 I’d like to give a shout out and kudos and ‘atta-girl’ and ‘way to go!’ (can you think of anything else?) to reader, Debbie, who sent in this photo of her first attempt at canning chili. It was such a success that she is moving on to canning soup for her very large family. Congrats, Debbie!! We are so proud of your success and eagerness to plan ahead for your family. If you have a success story or ideas that you would like to share, please email us with your pictures and story. Again, congrats, Debbie!! |
|
Oklahoma Pastry Cloth™ Company on Facebook
|
 |
Archive for the ‘Canning and Food Processing’ Category
Kudos!!
Sunday, April 10th, 2011
Grinding Corn
Friday, March 25th, 2011
 It doesn’t take much to thrill me. I’m one of those people who appreciates the little thngs in life! For probably 12 years, I’ve been grinding wheat to make our breads and other flour products and it’s been grand. I started out with a hand grinder – a Lil Ark – that has large, stone burrs to grind the grain. You’ve heard of stone ground meal, I’m sure. Well, we don’t have a watermill, but we still have the stone ground flour!  Mr. Fix-It, ever the mechanical genius, watched as I rotated ’round and ’round with the handle to the mill to get about 2 cups of flour for 20 minutes of work. Good exercise, but rather boring. He knew he could get a motor to do the work for me and so he promptly set out to do just that. Two fly-wheels, a couple of auto belts, some pine and an old trash compacter motor later and Mr. Fix-It had indeed fixed it! It isn’t much to look at, but by jove, it does an incredible job. It stays in the garage because it is huge and kinda messy.  And then I graduated. I got a Nutrimill…the grinder of electric grinders. What took my Lil Ark an hour to accomplish, the Nutrimill does in 10 minutes. All the more flour to bake with, my dear! These grinders can be found at a number of places online and they are sooooo worth it. Some online sources include:
 So all of this time, I’ve been making breads and such with wheat flour, but it never occurred to me to purchase corn and do my own cornmeal. Duh. Well, today ended that bit of ignorance. I purchased a sack of corn from Sonrise Whole Grains in Midwest City, and came home to experiment. I used both grinders and combined the results. The Nutrimill grinds the corn pretty fine, which is great for coating fish, while the Lil Ark makes a more grainy meal, which is good for cornbread. But together, it makes a-maize-ing cornbread.  As a result, for dinner tonight, I made cornbread by my recipe posted previously and served that with some home canned beef stew. Now THAT’S livin’! |
|
Oklahoma Pastry Cloth™ Company on Facebook
|
|
|
Canning Sausage
Thursday, March 24th, 2011
 But in Oklahoma, we say, “Sausage” like you ‘orta’! I love sausage. There is absolutely nothing like it. And, yes, it has to be made with pork. I’ve made turkey sausage before and I’ve added olive oil to give it some ‘crisp’ on the outside, but heh, it was turkey. That just isn’t real sausage. My favorite brand of sausage, if I haven’t made my own, is Tennessee Pride Country Sausage. Yes, I was born in Oklahoma and I live in Oklahoma, but I had a stint in between there in Tennessee. “Tennessee Country sausage is the best part of the meal”, don’t you know? It is very lean and has a wonderful flavor. Best of all, we get it here in Okie land!!  Working in the meat department in Blaine, Tennessee, (and yes, we acted this stupid) I learned to make my own sausage. We ground enough hogs to feed Ireland. I remember when I was expecting my first child, we and our friends, who raised hogs, killed several hogs to put in our freezers and I spent the afternoon grinding, seasoning and wrapping nearly 200 lbs of sausage and curing and hanging the hams and bacon. I was in those first three months of morning sickness and I must say, it took me years to be able to smell sage and brown sugar again. I got ill to put it mildly. My mother-in-law taught me how to can that sausage (sorsage as she called it) and I have been doing it ever since. Either homemade or store bought, sausage does very well canned. It keeps a lot longer than in the freezer and it is so easy to pull out in a pinch. As a side note, the Ball Canning book says not to add sage to your sausage because it could become bitter in the canning, but I have NEVER had that problem…and how is it sausage without sage??! What’s the last 4 letters of sausage? Sage! When I make my own sausage, I use sage from our garden that has been dried and hand rubbed. I have been canning Tennessee Pride sausage for a couple of years, which has sage in it, and it tastes wonderful too.  