Category: Canning and Preserving

Canning and Preserving · Recipe Roundup

Because I Can…

LSiehLeave a comment

There’s probably a cheesier canning joke to use instead of that one, but I couldn’t think of it at the time. Feel free to add some to my comments to make us all laugh. Or sigh with resignation at the terrible puns. Either way would be fun! 😉

I was feeling the canning urge last week and this weekend, so I thought I should probably do something about it. I picked up a big box of tomatoes from the local farm store today and have made it through about half. I did have some nice garden tomatoes to add into all the batches of tomato products. Tomorrow I’m planning to make some pasta and pizza sauce and maybe some crushed tomatoes too. These are two of the beefsteak tomatoes that grew this year.

Most of the tomatoes I used for salsa had the small and medium tomatoes in them, so I had to supplement with store tomatoes too. I used a Fresh Preserving/Ball book recipe for Jalapeño Salsa. I don’t have a link for the recipe, as it doesn’t appear to be online. This second salsa recipe is though- Fire Roasted Salsa from The Hungry Bluebird: https://thehungrybluebird.com/fire-roasted-salsa-canning-recipe/

I was able to use all garden jalapeño peppers for both salsas! It always makes me happy. They are super spicy though, so it will be interesting to see how they age. I plan to make another slightly more mild salsa with calmer peppers too, as we do have friends who do not enjoy breathing fire. 😆

I also made squash pickles from Southern Living: Small Jars, Big Flavors, with some help from the neighbors’ garden. I texted to ask her if she had any extra zucchini, as I think the ants ate our plants and she said “You never need an invitation to the garden!” I’m going to bring her a pint of them in thanks! My yellow squash made a surprise recovery, so I was able to use some of our garden squash too. Here are the jalapeño salsa and the squash pickles all canned up!

Both salsas made one extra jar that wasn’t full enough to can, so our fridge is full of homemade salsa. I’m thinking I’ll make some enchiladas or something to use it up. Oh! Or crockpot Salsa chicken one night! It’s super simple, you throw chicken breasts in the crockpot, throw some broth and salsa on top and cook for a while until they shred easily. It’s really good in tacos or even just over rice.

I also made jams and marveled at how long the tomato products take compared to the jams. I think I made three jams in the time it took to make one batch of salsa and the canning part of the squash pickles. They sat for a few hours in an ice bowl with salt to brine first.

For jams, I made a Strawberry Rhubarb, and a Cinnamon Rhubarb. The Strawberry Rhubarb is on the right, cinnamon is on the left.

Both jams used garden rhubarb! I used the Ball book recipe for the Strawberry Rhubarb and this recipe for the cinnamon. https://www.onehundreddollarsamonth.com/canning-101-rhubarb-cinnamon-jam-recipe/

They may have been a tiny bit more processed than they should have been, as they are a pretty thick jam. I’m hoping I didn’t accidentally make rhubarb candy instead of jam in the canned jars. I was lucky enough to have a little over half a jar left of each and have tried both in yogurt. They taste delicious!

The Spiced Peach jam is the same blog as the Rhubarb Cinnamon. https://www.onehundreddollarsamonth.com/home-canning-spiced-peach-jam-recipe/

Technically my version is Spiced Stone Fruit, as I had a bag of peaches and nectarines in the freezer and added two pluots and a plum that had gone soft. I was on a mission to use up all my freezer fruit this year. It tastes like the best peach pie ever, so I’m excited to use it for breakfasts. Sadly, this did not give me a fridge jar, so I’ll have to use up some more of the rhubarb before I open it. It will be featured in the LOTR Culinary Journey this year for sure! I’m thinking little peach tartlets. Mmmm…

I don’t have a picture yet of the other two things I’ve canned, but they were this Fire-roasted Salsa from Hungry Bluebird mentioned above, and a Roasted Garlic Pizza Sauce from my Taste of Home Canning magazine. It’s delicious! It made a lot more than it said it would and I forgot to add the lemon to it, so we’re going to have to eat it quick. It does have acid from the tomatoes, wine, and salt in it, so I think it will be okay in the short term. If I get nervous, I can always reprocess or freeze it for longer storage.

Piggy has taken to sitting on the kitchen rug by the back door in hopes that I’ll let her play outside while I’m canning. Unfortunately, her idea of “playing” is eating the really bitter apples from the apple tree and making herself sick, so we’re not really letting her out unsupervised. I wish that the apples would be good ones. They have gotten bigger this year, but are still horrible. I think we need to get an arborist to tell us how to fix it. It’s very productive still, so if we could get the apples to be edible, that would be wonderful!

Anyway, that is the start of my canning. I still have berries to make into syrup, a small bag of apricots, and half a box of tomatoes, plus a rather lot of peppers. I see more salsa and maybe some canned crushed tomatoes in my future. Jams too, of course, and some berry lemonade concentrate. We don’t have a lot planned for the next couple weekends and then in October, it will be time to make more applesauce.

