Winter Dinners in a Jar

The reason I mention heritage fruits and vegetable is that with items such as tomatoes, you will not need to add another acid to your mix. However if you choose to buy your fruits in the grocery, you will need to add some lemon juice to your mix. The rule of thumb here is two tablespoons lemon juice or teaspoon citric acid into each quart of tomatoes, added before you fill your jars.With spring around the corner, farm markets and road side stands are getting ready to offer you a wide variety of organically grown heritage food stuff. Now is the time to start thinking about your foods for the summer and next winter. And canned dinners is a good place as any to begin.Planning dinners so far in advance can seem not only time consuming, but a daunting prospect. The simplest thing to do is to go into your cabinets and see what store-bought goods you already have there. Most of us havespaghetti sauce,pizza sauce,baked beans and BBQ sauce -great for sweet and saucy ribs. And if you have children, canned pastas seems to be the mainstay.

There is very little information on canning your own pasta dinners out there. Yet the major companies as well as homesteaders have been doing this for years. The problems occur with what types of pasta you want to can and how much of it you stuff into a jar. You will need only enough to loosely fit into the can/jar, never jam pack it in, or fill it to the brim. As with any home canning you need to leave at least inch of head space. Elbow macaroni, shells or spaghetti noodles are the easiest. It is not recommended that you can pasta because dense foods are harder to heat all the way through during processing.Homemade pastas are simple, and something that everyone should try their hand at. And you can add your own twist, or flavoring, to the noodles, like beet, spinach or Parmesan. Once you have your noodles, forming them into shapes is simple, pack them into the jar, loosely and then add your sauce. Kids love meat ravioli, spaghetti and meatballs, and beef and macaroni. Processing takes the same amount of time as your meats do, 75 minutes for pints and 90 minutes for quarts at 10 pounds pressure, unless you live at an altitude more than 1,000 feet; consult your canning manual for directions for increasing your pressure.

Soups, like chicken noodle soup, are a wonderful item to always have on hand. Any of the soups you buy at the store can be modified to your taste, removing or adding certain vegetables, seasoning, and salt . If you have meats in your stock, processing time will take longer then a plain, chicken, meat or vegetable stock. Stews, like roast beef, are the same.And speaking of meats, canning your own meats, poultry, fish and seafood is very rewarding. These items are cooked and stewed in their own juices creating an extra tender meal in a natural stock. Canned Beef strips make an excellent stroganoff. Canned chicken works wonders as a quick chicken with almond rice, while canned salmon makes an irresistible salmon and raisin pie.Which ever dinner tempts your the most, remember that healthy eating requires that you know what is in your food, that you follow all the canning instructions carefully, never eat anything that isn't sealed properly, and throughly cook all your foods. And most importantly, enjoy.

Grow Your Own Green Beans

There's nothing quite like the pleasure of growing, harvesting and eating your own vegetables. Absolutely nothing can be fresher than vegetables that you grow yourself. My family always had a small garden and we grew tomatoes and peppers, some lettuce and eggplant. This year we added green beans to our list of vegetables. My husband and I love them and I found them a "snap" to grow, freeze and cook.

We decided on a pole variety of green beans for our garden. Pole green bean varieties produce for a longer season than do bush varieties. We grew the variety of pole beans called Kentucky Wonder. It was our first year and we were pleased with the amount of harvest that we had from this particular bean. I think that next year we'll try a colored bean, but I wanted to grow Kentucky Wonder this year as they remind me of fresh green beans we had as kids. All colored green beans, ones that are gold or yellow or purple, have the same taste as green beans.

When we harvested the beans I froze what I couldn't cook within a few days. I found that freezing worked well for me. It was easy as all it required was a pot to boil water, a bowl of ice water and freezer bags. We have quite a few string beans in the freezer now, more than enough to last us through for several months. Perhaps next year I'll consider canning them. Where frozen green beans are good up to 18 months some experts say that properly canned green beans last up to five years (due to the fact that they are low-acid) although I don't think I'd want to eat them if they're that old. Canning is relatively simple but requires a lot more equipment than freezing does.

Of course the best thing about growing your own green beans is eating them. My husband's favorite green bean recipe is very simple, they're boiled in chicken stock. Boiled, boiled and boiled. Most "gourmets" will tell you not to overcook green beans. This recipe simmers the beans for at least 45 minutes. I drain them add butter, salt and pepper to taste. I don't think that I'll be using any of my frozen green beans in the Thanksgiving green bean casserole though. Store bought canned or frozen string beans work just fine in that recipe. I'll save my home grown green beans for recipes where they'll really shine through.

