The LAST batch!

Wahoo! I have peeled my last tomato of 2012!

My last batch of tomatoes for this season was 14 quarts of Italian Style Stewed Tomatoes.

All I can say now, is BRING ON THE APPLES!!!

Grandma Jeppson's Chili Sauce

The voices woke me early this morning. So by 4:30 A.M. I was pealing tomatoes for chili sauce.

My beloved Grandma Perry, who was a pretty great cook, made terrible pot roast. All my life, I've heard that the only thing that made her roast edible was her mother's chili sauce.  This is my first attempt.

Grandma Jeppson's Chili Sauce

• 36 large tomatoes
• 6 large onions
• 4 large green peppers
• 2 cups vinegar
• 2 cups sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp cloves
• 1 tsp allspice
• 2 tsp cinnamon

All this boiled down to 14 pints, which I water bathed for 30 minutes.

Be More

Valera Petersen taught me to be "more" 

What ever she did, she did in a giant way. She didn't just keep a garden, she had the most beautiful yard I've even seen and grew enough veg to share with every neighbor she had.  Every meal at her house was a feast and if she was going to make Halloween treats, then there would be enough for EVERY child in town!

My darling, Heidi Perry will continue that lesson. When Heidi decides to do something, (yoga, knitting, running...) she does it all the way. And no one loves like Heidi Ann Perry. To be loved by her is to be loved completely and forever.

More than any thing, these two ladies have taught me to "fight the good fight."  Because of them, I will "square my shoulders and look hard in the eyes."

Thru Heidi, I believe that I can continue Valera's legacy. And to do so, I am going to have to step up my game. If I intend to be a credit to Valera Petersen, I believe I must put into practice my favorite quote from the movie "The Last Samurai"

"From the moment they wake they devote themselves to the perfection of whatever they pursue."

Here's to pulling my hair back, and going to work. Here's to perfecting my life.  Here's to being more. 

Shane I and completed 18 quarts of (very thin) crushed tomatoes last Saturday.

Today we are putting up our beets.  We found that it takes about 10 to 12 pounds of beets to fill 7 quarts. We're using Karla's recipe:

Pickled Beet Brine:

10 cups beet water

2 cups vinegar

3 cups sugar

1 TB salt

To process, we cold packed the jars and pored the boiling brine over the beets. Then we water bathed them for 30 minutes.

Why are we sad when we know it is for the best?

Why do we weep, when we know they have completed their time of pain and suffering and have gone on to their reward?

This is where it gets tricky to keep up with a canning log. During the days of Aug and Sept, when the tomatoes, peppers and peaches are coming on faster than I can shove them into jars.  I'm going to start keeping a brief list. I'll add explanations when I have time.

8-29-12

• 7 Quarts Crushed Tomatoes
• 2 pints of Choke Cherry Syrup

8-30-12

• 5 pints Mrs. Wages Chili Base
• 5 pints Mrs. Wages Salsa
• 7 Quarts Crushed Tomatoes
• 6  Quarts Tomato Juice

You know better than that!

This, my friends, is the wreckage from my latest attempt to preserve mint.

I am posting this as a reminder to us all (ok me) when you freeze a liquid always always ALWAYS leave head space!

My Obsession

Last Thursday, we ran away for a much needed weekend of relaxation and family time. It was so nice to spend time in the mountains with the people I like the most on this planet.

The funny, sad, strange, really messed up thing is I spent the whole first night dreaming about putting up green beans.

Pear Preserves

On a whim I picked a case of pears last week. I was able to get a canner load of pear jam (recipe from pectin pack) and 7 delicious quarts of Pear Preserves.

The Preserves are so so so yummy. Delicious on toast, biscuits and oatmeal.

This season's first batch of crushed tomatoes is in the water bath right NOW!

I have always loved visiting The Spiral Jetty. I have drug my fam out several times to spend the day wading the spiral and watching for birds. We always come home sunburned, salt encrusted, wind blown and content. My, far and away favorite trip to the Jetty was my trip out this summer with my boys, Becky, Clair and Liv.

The kids spent a surprising amount of time swimming. They floated in the super super salty water and splashed each other and had races. We had to drag them out of the water. :o)

Becky and I went for a walk, to explore the mysterious ruins to the north. (What the blank is all that stuff doing out there?) And we had a lovely picnic under the shade of the tailgate.