I’ll leave you with a picture of my motivational canning towel. Have a great night!

Canning and Preserving
Canning and Preserving · Gardening

Canning and Preserving

LSiehLeave a comment

Hello from Canning Central! I’ve been busy canning delicious yummy things lately. K2 reminded me that we “didn’t have to wait until winter” to use the things and I gave her a really funny look. In my head I have to wait until at least December! She is right though. It’s nice to have a shelf of home canned things, but even nicer to actually eat and enjoy them!

I joined a Facebook group about canning and it’s absolutely inspiring, but yet also altogether intimidating to see others’ canning progress. I haven’t posted there yet with my measly looking 5 jar haul. 😳 Luckily, I can post here, no matter how small my batches are.

Now, to get to the actual point of the post! The featured picture is my lemon verbena ready to be dehydrated for teas and other things. I used the arugula forest to make this lovely peppery pesto with parsley and walnuts.

The pesto is in the freezer for quick dinners later. I made this mimosa marmalade as well, for the fridge. It’s from the Little Jars, Big Flavors book.

I don’t have a picture of it, but did make cinnamon crockpot applesauce for the freezer, although we did eat some of it for dinner as well. I have more apples, so will make more after I make the apple chips. These were the not canned other things I made.

Dried lemon balm and lemon verbena (for teas,) dried sage, and freezer marinara sauce. The little jar is lemon verbena sugar.

I did can a marinara sauce from one of my canning magazines. A friend shared extra tomatoes with me, so I gave a jar to him and his wife as a thank you. Also, to encourage more excess produce sharing in the future. 😁

We have two kinds of salsa, although I would like to make more. I used the Ball Canning recipe for Jalepeno Salsa and this recipe for the Fire-Roasted Salsa. https://thehungrybluebird.com/fire-roasted-salsa-canning-recipe/

They are both pretty spicy. The Jalepeno salsa is more of an end spicy kick and the Fire Roasted is more spicy on the front end. We polished off the half jars that were left over pretty quickly.

I made another marmalade too. This one is a Citrus Vanilla Bean Marmalade. It was a pain to make and I was mad at it for being so much work, so haven’t tried it yet. It smelled delicious though. This recipe is from my Little Jars, Big Flavor book.

Three kinds of pickles were made. Garlic Chips and regular dill spears.

I also made one jar of kohlrabi pickles which are a fridge pickle. I haven’t tried them yet, but will soon. I also have no picture of them.

Tomorrow I’m making salsa verde and I have some more jams I wanted to make, so there should be a second canning post. It doesn’t feel like I’ve made much this year yet, but seeing it all written out, I guess I have after all!

Oh, and an update to the Squirrel War Chronicles! I was dismayed to find out that I may owe the squirrels a tiny apology, as I discovered a certain dog munching on my tomatoes the other day. She was going through the plants happily slurping the ripe ones right off the vine! Then when I yelled at her and started to go out to chase her off, she started eating them faster! She even hopped into the garden to snack in there! 🤨

We’re not going to tell the squirrels though, because they stole a bunch of other items. Or did they?! Piggy has no shame, of course, and is peacefully sleeping the sleep of the pure hearted. Dogs, man.

Anyway, enjoy the canning goodness and I’ll share the rest as soon as I have it done.

Garden Roundup
Canning and Preserving · Gardening

Garden Roundup

LSiehLeave a comment

Hello from a cold, rainy fall night! I just got home from a bellydance workshop where I also vended. It was fun, but not so much productive, in terms of vending. I didn’t really make too much more to sell, but will share the couple of things in my next sewing post.

I’m guessing Fancy missed me because I sat down and she essentially tackled me. I’m writing this on my phone app, as my lap is currently occupied by a cuddly and needy dog who will not let me get up.

Anyway, back to the actual point of this post! The garden! We used most of the food that we harvested, which I was proud of. The squirrels got some things, including an entire purple bell pepper! What jerks! Here’s the haul!

I was excited to actually preserve the herbs this year, instead of accidentally freezing them and not being able to use them. I used the dehydrator for a lot of them.

In the jars we have pineapple sage- in the little jar, lemon thyme- in one of the big jars, regular thyme, and rosemary.

I also froze some fresh sage and basil in oil to try and use in cooking. They were super easy to do. I just ripped the herbs and put them in a mini muffin pan and poured a little bit of olive oil in the spots. Then after they were frozen, I just popped them out and put them in glass jars for storage. I have decided to try to use more jars for storage. A friend has inspired me to try and use less plastic, so I thought these would be perfect.

Another interesting way to use up the herbs was to make herb butters for presents. We have an Italian herb blend with rosemary, parsley, oregano, and basil. We also have a lemon pepper blend with lemon thyme, parsley, and pepper. I think they should be delicious!

We had a volunteer basil plant appear in the soil on the side of the driveway!

