Making Sauerkraut at Home - time tested methods

Dave and I decided to try making homemade sauerkraut this year. Okay, Dave did all the heavy lifting but I was very supportive and he worked on this while I was freezing and drying peppers. (more…)

Another recipe for blueberry jam with no added pectin

Here’s one more recipe for those of you who are enjoying the taste of no-added-pectin jam. This is also for blueberries, but I’ve been told that it works equally well for blackberries, especially if you make sure that some of the blackberries are barely ripe. I like this recipe because it calls for a ratio [...]

A word about fruit pectin

Last summer I learned some fascinating things about fruit pectin.
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Homemade Beef Jerky

Years ago, Auntie Karen introduced our family to homemade beef jerky. We behaved immoderately with the beef jerky then and we still can’t control ourselves if there is homemade beef jerky in the house. The good news is that it’s very easy to make. The bad news is that it is IMPOSSIBLE to keep a [...]

Dehydrating my favorite foods: another way of “putting by” for the winter

My freezer is full and I’m out of canning jars, so yesterday I hauled out my food dryer/dehydrator. I LOVE dehydrating foods. (more…)

Watermelon pickles: photos of the final product

A report from the kitchen: I’ve made watermelon pickles, and this is what they look like. The red color is from the maraschino cherries, which I added in this morning’s last boil. (more…)

What do you do with $50 worth of fresh raspberries?

We picked 2 large ice cream buckets full of raspberries yesterday at a local farm. Prices have gone up to $25/bucket, so I’ll be investigating my alternatives. In the meantime, what did I do with all those berries? For pictures and explanations, keep reading. (more…)

Partial Pecks of Pickled Peppers

Before Dave left Michigan we bought 4 quarts of fresh jalapeno peppers. We love jalepenos and Dave canned these when he got home.
Canned Jalapenos (Pickled) (more…)

What a lot of work!

Here is a photo of the gallon jars of ‘refrigerator’ pickles we canned. Good think we took picture. They are going fast!

Making jam with no added pectin

Today we made blueberry jam and did NOT use little boxes of Sure-gel. I’ve made plum jam without added pectin, but this was a first for blueberry jam. It all happened because I got caught out in not reading directions first. I just blithely dumped in crushed blueberries and sugar and turned on the stove. [...]