How To: Canning Pickles

In my opinion I’ve saved the best canning experience for last. While I don’t like eating pickles I LOVE canning them! It is such a fun experience to go through the process of taking cucumbers and turning them in to exciting pickles. I tried my first batch a couple of years ago and Alex loved them. I made about a dozen jars and they lasted us for well over a year.This time however, I decided to cheat a little bit. I wasn’t quite comfortable with just adding ingredients to a pot like I had the last time, just based on more food safety research. So this time I used a pickle canning mix. This just ensure you have the proper amount of acidity in the food to keep any spores from developing. Since you’re working with vinegar, the acidity should be high enough that you don’t need to use a mix, I just wanted to be on the safe side. It is completely up to you but I would suggest doing your own research to see what you’re comfortable with. This year I used Mrs Wages Pickle Mix in Spicy to make my pickles, although any of her mixes will work. They are easily accessible where I live through Fleet Farm so that is what I went with. If there is a different mix at your local store I would say use it. As long as they sound good to you, you really can’t go wrong!To begin you will need to start preparing your jars, lids and bands. If you’re new to canning you can check out my previous posting on How To: Water Bath Canning. You should prepare your jars as suggested by the manufacturer.  You will also need to begin prepping your canning liquid as directed on the back of your bag. The directions and ingredients will vary depending on what type of pickles you are making.After you have begun preparing the jars and canning liquid you will want to slice your cucumbers. The key is to make them all pretty uniform. If you decide to slice them thick, slice them all thick. If you decide on thin, do them all thin. This will just help during the pickling process to keep them from some of them being soggy and some being crisp. After you’ve slice all of them you will want to set them aside and begin packing the jars.To pack the jars you will want to remove a hot jar from the boiling water. At this point you can include extra dried dill or a clove of garlic in the jar. Then pack with the sliced cucumbers leaving a ½ inch headspace. Then fill to the top with the pickling liquid leaving again, a ½ inch headspace. Place a lid on top and secure with a band. Tighten to fingertip tight, then tighten again. Place back in your water bath canner. Repeat until all the prepared jars are full then process your jars. For pickles you will need to process the jars for 15 minutes with the lid on, then remove the lid and process them for 5 more minutes. Remove from the boiling liquid and place on the counter in a spot where they won’t have to be moved for 24 hours. Let them sit and cool. If you find that any jars did not seal you can actually process them again if you catch it within 24 hours. Otherwise put the unsealed jars in the fridge and use within a week. The sealed jars you can put in the pantry for storage.

How To: Canning Diced Tomatoes

We’ve had a plethora of tomatoes in our garden this year, so many in fact, that I decided I wanted to can them. We still had several cans of tomato sauce in our pantry from the last time I canned so I decided that was out of the question. I thought about what type of tomato products I use most during the winter and settled on diced tomatoes. I tend to use these in Chili and other hearty recipes throughout the winter so in order to save a little bit of money l decided this was what needed to be canned.The first step to canning fresh tomatoes, no matter how you will be doing it, is to blanch and skin all the tomatoes. To do this you need to make an X at the bottom of the tomato, then blanch it. You will need to blanch it for about 60 seconds. After this immediately plunge it into ice cold water and the skins should just fall away. If you would like to read more in depth on the blanching process check out my previous post on How To: Blanching Veggies. You will also need to begin prepping the canning jars and lids. Because of the acidity in tomatoes you can water bath can them. If you are new to the canning process read my post on How To: Water Bath Canning.I chose to use the Hot Pack method of canning. This requires a pot of boiling water on the stove while you’re dicing. After you’re done dicing the tomatoes you are ready to pack the hot jars. Remove the jars from the boiling pot. Put in ¼ Teaspoon of Citric Acid in the bottom. Fill the jars with the diced tomatoes leaving a ½ inch headspace. Then cover the tomatoes with the boiling water. Place the lid on the jar and tighten the band to fingertip tight, then tighten again.Place the prepared jars in the water bath canner. Process them for 45 minutes with the lid on. Then remove the lid and process them for another 5 minutes. Remove from the boiling liquid and place on the counter in a spot where they won’t have to be moved for 24 hours. Let them sit and cool. If you find that any jars did not seal you can actually process them again if you catch it within 24 hours. Otherwise put the unsealed jars in the fridge and use within a week. The sealed jars you can put in the pantry for storage.

