is how easy it is to use! Who hasn’t reached for canned pintos to make quick chili rather than soaking and cooking dried beans all night and day?

Canned foods also are timely–you may, in one afternoon, pressure cook 10 pint jars of raw green beans for 20 minutes and have them for a quick Monday dinner vegetable for 10 weeks. Compare that to shopping, rinsing, snapping, and cooking for an hour every Monday night for 10 weeks and you see the difference.

My favorite advantage, though, is the gift-ability of canned foods. People love to receive this kind of stuff, it can be so pretty, and it does not thaw on the way to meeting.

Tomorrow: Canning Failure and the Moral of the Story!

Blessings of Habit, Good ol' days, Homemaking, Inspiring, Recipes

You CAN Can – The RECIPES!

Posted on July 22, 2011July 21, 2011 by Katharine

These are not mostly canning recipes, but mostly hints about getting out from under a pile of vegetables on the counter. Of course, the solution is to eat them, but did you know:

It is perfectly fun and delicious to eat a cheese and mayo sandwich with a whole tomato on the side to eat like an apple?
Carrots, are irresistible sliced lengthwise and fried in butter, with a dash of onion, until soft and caramelized?
Grated zucchini keeps well in the freezer, and in recipe-sized batches would be ready for bread in the winter in a short time?
Bitter cucumbers, sliced and soaked in the refrigerator in vinegar/salt water will lose their bitterness in a couple days? And are yummy?
If your onions are not keeping well, you can still save them by slipping one into each jar of green beans before canning them at the same pressure?

Okay, now for the recipes!

Summer Squash Patties

3-4 c. grated summer squash
1 egg
¼ c. chopped onion
¼ c. self-rising flour
¼ c. powdered milk
¼ c. corn meal
salt and pepper
oil
Mix all together well. Fry in 2” patties in ½ inch oil over medium-high heat until well-browned. Drain on paper towel. Serve hot.

Cucumber and Onion Marinade

3-4 cucumbers, sliced thin, peeled or not
1 onion, sliced and separated into rings
3 Tbsp. salt, non-iodized
2 c. cider vinegar
Place onion rings over cucumber slices in large serving bowl. Add vinegar and salt. Add water to cover. Serve well-chilled; we like a few ice cubes in ours. Some people add black pepper, but I do not. If cucumbers are bitter, hold for 3 days before serving. If sweet, these are grand served immediately.

Green Tomato Minced Meat Pie

2 c. chopped green tomato
2 Tbsp. lemon juice
3 Tbsp. melted butter
½ c. brown sugar
½ c. raisins
½ t. salt
¾ t. cloves
¼ t. nutmeg
1 two-crust pie shell
Cover tomatoes with water. Bring to a boil. Drain. Add rest of ingredients. Bake in pie shell at 375 degrees for 40 minutes. Green tomatoes may be frozen in 2-cup batches, in summer, for use in this recipe, in winter. Just chop, package, and freeze. No need to thaw, first.

“No-tel” (Tastes just like the R-real thing.)

1 pt. peeled, raw tomatoes
1 jalapeno pepper
1 pinch rosemary leaves
½ t. canning salt
Place the above ingredients into each pint jar until you run out of ingredients. Cap with hot lids. Process at 5 lb. pressure for 10 minutes. To peel tomatoes, dip into boiling water for 1 minute. Dip into cool water. Slip skins off. Core.

This final recipe is for handling all the garden scraps such as vegetable peels, old pea vines, etc., IF you do not have chickens:

Compost

1 bushel clipping, leaves, vegetable waste, etc.
1 handful balanced fertilizer
1-2 pints good garden soil
Sprinkle to moisten, if needed. Mix well, using hoe in wheelbarrow. Seal in large plastic bag. Tie shut. Stack bags anywhere (barn, garage, etc.) and store for 3-6 months at 70 degrees or so. Open and apply to garden.

Oh, there is so much more, but we’ll change subjects for a while! See ya’ tomorrow!

Blessings of Habit, Good ol' days, Homemaking, Inspiring, Pre-schoolers, Who's the mom here?, Womanhood

You CAN Can – Help!

Posted on July 21, 2011November 25, 2013 by Katharine

Canning, Gardening, and Kids – Oh, MY!

Since we’ve been on the subject of canning all week, let’s talk about canning and children.

Children who are old enough ought to help. Little ones ought to stay away. Too much is going on for you to trust yourself to watch them carefully. All that blanching and lugging jars adds a safety factor with which they are too young to cooperate, and one act of confusion or disobedience could be disastrous.

