Easy dinners

This weekend groceries are low and I threw my back out hand-washing pizza pans at work. 

Last night my husband fried some hot dogs and tossed out some chips, made more palatable by special condiments like wasabi mustard and my own homemade pickles from dill that I grew in my own garden.

Tonight I made a sauce of garlic, sesame oil, honey and low sodium soy sauce for some frozen sugar snap peas. We served these with boxed mac and cheese made with coconut milk and adding bits of bacon leftover from a bacon-and-egg dinner Thursday night.

Apple Butter 2013

I slept until 9 this morning, but that didn't stop me from having apple butter assembled in the crock pot by 10.

The family starting peeling and chopping and we had the crock pot full of apple chunks.

My daughter scooped about a tablespoon of local raw honey into the pot with some cinnamon and ground cloves. I poured in some lemon juice. We set it on high, put the lid on, and stirred it every hour.

At 1 p.m. we had applesauce and I scooped it out to have with lunch.

The whole house smells like apples and the flavor was delightful but a tad tart. We used Jonagolds from a local farm.

By 4 p.m., the applesauce had turned a lovely caramel color and I removed the crockpot lid so more liquid can evaporate. As soon as the liquid boils off, I can process in a hot water bath.

After about seven hours, the last hour with the lid off, I loaded the dishwasher with my Ball jars and got the hot water bath ready.

It's been about eight hours now and the dishwasher is approaching the rinse cycle and the apple butter looks like this:

My daughter is getting so adept at filling jars, I couldn't keep up! She also ate the last jar-- you know the one that wasn't quite full enough to process?

Spicy corn salsa

First canning project of the season. Spicy corn salsa.

For the salsa:

- corn cut off six ears of fresh-from-the-farm sweet corn 

- about one cup cherry tomatoes, cut in half

- about 1/4 cup mild green chili pepper

- about 1/4 cup medium jalapeño, chopped

For the sauce: 

- 1/2 cup lemon juice

- 1/2 tablespoon local raw honey

- 1/2 teaspoon each of ground pepper, cumin, chili powder and hot chili powder

- 3.5 tablespoons apple cider vinegar

Mix everything together. Bring to a boil. Simmer, covered 10 minutes, ladle into jars.

Process in hot water bath 15 minutes.

Burrito bar

Dinner tonight was make-your-own-burrito with the following ingredients:

- tortilla
- Fresh Express iceberg garden salad
- homemade corn salsa, the last from my summer canning season
- black beans
- Morningstar black bean burger, crumbled
- green giant cheesy rice with broccoli, which I seasoned with garlic powder, chili powder, fresh ground black pepper and cumin

Zippy Egg Wrap

In a tortilla shell:
- one egg fried in coconut oil
- half a spicy black bean burger from Morningstar
- home canned salsa

Vegan nachos

I haven't blogged, cooked or baked in forever. I have subsisted on various holiday parties and eaten a ridiculous amount of cookies.

And I feel gross because of it.

Today we had salad for breakfast, and now at 3 p.m. I'm enjoying vegan nachos: black beans, my home canned corn salsa, home canned garden grown salsa and avocado topping.

The avocado topping is almost gaucamole except we didn't have tomatoes or onions. Not that I use onions.

Avocado topping:
- 2 avocados
- juice of one lime
- a pinch of cumin
- a pinch of garlic powder
- a pinch of chili powder

Mash, mix and let flavors blend for an hour or two in the fridge. Way better than cheese!

Crazy Southwest Pizza

I saw something similar to this on the back of a can of Del Monte corn at work.

I made one of my multigrain pizza crusts, this one with organic white flour, unbleached white flour, whole wheat flour, dark rye flour, sorghum flour, and corn meal.

For the sauce, we used Archer Farm raspberry salsa. Then we piled on spinach, pinto beans thawed from the freezer, and leftover turkey.

Someone ate all the black olives so that's out.

We topped with some of my home-canned corn salsa and a cup of grated cheddar cheese from the farm. We intentionally kept the cheese minimal because of girlie's ears.

It's now baking and before I serve I'm going to sprinkle with the crumbs of organic blue corn tortilla chips.

Apple Butter, part one

I have wanted to make my own apple butter for a long time. My daughter loves the stuff. I occasionally like it. My husband is not real fond of it. So if I buy it, it often goes moldy.

We have awesome apple orchards locally so the idea of canning our own apple butter makes sense.

We can preserve the butter in smaller jars that won't spoil before we use it.

I found a recipe online using the crock pot, from Simply Canning, a canner I also follow on Facebook: http://www.simplycanning.com/canning-apple-butter.html

My Better Homes and Gardens canning book also has a standard on the stove recipe, but that one requires lots of liquid. The crock pot version has no liquid.