How To Make Herbal Mustards, Pickles And Sauces

Mustards

Mustards are delicious and give a lift to all sorts of savory foods. We all know the English, French and German varieties, but these recipes give them an extra lift and would make marvelous gifts for a mustard lover.

Minty Mustards

1 8oz jar wholegrain coarse mustard
4 tsp dry mint leaves, finely crumbled

Mix these two ingredients well and either return the mixture to the original jar or put it in smaller jars to give as part of a set of small mustards.

Tarragon Mustard with Vermouth

large handful fresh tarragon leaves
4 oz chopped spring onions
2 8 oz jars Dijon mustard
1 tbsp dry vermouth

Chop the tarragon leaves well and add the spring onions, mustard and vermouth. Mix together very thoroughly. Pour into a clean jar and seal with a tight-fitting lid. This mustard can be stored in the refrigerator for about one month.

Pickles

Pickles can add their own special zing to a meal and are particularly good with cold cuts of meat or poultry. Most vegetables will pickle, so here are some recipes that are especially good.

Dilly Cucumbers

24 small ridge cucumbers
5 pints water
1/2 pint vinegar
4 oz sea salt
1 large handful fresh dill heads
1 large or several small chili peppers

Soak the cucumbers overnight in a solution of salt and water, using 8 oz of sea salt to every pint of water. Then boil together the water, vinegar and sea salt and allow to cool. Drain the cucumbers and arrange in clean canning jars interspersed with layers of dill heads. The cucumbers can be left whole or cut into slices. Add a small chili pepper or pieces of a larger one to each jar. Cover with the vinegar solution and secure the lids.

Sweet Pickled Onions

2 lb pickling onions
1 bunch tarragon
1 bunch mint
1 bunch sweet chervil
4 oz sea salt
1 pint cider vinegar
6 oz granulated sugar

Peel the onions then arrange them on a tray, sprinkle with the sea salt and leave overnight. Carefully wipe all the salt and moisture off the onions and place in clean jars. Put a couple of sprigs of each herb in every jar. Heat the vinegar and sugar until the sugar is completely dissolved, then leave to cool. Pour the vinegar over the onions, leaving a very small amount of room in the top of each jar. Secure the lids of the jars. The onions will be ready in about two to three weeks but are a lot tastier after about six to eight weeks, if you can wait that long!

Mint and Tomato Chow Chow

6 average tomatoes
1 onion
1 green pepper, chopped
2 tbsp brown sugar
1 tbsp salt
1/2 pint cider vinegar
2 tbsp finely chopped mint

Peel the tomatoes by placing them in boiling water for a few seconds and then carefully removing the skins. Peel the onion and chop the tomatoes and onion finely. Put all the ingredients in a lidded casserole dish and cook at 300F until the onion is quite tender (about one to two hours). Remove from the oven and leave to cool. Pour into wide-mouthed jars and cover each jar with a circle of waxed paper, then cover with cellophane and add a label.

Mint Relish

1 pint mint leaves
1 lb onions, peeled and chopped
1 lb apples, peeled and chopped
1/2 lb green tomatoes, peeled and chopped
1 lb sultanas (gold raisins)
2 tsp salt
2 tsp French mustard
1 pint white wine vinegar
1 lb granulated sugar

Heat 1/4 pint of vinegar with the sugar until the sugar has completely dissolved. Leave to cool. Place the remaining vinegar in a saucepan with the salt and mustard. Put the green tomatoes in a food processor for a few seconds until they are mushy, then add to the saucepan. Repeat the process with the mint leaves, apples, onions and sultanas, adding them all to the saucepan. Then simmer all the ingredients until soft. Pour in the vinegar and sugar mixture. Boil the mixture for a couple of minutes and then leave to cool a little. Pour the relish into warm clean jars and cover with waxed paper circles. When completely cool, add cellophane lids and labels.

7 Homemade Spa Treatment options from Vacation Leftovers

From turkey enchiladas, to mashed potato fritters, we're constantly seeking for methods to place our holiday leftovers to excellent use. But what if we stopped shoveling it in and started off shoveling it on? Why not nurture your dry, winter skin with seasonal eats? And don't be concerned, we're not speaking a gravy mask or mashed potato soak, these spa treatment options are so indulgent you'll neglect their former glory fully.

If you want to glow even when it's gray outdoors, antioxidant-laden meals are a need to. Clear away on your own from the rush of the holiday season and program a DIY spa day with foods leftover from a holiday of indulgent eats. You'll really feel refreshed and prepared to get on the New Year.