I canned sausage just before Christmas when I found it on sale. I try to do this once a year to last us and so it takes quite a few runs and a full afternoon but one run only takes about an hour and 45 minutes total time (preparation and processing). You can make your own sausage into patties or if you are using packaged sausage, slice the packages into patties. I am using a serrated knife here with tiny teeth. A straight knife just makes mess of soft sausage. Also, you can freeze your rolls slightly to make them easier to cut. But a serrated knife is still needed.  Place the patties into skillet. I add a 1/4 cup of light olive oil because Tennessee Pride is so lean.  Brown patties on both sides. It doesn’t matter if you don’t get the sausage fully cooked as you would if preparing to serve it.  Carefully stack patties into sterilized and hot canning jars. Leave a 3/4 – 1 inch head space. Here, I am using half pint jars because there are just two of us, but when the kids were all home, I packed the patties into pint jars. I can get around 4 – 5 small patties per half pint jar. For larger jars, you can make your patties larger.  Pour drippings into jars, over sausage, leaving 1″ headspace. If you don’t have enough drippings to fill this high, it is ok. Just fill as much as you can as you see I’ve done in this photo. When the sausage is lean, it is hard to get alot of drippings. That is why I added extra oil in the cooking. Remove all air bubbles with a knife or canning spatula.  Wipe the rims of the jars with a hot, wet rag to remove all oils.  Add lids that have been simmering in nearly boiling water. Add rings and tighten slightly. I tighten and then back off just a smidge.  Place jars in pressure canner that has 2 to 3 inches of hot water in it. Pressure can at 10 lbs pressure for 1 hour and 15 minutes. For quarts, pressure for a hour and 30 minutes.  Remove jars from canner and let them cool. For those of you who have not canned before, you will hear a ‘pinging’ sound as the lids seal. All lids should look concave – sucked down toward the inside of the jar – if they are sealed. If the button in the center is still popped up, the jar has not sealed. When the jars are cool enough to handle, remove the rings and wash jars and rings in hot, soapy water to clean off any oils that might have escaped in the canning process.  Allow the jars and rings to dry thouroughly and then replace rings to store. It is not required that you replace the rings, but they do protect the edge of the seal from bumping.  When you are ready to use your canned sausage, just open and place patties in a preheated skillet and include drippings from the jar. Fry the patties to give a little “crust” to each side. The preheated skillet helps to give a nice sear to the outside.  Serve as you would fresh sausage and chow down! |
|
Oklahoma Pastry Cloth™ Company on Facebook
|
|
|
Canning Chicken and A Recipe
Thursday, March 10th, 2011
 Buying chicken on sale is a wonderful thing if you have the room to freeze it, but what do you do when chicken is on sale for a matter of cents per pound and you want to stock up for a good, long time? Freezer longevity for chickens is just a few months and so unless you eat chicken every night, it would be hard to make use of a large number of frozen birds. Canning is your option! Shoot, canning is ALWAYS an option because there’s just very little that can’t be canned! 🙂 And so, here are the steps to canning a whole bird followed by a rather surprising recipe – I thought it was surprising, anyway! The method that I am using here is called the “raw pack” method and does not involve cooking the chicken first.  After cutting up the chicken, place it into warm, wide-mouth jars that have been washed and sterilized in the dishwasher or boiled in a large pot. It is important that they are widemouth in order to get the chicken out without tearing it apart. I can get one half of a chicken into a quart jar (minus the back which I use for stock). I also place just the wishbones together sometimes, in a widemouth pint jar, to use for recipes like enchiladas that call for just white meat chicken. I also skin all of my chicken to cut down on fat. I place one cube of chicken bouillon per jar.  Meanwhile, I have a kettle of water boiling on the stove and slowly pour the hot water over the chicken to leave a 1/2″ headspace. Using a canning spatula or knife, move around the inside perimeter of each jar to release any airbubbles.  