Overall, there are a few things I would do differently next year. Starting from seeds worked for the carrots for sure, but not the bok choy, Swiss chard, or radishes. The beans worked well and the marigolds are still going strong. I harvested two poblanos, four purple peppers, and many hot peppers.

I’ll leave you with a picture of Fancy and a garden carrot. Have a great night!

Adventures In Canning
Canning and Preserving · Gardening · Recipe Roundup

Adventures In Canning

LSieh2 Comments

Every time I have tried to can things recently, I have been thwarted by life! It’s been very frustrating. I’m hoping to get some more of the jams canned this Friday. We have a house work weekend planned, so then I won’t mind too much if the kitchen gets a little sticky. We can just clean it right up!

Some of the fruits I have waiting to be jam are strawberries, rhubarb, and apricots. I might pick up some more pomegranate juice too and try some jellies. I meant to make Jasmine Tea Jelly for my FIL for Father’s Day, but it never quite got made. Maybe I can get it done for Christmas.

I have made one jam so far and it was the Plum Cardamom jam that I fell in love with last year. This year I tripled the batch and didn’t bother straining it, just blended it with a stick blender. I think it worked just fine. The original recipe is from the Small Jars, Big Flavors book, but I only sort of followed it. I ended up using the old school method for one cup sugar to one cup fruit. It was still so good, that I was licking the ladle. 🙂 I ended up with 13 half pints of jam. I might not be as possessive this year. Last year I only had 8 jars and I had 4 of them myself. 🙂 Here is the jam, pictured with my next two canning experiments.

I ran out of cucumbers for my pickles, so may make some more. Some of them went bad before I could get to them. These are Hot Garlic Pickles from the Taste of Home Canning magazine. I made them last year and they were a hit. I want to make some plain garlic pickles too and some more squash pickles. (Don’t tell anyone, but my Dad ate zucchini voluntarily!! Oops…. 😉 ) I have to have enough pickles for future pickle trays, after all. I ended up with two jars of pickles.

The third other jar is pickled red onions! I love them on sandwiches, so thought I should have some. I haven’t tried them yet, but I think they look super pretty!

My friend K and I got together and made the Husbands play video games and snuggle the dog while we canned tomatoes over Labor Day. We ended up with probably 40 lbs of tomatoes? We made Zesty Salsa from the Ball Blue Book, and Roasted Garlic Pasta/Pizza sauce and Spicy Sicilian Pasta/Pizza sauce, I believe from the Better Homes canning magazine.

K took home half of them and some of the tomatoes. The salsa had some garden peppers and tomatoes. She brought a whole bag of mixed hot peppers, including habeneros and cherry bomb peppers, so it might be super spicy again. I’m excited to try it!

She canned the rest of her tomatoes, and I tried out our new dehydrator to make sundried tomatoes for the freezer. I cover them in olive oil and they keep for about 6 months in the freezer? To be honest, I have kept them for longer than that and they do fine. I didn’t quite get the consistency right, as I didn’t quite know how to make the temperature increase in the machine. Now I know and I want to try to dry some herbs next.

Don’t they look so pretty? I added some basil, oregano, and garlic too them before they were dried. The house smelled amazing!

My garden hasn’t been as successful as I wish it was. It looks pretty sad right now. I have to try digging the radishes and carrots. They were both small when I tried before. I was sad. Next year, we’ll have to try some different things.

My strawberries are still producing though and if the squirrels haven’t stolen my poblano peppers yet, I should have two out there. We also have some more purple peppers started. I think I might need to read some more garden planning books or something to figure out how to be more productive with it. Next year, I would also like to add the third bed, which might be partially herbs, and actually cage the tomatoes. They were unwieldy again this year and it was very annoying.

Back to canning talk… I have a new canning magazine (Better Homes and Gardens- Can It! Freeze It!) which has some very interesting looking recipes in it, such as Vanilla-Caramel Butter, Vanilla Citrus Plums, Brandied Strawberry jam, Roasted Tomatillo-Corn Salsa, and Sage Peach Jam.

I’m not sure exactly how many more things I will get done. I want to try some wine jelly and a whiskey ginger jelly too, but those I can really do any time.

I’m going to take Fancy’s example and go to bed to dream of new and interesting canning options though. I’ll leave you with a picture of my prized possession: a large jar of Penzey’s Sandwich Sprinkle! The Husband just shook his head, but I know he’s excited about it too. 😉

Gardening Update
Canning and Preserving · Gardening · Life Posts

Gardening Update

LSiehLeave a comment

Hello! It’s supposed to rain here all week, so I had to hurry up and get the rest of the garden planted yesterday. The Husband pulled a bunch of dead wood out of the backyard jungle and it looks like we did nothing once again. The three yard waste bags and 3 full yard waste cans belay that notion though.

We haven’t found any other morels in the yard, but we have pretty flowers popping up.

