2017 preservating tally

Started 3/15
I apparently haven't really done any preserving yet... but I have been going through the shelves of canned and dehydrated good and started making some tallies. I will for sure need to make some of this year...and some stuff to be scrapped. So some catch up notes first.

Pickled zuke cubes and pickled green tomatoes are icky, don't make those again! Pepper relish is good, but the one batch I made is still hanging around, we just don't eat much relish.

We are finally down to about just a full case of jellies and jams left. I didn't make anything last year because we had so much to blow through, and we still got a lot left. A few jars will probably go to the birds this spring when they start coming in. But dang, we really are slow eaters of the stuff.

Getting down to a last few jars of salsa too... A few jars left, and probably at least a small batch of salsa will get done this year.

Enchilada sauce.. 2015 batch was 34 pints, 10 half pints. We are now down to our last two jars and will be needing much more canned up this year. I did up batches of 5-9 pints at a time in the slow cooker and then canned them up, and will do the same this year. Also was kind of nice to have mild, spicy, and smokey kinds, so will be repeating that as well.
Still have a few jars of all the other random sauces too, but not many. I might need to make up a batch of steak sauce this year. 

The half bushel of beets I did up last year looks like it will hold out till at least the end of the season when beets are available this year. Yielded a full 24 case of pint jars.

Did up a few batches of Brussels last year, about 18 pints worth, plus a couple quarts of ferments. That will likely last us till the time when they start becoming available in the fall as well.

About 15 pints of sweet and sour onions last year, and I think perhaps those will hold till 2018 canning time comes- those go a bit slower.
A few half pints of pickled jalapenos are still on the shelf too. We had a large commercial jar in the fridge to use up first. A small batch of those this year wouldn't be a bad ides.
A few jars of spicy and dilly beans, so maybe just a batch or so each of those will work nicely for this year. 

In dire need of more this year is Lemony Cauliflower, pickled mushrooms of the canned and fridge types, some spicy Mexican carrot ferment, and asparagus. Wax pepper rings, cherry bombs, and pepperonchini too. And oooh, the pickled radish and carrots, those were divine and went far too fast. And Pickled nasturtium capers- A quart and a pint is too much, a pint too little. I think this year will be a pint and a half jar.
Will be canning up some tomato sauce too depending on how things go, it's a bit lower on the list of tomato products after enchilada sauce and some salsa.

Some yums to repeat are pickled edamame, fridge pickled Asian peapods, and garlic scapes if I can.. we got no hardneck set for this year so that's pretty iffy. Lime zucchini fridge pickle spears too, damn those are good.

Dehydrating- we still got heaps of corn and kale, and various peppers of smoked and unsmoked kinds. A bunch of those are going to get ground up to restock the pantry spices, so I will need to do up a round of fresh dried hots and smoked hots, particularly the seasoning peppers I'm growing this year. Pretty stable on most everything else. Always need more mushrooms. And will for sure be drying up a quart or three of tomato slices- those sure are nice. Dead out of onions and breadcrumbs, so will need to keep an eye out for onions on sale and time to make some nice bread. And dried nasturium leaves and perhaps flowers this year. The leaves are really nice peppery herbal used like most other herbs, and I think trying out the flowers would be interesting as "finishing herbs".

Freezing- Need to keep an eye out for butter sales- 2 pounds of chive butter is for sure not enough to get us through the year. Will need to do 4 pounds this year. Don't freeze squash slices to try to make casserole later on, they suck, a lot. IQF asparagus is better than freezing them together in a vacuum sealed bag. Stock rotation has been going well and regular- we did up a last big batch of turkey stock after Thanksviging and still have some, and a couple ham stocks with bones ready to go for the next batch. Want to do a nice round of chicken stock soon. And I think I would like to keep my eye out for some good beef bones to do up a nice batch of a demi-glace cubes, and maybe if I can lay my hands on some veal bones...  that will probably happen when I can do the process in the closed solarium or even outside. The smell of roasting beef bones kind of churns my stomach, even more so if I pince them. Ew. But makes for smashing results in flavor, lol.
For whatever reason, some of the nasturtium pesto cubes were showing blooming- a white on the leaf pesto, and a greenish black on the flower pesto. Only in a couple trays, but I scrapped the whole batch just in case the other ones just weren't quite showing it yet.