How To: Freezing Sweet Corn

 To be completely honest freezing sweet corn is a HUGE hassle. However, when it’s the dead of winter and I pull a new bag of fresh sweet corn out of the freezer I absolutely praise summer Stacie for all the work she put in over the summer. This summer we actually planted some sweet corn in our garden. BUT- the stupid deer that come into town actually ate everything we planted! It was so very sad until I went to Aldi while they were having a .05/ear sale. I purchased 30 ears of sweet corn and decided to go ahead and put most of them in the freezer for later.In order to freeze sweet corn you will first need to blanch the ears of corn. You can refer to my previous post on How To: Blanching Veggies and follow the steps. For sweet corn you will need to blanch it for 4 minutes. Make sure to let it cool long enough since you will be handling it pretty heavily.After the ears are cool place the ears onto a baking sheet. You want to cut the kernels ⅔’rds of the way down to the cob. This keeps you from getting any of the cob in the finished product. I typically do the ears after they cool while I’m blanching the next batch of ears. Once I get in a rhythm I can typically get through one batch before the next one is ready. After all the ears have been blanched and cut it is time to portion the kernels into individual packets. I’ve done it several different ways, but I’ve found that I prefer to portion the finished corn into quart freezer packets. I typically put about 2-3 cups of corn into the baggies. This keeps the corn from going in and out of the freezer too much since you will use it quicker.Once everything is in freezer safe baggies simply pop it in the freezer! Make sure to leave it for 24 hours so it can completely freeze. I suggest putting it in a deep freezer and moving it to your regular freezer as you use it. This ensures you will get the freshest product possible throughout the year as needed.

How To: Freezing Zucchini

Zucchini is one of my favorite this to pack away for later use. Every time we have a garden we seem to grow an absolute explosion of zucchini that I can’t use as it comes fresh out of our garden. My Mom always froze zucchini when I was younger so it just made sense to me when we started gardening to put the excess into the freezer for later. This year I packed away 13 cups of zucchini into the freezer and gave away several more.This veggie is SO easy to get ready for the freezer. You only need to have a food processor on hand with the shredding attachment in place. If you have a large mature zucchini you will need to remove the seeds. However, if it is smaller zucchini you will not need to remove the seeds, they will grind right up and won’t be noticeable. After you’ve washed the zucchini and removed the seeds if necessary, you will need to cut it into slices that fit into the top of your food processor. I find that if I cut each half in half again or even in thirds if its an extremely large zucchini it fits into my processor. After that it’s as simple as running each piece through the food processor to shred it.Depending on how many zucchinis you are doing at once you may need to do them in batches. If this is the case I find it easiest to dump the shredded stuff into a large empty bowl until I’m done. After you’ve finished you then need to portion your prepared veggies into freezer packets. I choose to do them in 1 Cup packets since that seems to be the amount I use them in. You can of course, portion them into any size packet that you think you will use. Make sure that you don’t put too much into the packet since it will not last long in the fridge before it molds.When you’re ready to use one of these packets simply defrost the packet in the fridge for 12-24 hours then use as normal in a recipe. Since it has been frozen with the excess water you may need to add a little bit of extra flour to get the right consistency. Typically though recipes that call for zucchini will already have taken that into account, simply be aware if your recipe calls for drained zucchini or not.

