My very first attempt at canning seems to be a great success.  We’ll have to wait to see when I open my first jar for the real test, though… tomorrow morning!

The recipe I used is straight out of the Ball Blue Book.  It took me, from start to finish about 2 hours.

My kitchen isn’t all that big, very, very little counter space and even though my stove is a normal size, the size of the canning pot is huge which made my cooking space a bit tight, too.  I was thinking since I do have a smaller pot just like the canning pot, if there are smaller canning racks?  If there is, a small batch like this (which only produced 4 jars) could be done in the pot I heated my jars and lids in.  Saving lots of space – on the stove, anyway.

All in all, it work out.

• Two Quart packages of strawberries (paid 2 for $3).
• One package of no sugar needed pectin
• One cup of water (I used bottled)
• Three packets of Stevia (A natural sugar substitute) (Optional)
  Note: By using the No Sugar Needed Pectin, you can use no sugar, sugar to your taste or a sugar substitute.  The choice is yours.
• 4 – 6 Ball Pint Jars (This batch got 4)
  

Wash Strawberries, cut off leaves, wash again.

Slice.  The instructions said to smash them but, I don’t have a potato masher so I put them in my food processor.  My serving fork just wasn’t cutting it!

Put jars and lids into a pot to sterilize (not boiling).

Start another pot of water for your ‘filled’ jars for processing.

In a smaller pot put strawberries, water, pectin and sugar or sugar substitute if using.  Like I mentioned, I chose to use Stevia and ended up using 3 little packets.

Bring to a boil that will not stop by stirring.  Once boil is achieved, start your one (1) minute.  You will see it start thickening.  If thickening is achieved before the one minute, it is done.  (Mine went the full minute).

• Use thongs to lift out one jar while dumping out water back into the pot.
  
• Take your canning funnel and place on jar.
  
• Use a ladle to scoop hot jam into hot jars leaving 1/4 inch head space.
• Wipe rims with a damp paper towel.
  
• Use your lid lifter with magnet to lift a lid out of the hot water.
• Place on jar.
  
• Screw on second piece of lid.

As each jar is complete, place sealed jars into canning rack already in hot water.  Do not allow jars to cool.  Put right into pot of hot water as soon as each one is filled and sealed with two piece lids.

Repeat with all jars until strawberry jam is all used.

Once all jars are in canner, put lid on pot and bring to a boil.  Once boiling, start your ten (10) minutes.

Lift jars one at a time out of pot onto a kitchen towel.  Leave two inch space between jars.  Do not let them hit each other.

You’ll be tempted to wipe off water on top of jars.  Don’t!  Leave it alone until jars are cooled off – 12 to 24 hours.

Can’t wait to try my home canned strawberry jam!

Since going through the change, I’ve dealt with stomach issues and since purchasing my dehydrator have been wanting to get my hands on some.

It’s kind-of embarrassing to admit but, I had no idea what a Papaya looked like!  So when shopping, I didn’t know what I was looking for!!  HA!

Today at Sams, they had Papaya’s for $3.95.  Couldn’t believe it – Snatched it up.

The texture of a Papaya is similar to Honeydew Mellon and the seeds inside do actually look like pepper.

Reading up on the time/prep for them, I learned that you can save the seeds, dehydrate them too and grind them down as a meat tenderizer.  Just like pepper.  Amazing!

(Did you notice I didn’t peel it?  Peel it first!)

Yes.  The seeds in there too.

One place says 12 – 15 hours and another says 12 – 24 hours.  So, I’m just going to leave them in all night and see what we have in the morning.  I’m sure they’ll be fine.

As far as I know there’s no such thing of over-dehydrating -  Only under-dehydrating.

Just checked them.  They’re doing great.

Update 12/30:

After 16 hours they are complete… seeds and all.

When they were cooling before going into the jar, Mike chewed one of the seeds and said they do taste a little like pepper.  Go figure.  Looking forward to marinating some meat with ground papaya pepper.

Now to receive my new mill.  Tomorrow would be nice but I won’t be surprised if it isn’t until Monday (boo hoo)… you’ll be the first to know!

Update 1/3/2011:

Just read yesterday that you should steam Papaya and Pineapples before dehydrating!

I’ll have to purchase another, steam it before dehydrating and see / taste  the difference.

I’ll let you know!

By 4pm I hadn’t made the dough,  so had to come up with something else.

This is the type of dinner I live off in the summer.

Since I’ve started (very small start) stocking up on some can goods, I took out a can of Chicken, box of pasta and about a cup of frozen broccoli.  As the broccoli was steaming and the noodles cooking, I mixed the mayo and vinegar.

