Canning Salmon

 I have literally been going through canned salmon withdrawals ever since I used the last jar in the pantry months ago so when I caught wind that one of the commercial fishermen we know was heading out for an opening I phoned right away and put in my order :)

 Sockeye and pinks are my salmon of choice but this year they were so scarce you were really hard pressed to find any so I went with chum. 

As each fish was brought out to be cleaned the children took part in a bit of an anatomy lesson...

learning about their teeth, gills, organs and more :)

 Hubby wasn't home for the first batch of fish that I brought home from the dock so I got my oldest son to help with some of the cleaning and then I took over cleaning the last of the fish and filleting them with my dad. That made for a long day as I had to go in the house after to fill the jars and then pressure can them all.

Thankfully he was home yesterday when I brought home 8 more whoppers! They weighed about 12 pounds apiece bringing our total to 13 fish total.

This time I just had to wait for the fillets and trimmings so I could take them in for canning. So much less work!

Poor hubby had a bit of a sore back though from humping over his table all afternoon so we're definitely going to have to do something about that for next time. To make up for it he snagged six of the nicer fillets for smoking...

and today he has them smoking away. Mmmm, I can't wait *grin*.

 

So with 55 pints of salmon all canned and ready for putting away in the pantry I can officially say I'm done. Until next year that is :)

Hugs,

Rosina

Rotkohl

I am enjoying the cabbage we picked from our garden earlier this week immensely! Well actually we all are *grin*. I brought one of the heads into the house right away for dinner. I had to strip away some of the outer leaves that were loose and bug bitten and extract a few little creatures but those are the joys of organic gardening LOL.

I was laughing to myself in the kitchen as I was cutting it in half because I was more interested in photographing it and studying the intricate pattern hidden within the head than getting down to business and chopping it up!

Hubby had just returned home from work and I had great plans of making Rotkohl and bratwurst as a special meal and with all my shutter bugging it ended up taking me a whole hour longer than I had planned to get things out on plates *grin*.

As a child I remember having the most delicious rotkohl that my Omi made and it has been years since I had tasted its sweet and slightly sour flavor so when I ran across a recipe for it I just had to try making it. Mmm, so good!! The kids all loved it to and I knew they would because it really is like eating candy *grin*. Regular sauerkraut made with green cabbage is quite strong and has a very strong vinegar taste but this is the completely opposite end of the spectrum and the kids don't question what it is then LOL.

I'm thinking that this will be the perfect way to use up all of the red cabbage so that I don't waste any of it. I have never canned cabbage though before so I still haven't found out exactly how I need to process it. If you have any experience canning rotkohl please let me know! This would be such a special treat to pull out for sunday dinners :)

Hugs,
Rosina

Preserving Fall ~ Canning Pumpkin

I couldn't bear to let our carved pumpkins go to waste so I had the kids bring them inside to me this morning and I got to work chopping them up for canning :) I just LOVE the smell of freshly sliced and grated pumpkin and this will let me enjoy this time of year just a little bit longer. There's nothing like cooking up a pumpkin pie in those dark winter days and triggering wonderful memories of fall :)

They have a bit of a tough skin to peel but as you get going I find that it gets easier. You start to get the feel for the right pressure you need to apply to your knife while keeping your loose fingers clear in case it slips *grin*. I'll admit it slipped on me once and it sort of give my heart a jump start! LOL.

I had already washed some of my pint canning jars in hot soapy water with a splash of bleach to disinfect them as they had been sitting in the crawl space all year so once I had all my pumpkin peeled I cut the pieces into 1 inch thick spears roughly the height of my jars but short enough to leave the 1 inch head space needed for a proper seal. What at time saver!! When it was time to pack the jars all of the spears were the exact height so there was no need to mess around trimming them to fit :)

I thought that I would share with you how I can pumpkin just in case you want to try doing it with your pumpkins to :) Pumpkins are a low acid vegetable and very capable of growing botulism if processed improperly so make sure you use a 'pressure canner' and NOT a 'water bath'.

When you have collected all of your jars, sealers, rings and have your pumpkin peeled and sliced it's time to prep you pumpkin for packing into your jars. Pre-heat your oven to 200 degrees Fahrenheit and place all of your pumpkin spears into a large stock pot and cover with water. Bring the pot to a boil and let it gently boil for a couple of minutes only. You will see that your pumpkin spears are starting to turn brighter orange as they start to cook and you only want them to be barely fork tender. You are going to pack your jars hot so even if you don't think they are quite done turn off the burner anyways because as you pack your jars the ones in the pot will continue to cook while waiting to come out.