Herbs- still finding it more cost effective and usable to buy dried minced garlic, thyme, and dill. Sage, rosemary, and tarragon are mostly house grown now, though in the winter we do still buy a lot of dried rosemary, and probably will keep doing so till I get that hedgerow established. Parsley is still better off commercial, but we do like to keep our kitchen box of the fresh stuff too. Homegrown oregano is likely to take over this year. Savory and marjoram are still more fresh use due to limited plants.

3/16: got some pickling done today! Hardings had a couple 12 oz bags of snap peas and a couple pound bags of organic mixed colors baby carrots for 99 cents each. So.... for about 5 bucks worth of ingredients.. Made 4 quart jars and 1 pint jar of pickles

Snap peas first. These are all fridge pickles, and take 4-6 weeks to really cure up and start tasting good.
This takes 2 cups each of water and white vinegar + 1/8 cup of pickling salt for the basic brine. I ended up making an extra half cup of just the 50/50 mix to top off the pint jar.
1 quart of Asian style snap peas: Add to quart jar
1t peppercorn
1t hot pepper flake
1-2" of ginger root, peeled and sliced
4-6 cloves garlic, peeled and left whole
2T rice wine vinegar
1 1/2T mushroom soy sauce

1 quart Hot Asian style snap peas: Add to quart jar
Same as above with pepper subsitute: 1/2 t hot pepper flake, and add a whole half of a smoked Inferno banana pepper

1 pint of Zesty Lime Asian style snap peas: Add to pint jar
5 cloves garlic, peeled and left whole
3 dried lime slices
4 smoked Aji Lemon peppers
1" garlic, peeled and sliced
1/2 t peppercorn
1 1/2 T regular soy sauce
1/12 T rice wine vinegar

On to the carrots. I used 1 pound bag per quart jar, one is a ferment, the other a fridge pickle.
1 quart of lacto-fermented carrots
Loose pack the carrots and a few springs of thyme into the jar and set aside till the brine is ready and cooled to room temp.
Brine:
4 c water
1/4 c kosher salt
2-4 bay leaves
1 dried hot chili- I used 5 dried serrano halves from 2014, they were the last couple in the jar and I figured they were probably kind of heat dead by now, lol. And if it's extra spicy, that's ok too :)
Once the brine is room temp, pour off the liquid and set aside for topping off. Pour rest into jar, making sure you get all the spices into the jar first. Cap up and let ferment between 55-75 degrees for 2-3 weeks, or till the burper stops burping. Put in fridge after that and start eating.

1 quart of Zanahorias En Escabeche- use a 4 quart pot for this.
1 pound carrots
6-8 cloves garlic, peeled and whole
1 large onion, sliced on the radial
5-6 bay leaves
1 T peppercorns
1 t kosher salt
1 T dried oregano- I had a handful of fresh springs and used 1 t dried
Hot peppers, I tend to use a mix of what I got, today it's used dried sweet, 1 half each smoked sweet and hot banana, and hot banana peppers rings
2 cups each of water and white vinegar
1-2 teaspoons olive oil- just enough to lube the bottom of the pan for the saute.
Saute onions, garlic, and peppercorns on higher heat till there is some browning and the onion is just getting translucent.
Add in carrots and peppers, and saute for 5-8 minutes, just to gloss everything together.
Add in water, vinegar, salt, and bay leaves. Leave carrots to simmer till tender crisp.
Pull from heat, and leave to cool down to warm to room temp- this will finish off the cooking before it hits the fridge.
Jar up, and leave on counter for another 30-60 minutes to really get to room temp before cap up and pop into the fridge for 2-4 weeks before tasting.