How To: Blanching Vegetables

Over the last few years I’ve come to realize how much I absolutely love preserving food that we’ve grown at home or that family members have grown. It gives me such a feeling of accomplishment whenever I go to the freezer or pantry to get something I’ve canned or frozen. This whole week I’m going to be talking about food preservation and how easy it is to do at home. The primary methods I use are water bath canning and freezing although someday I would absolutely love to get a pressure canner and begin to use that. It affords you so many additional foods that can be preserved since it is the only recommended way for low-acid foods. If you’re interested I’ve already posted a whole post on How To: Water Bath Canning, so if you’re interested go back and check it out!Today, however, I’m going to be talking about blanching veggies. This is a necessary first step to preserving a lot of home grown food. When you blanch veggies you preserve the fresh flavor while killing any of the bacteria that might be on them. This method is a must for many of the veggies I’ll be showing you how to preserve this week. For simplicities sake the photos that are accompanying this post is the photos of me blanching corn. I’ll be sharing more in depth later this week on how exactly to prepare it for the freezer. But for today you just get the photos from me blanching it!In order to blanch veggies you need to bring a large pot of water to a boil. It should be a rolling boil and once you put anything in it, it should return to a high boil within a minute. This is key since you need to kill any bacteria on the veggies. Boil the veggies for whatever the recommended time is for the specific veggie you’re working with. For corn the recommended time is 4 minutes, for tomatoes, 60 seconds.After boiling you place the veggies into a large bowl of ice water. They should sit in the water just as long as you had them in the hot water for. After they cool, drain the excess liquid since this can affect the finished product. After this you’re done and can progress to preserving whatever food you’re working with!One disclaimer, I am by no means an expert in this field. I am simply sharing the methods and lengths of time my research has shown me. If you are very interested in preserving your own food I highly suggest doing your own research and figuring out what you feel comfortable with. An excellent resource is the National Center for Home Food Preservation. I have found this to be a highly valuable resource maintained by experts in the field of home food preservation. I also suggest Ball’s book: The Complete Book of Home Preserving. However, since the recommendations can change I always suggest checking the NCHFP site before you try preserving any new recipes. You can never be too safe when it comes to preserving food!

How To: Blind Bake a Pie Crust

With Thanksgiving fast approaching you may see pie recipes that call for “blind-baking” or “pre-baking” your pie crust. This is a very simple step that may be highly confusing to some cooks, especially if you don’t often bake pies.The first thing you need to realize is that blind-baking is VERY easy. You are simply prebaking the pie crust before you add the filling. This is most commonly called for when you have a cream filling or anything else that you don’t need to bake. Here are a few steps you can follow if you need to blind-bake your crust.First, you will want to use pie weights. This is key, in that if you don’t you will end up with a shrunken pie crust. If there is no filling inside the crust will slide down the sides while baking and you will end up with something that is unusable.If you don’t have pie weights on hand, you can simply use rice! I know, it’s a cool little hack that will save you a bunch of time searching for pie weights and money. You can reuse the rice over and over again since it never actually touches the pie. I keep mine in a ziplock bag after I use it and it has cooled. I just make sure to clearly label the bag so I don’t accidentally use this rice for cooking.You want to fill the pie crust as full as possible with rice. This will prevent any sliding of the crust what so ever. Make certain to put a piece of foil or baking parchment down first or else you will never get all the rice out of the crust.Bake your pie crust at the temp called for on the box or in the recipe. You typically will blind-bake a crust for 15 minutes with the pie weights, then remove the weights and bake for another 10 minutes. This will ensure your crust is crispy and cooked all the way through. Make certain it does not brown too much though as that can throw the taste of the finished pie off.Once you’ve cooled your crust you can add any type of filling you like to it. I hope this clears up some of the confusion you may have around holiday pie baking. (Keep an eye on the blog next week for this amazing Maple-Pecan Cream Pie recipe!)

How To: Grilled Pizza

Alex and I were tired of our regular pizza recipes so we decided it was time to try something new. I decided we needed to make grilled pizzas. I’d read about them on several blogs over the last few months and they seemed like the perfect summer way to make pizza!When grilled this pizza is reminiscent of pizza made in a brick oven. It has a crisp crackery crust and if done correctly isn’t burned. We had some trouble with this when we first started but the key, we figured out, was to keep the pizza over indirect heat. When we baked the pizzas over a direct flame it was far more likely to burn in places. I would suggest doing one pizza at a time if you don’t have enough room to keep them out of a direct flame.You will want to begin by baking one side of the crust, then flipping it over. You will need to work quickly once to flip it over so you are able to get all the toppings on in time for it to bake. You can add whatever toppings you like. We only had peperoni and cheese on hand so that’s what we used. You can use any type of topping you prefer though. Be sure not to add anything like kale or spinach until the very end since they are apt to wilt if put on too early.[amd-yrecipe-recipe:76]