We drove home, in the late afternoon, uncomfortably crusty with salt, but I was happier than ever, that I got to share one of my favorite places in Utah with my "new" sister.

Harvest Time!

The last 2 weeks have been full of corn and tomatoes.

We pressure canned 32 pints of corn and cut the kernels off of scads and scads of ears to freeze.  I found the directions for both in my Ball Blue Book.  The frozen corn looks great and I can't wait to enjoy the taste of corn on the cob this winter.

I haven't tried the bottled corn yet, but it doesn't look very appetizing.  After spending 55 minutes under pressure it looks pretty beat up and, if I'm being honest, a little brown. I don't think I'll be bottling corn again.

Just a side note: This is what happens when you leave your computer unattended while writing a post.     this is connor speaking. bring me hot chocolate.

Tomatoes and peppers are starting to trickle in. I was able to scrap up enough to make a double batch of Chile Salsa. The direction says to combine all the ingredients and "heat to boil, and simmer 10 minutes."  I don't really understand why the extension office recommends this.  All salsa recipes say to simmer for 10 to 20 minutes. I followed theses directions the first year I made salsa and ended up with jar after jar of thin, watery salsa. 

I cooked this mixture down all day long and got a nice thick, yummy salsa.  As a matter of fact, Chili Salsa is probably the best salsa I've ever made. My only complaint is it's lack of garlic.

P.S. I'm sorry for all the errors in this post. Connor is relentlessly campaigning for the computer, because he wants to play Webkinz. I can't concentrate any more!

It's zucchini time! 

Fishing at Porcupine Reservoir

 Porcupine is a very beautiful reservoir near Avon

 Connor was having a great time!

But Perrin is ready to go.

 Shane loves fishing

And I can spend time anywhere that I have yarn

Mint

The first time I tired to grow mint was in three indoor pots.  We basically loved those plants to death. We loved the mint so much that we over harvested and killed those poor plants. From that experience, I got it in my head that I couldn't grow mint.

This summer I planted mint in our herb garden, with little hope that it would live. Imagine my surprise when the mint plant not only lived, but started spreading out and taking over! I now have a beautiful, healthy and delicious mint plant growing in our herb garden.

About once a week I have been able to harvest a big bowl full.  There is always a pitcher of mint and water in our fridge, just waiting to refresh the hot, overworked gardeners that live here.   I have also been preserving the mint by freezing it into ice cubes. So we'll have mint water to drink in the winter.

Yesterday I got the crazy idea to make mint jelly.  I'm not sure if it will be good or how we'll use it.

 But it sure looks pretty!

If the timing works out, and I still have mint when the peppers come on, I'd like to make a batch of jalapeno mint jelly as well.

This season's 1st batch of salsa

It's early yet for salsa. So I was tickled pink the other day, when I was gifted 10 very ripe tomatoes from our community garden. Because it was such a small amount, I googled "small batch canning recipes" and came across the Fiesta Salsa Small Batch recipe at the Ball site.

Because this salsa was intended for fresh eating, (Note: If I had meant for this salsa to be processed and shelf stable, I would have follow the recipe exactly!) I changed the recipe up a bit. I added about 1/2 an onion and a jalapeno. The recipe calls for 1 tablespoon vinegar, but I added about 3 and I cooked the mixture down for way longer than the recipe called for. I wanted a nice thick dipping salsa.

The results are exactly what we have been craving! Nothing beats homemade salsa!

Chokecherries

This week has been filled with the picking, washing, processing and putting up of chokecherries.

My sweet neighbors allowed us to pick the chokecherries from their tree. They lent us their juicer and even gave us her mother's jelly and syrup recipes. I am so glad that they shared this heritage with us!

This is a steamer:

The fruit your juicing goes into the top and water goes into the bottom.  As you heat the water, the fruit is steamed and the fruit juices drip into the middle compartment. I juiced our chokecherries for about 8 hours. I could have juiced for another day, but I was ready to make my jelly and wanted to return the juicer.

The jelly recipe I follow called for:

• 3 cups juice
• 1/4 cup lemon juice
• 4 cups sugar
• 1 package of pectin

Her recipe didn't call for processing. She said just to made sure the lids seal and they'd be fine. That my friends is crazy town and never never never going to happen at my house!  I know her family and her mother's family have been surviving this for about 100 years. But that, like I said, is so not happening here.