We overfilled the crock pot with chunks of fresh apples. 6 pounds seems to be the estimate provided on the recipes. I added a few splashes of local apple cider, a few splashes lemon juice, some local raw honey (about 1/4 cup) and spices: cinnamon, nutmeg, ground cloves and just a pinch of ginger.

The Simply Canning web site says to cook on high one hour, stirring, and leave on low overnight. By morning you should be able to whisk instead of stir.

We've almost done loading the crock pot.

Lemony pickles

We started making pickles today with a new recipe and I noticed it called for fermenting the cukes first.

That's not happening.

So while trying to find another recipe for my salted cukes, I was reminded that a pickling brined is equal parts water and whatever vinegar you like.

Based on my recipe research, I sliced my seven small pickling cucumbers into coins and added sliced lemon.

I boiled a mix of sugar, apple cider vinegar, water, strawberry basil balsamic vinegar, garlic pepper and lemon thyme from my garden.

Canning more

Today's trip out to the garden yielded two zesty peppers, two red peppers that haven't turned red, 3 red plum tomatoes, several pickling cucumbers and an eggplant.

So, we canned. We made a dill pickle brine, added fresh ground black pepper and garlic and prepped the cucumbers for pickling. We diced the red tomatoes and sliced the zesty peppers to add to the mix.

We reserved some of that brine and added more vinegar and some sugar to do a cold pack of pickled green tomatoes, based on the recipe in Better Homes and Gardens Can It!

Everything is in the hot water bath now.

More corn salsa

We opened the corn salsa Saturday night and it was so incredibly delicious that everyone in the family agreed we should make more.

So while I went to work at Target Sunday, hand washing greasy pizza hut pans, my husband and daughter went to Buzas and got corn and extra tomatoes and peppers.

They bought 3 dozen corn, 2 tomatoes, 2 green peppers and a spicy pepper for about $17.

That yielded a dozen ears for eating, and 2 bags of 2 cups of corn for the freezer and a double batch of corn salsa (once I added the produce from my garden).

Today's corn salsa yielded 6 1/2 pints and 2 full pints.

And this all has me thinking how I'd love to have a canning set, spoons, a skillet and a pot for gluten free vegan cooking so I could be assured of the purity of my food and share with friends.

Greatly anticipated nachos

Tonight's nachos were incredible.

We made guacamole this morning:
- 2 ripe avocado
- several small tomatoes from my garden
- chives from my garden
- lemon juice
- extra virgin olive oil
- one clove garlic chopped very tiny
- one small red pepper from my garden
- a pinch cumin
- a pinch fresh ground pepper
- a pinch chili powder

The nachos tonight included beans I had cooked and stored in the freezer, sour cream, velveeta (a gift), Archer Farms raspberry salsa (my favorite was on clearance at Target), sour cream, the guacamole, and the homemade corn salsa we canned last week.

The corn salsa tasted incredible! It was so sweet and zesty. My husband said it went really well with the guacamole.

Corn Salsa

Today we're adapting the Better Homes and Gardens recipe for corn salsa. I tasted a few corn kernels and it is divine.

The BHG recipe calls for:
- 4 large ears corn/2 cups
- 1 large onion/ 1 cup (coarsely chopped)
- 1 large green or red sweet pepper / 1 cup (coarsely chopped)
- 1 cup coarsely chopped peeled tomato
- 1 fresh jalapeño pepper, seeded and coarsely chopped

For my mix I used:
- 3 cups corn from a local farm
- about 1/2 cup finely chopped red onion
- 2 tablespoons diced chives from the garden
- 2 (or was it 3) pickling cucumbers (chopped)
- 1 cup and then some chopped tomatoes from a neighbor's garden
- 1 small green pepper and one really small red pepper from my own garden, chopped

For the sauce:
The original BHG
- 1/2 cup lime juice
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
- 1/2 teaspoon black pepper

To this I added:
- 3 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
- 1 teaspoon local honey
- 1/2 teaspoon hot chili powder

Method:
In large saucepan, combine ingredients and bring them to a boil.

Simmer, covered, for ten minutes.

Ladle into half pint jars. (oh bugger! I did 1 half pint, 2 half jellies and a pint.)

Process jars 15 minutes in boiling water canner.

Shopping and corn

Came to Gayle's to cook corn, blanch it and cut it off the cob for canning and freezing. This may yield some corn relish...

Before I came over, I went over to Target for a dishpan. I didn't buy a dishpan, but I got some deals.