How To: Chocolate Curls

Chocolate Curls are an excellent way to jazz up an otherwise plain cupcake. They look very fancy, but are actually quite easy to make! To make them you will need Candy Melts. These are specific kinds of chocolate that have a higher melting point so they don’t deform as easily. You could try using regular chocolate or chocolate chips, I just have no idea how those would actually turn out.To get started you will need:½ Cup Candy Melts2 Teaspoons Crisco/ShorteningLarge (non-coated) Metal Baking SheetMetal Spatula or Dough ScraperIf you are making these in warmer temperatures I found it helpful to put the baking sheet and spatula into the refrigerator for a few minutes to help it cool. This provided me with a better surface to start on. My items started out pretty hot to begin with because it was the middle of summer and we keep our house pretty warm.In a microwave safe bowl combine the candy melts and the Crisco. Microwave in 30 second increments stirring between each stint in the microwave until completely melted and smooth.Spread the candy melt mixture onto the backside of the baking sheet. Do not oil or cover with wax paper. If you introduce additional oil into the  mixture it will not set properly.Let the candy sit until firm. I found my house was too warm to properly set the candy so I put it in the fridge for a few minutes.  You want it to be firm but not so firm that it is brittle.Using the back of the metal spatula scrape the candy into rolls. If you find your candy too loose simply let it set for a little longer. You need to use equal pressure across the entire length of the pan, if you don’t you’ll end up with chunks of candy. These are also excellent for decoration though, so keep them if you end up making them.You may need to help some of the curls to finish curling. To do this, simply take your fingers, warm the chocolate up slightly and roll into a curl.Use these to decorate cupcakes as desired!

How To: Frosting Cupcakes

I had someone ask me the other day how I got my cupcakes to look so professionally frosted, so I though I’d do an entire post on it so you can learn too! There are of course different ways people do this but this is the easiest way I’ve found. You will need a few basic supplies to frost cupcakes this way.Supplies:Piping BagsFrosting TipsRubber Bands or Piping Bag Ties (optional)I prefer to use Wilton brand piping bags and piping tips. I’ve tried a couple of different brands and I just feel the Wilton tips hold up better than some of the off brand/other brands I’ve tried. You can of course use whatever brand of tips and piping bags you want though. I personally use disposable piping bags. I’ve tried using the reusable ones, but I find them hard to clean adequately and they don’t last forever. I normally purchase the 24 pack from Michaels and this gives me several months of piping bags.If you have problems with icing coming out of the top of the piping bag when you are working you can use a rubber band or piping bag tie to close the top. This is completely optional. I personally don’t use one because I don’t mind if my hands get dirty while piping. However this is completely up to you and what you prefer.There are four basic piping tips I use. I find these give my cupcakes the most professional look and feel. These tips are (in order L to R) 4B, 2D, 1M and 1A. They are all Wilton brand icing tips. These tips are the large variety so you do not need to use couplers with them. My personal favorites, and the ones I most often use are the 1M and 1A. The 1M give the professional swirl look and the 1A give the beehive look. I actually have two 1M tips, one that is normal and then one that I’ve opened the tines on. This give the same basic look but you can pipe chunkier frostings through it without problems. The opened top is the best for things like my Ginger Orange frosting since it contains pecan chunks.Frosting the top of the cupcakes is very easy. You simply use a swirling motion while squeezing frosting out of the bag onto the top of the cupcake. This will take some practice before you become really good at it. If you want a small amount of frosting you can simply hold the piping bag in place while squeezing out the desired amount of frosting. With either of these frosting techniques you need to make sure the frosting is centered on the cupcake. The stiffer the frosting the better it will hold up to using a pronged icing tip. If you have a very thin frosting you probably want to use the 1A and do a circle of frosting on top.Happy Frosting!

How to: Make any boxed cake mix taste like it was homemade!