Wipe the top edges of the jars with a wet cloth to remove any chicken juice or oils.  Place lids that have been warmed in a pot of nearly boiling water onto the jars and add rings. Tighten slightly. Place in a pressure canner just like I demonstrated in the post on canning chicken broth. Process for 75 minutes for pints and 90 minutes for quarts once your canner has pressurized.  I have to admit that of all the things one may can, chickens make the UGLIEST presentation. The jars just aren’t pretty. There’s no getting around it. Once they come out of the canner and cool, it is a good idea to remove the rings and wash the jars (with the chicken in them) in warm, soapy water and then wash the rings to get any oil off that may have escaped in processing. Let the rings dry and then you can replace them or leave them off, whichever you prefer. Once your chicken is canned, it will last for at least a year. And it is so great for fast meals. Dump a couple of jars into a pot with some onions and broth and bring to a boil and then add dumplings. But that is just normal. How about different?  Last night, I opened one quart jar of chicken, drained the broth and carefully slid the chicken pieces into a large bowl. I sprinkled milk over the pieces.  I added a cup of flour, about 1/2 tsp paprika, 1/4 tsp garlic powder, 1/4 tsp thyme, 1/2 tsp sage, 1/2 tsp black pepper and carefully rolled the pieces in this mixture. I salted the pieces at that point. Again, you have to handle the pieces gently or they will fall apart on you. If they do, it’s ok. Just dredge the parts in flour too.   Next, I put just enough canola oil in a skillet to cover the bottom well and heated on medium high. Light olive oil would be fine too. Anything to get those good fats, people! When the oil was hot, I gently placed the floured pieces of chicken in the oil to “fry”.  I carefully turned the pieces to brown on the other side. When browned, I transferred the pieces to a cookie rack placed over a cookie sheet and placed in the oven at 250º while I cooked the rest of the meal. This keeps the meat warm, but also lets excess oil drip off of the chicken so that it isn’t too greasy.  You can make gravy with the broth out of the jar and cornstarch or use a packaged mix. And I added stuffing to this plateful. Since the chicken has been pressure cooked in the canning process, it is tender and falling off the bone even before frying, so frying just gives these tender morsels a crispy covering. Mr. Fix-It was licking his chops and said that the chicken was superb! He’s my most honest critic. So see? You can use canned chicken in all kinds of ways! |
|
Oklahoma Pastry Cloth™ Company on Facebook
|
How To Cut Up A Chicken, Butcher Style
Monday, March 7th, 2011
  I’ve mentioned in past posts that I worked in the meat department of a grocery store in my previous life. At night, I helped cut and wrap custom beefs, lambs, hogs and deer. During the day, I was a butcher’s assistant, helping to cut, wrap and display all of the meats that were sold in the grocery. It was a fun job, believe it or not, made especially fun because of the people with whom I worked. It was a family operation and they treated their employees like members of the family. Practical jokes and laughs were a daily routine. One time, the butcher and his cousin had me convinced that I had guzzled Hydrogen Peroxide in my tea (the tea was fizzy), put there by a coworker who didn’t know any better, such that I was certain the stomach ache that ensued was due to gastric poisoning. There is a skull and crossbones on the bottle for heaven’s sake!!! I was handed the phone to call the doctor, who had been let in on the joke, and I was only encouraged further down the fantasy road of certain demise right there in the meat department. Finally, the giggles erupted and a bottle of Dr. Pepper was produced. My face could not have gotten any redder. I returnd the prank by heavily lathering the phone earpiece with vaseline and then calling the meat department from the phone at the front of the store. My boss answered the phone. Oh yeah. 