Frozen Harvest Canned

So we consolidated freezers - yes you heard that right freezerS. We have two one upright, one chest - the chest was when we had broiler chickens but now we are down to our last 5-7 chickens we are able to fit everything into one freezer especially since it's nearly spring and soon to be summer (more power required to run a freezer or two).

Anywho - the Freezer is packed so we needed to get some space freed up. Thus another round of canning. I took out my peppers (Green and Purple Bell, Poblano, Anaheim, and a whole lotta Jalapenos) and let them thaw. Tomatoes stayed in the freezer so that I could take them from freezer to simmering pot to peel their skins easier without the mushy mess that would occur from a thawed tomato.

Hot Jalapeno Relish (Try 4 for Perfect Recipe):
Took from 10am to 6pm including thawing, but I could probably cut an hour or two off that if I timed my jar sanitation and water bath boiling time right.

Recipe Source: http://nchfp.uga.edu/publications/uga/FDNS-E-43-18.pdf
My recipe - makes 5 pints, I probably reduced it too long
Thaw all peppers
6 cups chopped Jalapenos
              (Take off heads, leave seeds in every other pepper - chopped via food processor)
4 cups other peppers
               (Purple bell, Poblano, Anaheim - all deseeded and thrown in food processor)
3 Onions
Then placed in pot with 2.5 cups white distilled vinegar and 4t salt
Cooked for 1 hour stirred every 10 minutes. Canned for 10 minutes in a water bath.

Salsa (Try 3):
Took from 10am to 6pm, but mostly due to doing two recipes at once.

Recipe Source: http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/canned_tomato_salsa/

Peeling Frozen tomatoes: Go quick - 3 or 4 tomatoes into simmering water. As soon as the skin feels loose to a fork, knife, spoon, whatever, use a slotted spoon to pull them off - hand peel by pressing skin off, cut out steam area, throw frozen ball of tomato mush into bowl. There's no de-seeding frozen tomatoes or if you know how to do it - share!

Ok My salsa recipe
Makes 5 - I probably reduced too far but I like THICK salsas!
5cups Frozen tomatoes peeled placed in a bowl
Add the 1/2C cilantro,
3 cloves garlic minced,
1 cup white distilled vinegar,
2t Oregano
1t Cumin
3t Salt
Mix together until liquid is covering as much as possible (no whole frozen tomatoes sitting on top)
Place in fridge for next 2-3 hours for it to continue thawing and marrying flavors

3 hours later
Pour bowl into pot and add
3 bell peppers de-seeded
5 jalapenos (with seeds and mine are small)
1.5 cups onions (~3 medium onions)

Cook for over an hour to reduce down (thicken), stirring every 10 minutes.

Can via water bath for 10 minutes


We ended up with only 4 jars of salsa - one lost it's top in the water bath - WHOOPS!

I'll update when we taste these! Hopefully good... Happy spring! :)

Blizzard Snow Day

I'm working from home today... Enjoying the winter wonderland

We went from highs of 70F (21F) on Wednesday, to highs of 30F (-1C) with a blizzard and at least 6" (15cm) of snow on Friday... Welcome to Iowa although honestly I should have known the snow was coming as Robins were seen the other day. Suppposedly in this corner of Iowa there's a saying - "See a robin and 3 more snows are to come." No idea if it's true, but one is down.

We did get thundersnow though and tested how our house handles power outages - twelve times! Luckily it would only stay off for 30 minutes at  a time. This morning there was 2" of ice on the road and no plow was seen from 5:30 am to 10am. (Luckily I texted in!). I did have to clear my windows to see out the house as the snow that came down is sticky despite it blowing to create white out conditions for those on the road. Everyone is closed within a 2 hour radius of us - over 200 mile diameter. Looks like our town is going to get hit the worse as they are saying by the time today is done our 6" will be 13".

All this means is TV as background noise and powerpoint work. Which sounds like fun, but powerpoints on a little laptop is a bit obnoxious. Although with Fixer Upper running a marathon, I'll stay in a project orinted mode!

Oh, below is a picture of the Pheasants taking shelter on our south-east tree-brush line. Our buildings including the house, provides them a windblock. We have found out we are their favorite place to hang out during blizzards and northwest driven storms. :)

Getting Ready for Spring

There is nothing as confusing as 70F (21C) degree weather during an Iowa February. My brain knows this is winter and I should not plant any time soon, but my heart is dancing "Spring is Here!". Seriously. Spring is not here yet. It's just uncommonly warm. 

Anyway, with the warm weather, we are preparing for spring. We pruned our apple and maple trees. Now I did not know this, but pruning trees is very important for fruit production and apple picking logistics. It's also healthy for tree growth and maintenance. We try to prune in February. It's typically WAY before budding, however this year it's only been a week and a half... which isn't the best, but only God knows the weather I guess.

Good Pruning Information (Read this first): http://www.extension.umn.edu/garden/yard-garden/trees-shrubs/pruning-trees-shrubs/

Tree Trimming Info (Pictures, because some of us are visual):
 http://www.treeremoval.com/trimming-and-pruning/#.WKnELPkrLDc

Anywho. If pruning isn't enough work on the weekends my husband has us taking down 3 very large trees. This I do not recommend without experience. My husband has experienced, I just run the rope to lower the system (We create a friction-pulley system off of the other standing branches to reduce the load that I feel).  It's best to take down trees also in the winter when the ground is hard and frozen... Again weather isn't the best... but we went from having 3 very tall very dead trees to a lot of bonfire wood. (Please ignore the branch that got stuck in the photo, turns out the last of the 3 trees was in fact the hardest). 