1. Pumpkin Enzyme Masque
You built way too a lot pumpkin pur??e for that joyous pumpkin pie, homemade pumpkin pasta, or creamy pumpkin bisque but don't fret due to the fact it's the major ingredient to this soothing Pumpkin Enzyme Masque. Also, pumpkin helps battle the dry winter air with Nutritional vitamins A and C, as nicely as zinc and helpful alpha-hydroxy acids. I would go with homemade pumpkin pur??e so that you know that your pur??e didn't shed any important enzymes for the duration of the canning course of action.

Pumpkin Enzyme Masque
? cup pumpkin pur??e
1 tbsp plain yogurt
1 tsp grated fresh new ginger
3 tsp honey
Juice of 1/2 a lemon

System
Combine all the elements collectively in a blender or with a wooden spoon. Use a thick layer all more than your encounter, getting mindful to stay clear of the eyes and mouth. Keep it on your deal with for about 10 minutes and then gently eliminate with a wash cloth and warm soapy h2o.

2. Homemade Cranberry Lip Gloss

How to Organize Your Favorite Recipes

Recipes: Most of us have a collection of family recipes we like to use and some we would like to try. Getting those recipes organized can be a challenge. Try creating your own family recipe book. Take an ordinary binder and add page protectors for full page ones and photo album inserts that will fit other sizes. These will help protect them from splattered ingredients and is a great way to hold them in place.

Another way to add recipes to your binder is to use ordinary loose leaf paper so you can tape each one to the papers inside the binder. Use whatever works to keep them in place. You can also insert dividers to separate each one into categories. Some category suggestions are... Appetizers & Snacks, Beverages, Breads, Cakes & Frostings, Candy & Ice Creams, Cookies, Desserts, Eggs, Cheese, Legumes/Casseroles, Fish & Shell Fish, Freezing & Canning, Meat & Lasagnas, Pasta, Rice & Grains, Pies & Pizza, Poultry & Chicken Entrees, Salads & Dressings, Sauces, Relishes, Salsas & Dips, Soups, Stews & Stir Fry, Vegetables, Special Helps and Miscellaneous. Binders can be very useful because they can easily be updated by adding or removing recipes at any time.

It also helps to write comments on or next to the recipes that you have tried (who liked them and how good it was on a scale of 1 - 10). Toss out the ones that no one liked; why keep them? Try to set aside one night each week to try a new recipe and see how fast you go through all those recipes you've always wanted to try. After you have tried each new recipe, immediately choose another recipe to try, that way you will have time to shop for the ingredients before you try out the next one the following week.

Water-bath Canning Vs. Pressure Canning

When choosing how to pickle or what pickle recipe's you would like to try, there are a number of things you want to keep in mind. One of those things is which canning method you would like to use. Home canning is a very simple process that can be done in two ways: pressure canning, or water-bath canning. Pressure canning is a process that requires a pressure canner, which can be often times, be expensive. You may however be able to find a cheap one with a little bit of hunting through garage sales or flea markets. Water-bath canning, on the other hand, can be done using only a couple of simple tools. We will assume that you will be using a water-bath canning method. The following article will explain this particular method.

Firstly, of course you will need a water-bath canner. You must make sure it is deep enough to hold enough water to submerge your canning jars by at least 1 inch. You will also need your canning jars, screw-on bands, and canning lids. It is the much-less-expensive, tried-and-true way of canning. It is a way of preserving hundreds of foods, including salsa, jam, jelly, pickled fruits and vegetables, as well as relish for hundreds of years. It is a great canning method for beginners, or avid canners.

A water-bath canner is basically a large pot with a rack that will hold up to seven mason quart jars or up to sixteen pint jars. By using a large stock pot and being creative with wire, one could improvise a rack to create their own water bath canner. As long as the jars avoid direct heat from the burner and are completely submersed in the water, a number of crafty setups could be used. If you would like to save the trouble of rigging your own, they can be readily purchased at many locations or online.

Canning Homemade Salsa Recipes Requires Special Care!

When working with canned salsa recipes special care is required because there is a health risk if not done properly. Because of the bacteria which grows in improperly canned food, the central nervous system can be damaged, and even death can result in the worst case, when this bacteria is consumed in small quantities.

Since most salsa recipes contain a mixture of low-acid foods such as onions and chiles, an acid such as lemon juice or vinegar must be added to prevent the growth of this bacteria. Special care must be taken to ensure that they contain enough of this acid to be processed safely in a boiling water canner.

When following canned salsa recipe instructions, make sure to follow them exactly. Use the amounts of each vegetable listed in the recipe and add the amount of vinegar or lemon juice listed.

Do not can salsas that do not follow these or other research tested recipes. Remember that you always have the option of freezing or refrigerating the salsa.