So I processed the all my chokecherry batches in a water bath for 15 min.

I doubled the recipe for the 1st batch and ended up with 12 1/2 pints of delicious, but pretty thin jelly. It was more like syrup really.  So I did a little on line research and found that by adding 1/2 cherry juice and 1/2 apple juice the jelly would set better. So that is what I did for round 2.  That batch gave me 4 1/2 pints of VERY jelled jelly.

I had just enough juice at that point to put up a batch of Pioneer Chokecherry Syrup. (4 pints)  I found this recipe in a Wyoming pamphlet on putting up wild fruit.

• 4 cups chokecherry juice
• 4 cups sugar
• 1/4 cup lemon juice
• 1 tsp cream of tartar

Before this week, I had never even seen a chokecherry, let alone tasted it's jelly or syrup. This jelly is so incredibly delicious.  It is so so yummy in a very unique way. I hope to add chokecherries to our yearly canning list.

Canning Dry Beans

This weekend, Shane and I put up 7 quarts of kidney beans. Note: Before I started canning my dry beans I would be forever deciding I wanted beans for dinner too late to get them soaked and cooked. This way they are ready to go any time I want them.

Last time we processed beans, we followed the instructions in the Blue Book, and ended up swimming in par boiled beans. The recipe calls for 2 1/4 a pound dry beans per quart.  That is way Way WAY to much!!!

This time we did 3/4 a pound per quart and still had too many beans, but it wasn't nearly the disaster that the last time was.

I'd like to get another batch done this week. I think I'll go with 5 pounds for 7 quarts. We'll see how it goes.

Cherry Sploosh

Everyone I live with knows if ever a windfall of fruit or veg enters this house it must be cut up an shoved into jars the very day it shows up.  I have an unshakeable belief that all produce should be canned the day it is picked.

All activities came to a screeching halt, on Friday afternoon when Perrin, the clever boy, showed up with 2 bags full of CHERRIES!  The genius worked out a "will work for cherries" arrangement with an older lady a mile down the road.

The first batch of jam (recipe found in The Ball Blue Book") was a complete and total mess, and will forever be know as Cherry Sploosh.  My water bath wasn't boiling when the jam reached temp, so I turned the stove to low, hoping the jam would stay warm. Well it went beyond warm, past the gelling point and must have reach hard crack. I have 5 1/2 pints of cherry hard candy!

The next attempt (we shall call the redeeming batch) was too yummy to be considered food storage, and was immediately devoured.

This, my friend, is what I am working on today. I'll use these beauties to make pie filling, following the Utah State University Extension Office instructions.

Update:     6-29     The pie filling turned out great. I ended up with 7 quarts and 3 pints.

Side note:     Spending the day pitting and chopping cherries will turn your fingers a disconceerting shade of brown. If you don't want brown fingers, wear gloves.    

Billy Joel - You're My Home (Studio version)

Putting Up

Last year I tried valiantly (in the beginning) to create a canning journal. What I wanted was a written record of the recipes I used and any alterations I made, so that, 6 months later, when I was eating a yucky jar of salsa or a favorite jar a jelly, I would know what went into that jar. Basically, I wanted a way to sift thru all canning recipes I try, to find the ones we love.

The problem I ran into was exhaustion. Canning isn't hard, but it is long hours standing on a hard tile floor in an increasingly hot kitchen. By the end of a good canning day, I'm usually pretty tired.

I'm  going to attempt a canning log again . But this summer I'm shifting it from paper, to this blog....so here we go...

Putting Up

When this girl walks into her local market and sees strawberries at $4.99 a flat, the universe shifts and all plans for that day are justified away to make room for jam making.  This time I had the CRAZY idea that Thing 1 and Thing 2 (being the chief jam consumers in the house) should help with this batch.  Canning with a 13 and 11 year old was...interesting...

It was nice to a buddy to stir the jam while I cut up berries for the next batch.

That day we made Berry Preserves from the canning book "Putting Up"  by Steve Dowdney.  I'm not really in love with this book. The recipes are ok, but Dowdney's canning techniques are confusing.  Instead of following his water bath instructions I followed the directions in my Ball Blue Book and the jam turned out pretty great.