Put on a clean pair of rubber gloves and grab a jar :) Your rubber gloves are going to be your body armor as you grab hot spears of pumpkin out of the pot and pack them in as tightly as you can vertically into your jars without mushing them. As soon as you have filled a jar, use a ladle and pour in enough of the hot water from your cooking pot to cover your pumpkin spears and make sure you still leave that 1 inch of empty head space at the top of the jar. Wipe the rim clean with a cloth so there are no bits of pumpkin where the sealer will touch and pop the jar into the oven to keep warm while you pack the rest of your jars :)

As soon as you have all of your jars filled with pumpkin and liquid it's time to get your sealers heated. I usually use Bernardin sealers which recommend that you only heat them to 180 degrees. Check the directions on your box as they may be different and if you happen to have old sealers you may find that they still say you can boil them for a full 5 minutes! I must say I sure do miss the old sealers that you could just pop in the pot and boil without worrying about over heating them *grin*. Once your sealers have been heated as directed, remove your jars form the oven with your rubber gloves on again and put on a hot sealer one at a time placing the finished jar each time directly into your pressure canner.

With your pressure canner fully loaded clamp on your lid, place it on your stove top burner, and turn the burner on high. As soon as your canner starts to 'vent' out of the steam pipe time it for a full 10 minutes and when the time is up shut the valve or place your weight on the steam pipe depending on which model of canner you have.

Process your batch at 10 pounds pressure for 65 minutes and that's it :)

Now if you don't have a pressure canner or just don't want to do all of that work *grin* then you can definitely freeze your pumpkin! I had way to much for my canner and I only wanted to do one batch so I grated up what was left of my pumpkin.

Our favorite cake and pie recipes call for two cups of pumpkin so I measured out 2 cups into each of my freezer bags so when I want to use one it will be exactly what I need :) You can also freeze pureed pumpkin, pumpkin butter and pumpkin pie filling as well.

Three pumpkins later I have 18 beautiful pints of canned pumpkin, 6 packages of grated pumpkin for the freezer and 1 blistered finger from all of the peeling *grin*. If you have a favorite pumpkin recipe that you would like to share with me I would love to hear about it :)

Hugs,
Rosina

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Curing Fish

Every year I try to can as much fresh salmon as possible to keep us eating delicious fish all through the winter and spring and with the huge sockeye run that came through here this summer we were able to get some great prices on sockeye and humpies fresh off the boats!

With fifteen fish in the freezer I was planning on getting around 48 pints of canned salmon but Hubby has a slightly different plan this year. He has decided that he is going to smoke a bunch which is sooo good but is going to cut into my stash *grin*.

So today he cleaned and scaled eight of the fish and then filleted them so that we could coat them with a dry brine of brown sugar, salt and seasonings for smoking.

We were just down in the cold room checking on them and they smell fantastic! Tomorrow morning we'll fire up the smoker and toss some in and I'm going to experiment with canning some of the smoked fish to. I'm thinking that I better get some of the smoked stuff squirreled away or we may just eat it all as it comes out of the smoker *grin*.

Mmm, can't wait!
~ Rosina

Pickling Beets

I think I must have lost a day just boiling and chopping beets! *grin*. Today I finished the last batch of pickled beets with the 2 canner loads I picked from my moms garden the other day :) I've got 16 quart sized jars full of the little maroon beauties.

I also found a great way to add my pickling spice to each batch of pickling brine.... I used my tea ball!! Instead of tying up the spice in a cheese cloth each time I just refill my tea ball and drop it in with each new batch. Love it :)

I'm tempted to go and pick some more beets tomorrow and I've got a great beety recipe all planned for you on Friday *grin*.

~ Rosina

Bumper Crop of Beets

My mom has an AMAZING vegetable garden every year and this year she has a bumper crop of beets. Of course she is more than happy to share her vegetable wealth with her daughter LOL.

So this morning after feeding the cow the kids and I walked over and brought our wheel barrow along with us *grin*.

My mom and I plucked out beets by the handful and my dad cut off all of the beet tops. Dad's getting out of the house more now so it was great to see him doing something he enjoys :) By the time we were finished there was heaps of beet tops that are going to be a wonderful treat for the cow tomorrow morning....

and plenty of beets to take home and cook up! I boiled up 2 big canner loads this afternoon. I just love how easy they are to prepare! After they are cooked their skins just pull off like butter and tomorrow I'm going to chop them all up and make pickled beets. SO GOOD.

Beets freeze really well to so I'm going to get a couple more canner loads sometime this week and get them frozen up so we can enjoy them all winter long :)

~ Rosina

Canning Cherry Jam

I finished canning my cherry jam last night and am pleased as punch with how it turned out :) I've been making pectin free jam the last couple of years but I've never made a cherry jam so I did some looking on the internet to see what I could find but pectin free recipes are far and few.

I usually use apple to replace store bought pectin but from what I could find lemon was the fruit of choice to combine with the cherries so that's what I did *grin*. I used 4 cups of cherries total per batch, 2 cups roughly chopped in the food processor & 2 cups of halved cherries plus 1 lemon rind and all the juice. It smelled awesome!!

Next was to get that perfect jammy consistency :) The best way to tell when your jam is ready to be put in the jars is to do a simple spoon test by placing a spoon of jam in the freezer for a minute and then pushing the jam up the spoon with your fingernail to see if the jam wrinkles and stays put. If it does that then you're finished!

I passed the spoon test 3 times and now have 15 jars of yummy cherry jam... make that 13 as we have done a wee bit of taste testing *grin*.

Are you canning any jam this summer?

~ Rosina