A couple of weeks ago I had bought a package of these really good garlic rolls.  They were huge and after a couple we kind of got tired of them.

I put them in the freezer but then decided to cut them up to make croutons.  BEST croutons ever!

After everything was mixed together, I put a couple of handfuls on the pasta salad.

I was so hungry, forgot to take a picture of our dressed up, last-minute dinner.

Came out really tasty and even Mike liked it.  Was expecting ‘the look’ because he’s a Meat & Potatoes man through-n-through.  But to my surprise, he saw it in the fridge and said it looked real good… and it really was.

Even though I don’t see myself as a ‘good cook’, I wasn’t ever that bad.. no one ever died!  Even so, I would always make whatever it was from scratch.

Recently though, I’m really getting into it.

One of my old favorites, Mac-n-Cheese was always made with Velveeta until I visited someone who made it with white Extra Sharp and I was hooked.  It’s been years since Velveeta.

Last week shopping at Sam’s, I came across a 3-pack they had.  I don’t remember if it was the price or convenience, but I bought it.  Two sharp yellow and one sharp white.  Have to be honest – wasn’t real thrilled with the 2 yellows.

Tuesday nights I usually go out so it’s a ‘quickie’ meal and thought Mac-n-Cheese doesn’t take that long and made it right off the box of noodles.

With it just being the two of us, I split the recipe in half.

• 1/4 Cup Butter
• 1/4 Cup Flour
• 2 1/2 Cups Milk
• 8oz Sharp Cheese (I used 10oz)
• 1/2 Box Noodles

Growing up, everyone I know rinsed off the noodles in cold water to stop the cooking but also to rinse off the starch.

Not long ago Mike’s daughter was over.  I was rinsing the spaghetti and she said, “you do that too?’  I was surprised.

She said that when she does that (which she’s always done, too), people ask her why and they’ve never heard of anyone doing that.

So, I don’t know.  Was I (we) raised different?  Wait, don’t answer that!  Anyone that knows me knows I’ve always been different, but we’ll keep it to the noodles right now!

Anyway, whatever you’re used to – go for it.  I’ll keep rinsing.

• Cut slices of cheese, then in half and then quarters.  The smaller the pieces the quicker the cheese will melt.

Boil your noodles per the box.  (I just ordered a pasta machine so in the next month or so, you’ll be able to see me learning how to make my own).  Can’t wait!

Melt the butter, stir in the flour and add the milk.

Add your cheese and keep stirring!  It doesn’t take long at all.  Stir all the way to the bottom of the pan so you know all the pieces are melted.

Once all the cheese is melted, pour into baking dish over noodles.  Mix well.

I like to sprinkle some bread crumbs on it.  I came across some whole wheat, seasoned bread crumbs and really like them.

Cook it at 350 degrees for 30 – 45 minutes.

It really came out good, but I did forget the salt & pepper.  Oh well.   Something you can add later – no biggie.

Yummy!

Don’t buy box Mac-n-Cheese anymore!!

This can’t be any more simple, cheaper and much healthier for you to make it yourself.

This is like 4 servings for the two of us which cost probably about $2.50 all together to make?  $.65 a meal (2 people – .325 cents each)… can’t beat it with a stick!

At risk of being put in the trash soon, I searched for something to do with my browning bananas.  I love bananas but don’t necessarily care for them in muffins, breads or actually, have never been crazy about them any way except strait-up or in cereal.

Knowing there is just no way I’m going to eat these four bananas, I had half of one in my cereal this morning and decided  to use my 3 others in a banana nut bread.

Seemed easy enough with a recipe I found in my BH&G Complete Step-by-Step Cook Book and happened to have everything needed.

Lightly grease 9 x 5 pan and preheat oven to 350 Degrees.

Ingredients:

• 2 Cups of flour
• 3/4 Tsp Salt
• 2 Tsp Baking Soda
• 1/4 Tsp Baking Powder
• 1/2 Cup of Shorting
• 1/2 Cup of Sugar
• 2 Eggs
• 1 Tsp of Finely Shredded  Orange Peel
• 2 Ripe Medium Bananas – Cut Up
• 2 Tbsp Milk
• 1/2 Cup Walnuts or Pecans

Directions:

In one bowl mix together ~

• Shortening
• Sugar
• Eggs
• Orange Peel

In another bowl ~

• Flour
• Salt
• baking soda
• baking powder

And in a third bowl ~

• 2 smashed bananas (about 1 cup)
• 2 Tbsp Milk

Alternate adding both the flour mixture and the banana/milk mixture into the shortening mixture until well blended.