🙂 I had to learn fast and hard in this job and being the competitive person that I am, thanks to the genes inherited from my tennis-playing grandfather, I was bound and determined to master whatever I was given to do. One of my first jobs involved wrapping the cuts of custom beefs in freezer paper and labeling the packages. It is a job that I still practice today every single time I freeze our own meats. There IS a method to wrapping! But that is for a later post. In my day job, the first task I was immediately tossed into learning was the job of cutting up a chicken. My first attempt was a joke, but as time went by, I got faster and faster and could finally cut and package a chicken faster than you could say “Cocka-doodle-doo”. This is a skill that has helped me more than you can imagine! Whether raising your own chickens for meat or purchasing yours at the grocery, knowing how to cut them quickly is a blessing. Today, I buy whole chickens on sale and cut them up, dividing them into packages of separate parts. The other day, I found whole chickens for 65¢ per pound. After cutting them, I packaged breasts together, legs together, thighs together, and packaged cut-up wings for hot wings, while cooking the backs, skin and “innards” for broth. A package of breasts for 65¢ a pound? Find THAT in a store near you! So here is the way that I learned to cut up a chicken. I learned from a pro – Greg, the Butcher! Thanks Greg, for all you taught me!!  You will need a cutting board that is not wood. Wood soaks up bacteria that is found in chicken and it is very difficult to disinfect afterward. You will also need a good boning knife that is sharp. I use Forschner brand knives which are the brand that we used in the meat department. I like them because the blades are flexible and can bend slightly. Also, if you like, you can do what we used to do in the meat department and use rubber dishwashing gloves. These help you hold the chicken easier to avoid slips, and you are less likely to cut yourself if you do slip.  With the breast side down, pull one wing out and away from the body and feel for the main joint. Slice between the two bones of the joint. You will slice down and around the joint bone.  Cut at the joint between the shoulder section of the wing and the “bicep” section of the wing.  Then cut between the joints that hold the “forearm” of the wing to the “bicep” section. I throw that little front part of the wing in with the back and other excess pieces to stew for broth. The two larger sections are packed together for “hot wings”.  Next, turn the chicken on its side and pull a leg up so that it is pulled away from the body. Slice your knife right through the center of the skin until you hit bone. Stop.  Using both hands, hold the body of the chicken and pop the thigh bone out of joint so that you see the end of it protruding.  Cut between the round end of the bone and the body to remove leg and thigh section. If you want to separate the leg and the thigh, on the inside of the leg and thigh section, using your first finger, feel for the indention that indicates the joint between the leg and the thigh. Slice between the two bones and separate the leg from the thigh.  Turn the chicken up on its front end and look for the soft section of skin between the back and the breast section. It is just a flap. Put the knife at a 45º angle to the back and slice in toward the backbone.  As soon as you hit bone, turn the knife blade down and slide the knife down along and between the backbone and the breast. There will be resistence because you are cutting through soft bone, but just push hard all the way to the end.  Repeat the same process on the other side of the backbone and lift the backbone out.  Now you are left with the breast section. If you like the ‘wishbone’ or your kids enjoy breaking it, simply turn the breast section over and slide your first finger down the center until you feel the tip end of the wishbone.  Cut straight down behind the bone tip and between the rest of the breast section and stop when you meet resistance.  Now turn the knife blade nearly parallel to the cutting board and slice along the front of the breast bone and under the wishbone.  Separate the wishbone from the breast  Turn the rest of the breast section on its back and cut right down the middle of the bone. This is soft bone and so with a sharp knife you can cut it. Start by putting the point of the knife down into the bone and press down. It will snap that top of the bone in two and then you can start cutting.  If you are like me and want to cut back on the fat and cholesterol of the skin, you can skin your pieces. This is a simple task, as the chicken skin easily separates from the meat. Just slide the point of the knife under the skin with one hand and with the other, pull the skin up to separate as you cut. And so there you have it – a totally cut-up chicken that you can now cook, can or freeze. I’ll show how I can mine in the next post and how I use it out of the jar. Once you have processed the main pieces, you can boil all of the leftovers into the stock found in this previous post. |