There might also be a funny story or two from this adventure...

The first was we misjudged our pulley system for a branch on the second tree. Well, our pulley system this time SUCKED! And I went sliding. I dropped to my knees to try to increase friction / drag, but alas that only lined me up with a larger branch and I ended up getting hit in the chest by a HUGE thick branch easily 3" diameter... which I'm actually really lucky it was that thick otherwise I might have a new piercing. Whoops. Funny part was B calls down and said "You okay." And I burst out laughing with a "Yeah", then I stand up and double over with an "Owww" To which he asks, are you okay? And the answer is still yes. I'm fine. My bruised pride painted itself on my chest... lol

The second, an earlier story, went something like this:
"Anna when I cut this, I want you to pull as hard as you can and then run backwards so it misses the arrowood bushes",  To which I answered, "Alright. No problem." So I pull as tight as I can, not jerk or bounce the rope, just a straight non-yielding pull. B starts to have trouble cutting the branch due to its density/knots in it, and it leans more and more towards me, but not gives.

Suddenly it gives, falling at an angle, the rope goes slack. And I think Well I can pull and end up on a row of arrowoods because I don't think I can pull it all the way past, or let it fall where it is and it might land okay right now.... So... I didn't pull.  😅

B - "Why didn't you run! Did you choke!?"  

Me - "I was going to hit the arrowoods" 

"Not if you would have kept pulling." 

"Well... It went slack, and lined for between the arrowwoods so I just went with it...  See perfect! Hit nothing." 

B laughs "You lucked out." 

"Skill. All Skill."

(Okay I might have walked the arrowoods before B because I wasn't sure but Whoot! Perfect aim, or amazing luck - Your choice. lol)

The only other spring getting ready thing I have, besides spring cleaning, is making sure I have all my seeds and that they are organized. Again I'm using SmartGardner to track and plan my garden, it's now called Zukeeni . My seeds come from mostly SeedsNow, but I'm not capable of growing 100% non-hybrids in my zone for all plants so I also use Burpee - Burpee provides my broccoli, artichoke, and reduced-seed hybrid tomatoes.

Now please do some research on hybrids before posting any sort of comments against them. Hybrids are rarely Genetically altered and can be naturally recurring- all my save seeds are hybrids as no one grows the same plant in the area so only God knows the type of plant I get from a saved seed. The reason I'm going for a hybrid is I don't want slicing tomatoes, I want salsa and paste tomatowhich is less juice, more meat.  The Amish paste tomatoes (reduced seed hybrid)  can be found on non-gmo sites and are perfect for my uses (well that's the hope)... Personally I like Burpee, they have done really good business for me, are a good price point, and they have good germination. If you prefer somewhere else, buy them there. I use SeedsNow because I like heritage, they have awesome germination rates, and... I'm cheap ($1 and $2 packs for all the seeds I need for a season!? Yes please)

Anyway. I still am using the bolt organizer I bought at menards. This thing was my Husband's best idea ever. I have used it 2 years in a row now and can even save my own seeds in it. (You have dry them before storing them). This year I'll post on seed saving, if I remember.

So that's it for my Spring prep. Happy Sunday ya all.

Small Town Theaters

Movie theaters in small town are different. We get one movie a week, maybe one every two week. The theater is an older theater redone where a screen in behind the curtain. I haven't seen a small town yet use their theater for plays and movies, but looking at the movie screen, I think they could. 

Minus waiting for the movie I want and having to check the newspaper each week to see if its in - I love our little theater. It's nothing fancy. There's no super awesome seats, no screen mile wide and as high as can be, no dinner or alcohol... But it's personable. It's personal. So I try to support the local theater over the larger town ones. If I miss the movie at my theater, I'm trying to support another small one instead. 

So when you pass a small town theater, that only has one movie posted. Don't pity us or think less. Maybe instead, stop in. You might also enjoy only paying $4 for something you would have paid $7+ elsewhere. :)

Jerky Fail

😱😦😣💩😖😬😰😷

There needs to be a face that's sickily Green, because that's how I feel after eating my homemade Jerky. Well, one of the two recipes.    Seriously. YUCK.  (Luckily the other recipe is okay-ish).

Bleh!

So the failed recipe was acalled Hankytown, or, Hangtown -  something like that.
It was:

• 1 Cup Red Wine ( I don't like dehydrated red wine!)
• 2/3 Cup oil (And this was a bad idea on top!)
• 2 Tbsp Onion flake
• 2 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
• 1tsp tomato powder
• 1 tps caynne
• 1/2tps cumin

So bad... So So So bad.... :(  It was the oil. I know it was the oil because oil doesn't dehydrate. BLAH! BLEH! 😖  Bah-humbug  BLEH... And of course, I being cheap, dont want to throw it out yet given that I took the time and money to make it. But BLEH! :(  

The other recipe is okay. Nothing to write home about, but not bad and certainly not making me cry like the first.

The Okay / But still don't want to make as written again recipe :
Cidered Jerky: This recipe is for 1-2lbs of meat, no more!

• 1/4 cup Apple Cider Vinegar
• 4T Worcestershire sauce
• 2T Brown Sugar
• 1t Salt
• 1t Garlic Powder
• 1/2t Black Pepper.

Again not the most amazing Jerky every, but decent.

My meat was beef - shoulder roasts. I trimmed it of any large fat sections/marble, and sliced it against the grain in 1/8 or less thick slices about 1-2" wide and 2-5 inches long.