Turn in the walnuts or whatever nuts you’re using.

Put into greased pan and bake at 350 degrees for 45 – 55 minutes and here’s your result.

Turn out of pan onto wire rack to cool.

Enjoy!

(Wish my wheat and raisin breads came out like this!)

Much better than my sad-looking roll-ups last week!

From two bags of fresh cranberries (16oz each), I ended up with approximately 3/4 full jar of dehydrated cranberries. Once rehydrated and cooked, 1/2 cup of dehydrated cranberries produced 1 cup of cranberry sauce.

Never had homemade cranberry sauce and have to say it’s pretty darn good.  So much better than store-bought and so easy to make.

Right out of the bag there were 6 cups.  Dehydrated, about 2, 2-1/2.  Not sure if I actually put them in the measuring cup.  I think they just went right into the jar, so that’s my guesstimate and I’m sticking with it!

Tammy gives you three ways to prepare for dehydrating the cranberries and I chose to chop them up raw in my food processor first.

Then, just place them on your dehydrator tray for about 12 hours.

Those two bags of chopped-up cranberries spread over three trays and let them go all night.

This morning when I took them out to cool before putting them into the jar, I started taking the first tray off and realized how much was falling through the bottom onto the counter.  I decided to place two paper towels under the tray to catch those really tiny pieces.  It worked out well.

After I funneled from the screen, I funneled from the paper towel and didn’t waste any.  There’s quite a bit there, isn’t there?

I also tried bending the screen to loosen the cranberries off instead of rubbing with my fingers.

That worked better, too.

Then, just funneled it into the jar and topped it of with an oxygen packet.  The jar sealed in no time.

Later in the evening, I took out the 1/2 cup dehydrated cranberries per Tammy’s recipe and it worked out perfectly.

I’ll never buy cranberry sauce in a can again!

It is kind of sweet so I think next time I may only put 1/2 cup of sugar.  But for now, it’s made for tomorrow and I’m sure will be great with the turkey breast.

Tammy’s Cranberry Sauce

• 1/2 Cup Dehydrated Cranberries
• 3/4 Cup Sugar
• 1 – 1/2 Cups Water

Placed dehydrated cranberries in a pot with water and sugar.

Bring to a rapid boil.

Lower heat and let simmer until thickened.  Approximately 30 minutes.

Chill in refrigerator before serving or over night.

Mine came out exactly to one cup.  Couldn’t have planned it more perfect if I tried!

Thanks, Tammy!

**For future reference, I’ve also posted their blog’s banner in my right hand side bar so you don’t have to search for this post later.**

You don’t have much time (Monday, December 20, 2010 @ 8pm Pacific Time) so hop on over and enter!  Winner will be announced on Tuesday, December 21 BUT you only have 48 hours to respond and claim your prize… so, be sure to include your email addy and I’m even subscribing to the comments JIC!!

The Combo Packs they are giving away:
1. Fruit Combo:
-1 Honeyville Farms Freeze Dried Strawberry Slices 6 ounce LARGE #10 Can
-1 Honeyville Farms Freeze Dried Apple Cubes 8 ounce LARGE #10 Can
-1 Honeyville Farms Freeze Dried Raspberries 8 ounce LARGE #10 Can
-1 Honeyville Farms Freeze Dried Peaches 12 ounce LARGE #10 Can
-1 Honeyville Farms Freeze Dried Blueberries 12 ounce LARGE #10 Can
-1 Honeyville Farms Freeze Dried Banana Slices 12 ounce LARGE #10 Can
2. Veggie Combo:
-1 Honeyville Farms Freeze Dried Corn 20 ounce LARGE #10 Can
-1 Honeyville Farms Freeze Dried Peas 20 ounce LARGE #10 Can
-1 Honeyville Farms Dehydrated Carrots 24 ounce LARGE #10 Can
-1 Honeyville Farms Dehydrated Onions 28 ounce LARGE #10 Can
-1 Honeyville Farms Dehydrated Celery Slices 20 ounce LARGE #10 Can
-1 Honeyville Farms Instant Potato Flakes 24 ounce LARGE #10 Can
3. Potato Combo (sold only in stores at this time)
-6 LARGE #10 Cans of a variety of Honeyville Farms Potato’s

I was introduced to Honeyville when I started learning about food storage, dehydrating foods and canning… we’re only talking here about 2 months so I haven’t ordered anything yet besides oxygen packets.

Winning one of these three packages would be a great way to try out some of their products… fingers crossed!