|
Oklahoma Pastry Cloth™ Company on Facebook
|
Canned Broth
Saturday, February 26th, 2011
 A reader of the very informative blog Rural Revolution, A. McSp, shared a wonderful recipe for chicken stock to be used for cooking pinto beans, soups – you name it. I decided to try it and am in love. First, the smell that permeates your house while cooking this stuff is enough to call Glade and ask if they make Chicken Stock in a Can Air Freshener, second, the flavor is so rich that it makes everything to which it is added have more body, and third, it’s canable – oh wait – that’s not a real word unless you’re talking about creepy hungry people and can’t spell. How about this: It can be canned! You know that always gets me right here (pointing to my heart now). I’m afraid that I was so involved in the process that I didn’t do my normal photo session and so I’m just going to have to give you the recipe with only a few photos and a video. Sorry for my brain freeze. I did get a couple of shots! Here are the steps to this amazing chicken stock! 1. When you cook a chicken, save the carcass, skin and all and if you aren’t going to make stock immediately, put it in the frig until you are ready, no more than a couple of days. 2. Cut or break the bones up into pieces using kitchen shears. 3. Put the bones and skin into a stock pot and cover with water, about a gallon plus. 4. Add 1-4 stalks of celery. I used my dried celery! 4 tbsp to equal 4 stalks. I love my dried celery! 5. Add 1/2 medium onion 6. Add 4-5 cloves of garlic 7. Add parsley if you have it 8. Add 1/2 tsp dill seed if you have it 9. Now here she said to add 1/2 tsp dried orange peel, but I didn’t have dried so I used 1 tsp of fresh orange zest. Oh my. I think I prefer that to the dried!! 10. Add 3 tbsp white vinegar and the juice of one half lemon or lime 11. Add salt and pepper to taste (side note: If you want an even more robust chicken flavor add 1/2 – 1 tsp granulated chicken bouillon per pint jar of stock) Bring to a boil and stew on low heat for two to three hours. The vinegar and the lime or lemon juice pull the calcium out of the bones and so your broth is rich in calcium. As the stock stews, I add a little water to maintain the water level. When the cooking time is reached, I pour the broth, bones and veggies into a colandar that is sitting over a large bowl or another stew pot, to strain the broth. I press the stuff left in the colandar with a potato masher to get out all of the liquid and flavor into the stock in the bowl. At that point, I ladel the soup into jars, leaving a 1/2″ head space, clean the rims of the jars, attach the lids and rings and put them into a pressure canner of hot water (the jars of liquid are hot and will crack in cool water) to be processed for 20 minutes at 10 lbs pressure. One chicken gives me 10 pints of broth.  Unlike waterbath canning, the water level in a pressure canner is only about 2″ deep.  The jars sit in the water, but are not covered by it as in a waterbath. I did a video of the pressure canner as it was doing it’s thing this afternoon. I’ve had several people ask me how it is supposed to sound. If you will notice, it jiggles for a bit and then stops and then jiggles and stops. That is the rhythm that you want to achieve to keep an even pressure. I start out on high heat and when the weight starts vibrating, I start turning the heat down until I get a uniform rhythm. I bought this canner in 1977! It has been a jewel. Pardon the noise of the microwave in the background. Halfway through I realized it and turned it off! Last night, I made pinto beans with two pints of broth, two tbsp brown sugar and a slice of home-cured country ham. Oh my. I’m still grinning. |
|
Oklahoma Pastry Cloth™ Company on Facebook
|
Canning Butter
Thursday, February 24th, 2011
|
