Re-Canning

Something weird happened with my tomato juice last night.

When I took the jars out of the canner, tomato pulp erupted from under the lids of 4 of the 6 jars. 

I am not sure why this happened.  I left enough head space.  I wiped the residue from the rims of the jars.  The rings were on tightly.  All of the lids seemed to be sealed - their central "buttons" were down.  But I figure if tomato pulp can get out, botulism can get in, so I refrigerated the jars, and this afternoon when I came home from work, I emptied the juice from all the jars into a pot and started over. 

My best guess is that my jars and juice weren't hot enough when I put the juice in the jars.  Normally, I boil both the jars and the sauce at the same time (in separate pots, of course).  I slide the jars off the burner, and when the water quits boiling I drop the lids in the water to heat them up.  I turn off the juice burner and immediately start transferring it to the jars.  Last night, however, my routine was a little different.  Both the juice and the jars had cooled considerably by the time I decided on the juicing method and actually got the juice in the jars.  I figured that it would be ok, since everything was still moderately warm and would get hot in the canner.

On the other hand, the problem could have something to do with the juicing method.  Mr. LaLane did a great job producing nice, pulpy juice, but it seemed a tad "airy" as I was pouring it into the jars.  I stirred the contents of each jar with a knife to get out the air bubbles, but maybe I didn't get it all out.  Hopefully, boiling it again did the trick.  It didn't seem so airy this time.  Note to self:  cook the juice after the juicing, not before.

In any case, the jars are in the canner again.  If they spew this time, I'm giving up and making one heck of a big Bloody Mary.

Tomato Juice

The Husband earned his keep tonight with one simple suggestion.

I'd picked enough tomatoes this evening to fool with canning them.  My original intention was to dice them and can them for soup, but I got to thinking about how much my mother loves tomato juice, and I decided to juice them and take her some.

My juicing equipment is, for the most part, a pile of crap.  I have a grinder pan - you know, one of those cheap things with a crescent-shaped blade in the bottom that you crank around to squeeze pulp through the holes in the pan.  It is rusty.  I have a manual juicer, a cone-shaped thing on a tripod stand with a wooden pestle that you use to mash the pulp through the cone. The problem with it is that the only pestle I have is too small for the cone, and I end up grating my knuckles on the cone when I try to use it.  I have a Juice Master, which is a giant auger thing that clamps to the kitchen table.  It spews juice on everything in the kitchen, and it has a zillion parts that have to be cleaned after use.  My other options were a food processor and a blender, but I didn't really want to shatter all those tomato seeds in the juice.

So, there I was, pulling out one thing, putting it up, pulling out something else....

The Husband comes into the kitchen and says, "What about your fancy juicer?"  I thought he was talking about the Juice Master in the attic.  He said, "No, that one over there," and pointed to the counter.

And there, next to the coffee pot, sat the shiny black Jack LaLaine Power Juicer. 

It came home with me in January, when I decided we ought to be on a juice kick.  We used it about three times.  I'd forgotten all about it, though it's been sitting in plain sight all these months.

It was perfect for the job.  I ran the tomatoes through it once, then ran the pulp back through it twice more.  About all that was left at the end was a clump of wet seeds.  The juice is thick and wonderful.

Good job, Husband!

Beet Trough

The beet trough is planted, half with beets, half with carrots.  It took 7 cu. ft. of garden soil to fill it.  Let the growing begin.

Second Garden

The telephone rang at 7:30 this morning.  I sprang out of bed and answered it.

"Pearl?"

"No," I grumbled.

"Well, what's Pearl's number?"

"Who is this?"

"I must have the wrong number."  Click.

No point in going back to bed with my heart racing a mile a minute.  I got up, cooked breakfast, and put on my gardening shoes.  Ordinarily I would not have gone to the garden to run the tiller and take a chance at waking Nanny up at 9 o'clock on a Saturday morning, but I knew that whoever had gotten me out of bed at 7:30 had probably gotten Nanny up, too.  So to the garden I went.