As usual, I have no idea what they are. 😁

I do, however, know what plants I actually planted! I’ll start with the herbs.

Flat Leaf Parsley- I need to chop this back so it grows more evenly.

Garden Sage and Pineapple Sage-

The pineapple sage can be used in teas and is sweeter than the regular sage.

Greek Oregano and Lemon Balm-

Lemon balm for tea and you can make a tea with oregano too, I think. We used the oregano last night to marinate rib eyes and it was delicious.

Three kinds of basil. I just couldn’t stop myself, so we have Purple Basil, Sweet Basil, and Cinnamon Basil.

I’m excited for pesto and for caprese salad. Also, Basil Lemonade!

We also have two kinds of thyme- German Thyme and Lemon Thyme.

Lemon thyme will go in my tea mixes and the German thyme will be for cooking.

We have three containers of strawberries. The ones that I planted in a stacking container haven’t sprouted yet, so no pictures of that. The other two were ones that survived the winter and I separated.

Eventually we would like to have berry bushes in big containers near the garage, but we have a few stumps to dig out first and we’re going to put gravel down too.

The tomato plants all have trellises now out of twine, but it was starting to sprinkle after I had finished them, so imagine them all with twine.

I couldn’t find Mr. Stripey or the Indigo Rose tomatoes this year, which was a bummer. I do have a Yellow Canary Cherry tomato, a Lemon Boy hybrid, a Mountain something or other, 2 Romas, a Cherokee Purple, a Juliet grape, and a Husky Red Cherry tomato. I did buy one of the super fancy tomatoes, the San Marzano tomato plant. I seem to be missing a few, but I think I might have duplicated the cherry tomatoes too. I’m hoping the twine will help keep them in check. A couple of the plants have flowers already!

The second garden bed doesn’t look super exciting yet.

I planted bush beans in the spot with the trellis, and replanted carrots along the back. There’s also Swiss chard and bok choy along the sides. Radishes along the other edge. For peppers I have a purple bell, poblano, serrano, and jalepenos. I’m thinking of trying more pepper seeds in the ground, ut if it keeps raining, I may just have to go with this. Even though there should be a good amount of stuff geowing soon, I still feel like I could be planting more. Next year, I’m starting the seeds later so they don’t die. Also, I will be using bigger plastic pots to help keep them stable longer.

I also have a zucchini and two rhubarb plants in pots. The rhubarb hasn’t grown yet, but the zucchini looks nice and healthy.

The hydrangeas in the front have blooms. I don’t know if I’m supposed to pluck them to make them grow more leaves or not, but they seem healthy.

My flamingo flock is also coming along nicely. 😂

I bought this one at a city garage sale yesterday. It was made out of pvc pipe and affixed to a paver stone. I still haven’t named it yet, but the artist made sure to tell me that I could name it whatever I wanted. He also said that because it moves a little in the wind, it might work as a pest deterrent in the garden. I’ll try anything cor the squirrels, so it might be my backyard flamingo.

This year a bunch of the local cities are holding rummage sales in parking garages or other city areas and it’s very convenient. It’s a weird mix of vendors and items, but worked out for us yesterday. We found two Wii games, the flamingo, and I got some Lego pieces for work. There’s a couple more coming up, so we might go see what we can find. 🙂

Fancy has been excited about the warmer weather. She likes it when our windows are open and she can smell all the things happening. She’s also helpful when we are messing with sticks. This is her, after the kids across the street went back inside.

I’ve started my canning prep list and am going to try to start having at least one canning/freezer prep day every couple of weeks. The mason jars are taking over the house again. I have a few recipes that I can make whenever; Jasmine Tea jelly for my FIL for Father’s Day, pickled red onions, and pomegranate jelly. I will probably try to do some of these this Friday. I don’t think I have much else planned.

For now though, I need to start getting ready for work. Have a great day!

Cooking Adventures Of The Delicious Kind
Canning and Preserving · Recipe Roundup

Cooking Adventures Of The Delicious Kind

LSiehLeave a comment

We’ve started to get some snow. So much for the yard clean up, I guess. The tree pictures I posted for my picture post were all taken a week or so before the first snow. I suddenly have dog attached anytime I sit down and feel the need for three layers everywhere. Most of my sweater fabric has arrived, so I plan to do a bunch of sewing this Friday to make sure I can actually stay warm this winter. My circulation must be off, because once I get cold, my skin stays cold and I feel cold forever. This winter, space heaters down in my sewing area are a must. That or fingerless gloves and a hat. Brrr… 

Chai spiced chocolate chip muffins with Siamo Spring Tips tea from Tea Runners

In an attempt to stay warm, I have been cooking up some delicious things lately. Fancy got some sweet potato pieces dried. She gets all excited when she sees the bag in the fridge. My dad laughed when I said I made her sweet potatoes with olive oil and cinnamon, but she can’t eat the sweet potatoes raw and both of those things are good for her coat. 