I have a question. If milk is nature’s most perfect food, as we ALL learned in our science classes many years ago and have heard on many a dairy commercial, why isn’t butter perfect too? Why has butter gotten such a bad rap when it is simply the richest part of the milk that has been whipped to a frenzy? All I know is that butter is all-natural and has to be a whole lot better for you than the fake spreads that marketers have tried to pawn off on us as the nutritionally better alternative. We humans seem to always go down the road of trying to improve on what comes naturally and then wind up right back where we started, concluding that the original product isn’t so bad after all.  I have admitted my affinity for butter in past posts but I am in no way an addict to the stuff. Really. I can quit using it anytime. Really. I use it in moderation mixed with olive oil and am known to spread it sparingly on a slice of fresh homemade bread. Really. But there is simply no substitute for the stuff when it comes to sauces, cajun cuisine and toast.  So did you hear about the solar flares that scientists are afraid are going to destroy the earth? Well, not destroy exactly…just leave us in an electronic lurch which would pretty well destroy the majority of us who can’t live without a cell phone, computer or electric toothbrush. How in the world can I keep my precious butter from spoiling if our refrigerators aren’t running? Well, I can it, silly! I gathered all of the info I could from several sources on the internet and have started canning part of my butter when I find it on sale. The Indians in India have been canning clarified butter, called ghee, for ages and ages. I like to can my butter whole. Take a peek at what is working for me:  Wash jars in hot soapy water and boil in a large pot or wash on the sterilize cycle in the dishwasher. Place the jars on a cookie sheet. Here I am using 8 oz jars which hold about 1 1/3 sticks of butter. In this run, I used 9 – 8 oz jars for 12 sticks of butter or 3 lbs. Put the cookie sheet of jars into a 250º oven and heat for 20 minutes.  Place sticks of salted butter in a large pan. I do about three pounds at a time simply for ease. The larger pots get too heavy to manipulate and butter gets everywhere.  Slowly melt the butter on medium heat, stirring constantly with a metal spatula to keep from scorching on the bottom. A spatula with holes is ideal because the melted butter is pushed through the holes during stirring and helps to keep it uniform.  When the butter is totally melted but not quite boiling, continue to stir and allow to simmer for 10 minutes. A thick, white foam will appear.  While melting the butter, place lids in a pot of water and bring to a near boil to prepare lids. Turn heat down to keep lids warm.  Remove jars from oven and immediately ladel butter into the jars, using a canning funnel. Be sure and stir the butter around and dip deep, pulling up, in order to keep the butter uniform, as it separates. Fill to leave a 3/4″ head space.  Carefully wipe the edges of the jars with a damp cloth to remove any butter. Butter on the rims will cause the jars not to seal.  Place the lids on the jars and attach rings, tightening slightly. Place jars into a waterbath canner that has water already heated and enough to cover the jars 1″. The water needs to be heated because the jars of butter are hot and will crack in cool water. As soon as water begins to slowly boil, set timer for 15 minutes.  When jars have been processed for 15 minutes, turn off heat and allow to cool down in the water for another 10 minutes. Then, lift the rack to top of canner and remove jars with canning tongs.  When the jars are cool enough to handle, now comes the tedious part. Every few minutes shake the jars up and down in order to make the butter uniform. If you notice in this photo, the jars to the left have sediment on the bottom and foam on the top. Shaking incorporates this into the clarified portion. Go about your business, but about every 5 minutes, stop and shake the jars. As they cool, they will stay more and more uniform. I set a timer to remind myself so that I can do clean-up.  This butter is totally cooled and ready to store in the pantry. Aren’t they pretty? I read one homesteader’s take on canning butter and she said that they actually opened some from 1999 and it was still good. Don’t think I would keep it THAT long, but it wouldn’t matter because it wouldn’t last that long around here anyway!!  Canned butter is not quite as smooth as fresh butter, but if you are wanting a smooth, healthy spread, you can make the same recipe posted earlier with olive oil or canola oil. Just scrape butter from an 8 oz jar into the food processor or blender.  Add 1/3 cup oil. If you have canned your butter in larger jars, adjust amounts of oil. For example, a 1 pt jar of butter would require 2/3 cups of oil.  Process until smooth  Pour back into jar and allow to harden in the frig. It will go back to the consistency of smooth, spreadable butter. Pass the Lobster, please!! |
|
Oklahoma Pastry Cloth™ Company on Facebook
|
Hashbrowns! Yum!!