We also made Triple Berry Lemonade Concentrate from a recipe I adapted from Canning Homemade.  

Triple Berry Lemonade  Concentrate
2 cups strawberries (cleaned, hulled and cut into quarters)
2 cups raspberries
2 cups blueberries
4 cups bottled lemon juice
6 cups sugar

Place berries and lemon juice in your big stock pot and heat up (if this mixture boils it is going to start turning in to jam, you only want it warm enough to dissolve the sugar.) Once it's nice and warm, stir in the sugar. Heat long enough to be sure the sugar is completely dissolved.

The Canning Homeade site has directions for presserving the lemonade in a wter bath. If you want to do that, then your lemonade needs to be heated to 190 degrees. I desided to freeze mine, so I skipped that.

When reconstituting the lemonade,  I like 1 part concentrate to 3 to 4 parts water or club soda.  So far club soda is my favorite!  Sprite was pretty good too, but it was a lot sweeter. If I had it to do over, I would have mixed it at least 5 to 1.

We can't get enough of this Lemonade! Since I found this recipe, we mix up a batch for every special meal and most of our guests.

 

Connor the camera man!

Then and Now

Last night I had one of those "How did this become my life?" moments. Not in a bad way, like "For the love of yarn! What have I gotten myself into?" It was more along the lines of "Huh? Didn't see this coming."

We've been gearing up for summer here at Casa De Haven. Last night we where going thru all our 1st Aid Kits, making sure they where stocked and ready to go.

It was while sifting thru the contents of SIX kits  (camper, backpack, truck, car, motorcycle, oh and lets check the snowmobile kit while we're at it, but we sold the boat, so we won't need that one...) that the "You've come a long way, Baby" thoughts started rolling around my head.

When Shane and I where dating and newly married, gas was pretty cheap. We spent most of our free time driving around Southern Utah, just to see what was out there.  I marvel at the difference in our pack back then.

THEN vs NOW

Might as well start with 1st Aid Kits:
Then:     If we even had a 1st Aid Kit it was because Shane's Dad was sneaky enough to toss one into the truck when we weren't looking.

Now:     We carry one where ever we go.

Time spent camping, hiking or just roaming:
 Then:     When ever we wanted, where ever was interesting and for as long as we felt like.

Now:     When ever we can manage to sneak away from everyday life (honestly, we're still pretty good at this one) Where we can find a trail suitable to Connor's short legs and attention span and  that we can make it up while being weighed down by the 1st Aid Kit or where we can find something that will add to the education or life experience of those 2 preteens that follow us every where we go. Our time frame is based on them as well. We work around Scout Camp, Deacon's Quorum responsibilities, homework, neighborhood jobs, music lessons....the list goes on and on...

Gear:
Then:     Shane came into our relationship with a pretty great sleeping bag, a camp stove and some cooking pots. At some point he picked up a tent and sleeping bag (for me) he bought in a "seconds" sale. That was pretty much it.


Now:     The sporting good industry is based on suckers like me...I mean families like ours. Everyone HAS to have snow boots, hiking boots, water shoes, backpacks, day packs, sleeping bags, sleeping mats, emergency whistles, emergency food, fire starting equipment, a way to purify water, 3 types of helmets.....ect...sigh
 
Clothing:
Then:     Packing extra clothes was always optional. We never knew where we would go or how long we'd be, so we never knew what to pack for. We spent most of our time "roughing it" in what ever we where wearing.

Now:     It seems like every time we leave the house all 4 of us need a complete change of clothes, plus 2 extra pairs of sock, bug spray, sunscreen, something to draw on, a book to listen to and something to do, once we get where ever we are going (and disappointingly, our destination is always thoroughly preplanned)  And let's not even talk about hygiene. Now that I am responsible for the teeth of 2 other people, I am obsessive about the state of everyone's toothbrush.

Food:
Then:     We didn't think that much about food back then. Sometimes I would pack us a lunch. And sometimes we would plan a camp fire dinner, but not usually on the same trip. And we practically never thought about breakfast, until it was time to eat breakfast. I never bought coolies, crackers, granola bars or fruit snacks.

Now:   I find that meal planning is one of the easiest ways to create a successful trip.  We plan meals and we plan back up meal. The more complicated the trip, the more planning goes into the food. And if we're going to be in the car for more than 4 hours, there will be snacks.