Part of my fun cooking day was on Sunday. The Husband was at his play and I made green tomato mincemeat and the tiniest bit of cardamom plum jam. The jam only made two and half jars. I’m not posting more pictures of it because 1. I didn’t get finished pictures and 2. You all might want it if I post it! I’m finding it very hard to part with. 😉 

I tasted a little of the extra mincemeat and it’s interesting. Vinegary, but not too much, with delicious spices and a little sweetness. Not having had it before, I’m not sure how it’s supposed to taste. 

I used this recipe from The Spruce Eats. 

https://www.thespruceeats.com/green-tomato-mincemeat-3057088

It will be interesting to try it in tarts. It felt super weird with the combination of things that were in my cook pot. There was quite an old fashioned homesteader vibe going on too. Here’s what it looked like in the pot. All those fall spices made it smell delicious!  

Some of the pile of chopped green tomatoes! I did cut the batch in half. 

Here is what it looked like after cooking down for a bit. 

And then the deliciousness after being canned. It got so dark!  

I have made a couple of other things too. More chocolate pudding, this time with my Mom’s homemade kahlua. It was delicious.

We have had Chinese food twice this week. We found these mini wontons at Costco (hooray for sample day!). They are chicken and cilantro based and don’t have any ginger in them. The Husband doesn’t like ginger, much to my dismay. They made a delicious broth with some veggies, garlic powder, white pepper, sesame oil, and soy sauce. 

Our new bowl color- Slate. Kind of like a blueish grey.

Today we had a noodle stir fry with some ground chicken and veggies. I added hoisin sauce, oyster sauce, garlic, sweet chili sauce, soy sauce, water, and a cornstarch slurry. 

My younger brother came for dinner, which was nice. I had texted him earlier in the day to say that the original recipe I had planned wasn’t going to work, but that there would be some kind of dinner. He sent back a text saying “I’m sure whatever there is will be lovely.” Isn’t he sweet? My mother trained him well, I think. 🙂 For the record, both the boys liked the stir fry. 

I want to make Cousin Jack cookies this week, probably on Friday, because I have currants from the mincemeat. Also, pannukaku. I’m out of thimbleberry jam though (hint, hint, mom and dad). My dealer of jam hasn’t been keeping up with the demand. 

In the morning, I plan to try one of these new teas from Tea Runners. I don’t get any money from showing them off, but do have a referral code if you want to try it (disclaimer: I get money off if you use my referral code). It’s a tea club that sends four samples out each month. So far, I have loved it! It’s definitely making me drink more tea and I’m excited to try these. I was especially intrigued by the Carrot Cake Rooibos and the Nutcracker black.  

The fact that it’s run by one of my favorite actresses and her husband, Jewel Staite (Kaylee from Firefly,) makes it even cooler. 🙂 I’m a dork. I’ll admit it. 

Anyway, there is a dog suggesting strongly that I go to bed, or at least cuddle her and share my couch blanket. Since I’m freezing again, I think I’ll join her. Have a wonderful, hopefully warm, night! 

Canning and Preserving · Monthly Review · Recipe Roundup

Not So Simple Sunday

LSiehLeave a comment

Well, it has been a long time since I posted a review! I have made a lot of things lately. I pulled the tomatoes from the garden and still have some green ones left. I’m researching ways to use them up. I have green tomatoe salsa in the freezer already. My Dad keeps hinting about green tomato mincemeat, so maybe if he’s nice to me, he’ll get some. 😉 

I did end up buying some tomatoes to round out my recipes, but there’s a good portion of garden tomatoes in each recipe. I was pretty happy with how the garden performed this year. Next year we will be putting it in earlier though, I don’t want to end up with as many unripe peppers as I did this year. 

For canned items, I made little jars of hot sauce and some homemade Rotel style tomatoes and peppers. The hot sauce recipe was from the Ball Canning magazine and called “Red Hot Sauce.” The Rotel was from this recipe: https://amp.thekitchn.com/recipe-rotel-style-tomatoes-recipes-from-the-kitchn-206851

I forgot the lemon juice in the Rotel and had to recan a couple days later, so went from 11 jars to 9, after reboiling. The hot sauce was canned in little tiny jars and I got five out of the batch. I used all of my homemade garden peppers, so I know it will be spicy. I also found out why gloves are necessary for cutting that many peppers. My hands burned off an on all through the next day.

Speaking of peppers, we have used our homemade salsa in a couple of dishes including, chicken tortilla soup- no pictures, and tacos! The tacos also have homemade pico on them. 


I haven’t made any more jams, but do have some jellies planned, including a pomegranate one and a cider whiskey one. But those can be all done at any time.

I know I haven’t been talking a lot about food lately. I think my original purpose for starting the blog was fulfilled, at least in theory. I didn’t use all of my cookbooks, I don’t think, but I was more successful in making more new recipes and such. I’ll continue to use them, but I have also been able to think more about which ones are useful for us. 

