Canning Italian Zuchinni

***Note*** The USDA does not reccomend canning squash of any kind, I have been canning zuchinni for decades and no one has ever gotten sick. I am giving you this information on my own personal experience.  I am not telling you to do it nor am I telling you not to.  With the information you can make your own choice.  It MUST be pressure canned as it is a very low acid food...  In the 80's a lot of political mumbo-jumbo happened with the USDA and they took out their reccomendations for squash, pumpkin etc.  I use the book "Putting Food By" which was published in 1973.  This was the book that my grandmother and mother swore by when canning.  Because it was published prior to the lobbyists getting involved it still has the reccomendations.  I say this to show: In the mid 80's Libbys came out witheir pumpkin pie mix in a can.  All you have to do is add the eggs and milk.  That is the same thing as Pumpkin Butter.  I make my pumpkin butter and it can be used in the same way to make a pie.  The very same year that the new product was released the USDA decided it was not safe anymore to home can pumpkin or pumpkin Butter.  Coincidence????  I think not....
Zuchinni is a summer squash and does not store well like a winter squash does, nor does it freeze well since it just gets all mushy.  Canning is the best way that I have found to store it for the long term.  Unless you are just grating it and freezing it to put into bread or cake.  Mushy does not matter then.....

Italian Zuchinni

You will need a 5 gallon pot to do this and a long handled spoon

4 gallons of sliced Zuchinni-Do not peel only cut off the stem and flower ends, slice about 1/2" thick.
4 large onions peeled and quartered
1/4 cup minced Garlic (my family all loves garlic)
1/8 cup italian seasoning (or to taste) remember it WILL get stronger as it cans
Water to the top of the squash and onions in pot.

                                                        add your seasonings

                             Cook on the stove until the Zuchinni is just soft enough to bend.

                                         Fill your jars leaving about one inch of head space

 Wipe rims of jars off with a clean towel and then place the lids on

 Process in a pressure cooker for 40 minutes at 10 lbs of pressure (for my altitude in Arkansas)




When you want to cook this for dinner it is wonderful made this way:

2 jars of Zuchinni drained well.  Place them in a baking dish, add some melted butter and sprinkle with parmesean cheese.  Bake at 350 degrees until the cheese is melted.

Canning Rings good and bad

I have a ton of canning rings some are in good condition and some are in bad.  I am not sure why it makes a difference in how the bands make a seal but I can tell you from experience that if they are rusty they will not allow the lids to seal as well.  Especcially with Tattler lids.

Good Band

Bad Band

Make sure you inspect your bands prior to use and take out any with rust on them.  I save mine for in case of emergency as they do seal part of the time but you will have about a 30% failure rate if you use them.

National Geographic to the rescue

I have been telling my grown children for years that they need to be prepared.... They don't do it...  I have been telling my daughter and son-in-law about the possibility of a huge solar flare that could knock out our grid.  They say they believe me but don't really act like it... This months edition of National Geographic helped me out.  There is a huge article about the Carrington event of 1859 and what it did and the comparison of what a similiar event would do to us now...
We would be thrust into the pre-electric age in a matter of seconds....  No TV, no Cell Phones, No lights, No modern cars...   NOTHING WOULD WORK... It could take years to completely restore the grid.

Could you survive without electricity for a year?????

Pick up this months copy and read the article for yourself...  It is a scary thought...

Time to go buy more candles...

Sweet pickle relish

Sweet Pickle Relish



I hate giving the store money for things like pickles when they are so easy to make.  For the last 2 years my cucumbers had not done well.  This year they are putting on like crazy.  We use a lot of relish in this house so making some is definately in order.  This was the first batch for the year.  We will need about 36 pints of relish to last the year just for our house. 

This recipe originally came from a web site called heritage recipes and then I tweeked it to my taste.  This is going to be very similiar to store bought pickle relish.

run all these veges thru a grinder with the blade that has the largest holes

10lbs cucumbers (do not peel but do cut the big ones in half and remove the big seeds)
2 green bell peppers
1 large red bell pepper
1 large or 2 small onions

Put 2 qts of water in a large pot and 1 cup of canning salt , bring this mixture to a boil.  Then add the ground veges to the pot.  Cover and let sit for about 2 hours

After soaking then drain the mixture the best that you can by ladling it into a strainer and allow the juice to drip out

Put the mixture back into the pot and add the following:
1 tsp mustard seed
1 tsp celery seed
1 tsp tumeric
2 cups apple cider vinegar
5 cups sugar
1 TBS corn starch

Stir well and heat to boiling.  Allow the mixture to boil for 30 minutes while stirring freqently to avoid scorching.

After boiling once again drain the relish or use a slotted spoon to fill the jars leaving 1 inch of head space.

Wipe the rims of the jars and place clean sterilized lids on them with rings
The process in a boiling water bath for 15 minutes

Remove the jars and tighten the rings if you are using tattler lids.  Allow to cool without disturbing them.

Enjoy the relish and also enjoy not giving your money to the big grocery store corporations.....

Finally a Barn

The barn builders came out and built me a barn last week.  I could not believe it when they were done from start to finish in about 12 hours total.  I had called many different companies until I finally found the best deal I could.  It is a 30 x 50 pole barn.  The builders came out with all the supplies and the next day we had a barn.  Now it is our turn to build on the lean too's that will serve as a goat shed, milking parlor and a chicken house.
This was the first day after about 6 hours

Then they came back the next morning and 5 hours later it looked like this

Yeah!!! we have a barn.....

They did a wonderful job and at a great price.  If you are looking for a barn and live in NEO or NWA I would be more than happy to share the name of the company that did this.....

Canning Lids !!!

I calculated that for my family we need about 4000 (yes that is 4 thousand) lids in order to can all of our stuff for 1 year.  That is taking into account all of our soup, meats, vegetables, fruits, jam/jelly, and condiments like catsup.  Since I can not afford to buy them all at once as that would be about $2500, I am buying them a little at a time.  My first thousand of them came yesterday.

Since these lids are reuseable 4000 would be a lifetimes worth.  In order to keep them organized and easily gotten out when they are needed I came up with a bin system.

I have about 750 regular lids in the top bin and 500 wide mouth lids in the bottom bin.  The extra I will  put in storage to get out when my supply in the house runs low.

Bambi Burger

My oldest daughter who is now 28 started calling ground venison "Bambi Burger" when she was small... She was about 5 or so.  Yesterday I made Bambi burger.  Venison has very little fat and in order to have a good tasting ground meat you need a little.  I buy the cheapest hamburger I can and then I mix it about 50/50, that gives you about a mix of 87/13 which is going to be real close to ground chuck. 

How to:
Start out with boneless venison that has had all of the facia (shiny white coverings on the muscles), fat (it is gamey tasting), and tendons (the stringy, tough, white things) removed.  Cut it into small enough strips so that it fits into your grinder easily.  I use a grinder attachment for my KitchenAide so I cut them into about 1 inch strips.  first I run it thru with a course blade (it has the bigger holes).  Then I runb it thru with the fine blade.

  As I run it thru with the fine blade I also run the hamburger thru at the same time. I take handfulls of hamburger and put it into the bowl of course ground venison and then get a piece of hamburger and a piece of the venison about the same size.

When you are all done your burger should look like this:

freeze it in 1 qt zipper bags or make into patties and then freeze.  You can make your patties and place them on a wax paper lined cookie sheet.

Put the whole sheet in the freezer.  After they are frozen then take the patties off the tray and put them in a big bag.  Then you can take out how ever many you need for dinner and cook them the same as you would the store bought frozen patties.  The ground venison you can use the same as you would any other ground meat.