I'd just about finished a second pass over the ground I'd tilled up earlier in the week when I looked up to find Nanny in the garden, hatted and gloved, with her sweat rag around her neck, raking grass clumps out of the first rows I'd tilled.  The early phone call had been bad news; a sick friend had taken a turn for the worse.  I guess Nanny needed to work off some grief.  Bless both of their hearts.

We planted two rows of butterbeans, two rows of purple hull peas, three short rows of crowder peas, and turnips, collards, mustard, and kale.  The peas and beans might not have enough time to mature if we get an early frost, but the greens ought to be just fine.

While I was tilling the old pea rows, I noticed that the pea vines I mowed down last Saturday were putting on new leaves.  One or two of the plants even had blooms on the new growth.  Who knew?  Next year, I might mow them down sooner, rather than planting a whole new crop, just to see what kind of second crop they'll make.



 

Starting Over

Well, folk(s), I'm tired.

On the drive home from work today, I made a plan for the evening.  The Husband has gone to Nashville on business for a couple of days, and I was of a mind to come home, put on my comfy couch clothes, read a while, eat a bowl of cereal, and go to bed.  I've done all of that, except for the going to bed part.  But in between the coming home and the putting on of the couch clothes, I ran the big tiller for two hours. 

You see, last Saturday, after I saved that last post, I went to the garden and mowed it (well, much of it) down to the ground.  Umhmm.  Tired of picking green beans.  Cucumbers?  Tired of y'all, too.  Zooom.  Squash?  Had enough.  Vrooom.  When the mowin' was done, all that was standing were the tomatoes, the okra, the pumpkin plants (now in bloom) that The Grandsons planted, and a bunch of stubble.  I tried to run the tiller immediately after the mowing, but the ground was too wet. 

Since then, I've been planning.  Found a grocery sack full of seed packages in the freezer last week - all kinds of stuff.  Among them were butter beans and crowder peas.  According to the Internet, the butter beans need 60 days.  The crowders need 70.  Sixty days from now, it'll be the middle of October.  I decided to take a chance on a late frost, and plant them.

So, today I tilled.  Didn't finish.  It was still about 90 degrees outside, and I pooped out after the first passes up the rows where the cucumbers and peas had been.  Thought about putting down some lime and fertilizer, but couldn't summon the energy to cut open the lime bags.  Still have a long way to go before I put those seeds in the ground.

But, as Scarlett said, "Tomorrow's another day."

Gazpacho and Green Beans

Sitting here, waiting on the pressure canner to come up to 11 pounds so I can start timing the green beans.

I wasn't planning on canning today.

Things have been a bit nutty around here, not all in a bad way.  Last weekend, we had a mini-vacation.  We came home Monday, and spent Tuesday mostly laying around, resting up from our restful vacation.  I straightened up my sewing room a little bit, and mowed the yard.  Wednesday, we painted the living room and the bedroom.  Thursday, we painted one of the bathrooms, and the doors and trim in the bedroom and bathroom.  Of course, this required re-arranging of furniture, scrubbing of floors, We spent yesterday cleaning up the painting mess, changing burnt-out light bulbs while we had the step-stool out, doing laundry, changing sheets....

We're plumb worn out.

Today would've been a good day to lay around doing nothing again, but we had no groceries in the house, so I went to the grocery store.  When I got home, The Husband said Nanny had picked beans, cucumbers, and tomatoes.  I figured I'd best go help her with them.  She'd already snapped most of the beans.  We washed them and packed them into jars - 7 quarts and 8 pints, with a few left over.  Nanny fired up her pressure canner with the quart jars, and I brought the pints up here - we'll run two canners at once and be done with it.  Meanwhile, we scalded, peeled, and chopped the tomatoes.  We'll probably just have 4 quarts of those.