So give them some link love while choosing all or one of five ways – I did them all ;0) – to enter to win!!

GOOD LUCK to everyone that enters!

In the meantime, for the past few days, I’ve gone through the National Center for Home Food Preservation site copying & pasting into word documents to create my Canning Binder – including: instructions, recipes and other information offered on NCHFP’s site… pictures included when available, of course.

Last night I started printing out some documents, categorized them and now need to find a binder to put them in.  I’m reading most as I’m printing, but at least it will all be in one, easy to locate place.

Since purchasing some product (dehydrator, steamer/juicer, apple peeler/corer/slicer, couple cases of quart jars, canning starter kit, water bath pot, vacuum sealer), there’s a little fear creeping in as far as actually doing the canning for fear of not doing it right!

This is December and the way I look at it, come the spring, or first available crop in May (can’t wait to pick my own!!), my self-study course couldn’t begin with better timing.  I have 6-months to study-up and in the meantime, search for possible classes or instruction – maybe from local farmers who offer ‘pick-your-own’ which I have found a couple that are somewhat close.

Today, I went to my farmers market to pick up some oranges to dehydrate.

They seemed a little small but beautiful orange color. I bought three bags. Each bag had 6 in them for $1 each.

So home I went with my 18 oranges, two small bags of sweet potatoes (also $1 each), one package of baby carrots (both that I will also dehydrate tomorrow) and salad stuff for dinner tonight.

They smell so good!

I pulled out my apple slicer/corer/peeler hoping to slice nice even pieces, but unless I’m missing something, it doesn’t ‘slice only’. Yes, I did look through the manual several times but I think I’ll just do an online search. Just can’t imagine that you can’t just slice!  I’ll have to purchase a slicer so I do end up with consistent slices & equal drying time.

So I pulled out my knife that I usually slice my bread with because it’s the only one that I know for sure is stainless steel. (Reason being that in a few videos I’ve watched it’s mentioned that anything other than stainless steel will make your fruit discolor). These oranges are too pretty to mess up just because of a knife.

Out of the 17 oranges (minus one I ate), I filled 4 trays.  Oranges take approximately 12 hours?  I’ll be back with the exact time it takes when finished.

Now the ends I’m wondering if they can be dehydrated for orange peel that a recipe might call for?  Another search!  (I’m sure I could grind the dried peel down as powder also)… once I purchase a grinder!!

Tomorrow I’m going to do the sweet potatoes and baby carrots.

My apple, yogurt roll-ups came out very tasty.  They were a little too thin.  For being my first attempt, I’m very pleased.  They may not have been perfect, but as long as they are edible, I’m happy… for now.

What I learned:

First ~ Using plastic wrap was a little bit of a challenge.  The heat from the dehydrator ‘shrunk’ it, kind of.  In Tammy’s video, she used a zip lock bag while taping it down with duck tape.  I just tucked it under the tray screen and had to adjust it a couple of times – I’d like to avoid this in the future.  Next time, I’m going to use the duck tape (once I buy some).

Second ~ Wish I had watched Tammy’s video again right before because I did miss ‘most’ of her steps:

1. I didn’t cook my apples!  You don’t have to, but I think I would like the results better.  Today’s blueberries will be cooked.
2. I didn’t add corn syrup or lemon juice (although, I did spray them with lemon juice right after sliced).
3. When they cooled just a little, I rolled them up with plastic wrap which was fine.  Personally, I do like Tammy’s using wax paper and will do that from now on.

Here’s a picture of my sickly looking dehydrated roll-ups:

My banana chips came out great.  Didn’t put them in until 11am and took them out around 9:30pm or so.  I could have taken them out sooner.

Before I left for my jewelry demonstration, I did feel they were okay but chose to dry them some more and hoped they would still be fine.  Did a taste test and they are.

Have them now in a jar for snacking

Now my concerns are freshness and shelf life.

Just received my Oxygen Absorbers on Wednesday and after some research on them, I’m finding out that once you open your package of absorbers, they activate immediately… all of them.

Since that is the case and I’ve ordered a package of 200 at a pretty good price of under $19, including shipping, I want to be sure to take as good a care of them as possible.

Before I start, I want to have my vacuum sealer, little baggies and vacuum bags ready so to do this as quickly as possible to preserve my oxygen packets.

What I plan to do is use snack sized sandwich bags placing 10-15-20 in each.  Place all my little baggies back into the original vacuum packed bag it came in and place that into another larger vacuum packed bag.

Will this preserve my unused oxygen packs?  I don’t know.  We’ll have to learn as we go.