Anyway, I am not doing any more Christmas villages today. It is just another canning day but it has gone really well and I haven't rushed any and still got a good bit done.
I knew I was going to have to can carrots that I got on sale a couple of days ago but when I looked in the frig this morning I saw part of a chicken. It is a chicken Phil bought at the store on Friday night. It still had a whole breast on it. And I am out of stock. So the stock was started first. While it simmered I spent some time lazing and Phil made us breakfast. It simmered more while I went out and fed the animals. I finally got back to it about 10:30 a.m. Since carrots and stock both need to be pressure canned for 25 minutes. I then got the carrots cut up and heated up so that I would have a full canner-full. There was only room for 3 jars of carrots in with the stock so I had to do a second batch but there were only 4 more jars of carrots left. I did, however, have mushrooms. Mushrooms only have to be canned 30 minutes and I didn't figure the extra 5 minutes would hurt the carrots.
I have not canned mushrooms before but they are no harder than the carrots. I did find that they shrunk when heated up. Normally I measure out my canned goods by how many jars they will take but after the mushrooms were heated and shrunk, they did not fill the two jars I had. Luckily I hadn't used all the mushrooms and just cleaned and heated up some more to fill the jars.
Other than canning the chicks were evicted from the brooder in the spare room and moved out into the greenhouse. There were too many of them for the little brooder. They needed more space.
I also got into the pig pen and pulled out pallets, feed dishes etc. It still needs a lot of work done but doesn't look quite so "junky" now.
That is the day so far. I have 3 long days coming up at work before I get my 4 day weekend. I am definitely looking forward to Thanksgiving!
When we first move here my biggest issues was a good place to put our jars. There certainly wasn't room in the kitchen. We built a set of shelves going down to the basement. The door to the basement is just a few steps from the kitchen so it is really convenient. And since it is sort of in the basement they stay cooler. On the other side I had hooks put in for the garlic, onions, and bags. So far I can freeze enough that I haven't overflowed the shelves. But I can see it happening. I didn't go all the way down the stairs. I keep wondering if I should have.
ReplyDeleteI would love to have a basement to put stuff in! (Not to mention to put us in during any tornado warnings).
Deleteall of my jars go on shelves that my husband built inside of a huge walkin closet. the one thing that i did though is make sure he built the shelves with a way to insert solid wood dowels along the shelves just in case we get hit with earthquake tremors from new madrin fault. i grow carrots but i also buy carrots on sale and can them too...they taste so much better than the canned carrots from the grocery store. sometimes i also add a bit of celery in each jar of carrot..so many recipes seem to call for both items and i rarely have fresh celery on hand.
ReplyDeleteThat is a really good idea about the celery but Phil hates it and won't let me add it to anything, lol. The carrots really do taste so much better than the canned carrots in the stores.
DeleteI like that idea!
DeleteThat is a good idea on the celery....thank you
DeleteI can't imagine life without celery. LOL Although I wasn't always that way. Now we eat it in salad I cook my stock with it and I just like to scoop hummus with it. Dean took a little longer to like it but now he eats it too. And with blue cheese dressing and hot wings. That is a shocker.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I think Phil might actually find it isn't so bad if he would try it again. I used to absolutely hate onions but now I don't mind them at all (those taste buds that hated onions are long dead, apparently).
DeleteUsing the stairway was a great idea, but girl you wore me out, your one busy lady,lol I sure enjoy your blog, thank you for all your info...
DeleteHi Becky! Wow! You got a lot done yesterday! That stock will be so delicious, I bet! That's a good idea to can the mushrooms. I haven't tried that yet. I too, wished we had a basement for storage and for the the unspeakable. After the close call we had last year, I don't know where we'd go for protection! Thank God, we only had a few trees blown down in the backyard! The weather here is so mild and no rain in a long time. Hopefully we won't have fall tornadoes this year! Have a wonderful Thanksgiving! Blessings from Bama!
ReplyDeleteDid you use stock to can your mushrooms? I buy mushrooms dried from the oriental market here. They are called chicken mushrooms and are tastier than white mushrooms.
ReplyDeleteI did not use stock just water. No oriental markets here :(
DeleteSounds like a productive day!
ReplyDelete