I have been trying to use new cooking techniques and equipment as well. I made lentil soup in the Instantpot for dinner last night and the house is still standing. That recipe is here: https://www.cookwithmanali.com/instant-pot-mediterranean-lentil-soup/

It was pretty good. I used brown lentils instead of red, so pressure cooked for 16 minutes instead of the 8. I also replaced the garlic with granulated garlic as I had run out of fresh. I used a Za’tar spice mix to replace everything except the parsley, salt, and pepper. I left out the mint because I didn’t think it would go well with the Za’tar. I had some garlic bread with it. 

I made chocolate peanut butter pudding one night. The Husband is not a fan of pudding in general and especially peanut butter, so I had a lovely bowl for dessert for several nights. The recipe is here: https://www.smartnutrition.ca/recipes/chocolate-peanut-butter-pudding/

It was pretty good, although I think it needed a bit more peanut butter. 

I also made these chocolaty muffins from garden zucchini. They were extremely good and you definitely couldn’t tell they had zucchini in them. Recipe:https://www.mybakingaddiction.com/chocolate-zucchini-muffins/

We had General Tsao’s chicken from “The Chew” cookbook. It was pretty nice, but needed a bit more sauce.

I used the Pampered Chef Stoneware book to make a Corned Beef Philly Cheesesteak ring. I used the crescent roll dough and then pretty much followed the recipe, except using cheedar instead of American cheese.

I wouldn’t make this again. It wasn’t the best and the meat got a little weird after baking it. 

We had Mac and Cheese from the “Vegetables!” Cookbook. It made me giggle, since it was called “Grown-up Mac and Cheese.”

It was super rich and we had to eat small servings at a time. I used different cheeses, since it called for blue type cheeses. I decided breathing was more important than recipe following. 🙂

I’m going to write a separate sewing review. I don’t want to overwhelm you all. 

I’m still trying to decide what to focus on with food, now that the cookbooks aren’t my main focus. The Husband has had several good suggestions including having themed weeks/months, using recipes from movies and books. Or focusing on a series for specific techniques or ingrediants. I also plan to try to write out some of my personal recipes. And, of course, the 25 days of cookies is coming. I think this year I will spread it out and make it the 25 kinds of cookies instead. Then I won’t be so rushed or frazzled in December. 

So let me know what you’d be more interested in reading about food-wise. I’d hate for you all to get bored!

Musings
Canning and Preserving · Crafty · Gardening

Musings

LSiehLeave a comment

I’ve been doing some thinking on how the blog has changed in the past few months and especially at the amount of change since I started this project. I started it as a way to keep myself accountable for using my recipes and craft books and so far it’s definitely done that. 

I think though, I may have outgrown that strict model. I am still more likely to pull out a cookbook or to find a Pinterest recipe when I want to try something new, but I am finding it very limiting for some types of recipes, such as baking.  

The blog has definitely helped inspire me to sew more too! I am much more adventurous and willing to try new things, as well as finding a ton of new inspiration. I even wrote a short piece with a picture for a huge site, Sewcialists. A year ago, I was still not putting pictures of myself on the blog at all! Now there’s a picture of me with messy hair, wearing bellydance pants!

Don’t worry, I’m not planning on going anywhere, but you may start to see different content. Maybe some original recipes, maybe some tutorials or sewing tips. Possibly even some dog treat recipes! 

I’m also experimenting with the new editor, which is still in the Beta stage. Supposedly, it shows me all my pictures how they appear when loaded, but that’s not true… I was only recently logging into the blog on my desk top and saw that the pictures taken with my phone held a certain way loaded sideways. For the record, they look the right side up when viewed on my phone or IPad. Technology and I do not get along. So be patient please, I will fix them as soon as I can. In the meantime, maybe just use it as a way to stretch your neck? 🙂

I have gotten so far off my posting schedule with all the crazy going on here, that I figured tonight would be a great time to just admit it and start over. Fancy, our adventurous pup, got sprayed by a skunk last week, and we’ve spent most of the weekend attempting to make her smell less disgusting. She’s super stressed, as she doesn’t understand why she isn’t allowed in the bedroom, or why we don’t want her cuddling with us. Poor thing. Hopefully the shampoo and other things will help and she can be a snuggly dog again soon. 

Other things are going well though. The garden is booming! We have peppers galore. I think I may have to can some more salsa this Friday and use these tiny, but super hot peppers in it. We may not be able to eat it, but it will be delicious!

We also have Jalapenos and cayenne peppers growing. 

I will also use these in salsa. 🙂 We even have red bell peppers popping in. I think once I cut back the zucchini enough, they were finally able to grow and get the nutrients they needed. 

I am very excited. I thought the red peppers were going to be a wash this year. I had such lovely plans for roasted red peppers in the freezer. 

