Britesea - Living the good life in rural Oregon

[Britesea]

Got most of the garden cleaned out. Lovely batch of shallots! I have baskets and buckets of produce all over the kitchen to work on now. Friday I picked up a large boneless pork roast and about 50 pounds of tomato culls (50 cents/lb instead of $2). I made Pozole with half the pork on Friday, and even after we ate our fill, there was enough left to can 15 pints of it on Saturday. That took 2 cycles with the pressure canner and the second one had 3 spaces left so I filled in with 3 pints of spicy black beans (just add 1/2 cup beans, some onions and jalapeno and spices, and fill with boiling water; cap and seal- they cook during the processing). Then I ground the other half of the pork, browned it and canned in broth- that made 6 quarts so I made a quart of chili beans to fill out the run.

So today, I need to make salsa with those tomato culls and my chilies, onions, and garlic. I think two batches of 9 pints each should be enough for us, or maybe I should make 3 batches??? Then some marinara sauce. If I have any tomatoes left when that's done, I'll make plain sauce.
The shallots will mostly be dehydrated, as I don't have a way to store them properly. I may do the same for the garlic.

I ended up with a 3gallon bucket of the Black Hungarian chilies- way more than I'll need for the salsa- so I need to can the chilies as well. Oh, and there's a huge bunch of basil to make pesto.... I don't have a food processor so I will be making that the old fashioned way- with a mortar and pestle.

.... I think this is gonna take more than one day, don't you?

 

[Denim Deb]

I have a feeling it will. I know how long it took me to make salsa yesterday, and most of that time was in chopping up the peppers and onions.

 

[hqueen13]

What is your marinara recipe? I'm looking for a good one to PC, and haven't found exactly what I'm looking for yet.

 

[goatgurl]

Britesea I'm with you, i don't like to put oil lamps on tables or counters either. has something to do with jumping cats and sliding lamps, not good. and if you put a mirror behind the lamp on the wall it works great for doubling the brightness. i have used aluminum foil too but found the mirror to work better. and i will be watching for the marinara recipe too

 

[Britesea]

Ok, I will post the marinara recipe I found (haven't tried it yet but it looks good) in the canning thread, 'k?

 

[Denim Deb]

Boy, I can tell I'm tired. I read that as marijuana recipe! I think I'd better go to bed.

 

[hqueen13]

Lol, hey, if like that recipe too!

 

[Britesea]

Marijuana recipe? heehee That would be nice wouldn't it?

I managed to can up 19 pints of salsa and 8 pints of marinara sauce before I ran out of tomatoes. Today my knee is hurting so badly I can barely walk, even with my brace. But I need to go into town and return the cans of tomato paste my DS brought me- he bought the big 12oz cans, and almost every recipe I have that uses it calls for 6oz or less; the big cans will just sit in the fridge and go multi-colored on me.

The last couple of days it's been warm enough to put Titipu (the duckling) outside in a small run we made up for her. It was so touching to see momma duck come to the run and the two of them renew their bonds. She was reaching through the fence to sort of nibble at Titipu's head. I wish I could leave them together, but momma Suzie has shown herself to be less than stellar at keeping her baby warm, and it's been dropping into the 30's, so Titipu has to come back inside at night.

I want to buy a case or 2 of the half-pint jars to can up the jalapenos and black hungarian chilies, for the same reason that I want 6oz tomato paste cans-- I don't use that many in a recipe. I thought about drying them, but I have so many dried chilies already I think I'll wait til next year to do that.
Still have a bunch of basil to turn into pesto, and some beets to make borscht with.

 

[goatgurl]

don't you put that in brownies?? but i would like the marijuana marinara recipe too, lol. i grow multicolored fuzz in my fridge from time to time. love to play what was that? and when did it get here.

 

[Denim Deb]

Those are science experiments, aren't they?