So draw a line and make it stick. This is a time when high chairs, play pens, door gates, etc., are proper for the safety of precious little ones.

Let me tell you how we enlisted our children’s help in the garden when the days were blistering hot. We woke them at daylight, and had them dress quickly and go directly to the garden with us. Everyone had an assignment, only 30 – 45 minutes worth of work.

Each one managed his own row, which he kept weeded and proudly displayed to guests. Really, the garden looked good.

The youngest one’s work was to play nearby without walking on garden plants or eating dirt.

Then it was back to the house for our reward. On these days we would have treat-type breakfasts such as cantaloupe and ice-cream, oatmeal raisin cookies, fruit juice popsicles, strawberries on cereal, frozen chocolate-dipped bananas, cheesecake with blackberry sauce—whatever they considered rare and delightful. They loved it! They knew how hot the world would be by 10:00, and they seemed to appreciate my organizing things this way.

Then if we HAD to work in the heat, we would take quart jars of ice water with us and drink straight from the jar. They loved this, too. When such hot work was done, their daddy would throw them squealing into our large stock tank (which was kept for the children, only, and was un-licked-upon by any livestock) and they had water play in their work clothes.

These types of rewards were the heartbeat of our children’s summer gardening memories. They are adults, now, and still remember it with smiles, still do gardening, themselves.

Sometimes they fussed a little or grew competitive, but often the sweet sounds coming from the early morning garden rivaled those of the birds.

Tomorrow: recipes for the surplus!

Blessings of Habit, Good ol' days, Homemaking, Inspiring, Recipes, Who's the mom here?, Womanhood

You CAN Can – Six Tricks More!

Posted on July 20, 2011July 21, 2011 by Katharine

To continue the tricky list from yesterday’s post:

7. To rinse the spines off cucumbers without cutting your hands, use a washcloth, which protects you and is faster and gets them cleaner.

8. In an emergency, apples, bell peppers, and tomatoes may be frozen whole and raw (untreated). They must be perfectly spotless, unwashed, and in an airtight bag or container. They must be used within six months and they should be used for cooking only. Thaw tomatoes one at a time under running water for a few seconds. Skin should slip off easily, then core and pop it into your chili or whatever. For apples, thaw slightly at room temperature, peel or not, slice off of the core for pies, sauce, etc. Open, clean and chop bell peppers, frozen, or stuff and bake.

9. If you have plums galore, try freezing them whole and unwashed. Teach your children to love “plum-sicles” (and to wash them before they eat them.)

10. If you end up with more fruit juice than you have sugar or time, boil it, cool it, and freeze it in clean milk jugs, ¾ full. The jugs should have securely fitting lids. I made jelly with juice that had been frozen for a couple years and it was absolutely as wonderful as fresh. Allow about 24 hours for a gallon jug to thaw at room temperature.

11. To tell if apples and pears are ripe, cut one open. If the seeds are white, it is too early. If they are black, the fruit is ready.

12. The eensy fruits off your flowering crab apple tree make wonderful apple jelly and incredible, rosy, tart applesauce. I love it to serve with meat instead of cranberry sauce.

Tomorrow: Gardening, Canning, and Children!

Blessings of Habit, Good ol' days, Health, Homemaking, Inspiring, Who's the mom here?, Womanhood

You CAN Can!

Posted on July 18, 2011April 8, 2016 by Katharine

Rotel, carrots, pumpkin, tomatoes, beets, tomato soup, pickles, and green beans — Rotel, carrots, pumpkin, tomatoes, beets, tomato soup, pickles, green beans, and more pickles.

I remember canning.

Mama had jars, lids, rings, spoons and pans all over her huge kitchen. She let me hand her the “rings” (screw bands) which I wore like bracelets up and down my then skinny arms. The temperature in there had to be at least 100 degrees, but I do not remember that. I remember her praise when I managed to stay focused on my job and hand her the ring on time. I felt so grown up.

I also remember disappointments, especially the cherry jelly that turned out like taffy. MY we loved that. I remember our neighbor, Eula, tanned and in flip-flops, who made her own catsup. And dear old Mrs. Secrest, who always gave me hand-pumped cold drinks from the well inside her dark, quiet house.

For some reason I’ve kept those memories fondly. I’ve tried to resurrect them in my own adult life. I do canning. I make jelly and catsup. We have a well. I want this for my children’s heritage. I wonder why.

It’s not just that the food is better. It’s not only that it is more healthful. And it is not simply that I grew up with it.