I’m sure we’ve all been there, we have people coming over soon, and they’re expecting a delicious homemade treat, and you have NO time to make anything yummy from scratch. I ran into this a couple weeks ago. We had people coming over the next day and it was 11 at night. I needed a delicious dessert but I had absolutely no time to make anything.I decided to make a boxed cake mix (gasp, I know!). I never make cake mixes because they are never as good as anything I can make from scratch. However in this instance I needed an amazing dessert and I needed it quickly so I could go to bed.I’ve done this several times in the past when I didn’t have time to make anything. The final result is a moist delicious cake that people will never believe came from a box mix! It simply takes a few alterations to the recipe to take it to the next level. This will work with just about any cake mix you might have in your pantry. I’ve placed the recipe below for the box I used this time around so you can get a feel for what a finished recipe looks like. Don’t hesitate to experiment on your own with the basics below.

In order to make a boxed cake mix taste like a homemade cake you want to first replace the oil with melted butter. This will give you a better crumb to the cake. However if you are running short on butter or want less calories you can skip this step. If you skip this step the cake will still be incredible, just slightly less incredible. If I had to pick one step to leave out this would be it. If you do leave it out simply use the amount of oil the recipe calls for.The real way to take a boxed cake mix from drab to fab is instead of adding water to the mix is to substitute milk and sour cream. Take the amount of water call for in the recipe and halve it. Add that much both milk and sour cream. So if you recipe calls for ¾ Cup of water add ¼ Cup and 2 Tablespoons of both milk and sour cream.Add the exact amount of eggs called for in the recipe. Eggs help the structure of the cake to remain intact and so you need to make certain to keep that portion of their recipe the same. This will insure your cake has the correct structure, not to dense and not too crumbly.The final way to make these cakes amazing is to add a little bit of extract to the batter. This will fill out the taste of your cake. I chose to add vanilla extract to my chocolate cake. Depending on what type of box mix you start with you can choose the extract that will best compliment your cake. The same goes for chocolate chips. You don’t have to use them but if you do your cake just has a little more pizazz to it.I always love to bake cakes in a bundt pan. I feel like this really gives the cake a flair it doesn’t get with a regular pan and it also makes it look WAY prettier with minimal effort.  A lot of cakes baked in a bundt pan will be perfect if paired with powdered sugar as a simple dusting. Happy baking!

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Homemade Tasting Boxed Cake1 Box Madhava Organic Chocolate Cake Mix½ Cup Sour Cream½ Cup Milk½ Cup Butter (melted)3 Eggs2 Teaspoons Vanilla ExtractWhite Chocolate Chips (optional)Powdered Sugar (for garnish)Preheat the oven to 350 and grease a 12 cup bundt pan.

Mix together the cake mix, sour cream, milk, butter and vanilla. Stir until no lumps remain.Stir in the chocolate chips if using.Transfer to the prepared bundt pan.

Bake for 30-40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.Invert the cake onto a cooling rack and let cool completely.Sprinkle with powdered sugar once the cake has cooled.

[amd-yrecipe-recipe:48]

How to: Sieve Potatoes

Some recipes call for you to rice or sieve potatoes. The result is a light fluffy potato that will incorporate well into any recipe. In order to rice potatoes you need to have special kitchen equipment. However in order to sieve potatoes you only need to have a fine mesh sieve, which most cooks already have available in their kitchen.Sieving potatoes it quite an easy task. It will however take quite a bit of wrist strength. Make sure that you leave time for the potatoes to cool if your recipe calls for it.

Peel potatoes then cut into medium chunks.

Put into a medium saucepan and cover with water. Put the lid on and boil for approximately 15 minutes or until they are fork soft.

Drain the potatoes and mash them.

Dry in the saucepan by putting over medium heat and stirring occasionally until the steam quits rising off the potatoes.

Using the back of a wooden or bamboo spoon push the potatoes through a fine mesh sieve.  If your sieve is small like mine you will want to do it in small batches.

How to: Royal Icing

This is pretty much the best way to decorate cutout cookies. The icing looks so professional and put together. If you’ve never done royal icing before it is actually pretty easy, just mostly time intensive.  Because all the ingredients for Royal Icing are gluten free you can use these on GF cutout cookies.List of what you’ll need:One batch of cutout cookiesOne batch of Royal IcingGel Food ColorsPiping bags fitted with connectors and tipsSqueeze bottlesAirtight containers (one for each color you will be using)SpoonsSpatulasToothpicks

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Royal Icing:4 Cups Powdered Sugar2 Tablespoons Merengue Powder5.5 Tablespoons Water

Combine all the ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer. Mix until the icing has a matte finish. Separate the icing into air tight containers (divide into as many containers as colors you need).

