Canning Jalapenos

We thought we were buying bell peppers and somehow grew jalapenos. I don't like to waste food but I also know there is no way my family would eat so many. I thought I might put them in some salsa later in the winter when its cold anyway so it would warm up my home. I took my recipe from here. While it seemed to be a good idea, I will NEVER do it again. While cutting and cooking, the gas and fumes irritated my throat so much I almost lost my lunch. Every member of my family was coughing before the we were able to get them all into bottles. I am willing to try almost any canning idea at least once but I won't repeat this one, though I am glad I tried it once. On the bright side, however, look how nice they look. I did get 19 half-pints of jalapenos. I must say how grateful I am to have used the rubber gloves. My husband said he could do them without rubber gloves. He used his bare hands and did half of the peppers or maybe even just over half. He was hurting the rest of the night! Poor guy!

Make Your Home Sing Monday

Welcome to the Making Your Home Sing Monday meme! Every day you are doing something to make your house into a home for yourself and your family (if you have one). My point with each Monday post is, what are you doing or going to do today to make your home sing? W

ell, I think Nan's post was directed to me. I am the night owl. I do tend to stay up to late. But the children are going back to school after a three week break (year round) so I need to start getting to bed at a decent hour and actually go to sleep. I know when I do, the day goes better. I get more done and have a clear head of what needs to be done. So thats what I will do to make my home sing, get to bed at a decent hour. What are you going to do?

Menu Planning Monday

Monday: Cereal
Lunch: Chili with Crackers
Dinner: Roast Beef, Baked Potatoes, Fresh Vegetable
Tuesday:
Breakfast: Cereal
Lunch: Soup with crackers
Dinner: Grilled Chicken , Baked Potato, Steamed Vegetables
Wednesday:
Breakfast: Cereal
Lunch: Tomato Soup with Grilled Cheese Sandwiches
Dinner: Pork Chops, Fresh Steamed Vegetables
Thursday:
Breakfast: Cereal
Lunch: Sandwich with Chips
Dinner:Spaghetti,Fresh Salad Steamed Vegetable
Friday:
Breakfast: Cereal
Lunch: Egg Salad Sandwiches with Chips
Dinner: Date night for me and pizza night for the children
For more great menu ideas click here.

Very Basic Canning Basics

Some things about canning are to have fresh fruit of good quality. Your foods quality will not be improved in the canning process so you must have good produce to start with.
Make sure all your equipment is clean and ready to use before you get your fruit, vegetables, etc ready. That way you are insured the jars and other equipment is ready.
Only use canning jars made for canning. Don’t use old mayonnaise jars or other jars not designed for canning. The lids don’t always fit exactly right which means they may not seal properly which can potentially put your family at risk.
Use the correct canning method. If you put all the work and creativity into preparing your foods, you want to make sure they will be preserved for when you need them.
Know the correct amount of time to can for your area. Most canning books give you the time to process your foods at sea level with a conversion chart for other elevations. I live in Utah so I need to process things a little longer because we are so much higher than sea level.
Can what you will use. You won’t want to spend so much time prepping things and processing just to find out no one will eat it. I canned a few things that my family will not touch. That being said its fun to experiment.
Most of all, have fun. I usually make applesauce, apricots, tomatoes and peaches. I missed the peaches this year which make me sad. This year was still fun though. I canned pink pears, apple butter, and spaghetti sauce for the first time ever.

Applesauce

We have been making applesauce. I thought I would post how we do it. Its actually much simpler than my mother used to do it which is how most people make applesauce. I have a steam juicer. Rather than add water to my applesauce, I use the steam juicer. When the juice starts to flow, I know they are soft enough. After they have stoftened, I put them through the food strainer-that gets rid of the peelings and any seeds I may hacve missed. Then we put them in pints because my children don't eat applesauce-we substitute it for oil in our recipes. (In case you were wondering, no one has noticed.) Luckily my parents and we have apple trees so our apples were free. I love free!

Homemade Applebutter

I have always wanted to make homemade applebutter. My mother said it was hard so I have never even attempted it. I read a blog called Cents to get Debt Free. She posted a recipe for Crockpot Applebutter. I admit that I have actually burned things in the crockpot but I am willing to try again. I will only do half pints becuase I'm running out of pints and quarts and I'm not sure if my family will eat it. If not, I'll give away some and keep the rest for me. If you would like to try the crockpot applebutter, you can get the recipe by clicking here.

Refi Update

We are getting an appraisal done on our house. In anticipation of this, we have been getting rid of items that we don't need/want/love. I am an admitted pack rat. I wish I could say I don't hold on to anything but I can't. I always think I'll need it right after I have given something away. Sometimes I am right but most of the time and am not and I ususally find I didn't really need it after all. I am happy to be getting rid of as much as we are. This picture is half of what we ended up getting rid of. It took my husband two trips to the donation center with a full van to get rid of what we did. I do admit that there is more "stuff" around that I can get rid of, I just need to be ruthless and do it. It is so freeing (is that a word?) to have that "stuff" out of our lives.