It is the soil–the harvest–the glorious, breath-taking heat–the oceans of perspiration replenished by oceans of teas and juices. It’s working together, sharing . . .

Oh! I know what it is! It is the fellowship with those who have gone before and those who are to come, stepping into my place in a long, long line of real people living a real life, marching to the rhythm of summer.

So all my children and I would march down to the garden to harvest God’s blessing for each day.

I hope you will join us. Then together we will all put back something for those special winter days when only that which is straight from the garden will do.

Tomorrow: Six Tricks to Get You out of the Canning Kitchen Faster!

Good ol' days, Home School, Inspiring, Scripture, Wisdom

What Are We Doing?

Posted on July 18, 2011July 18, 2011 by Katharine

Enjoy this, the first published article I ever wrote, over sixteen years ago, for An Encouraging Word magazine, published out of Oklahoma. I got $20 for it, back then!

It is taken from Matthew 26, Mark 14, Luke 7, and John 12.

Once there was a woman who loved Jesus so much, that she did something so radical, that she incurred such unreasonable wrath from those around her, that the Lord Jesus was pleased to publicly defend her.

What she did was not illegal. She had not stolen anything, nor lied, nor killed anyone in the process of her actions. So why was she censored?

I believe it was because what she did was something that should only be done to God. It was an act of unadulterated adoration, totally unfitting to be performed for a mere human, however good that person might be.

This is what she did: She took something of hers that was worth around $50,000.00 and destroyed it at this man’s feet, all the while crying and kissing him. (He was not her husband.) She did this in public. In fact, it was before a large gathering of his friends and acquaintances.

“But He was God,” you say.

“He IS God,” you add.

True; how easy for us to have such excellent hindsight! But this woman had the gift of faith, Scripture tells us, to know Jesus as Messiah (before that telling moment of resurrection) and the crowd around her did not. Her actions were proper,but her critics simply were unable to agree.

In fact, her critics were embarrassed to the point of making up some fumbling arguments about the poor people in some poor place somewhere. Dollar amounts were rumored around. People were generally appalled.

Do you wonder how this relates to us?

I propose that most home educating parents are doing the same thing. Those of us who realize our children are the most precious things we have, are investing their entire lives at the feet of Jesus.

It is not illegal, but it has caused quite an embarrassed public stir. We hear all the traditional fumbling arguments about cost, socializing, college, etc. They say our children have been wasted and they cannot understand why. We have incurred wrath; we have critics who would love to censor us.

But you are right. He IS God.

By faith, somehow, we are able to know that our actions are proper. The telling moment of high ACT scores is upon us.

Rejoice with great joy! He is pleased to defend us!

Believe it or not!, Good ol' days, Inspiring, Who's the mom here?, Womanhood

RUN! OH, RUN!

Posted on May 26, 2011October 18, 2019 by Katharine

Tornado! I remember my mother’s voice that evening: It warbled.

And though I was only six years old, I knew the warble came from utter terror. We were running as fast as a heavily pregnant woman with three children ages 2-6 could run. She was watching the sky more than the path to the gate, carrying my sister, holding my brother’s hand, and sort of warbling to me, “Oh, run, hurry, RUN!”

I dug my toes into my flip-flops and ran.

I knew it was a tornado up there, whatever a tornado was. I looked up, too, and stumbled.

Mom scolded me sharply. “Don’t look up! Don’t look up! Don’t look up!” She seldom scolded sharply. It hurt my feelings but I knew it was no time for hurt feelings. Her words were like a mantra, a warbled charm against bad omens . . . don’t look up, don’t look up . . .

But, when I had looked up I was puzzled. It looked just like clouds.

Then I had seen a door. And when, disobeying, I looked up again, I saw a tricycle.

We were headed to our neighbor’s house. My mom screamed for them to let us in. We cowered under their huge oaken table, in the dark, with our mother’s arms encircling us. I heard my mom praying, so I prayed too. We cried and pleaded with God to protect us. I did not know what to be scared about, but my mom’s fear was plenty for us both.

The neighbor calmly stood on his front porch and watched the sky. His wife wrung her hands and paced through the house. I remember her shoes and feeling sort of dumb lying on the floor under her table while she walked by. I thought of a Little Rascals episode in which the children hid under furniture.

Then it was over. We went home. My mom talked for days about the foolishness of standing on the front porch to watch a tornado go by, summoning new terror at each telling.

It was over, yes, for us, but for the victims it still goes on. The forty-four dead would be burried. The over 500 injured would tell their stories.

And the RUIN still speaks.

More tomorrow.

To read a beautiful memorial written for one of the victims, read here.