When it comes down to it, I could describe the difference between "then and now" in one word: PLANNING.   To combat rising fuel prices, time constants, and the need a growing boy has to eat every 23 minutes, I have planned all the irresponsible, carefree and spontaneous trips right out of our lives.

For about a minute and a half, I mourned the loss of our lighthearted trips to no where in particular. Then I remembered the amazement in Perrin's 3 year old voice the first time he hiked up to the Willow Flat Spring.  All the hassle of making sure my boys have sun screen, water bottles, hats and good shoes is worth every SECOND because I have heard these words, in variation, over and over in the 13 years I have been a parent:

"Dad! How did you find this place!"

Last night I tried to convince Shane the was should adopt a burro, based on these very well thought out, rational points:

•  (I decided I needed a strong opening, so I went with my best reason for adopting a burro 1st) If we adopted a burro, he could live in the back yard, and we could name him HeeHaw. The joy HeeHaw gave us would FAR out weigh any difficulties that came of keeping him. And besides, he would love us so much, he would try to be the best burro ever. He would be no trouble at all.
• The Bureau of Land Management has adoption events ALL THE TIME. That means there are more burros than good homes  HeeHaw NEEDS us.
• The adoption fees for a burro are less then $200, making  HeeHaw a very economical pet.
• Our backyard is covered in unwanted alfalfa and morning glory. HeeHaw would be a very eco-friendly way of disposing yard waste.  We're saving the earth AND we have the joy of having a burro in the backyard. How is there a down side here?

Sadly Shane doesn't love HeeHaw the way I do. He will not be coming to live in our backyard. But on a good note, in the wake on the "we should so totally adopt a burro" conversation I did manage to sneak in the idea of owning peacocks. 


If you could have a strange pet, what would it be?

The Leonardo

Perrin has been working on his Art Merit Badge and needed a trip to a museum. So last Saturday we ended up at The Leonardo in SLC. The Leonardo's site says it is a "contemporary Sci+Tech+Art museum." Which basically means a freaking awesome place to hang out.

Perrin on the green screen

The Leo is full of interactive exhibits about algae, electricity, maps, DNA, and more. We where able to make our own stop motion films. We also did an experiment that showed the amount of energy needed to power an incandescent light bulb, a florescent light bulb and a LED light bulb.

Connor bending a strip of wood.

Like most museums, the Leo has hands on activities on Saturdays. We where lucky enough to be there on the day that the violin markers where there! With their tools! We got to learn how to bend and curve wood. And we got to see violins in various stages of being built.

The boys in the lab.

Shane built a truss in the lab.

All in all, The Leonardo is one of my favorite museums. Ever!  Where is your favorite museum? What about your fave place to hang out with your fam?

Orangie Cream Cuppy Cakes

I bake so seldom I thought this batch of cupcakes deserved a post. This cupcake recipe has been rolling around in my head for awhile and I couldn't resist it any  longer.

While mixing up the batter, I substituted orange soda for the water and oil the box called for.

Then I frosted them with cream cheese frosting.

I think this recipe is a win!

Buried Treasure

I'm sure most of you know (because I've complained to every single person I talk to lately) about the GREAT AND TERRIBLE PICTURE PROJECT that is going on at our house. The attempt to rescue 15 years of pictures that where languishing in Rubbermaid in the garage is taking a very long time to complete.

But it is not with out it's moments of surprised and joy as I come across forgotten but love pictures from the past. Here are a few of my favorites.

First, there are pictures from our trip out the the Sun Tunnels.

This is one of my all time favorite family adventures.

Here are my all time favorite pictures of my boys.

Connor dancing to Christmas music at the Gateway fountain.

At a birthday party

Perrin at Randy and Laura's wedding.

And my favorite pictures of the Jeep, for which this blog was once named.

Here are some shots of our build.

This is my Auntie K, who loves me enough to drive in from California and spend 5 sweltering days wiring my house.

This is the crane lifting our trusses onto our walls

Building garage shelves

And some of the strange and amazing places life with Shane has taken me.

Random Shots of Happiness

My Boys in Willard Bay

A rainstorm in Alaska, aboard The Golden Princess

Randy and Laura's wedding; one of the happiest days of my life.