The herbs are growing well, except the bee balm. I killed that one by accident. The lemon thyme is growing back slowly. Everything else is good, but I forgot pictures. 

The tomatoes are, of course, growing like crazy! I honestly didn’t expect them to grow this well, but here we are. The Husband had to buy 6 foot stakes for me, as the plants kept falling down! The tomatoes got too heavy. I froze some green tomato salsa using the ones that fell down while being staked. 

It was meant to be canned, but I didn’t have enough head space to safely can it. I haven’t tasted it yet either.  We have two other jars of salsa opened that I should eat first. It smelled good though and I canned it before work!

Mr. Stripey has yellow tomatoes! They were all in weird places to get pictures of though. I’m so excited! I hope they are lovely. My Indigo rose tomatoes are getting huge! They are supposed to be cherry tomato sized, but they seem to enjoy being in the soil much better than pots. They are in the back. The front ones are a bush cherry tomato.

I’ve also made some delicious plum cardamom jam, which I may have to make a second batch of. I might be selfish and keep it all for me. I guess the Husband can have some too… Maybe… If he’s nice to me. It was from Southern Living: Little Jars, Big Flavors. Here it is on a chocolate chip poppy seed muffin. 

I could eat this directly from the jar with a spoon. Maybe I’ll get some more plums for Friday too. 

I have also been crafting for our Harry Potter party. I want to make it fit in with my fall decor so I can use it again. I’m a fan of multi season and purpose decorations. 

These were jars and vases from the basement that I used mirror spray paint on to make faux Mercury Glass. You know, the old glass that’s kind of streaky and wonderful? 

How cool are these? Here’s what some of them look like with LED candles in them. 

They are so pretty! I’m going to try some with colored glass items as well. For our party, we need lots of different glass vases, bottles, and vessels. These items will work through out the year too. It’s been fun to find new  uses for things. 

I’ll have to catch you all up on my sewing too, but that will come at another time. I should probably get to bed so I can finish more projects before work tomorrow. Have a great night!

Canning Galore!
Canning and Preserving

Canning Galore!

LSiehLeave a comment

Hello! Besides canning this weekend, we also did some yard work. A lot of yard work. It was slightly unexpected yard work, but it made the yard look a lot better.

Notice anything missing? Here, I’ll show you another one…

We took the trellis down! Hooray!

We can see the garden from the house! We can watch the dog when she runs away at night and tries to find the skunk.

We are going to have to rent some equipment to get the two bushes out and are repurposing the trellis by retraining roses to grow on it instead of through the fence.

It was killing the apple tree and whatever else it could reach and really didn’t fit what we wanted our backyard to be.

We can also see the compost, which I forgot to say we started. I think it’s going well. I certainly added a lot to it this weekend. My full-blown canning run took up pretty much two whole days. I had to restrain myself on Sunday from canning more. I still have a list going of other recipes, but not enough time to make them all!

The only one not pictured is the ginger dill pickles from Epicurious. https://www-epicurious-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/ginger-dill-pickles-56389773/amp

I had one today and they need a little more time to cure, but will be good to serve for the summer party.

Here are the other pickles:

Hot Garlic Pickles and regular Garlic Pickles. They are from Better Homes and Gardens Canning from 2015.

I used the little tiny, but super hot peppers from the garden! They need to sit for a week, so I haven’t tried them yet. They should be both garlicky and spicy.

Squash Pickles! This is a recipe I’ve been wanting to try since last year, but I never had the ingredients at the same time. I halved the recipe. The Husband doesn’t eat pickles… I know, I don’t get it either…

These were made from the zucchini from the garden. The recipe came from Southern Living Little Jars, Big Flavors. 

These beans were not from the garden. 🙂 They are also from the same cookbook. I want to make almost everything in it.

This Spicy BBQ sauce was from the Ball Blue Book of Preserving. I made this recipe before, but with less spicy peppers. This year’s peppers were super spicy. I made this two weeks ago, I think. I used tomatoes from the freezer.

Also from the Blue Book is this Spicy Tomato Salsa. We are officially calling this Firebreather Salsa. I used all garden Jale-fuego peppers and a couple of tomatoes.

We have peach salsa too. No garden items in this one, but it smelled good. I’m excited to try this.

The peaches were wonderful. I will have to go back and get some more. More recipes to come!

I will be joining this puppers shortly.

I have to keep my strength up for party prep and more canning! Have a great night.

Not So Simple Sunday- Canning Edition
Canning and Preserving · Gardening · Recipe Roundup

Not So Simple Sunday- Canning Edition

LSiehLeave a comment

I have canned all the things! Well, not quite all, I still have a list. I was determined to make a few things for our party this weekend, so those definitely got done, along with some others. I’ll add the jams to the Recipe Roundup, but the savory ones will get their own post. I had lots of extra time this week, so ended up making lots of new recipes as well. Seeing my low numbers for recipes last review didn’t hurt either.

