It's been almost a week since I've written a post. I've been busy - not abnormally busy but everything I was doing was pretty boring and of no interest to most but . . here's my week in a nutshell! It's mostly been canning - very little stitching!
Monday: We were supposed to take the car to the shop Monday evening but it was supposed to storm (hail and chance of tornadoes) so we asked the mechanic if we could bring it in early Tuesday morning and he was fine with that. We had an Azure Standard pickup Monday evening and it was supposed to be at 6:30 p.m. - which is after dark and neither of us like to drive at dark but sometimes you have to do what you have to do. Then it got pushed back to 7:30 p.m. The storms were supposed to start moving in by 8 p.m. so I was pretty nervous. Vince didn't want to drive so I was going to drive and we were going to take his car. I started backing out of the driveway and said NO! The lights on this car are awful. Put it back in the garage and took mine and wouldn't you know it -- that car didn't make one sound the entire trip. I'm not sure how or why because it has been so noisy with that messed up strut but we made it about 35 miles to the Azure drop location, got what we had ordered, and made it back home. We could see lightning off to the west but it never even rained here.
Tuesday: Took the car to the shop -- I got some canning done, and made rye bread. I had taken some roasts and a few packages of steaks that I knew we weren't going to eat as steaks and cut it all up, canned it as pot roast with potatoes and carrots. I think I ended up with about 12 quarts. Part of our Azure pickup was 48 pounds of beets. I got half of those canned Tuesday (16 quarts) and probably tomorrow (Saturday), I'll get the rest of those done.
Wednesday: I drove Vince's car to stitch with Debbie. I was probably about 10 miles from home, nervous driving that car, I had asked Vince to keep his cell phone with him at all times. I noticed the brake light was on. I called Vince and he said "Oh, it does that when it's cold outside." I said "Oh, instead of a thermostat, this car has a brake light!" It made it there and back . . just as he said it would!
Thursday: I went to rug hooking again and bought some supplies to try punch needle or needle punch - not sure which way is correct. When I got home that afternoon, I asked Vince if we should call the mechanic because he said it would take two days on my car. He said "No, I'll call him tomorrow (Friday) if he doesn't call." An hour or so later, Vince's phone rang. He was busy and asked me two answer it. It was the mechanic. He said "I'm not rushing you but I wanted to be sure you got my message yesterday that your car is ready." NO! Someone in this house (not me) never checks his messages so we went and got my car and that made me very happy. When we got home from picking up my car, I canned 16 quarts of cranberry juice. It's that time of year!
Friday (Today): At least I can remember most of what I did today - I'll just share the highlights. I'm trying to clean out the freezers. We have a pig coming soon and there is no room! We used to love pulled pork but it seems the last few times I've smoked one, we haven't eaten much of it so I took one out of the freezer, cut the pork into chunks, seasoned it, raw packed it and canned it. It should be pretty much like pulled pork now but in small portions so we don't have to eat it for days. I want to try this recipe: Sweet Potato Pulled Pork Hash. I think I'm going to cook that tomorrow and see if we like it and, if so, I'll take two more pork butts out and do the same with them.
Quite a while ago, I gave up on chicken from Walmart. Just don't like it any more. I've been happy with chicken from Sam's but lately, it's been almost like what I had disliked about Walmart's chicken - stringy, mushy . . not good. Debbie had found the place where we got the bones to make chicken broth and those people also sell chickens. They're supposedly organic, butchered by a USDA inspected facility so we tried some of those and yes, they're a bit more expensive; they're 1-1/2 hours (at least) from here but we can get 10 or 12 of them at a time when we have room in a freezer. I did get 5 to start with and make sure we liked them . . we do! I spatchcocked one last week and right off the bat I noticed how thick and dense the bones were. I could not cut through the bones and I've never had a problem cutting through a storebought chicken's bones. I almost had to get Vince to come do it for me. I changed scissors twice and finally got the bone cut out. Vince said he will do it for me next time. We loved the taste of the chicken and the texture. The chicken was right at 5 pounds. We ate roasted chicken one night; then I pulled the meat off the bones. We had chicken salad sandwiches one day and then I used the rest of the meat to make this Chicken Enchilada Skillet (I really made half the recipe and I used green enchilada sauce). Then I simmered the bones and used the broth for another canning recipe I made today.
The other canning recipe I made today was a base for chicken noodle soup. I used up 8 of Sam's chicken breasts and I'm hoping there aren't many more packages of that in the freezer. I used frozen (storebought) mixed veggies and the chicken broth from a couple of days ago. I canned that and got 7 quarts. When it's time to cook the soup, I'll boil some fettuccine noodles in about 2 cups of water. When the noodles are almost cooked, I'll take them out, save the cooking liquid and add the contents of the jar. The starch from the pasta water will thicken up the soup, then I'll add the noodles back in and add any seasonings that need to be added.
That's today food cooking but then I tried something new and NOT an "approved" recipe. I've been seeing people canning banana nut bread and those types breads so today I canned banana nut bread and pumpkin bread. I'm hoping we like them and they last (safely) in the jars.
Vince found a cranberry orange loaf recipe and he wanted me to make that so I made that too.
That's about it for this past week . .
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thank you for commenting! I read every comment and try to respond to all of them!