Taking one container at a time, mix an additional tablespoon of water into the icing. This should be a good consistency for piping. If it still seems too thick mix additional water into the icing one half tablespoon at a time. Mix thoroughly before using.

Once you have the icing at a good piping consistency mix the colors into the icing. Using gel colors will get the best results. If you use liquid colors it can change the consistency of the icing and make it unusable. I am partial to the Wilton Gel Food Colors. You can easily mix these into the icing by using a knife to remove a bit of gel coloring from the tub and mixing thoroughly into the icing.

When your icing colors are prepared, take piping bags prepared with connectors and icing tips (I prefer to use a Wilton Circle #3 tip). Using a spatula spoon a good amount of the icing into the prepared piping bag. Squeeze the bag to remove excess air and move the icing down into the tip. Prepare each of the colors in separate icing bags. Cover the extra icing so it does not dry out.

Taking the prepared piping bags, pipe an outline around the entire cookie. Let the outline sit for at least an hour before moving onto the next step.  Once you have outlined all of the cookies take any extra icing out of the bags and put back into the airtight container.

When the outline has set, prepare the rest of your icing. Add approximately an additional two tablespoons of water the icing. The icing should fall off the back of a spoon in a smooth ribbon. If you happen to thin the icing too much you can add powdered sugar to thicken it up. Pour the prepared icing into squeeze bottle. Flood the area inside the outline with the thinned icing.

If the icing does not go all the way to the edges you can use a toothpick to move it around. You also can use the toothpick to pop any bubbles that might appear in the flooded icing. The goal is to have the icing be as smooth as possible. Let the icing dry overnight before serving the cookies.

You can use additional piping icing to decorate the tops of the cookies once the icing has set.

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Source: adapted from Annies-Eats

DIY: Makeup Brush Roll

I finally replaced the makeup brushes that I’d had for about 8 years.  When I bought the new ones I wanted a better way to store them. I’d just been storing my old ones in my makeup bag and they got all dirty from the powder. I looked at Sephora and saw makeup bag rolls and decided that was how I wanted to store my new brushes.However, I didn’t want to spend the money to purchase one of those, especially not when they looked so easy to make. So I decided to try my hand at making one of these and I found it was way easier than I first imagined!If you are looking for a neat way to store your brushes then this might be for you. I also made it out of washable fabric so when it gets suitably dirty I can just pop it in the washing machine and its as good as new.I made mine with a sewing machine. If you don’t happen to have one you could easily make this by hand, it will just take a little while longer.Start by hemming your top piece of fabric. This will be what holds the brushes onto the makeup roll. You want to hem the top of this before you sew it onto the makeup roll, you won’t be able to do this after you sew it together.

Next take two pieces of fabric cut to the size you want your makeup roll to be. Mine ended up being about 12 inches high by 16 inches wide.  Place the two sides you want showing against each other. Place the piece you hemmed earlier in between the two pieces of fabric. You also want to put your ribbons on the inside now. Place the longest parts of the ribbon between the two pieces of fabric leaving a small bit outside the edge.Sew the edges of the makeup roll together, leaving a small hole in a corner. Trim the edges to about ¼ of an inch.

Turn the bag inside out so that all of the right sides are showing, pulling it though the small hole that you left.Sew the hole shut with a short seam.

In order to store the brushes you need to sew seams to hold the brushes in. I took my brushes and measured the size of the holes that I wanted. I marked them with a pin and then sewed a straight seam at each of the intervals needed.

After I finished mine it turned out so well that I made two more for each of my sisters! These are super easy and would make great gifts for anyone who wears makeup. If you want to be able to fold the top portion of the makeup roll over your brushes be sure to factor that into your measurements.