Friday, February 18th, 2011
|
Is Misspelled…  It’s closing in on planting time for potatoes! I love fresh potatoes from the garden and have done posts before on them. I am planning on doing a full bed of the knobby things this year. Usually, we only do a half a bed, but we were out of potatoes too soon this time. And of course, I’ll be drying some of them. But I have another favorite way to prepare potatoes for the long haul and I have been asked by reader, Shari, to share it here. Mr. Fix-It loves hashbrowns and it is easy to take a large batch of either garden potatoes or Russets from the store and make hashbrowns to last you a long, long time.  First cut up potatoes to fit into a food processor with a grating blade on it. You can also grate them by hand. Red and Yukon golds can keep the skins, but Russets are better peeled  Put into a food processor to grate or do it by hand  Once the potatoes are grated, put them into a collander that is in a larger bowl and pour water to cover the potatoes. Pick up the collander and swish it up and down. The water will be white and cloudy. Pour that off and do the same process until the water is clear. This washes off all of the starch that makes potatoes turn black.  Lay a large bath towel out on the counter and spread the grated potatoes over the towel.  Fold the edges of the towel over the top of the potatoes and roll the towel up like a jelly roll, pressing as you roll. This squeezes out excess water. When you unroll it, the potatoes will be dry.  Distribute the grated potatoes among cookie sheets and place in the freezer.  Remove from freezer and, using a spatula, lift potatoes off of the cookie sheets.  Place in plastic freezer bags  Bend the bags around to break up the slabs of frozen potatoes. Label bags and place in the freezer.  Your hashbrowns can now be used in any recipe calling for hashbrowns, even casseroles. To make old-fashioned hashbrowns for breakfast, put 2 – 6 tablspoons of oil (depending on the size of your skillet but barely covering the bottom), either olive oil or vegetable or coconut, in the bottom of a large skillet and heat on medium high. When heated, add hashbrowns to about 3/4 – 1 inch deep and salt to taste.  Cover with a lid and cook until the bottom of the potatoes is golden brown.   Cook until the second side is browned and crisp. Remove from the pan and pat with paper towels to remove any excess oil. Serve as a side dish. And don’t forget the grits!! |
|
Oklahoma Pastry Cloth™ Company on Facebook
|
|
|
Yep!! Canning Cheese
Wednesday, February 9th, 2011
 I’ve always heard that “necessity is the mother of invention” but I also think that it is “the mother of learning something new”. Such was the case recently after a productive trip to our local grocery which is owned and operated by the Absentee-Shawnee Indian Tribe. On this particular day I discovered that the store had block cheese on sale; 1 8oz block for $1. Never one to pass up a good deal, I decided that if one block of cheddar was good, 20 blocks of a variety of cheese was phenomenal! I tossed mild cheddar, mozzarella, sharp cheddar, pepper jack and cojack into my cart and trotted on down the isle. To my surprise, I found that Velveeta was on sale too. Oh joy. Now, I must digress here for a sec in defense of Velveeta cheese PRODUCT. Although I realize that Velveeta is the plasticized version of cheese, it is a must for any kitchen simply because it melts sooooo smoothly. It is wonderful for cream soups. It is true that nobody REALLY knows where Velveeta comes from. And while we are told that it is made from milk, it could be guinea pig milk for all we know. However, while we ponder how one milks a guinea pig, the rest of America is enjoying its queso made with Velveeta, picante sauce and maybe some ground beef flavored with taco seasoning. Velveeta is to the cheese