What I bought:
Up and Up Dishwashing Gel, $2.99
Up and Up Fabric Softening on Clearance for $3.38
A bottle of cherry juicy juice, $2.99 minus a 75 cent coupon
Market Panry lunch meat, black forest ham and peppered turkey, 2 for $5, plus free pound of Green Giant baby carrots
Market Pantry Tomato Sauce, 4 16-ounce cans at 67 cents each
Archer Farms Raspberry Salsa, 2 on clearance for $2.54 each
Market Pantry Wheat Rotini, 12 ounces I think, 2 boxes at $1.01 each
Arnold 12 grain bread, $2.54 minus 75 cent Target coupon
Eggs, one dozen, $1.39 minus $1 off coupon
Silk Unsweetened Soy Milk and Silk Very Vanilla, $2.99 each minus $1 coupon
Up and Up freezer bags, $2.49
Hefty one-zip, gallon bags I believe, 2 boxes at $2.24 each minus $1 coupon
5 boxes Market Pantry mac and cheese, 67 cents each, minus coupon for 1 free box
Up and Up Laundry detergent, the BIG bottle that lasts me about 4 months, 2 of them at $13.19 each, minus $1.50 coupon, PLUS free $5 Target gift card
Degree antiperspirant, 8 of them in two packs, $3.99 each two-pack, plus $5 gift card
Arm and Hammer Cat Litter, two 28-pound boxes, $10.79 each, plus $5 gift card

Plus 20 cents in reusable bag discounts

Subtotal: 101.42
Team member discount: -8.98
Red Card discount: -3.87
Tax: $2.97
Total: $91.54 PLUS $15 in Target gift cards

Unconventional dinner

It's 10:40 pm.
I just got home from work.
Dinner is a glass of water, last year's firecracker carrots, Fra Angelica and rice.

Spicy pickles

I started some pickle liquid this morning making this into my brine:
- Ball dill pickle mix
- Indian chili pepper (powder)
- crushed red pepper
- white vinegar
- a few splashes apple cider vinegar
- water

For the "pickles"
- 4 medium pickling cucumbers (from my garden)
- 1 spicy pepper (from my garden)
- 1/2 a large red onion

Canning Ball Fiesta Salsa

I have two very similar goals when it comes to my canning. 1. To save what we can't eat fresh out of the garden and 2. To save the excess of fresh produce we may get into the house.

I'm a novice canner and a half-baked gardener so I try to get some quality food for my family and to use that food to the farthest extent.

But I'm a small batch canner and I don't see that changing. In about two hours, I can make a few pints.

Not the drinking kind.

Today I'm using Ball's Fiesta Salsa mix to season some garden veggies into salsa. Someone gave me the mix.

What they called for and what I did ate slightly different.

We chopped:
- 3 huge tomatoes from the farm stand
- 3 tiny tomatoes from our garden
- 2 small peppers from our garden
- not quite 1/4 cup red onion
- 1/2 cucumber from our garden
- 1 large glove garlic

Yield: 6 cups

In my large Le Creuset saucepan I mixed:
- 4 tablespoons white vinegar, 5% acidity
- 2 tablespoons strawberry basil vinegar
- 1 packet Ball Fiesta Salsa mix
- 3/4 teaspoon fresh ground pepper

Add vegetable/tomato mix. Heat to boiling. Simmer 5 minutes. Pack with 1/2 inch headspace.

I have 2 pints (one with more liquid than I'd like) and 2 half jelly jars. 35 minutes in boiling water canner.

Fruit canning

We went to Piazza Farm this weekend for produce, including the best New Jersey watermelon.

Today we made a light syrup of sugar and local honey to can mixed fruit.

Our yield was 3.5 pints. Our fruit included: three peaches (one very large), two plums, two red plums, two white nectarines, two nectarines and a pear.

Waiting impatiently for them to come out of the hot water bath.

More garden pickling

Three more fairly large pickling cucumbers so we made three more jars of pickles and let our neighbor friend help.

We made one dill jar, one basil dill and one chive dill. (Using herbs from my garden.)

We used the Ball Blue Book as our guide.

Time to pickle

We had one huge pickling cucumber so we picked it and got out our canning equipment. Since we don't have enough cucumber, we're also pickling some carrots from Klein Farm.

Last summer, I was given some Ball dill pickle seasoning mix so I'm trying it, using apple cider vinegar as the base.

The tomatoes in the garden aren't getting red. Two of my peppers don't seem to be getting bigger and despite bees in all the flowers, my cantaloupe is looking like a dud.

But all my pickling cucumber plants, both in the ground and in pots, are going crazy. My corn has some new growth.

And i found a pepper plant I had forgotten about struggling for air next to the crazy sorrel.