While this canner is doing its thing, I've been making gazpacho with a few of the fresh tomatoes and cucumbers from the garden.  Stole this recipe from Ina Garten:

GAZPACHO

1 hothouse cucumber, halved and seeded, but not peeled
2 red bell peppers, cored and seeded
4 plum tomatoes
1 red onion
3 garlic cloves, minced
23 oz. tomato juice (3 cups) [this is half of one big can]
1/4 cup white wine vinegar
1/4 cup good olive oil
1/2 tablespoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Directions: 
Roughly chop the vegetables and put each vegetable separately into a food processor.  Pulse until coarsely chopped.  Do not over-process - you want little bits, not a pulp.

Combine the chopped vegetables with the remaining ingredients.  Mix well.  Chill before serving.

Naturally, I did not follow the recipe exactly, mostly because I didn't have exactly these ingredients.  I used a white onion instead of a red one, red wine vinegar and a shot or two of balsamic vinegar instead of the white wine vinegar, and I used the whole big can of tomato juice, since we don't have any vodka to make Bloody Marys with the left-over juice.  When I take these green beans to Nanny's house later, I'll get another cucumber, another tomato, and another bell pepper from the garden to add to the mix.

Oh, and I put a tablespoon of sugar in the jug.  Didn't hurt it a bit.

Update on the Pea Hull Jelly:  I made the stuff.  It tasted pretty good - surprisingly like grape jelly - but it's W-A-Y too "tight."  It's like tar in a jar.  I expect that the problem was that I used liquid pectin instead of the powdered stuff.  Typically, liquid pectin is added to jellies at a different stage than the powdered pectin that the recipe called for, but I didn't have any powdered pectin, so I winged it.  If I ever make it again, I'll use the powdered pectin, or cook it half as long as the recipe said.

Except for the tomatoes and the okra, the garden is pretty much shot for this year.  We could probably salvage another picking or two off the green beans, but I've canned about enough, and Nanny probably has, too.  The okra is just now starting to make.  We planted it very late.  The tomatoes are just now in full swing, so we should have a little more work to do there.

As for the rest of the garden, I'm getting ready to plow it under and see what else I can grow before cold weather hits.  We ought to have enough time for more squash, and I still have enough purple hull pea seeds to plant a couple of rows - might be pushing our luck on those, if we have an early fall.

I still don't have the beet trough ready.  The stand needs assembling, and I need to go buy dirt. 

Timer's beeping.  Canner's done.  See ya.

Pea Hull Jelly

The Boss said she would like to have some cucumbers for pickles, and so when The Husband and I got home from work yesterday, we went to the garden to pick some. By the time we left the garden, we'd picked cucumbers, peppers, squash, zucchini, a few tomatoes, purple hull peas, and green beans. We foisted the squash off on an aunt, gave the peas to Nanny, and brought the rest of the stuff to the house. By the time we finished snapping the green beans, it was too late to start canning, so we put everything in the refrigerator with the intention of processing it all after work today. The plan was to pressure can the green beans, make bread with the zucchini, and to make jelly with the hulls from the peas. Yeah, pea hull jelly. I won't post the recipe for the pea hull jelly, because recipes for it are all over the internet. They are all pretty much the same as far as ingredients and proportions. Another thing they have in common is that they don't tell you how much jelly the recipe yields. It takes 4 cups of pea tea (for want of a better phrase), a package of fruit pectin, and 5 cups of sugar, so I washed and sterilized ten half-pint jars. The jelly mixture is boiled for 15 minutes. By the time it cooked down, I wound up with slightly under 4 cups of jelly, which seems like a ridiculously small amount yield, considering that 9 cups of stuff went into the pot. In any case, the jelly is done, and it is pretty tasty. It looks and tastes like grape jelly. Go figure. When the oven buzzer goes off in a few minutes, our evening of canning/freezing/baking will have resulted in 4 loaves of zucchini bread, 7 quarts of canned green beans (and several pint bags that we froze), 4 pints of cream-style corn, and 3.9 half-pint jars of jelly. Not a bad haul. My feet are aching. Boy, am I glad we gave away those cucumbers.