How to: Water Bath Canning

Last year I decided to try canning for the first time. The experience was absolutely exhilarating! There is just something so exciting about taking extra fruit and vegetables fresh from the garden and putting them up for winter.You need to be very careful when you are canning. If you improperly can something the food can develop Botulism which can make your family very sick. The National Center for Food Preservation has some very good tips and recipes for properly canning food.When you are canning food you need to follow the recipe to the letter to avoid spoilage when it sits on the shelf. I have found the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving to be an excellent resource for how to properly can various foods.I have only tried the Water Bath Canning method. But I have found it to preserve food excellently. So far I’ve made: Applesauce, Tomato Sauce, Pickles and low sugar Grape Jelly.  Later this week I am going to post directions for canning no-sugar Applesauce and Tomato Sauce. Here are basic directions for water bath canning.You will need:Water Bath CannerEmpty Canning Jars and bandsFresh LidsCanning ToolsSomething to Can!You are able to reuse the glass jars and bands. But each time you can something you need to use a fresh lid. The assures that the jar properly seals after you process it.You first need to sterilize your jars, lids and bands. Prepare your water bath canner by placing the open jars on the metal removal tray and filling with water. Since there is so much water in the pot you will want to start this when you begin making whatever you are going to can.You then want to put all of your lids and bands in another pot with water and boil them.You typically pack each of the jars while the food is hot. So once your food is ready to can and the jars, bands and lids are boiling you can begin.Remove a jar from the water and place on the counter. I put a hot pad beneath to help with heat dispersal and if I need to touch it.Fill your jar, I find it is best to use a funnel to fill my jars. It is not necessary but it certainly makes the job easier.Check your headspace and make sure it matches what is specified in your recipe. Too little headspace can make the jar overflow when you process it and too little can cause spoilage.Wipe the rim of the jar once you have finished filling it. This assures you get a good seal. Put a lid and band onto the jar and tighten until it is fingertip tight.Put the jar back into the water bath canner. Process the cans for the time specified in your recipe.When the time is up remove the water bath canner from heat and wait for 5 minutes. Remove the jars and set them on a towel.At this point they should begin to seal. You will hear a popping sound as they seal. Leave them overnight on the counter. Test the seal by pushing in the center of the lid. If it does not give the jar has sealed. Any jars that haven’t sealed after 24 hours should be put in the refrigerator and used in the next few weeks.Make sure the bands are tight on the jars and store in a cool dark place.Happy Canning!

How to Puree a Pumpkin

With the holidays right around the corner I’m sure you’re starting to plan your holiday baking. I know I am! One thing I’m sure you’re thinking about with Thanksgiving this week is the traditional pumpkin desserts. Now, these are great with the normal canned pumpkin, but have you ever considered taking them to the next level by pureeing your own pumpkin? My Dad has been doing this for as long as I can remember. When I was a kid I remember helping out in the kitchen a few days before Thanksgiving while he prepped everything. It was always so exciting as a kid to have him cook the pumpkin because it meant the holidays and family gatherings were right around the corner!This year I picked up a GIANT pumpkin for $2.99 at Aldi back a few weeks before Halloween. I used it to decorate our porch for several weeks before I brought it inside to cook. So not only are you saving money by making your own pumpkin puree you can also use it as decoration for several weeks. Make sure you cook it before it starts to mold, although you can cut off portions with mold on them as long as it’s not invasive.To get started you want to bring a pot of water to boil on the stove. Do not salt the water, this will give the pumpkin a salty taste that you don’t want.Scrape all the seeds from the inside of the pumpkin. I find it easiest to cut the pumpkin into quarters and scrape from there. Then you want to cut your pumpkin into 6in (ish) chunks. Boil the chunks in the water until they are soft. This will take approximately 20-25 minutes per batch.Once they have been boiled you want to cool them so that you can touch them. I leave them on a baking sheet until they are cool enough to handle.You then want to cut the rind off. If you’ve cooked the pumpkin long enough the rind will pretty much come right off. I use a butter knife so there is less of a chance I’ll hurt myself.Once the rind is off, put the pumpkin in a food processor using the puree attachment. Puree until there are no chunks left. Store the puree in the freezer until ready to use. Because there are no additives the puree will only last a few days in the fridge before it molds. I like to store the puree in 1 Cup baggies so I can easily defrost as much as I need for a recipe.Use this pumpkin as you would the canned stuff in a recipe. The pumpkin has more water content than the canned stuff so make sure you take this into account when using it. You may have to add additional flour to a recipe to make it the right consistency.