A few years after my husband and I were married, we were staying with my sister-in-law and brother-in-law for a while in the Chicago-land area. They had recently moved from New Mexico to Chicago. Well, one day a huge box appeared on their doorstep from a friend of theirs in New Mexico. Inside the box? … Continue reading
Today I am talking about chicken. Not just chicken, but preserving chicken by pressure canning. That’s right…storing chicken in your pantry! I am assuming that most people who aren’t familiar with pressure canning meat had the same reaction that I have had in the past: maybe you cringed? Gagged perhaps? I understand. A little … Continue reading
Canning. I’ve been canning for probably the last 9 years or so, but most of my experience up until lately has been with water bath canning high acid and/or sugary foods like tomatoes, pickles and jams. I have wanted a pressure canner for years, but have never wanted to spend the money to buy one. … Continue reading
I am not sure why I was amazed to see two of my children come inside from the backyard the other day with a bowl full of ripe cherries. I know there are cherry trees back there, and I realize that it is summer…the two kind of go hand-in-hand! I guess in my head, it … Continue reading
Last summer we were fortunate enough to acquire some beautifully plump and ripe blackberries from an aunt that has amazing blackberry bushes. I had very good intentions at the time of taking them home and making a lovely jam right away. Unfortunately life, and other gardening and canning duties, took priority over the blackberries. They … Continue reading
Asparagus is a wonderful vegetable. Unfortunately in some places it isn’t one of the veggies that you can find readily accessible year-round. Where we live in Kansas, we start looking for the shoots to spring up around Easter time, and pretty much check every day after that until they pop through the soil. The thing … Continue reading
Today I am going to share with you just how easy it is to make your own pumpkin puree. Don’t just let those pumpkins you bought for fall decoration rot away without getting further good use out of them! It is amazingly simple to turn pumpkins into puree, and is great to have on hand … Continue reading
Cantaloupe. My family really enjoys this fruit with the sweet orange flesh and we’ve been waiting patiently all summer for the vines in the garden to give us some. I didn’t think it was very long ago that I wandered past the cantaloupe vines out in the garden and they didn’t seem quite ready for … Continue reading
I’m trying to break the mold a little bit of my standard go-to summer tomato canning recipes. I always make salsa and spaghetti sauce…which, don’t get me wrong, are great…but it’s like my cross country coach from high school once upon a time said, “Variety is the spice of life!” One of my favorite meals, … Continue reading
We use a lot of ketchup in our house. I grew up eating it on everything. Ketchup on chicken…on baked potatoes…on potato chips…even on eggs. My grandpa even eats it on top of holubtsi, which are an Eastern European cabbage roll dish, that I grew up eating. {Hmmm, sometime I will have to make a … Continue reading
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