world what Spam is to the ham world. Each has its purpose. And so, I got my Velveeta and checked out. On my way home, it occurred to me that all of this cheese had to have a place to go to stay fresh. I usually grate my hard cheese, put it into bags that I can vacuum on my FoodSaver sealer and then freeze it, but this was going to be an enormous amount of grated cheese. What if I wanted sliced cheese? My experience with freezing blocks of cheese for slicing had been less than successful. I had been totally unhappy with frozen Velveeta, so what to do? What to do? Thank goodness for the Internet. Enola Gay at Paratus Familia had the solution. Can it! Can cheese? Really? She showed how to can hard cheeses and that got me to thinking about canning the Velveeta too. I researched and researched and found several ways to do that as well. I wound up with what I think worked best for me. So first, I’ll show you how I canned the hard cheeses and then the Velveeta. Talk about handy. You can’t believe how wonderful it is to have canned cheeses. You can shred and slice the hard cheese and the Velveeta is just as good as if it were in the box. I suppose at this point I should throw in the disclaimer that I haven’t found anything that indicates the government watchdogs have given their seal of approval to this, but then, they don’t like us canning apple pie filling either. From everything I have read, these canned cheeses last up to two years.                  Oklahoma Pastry Cloth™ Company on Facebook
|
Dehydrating Series Pt IV
Monday, January 24th, 2011
|
I’m sitting here listening to my sweet hubby laugh his head off as he is pulling up YouTube videos of “Carl” (Billy Bob Thorton) from the movie Slingblade making prank calls to restaurants and asking the clerks for “French fried pertaters and biscuits and I like some mustard with those biscuits, uh-huh”. The clerks are attempting to take this order with as much grace as possible. I have to admit that I’m laughing too. I guess I’m remembering the phone calls I used to make, from our church phone on Wednesday service nights no less, to Weigel’s Dairy Store in Knoxville, Tennessee to tell the clerk, in high pitched squeals, “Your cows are out!” immediately hanging up the phone. Real smooth, huh? Kinda like the phone calls my grandparents used to receive in the ’30’s, at their grocery store, where a voice asked if they carried Prince Albert in a can and with the answer in the affirmative, young voices would yell, “Then let him out!!” We are so brilliant when we are young. However, it seems that Mr. Thorton is still brilliant – he’s entertaining my husband, anyway!  There is nothing I enjoy more than putting a piping hot meal before Mr. Fix-It after a long day’s work. I especially love him because he loves soup and that is one of my favorite things in the whole world on these cold days. But I’m weird. I love it on warm days too – homemade that is. When I go to Olive Garden, I’m the “Never Ending Soup and Salad” kinda gal. Therefore, it is really pleasant to have all of the ingredients for soup right at my fingertips, dried and ready to reconstitute for any quick, hot meal. In this fourth and final in my series on dehydrating, I’ve got a recipe for broccoli cheese soup that will leave you craving more. Let’s go! 1 Tbsp Olive Oil 1 Tbsp dried celery (1 stalk fresh chopped) 1 tsp dried bell pepper (tbsp fresh) 1 Tbsp dried onion (2 Tbsp diced fresh onion) 1/4 tsp dried garlic (1 tsp fresh, chopped garlic) 1/3 cup dried potatoes (1 cup cubed fresh potatoes) 1/2 cup dried broccoli (1 1/2 cup chopped fresh broccoli) 4 chicken bouillon cubes 4 1/2 cups water 1 can milk or 3/4 cups half and half 1/4 lb Velveeta Cheese + or – 1 Tbsp corn starch + 2 Tbsp water              |
|
Oklahoma Pastry Cloth™ Company on Facebook
|
|
|
Homestead Revival
Paratus Familia
Rural Revolution