I’ll start with the jams. 🙂 Several of the canned things have garden or local produce.

Pineapple Sage Preserves from Southern Living Little Jars, Big Flavors. The sage was garden grown.

I have another jar in the fridge, as there wasn’t quite enough headspace to safely can it. It’s delicious! I’m hoping the sage come out more as it sits. It will be going in a cake for our Big Summer Blowout Party. The book includes a vanilla bean layer cake with this in the middle which I think will be wonderful and summery.

When I bought the pineapple, the apricots from the farmer’s market looked good as well, so I made Apricot Riesling Jam from Simple Recipes. https://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/apricot_riesling_jam/

This one is a very lovely orange color and has just a hint of the wine. I’m looking forward to this on toast. I think it would be lovely on ice cream.

I’ve made this one before, but it’s been a few years. I love it because it does taste exactly like strawberry lemonade. It uses Myer lemons, which are slightly sweeter than regular lemons.

This batch turned very dark red and I forgot to mash up the strawberries, as I had them in the freezer first. They are from last year and I had forgotten that I had them. There’s still a bag and a half left for my next strawberry jam endeavor. I have an Instant Pot freezer jam recipe and a strawberry basil that both want to be made.

There are more delicious jams and jellies on my list, but I need to regroup and figure out what I need. I ran out of single rings, but have tons of new lids. I may have to start storing them without the rings.

On to the recipes!

The Husband got special cookies for picking up the puppers from the dog sitter and letting me stay home. Chocolate Chips and M&Ms!

These were from the cookbook 101 Things To Do With Chocolate by Stephanie Ashcraft.

He liked these, but he likes the chewy ones better.

I got bored with breakfast this week and couldn’t sleep on top of it, so I made strawberry doughnuts. They were supposed to be mini muffins, but I couldn’t find the mini muffin tins.

These are from the Pillsbury: Best Muffins and Quick Breads. 

I was hosting craft night the same day, so I made meringues  with leftover egg whites from ice cream. These are super crumbly, but they taste okay.

The ice cream is Amaretto Ice Cream from The Cookie Writer. 

https://thecookiewriter.com/amaretto-ice-cream/

I had it with leftover peaches and it was delicious! The amaretto is very light, but you can definitely still taste it. There’s only two tablespoons in the whole recipe, but it doesn’t get cooked out, so bear that in mind.

We used the new Food Network magazine already. It’s the September issue. The Hoisin Meatballs were good.

I thought they needed more seasoning in the meatballs themselves, but the Husband thought they were just fine. We used Udon noodles, mushrooms, and carrots as the substitutions. It was nice to find another use for ground beef.

We had Macaroni and Many Cheeses from the 2014 Food and Wine.

We had to have it because of the name. 🙂 I had Gouda, triple cheddar, and a Monterey jack mix. It was quite soupy at first, but firmed up over time. It had parmesan cheese crusted on top. It was pretty tasty.

We had grilled steak for dinner on our anniversary, after going to the shooting range and going to the chocolate factory for a tour. We weren’t allowed to take pictures at the factory.

Mashed potatoes and grilled zucchini completed the meal. The Husband is an excellent grill master, so everything was great. We had  fun chocolate from the factory for dessert. I had a peanut butter block and he had cookies and cream clusters.

The range trip was fun, but both of our pistols broke towards the end. My back sight fell off my revolver and Eric’s 22 was not having it at all. They definitely both need to be cleaned and we have the name of a good gunsmith. It was a little disappointing but the rest of the day was fun. 🙂

We had Margarita Shrimp for Saturday. We intended to grill, but had an unexpected rain shower, so they were broiled instead. They were from A Farm Girl’s Dabble. 

https://www.afarmgirlsdabbles.com/grilled-margarita-shrimp-kebabs-recipe/

They were still tasty. We paired them with cilantro rice from Five Heart Home. https://www.fivehearthome.com/cilantro-lime-rice-recipe/

We used jasmine rice and it was delicious. This rice will definitely be staying in the recipe collection for a nice side dish. The Husband approves as well, which is surprising, as he doesn’t like a lot of Mexican based dishes. This one is lightly flavored though. It heats up great as it has butter and olive oil in it to keep it soft instead of dried out.

We had it tonight as a side with Tequilla Lime Chicken and pico with the leftovers from salsa making.

The purple plate was awarded for my enormous amounts of canning completed this weekend.

Those are just the jams!

The featured picture is the second set of zucchini and the others as well. I used the peppers in the salsa and the zucchini in squash pickles.

So there’s the update so far. I’ll have a savory canning post shortly. I figured it would be too long, considering how many pickles I made. 🙂

It’s been so much fun to use things from the garden while canning. I’ve tried to use local produce as well, as much as I can. Somehow I don’t think I can find Michigan pineapples…

Stay tuned for more canning! Sewing too, hopefully, but I have been a little busy. 🙂 Have a great night!