Though we tried to stretch it as much as possible, used up the last of the chive butter last night. The wild chive plushies aren't quite popping up yet, they need a couple more weeks, April seems to be when I've been making batches up over the last few years.

3/26: Hardings had butter, 2 for 6 bucks. I picked up 4 for the freezer. They also had a handful of 99 cent mushrooms, so I got 3 each of button and baby portas, and made a half gallon jar of fridge pickled mushrooms.
3 pounds mushrooms
1 T whole allspice
2 T peppercorns
2 T canning salt
6-8 bay leaves
A few sprigs thyme- toss half in for the cooking, and other half into bottom of canning jar
2 medium onions, cut on radial
1 whole head garlic, peeled
2 1/2 cups white vinegar
1 3/4 cups water
Simmer up till mushrooms have reduced in size by about half, and the white button mushrooms start turning darker. Kill heat, pack jar, let cool to room temp uncovered- cap, and into the fridge for a month or so before eating.

4/15: chives are finally plush enough to make chive butter! made 4 pounds of chive butter today, it's currently in the freezer getting hard to cut into smaller sticks. I like to use an equal ratio of salted and unsalted butter, and shittons of chives, around a cup or so per pound.

4/22: made two pounds of garlic greens butter- we actually had an excess of greens!

5/8: Meijer had mushrooms 11 for 10.00, so we picked up a ton- 33 tubs of baby bellas and button mushrooms. That's 16 1/2 pounds! 3 pounds of half and half went into the dehydrator- makes 2 quart jars. 3 pounds of half and half went into making a half gallon jar of fridge pickled mushrooms.

5/9: another 3 pounds of half and half mushrooms into the dehydrator. These dried up to a full quart and a little less than a full quart- I left the not full one out for regular use.

5/10: 7 8oz jars of canned pickled mushrooms done.

5/18: 10 pint jars of pickled asparagus done, used Food in Jars recipe. Blew two of the lids while uncapping, so those went into the fridge.
Just barely had enough pickling spice to make the asparagus, so I made a quadruple batch of pickling spice. Pretty much what's in the ball book, with extra bay leaf and left out the powdered ginger and cardamom since I'm out of that. I wanted to more closely mimic the pickling spice I get at GFS than the pickling mix I often make that has more powdered ingredients. It refilled the pickling spice jar about 2/3ish full.

3-4 cinnamon sticks, crushed up in the spice grinder to a fine bark
40 bay leaves, crushed up- I used the spice grinder, and kind of filled it twice
1/2 cup mustard seed
1/4 cup whole allspice
1/4 cup coriander seeds
1/4 cup whole black peppercorns
1/4 cup dill seed
1/8 cup hot pepper flakes
4 teaspoons cloves

6/18: had a full harvest of Helios radishes badly needing harvesting. So far there's a nice large heap of small ones for fresh eating.. A full load of radish greens dehydrated to a 1 quart yield, and a couple experimental fridge pickles. A couple relishes, one called Farmer Dave's that came out in a 12 oz jar, the other 1720 Chatsworth House, which packed into a 8 oz widemouth jar. I also dried up about a pint jar of Italian pizza crust bread crumbs.

6/21: I split the Farmer Dave're relish up- the whole thing needed a bit of black pepper, and I divided the batch so I could put red pepper flake into half- the repack ended up using 2 4oz jars. Also made another batch of the 1720 relish, this time a whole pint jar.

6/25: Softneck garlic was ready to harvest! I ended up with 3 sizes of about equalish amounts. Big enough for proper curing off, 5 bundles of a dozenish heads eachare now hanging in the spare bedroom to cure. Today I sat down and peeled all the little heads, and got a heaping 4 cup measure full of tiny little heads. I pickled them whole and ended up with 6 pints of pickled garlic :) Picked all the little bulbis out of the stems, and used them to make Pickled Shoyu Garlic Bulbis for the fridge, 8 oz jar. Peeled up some medium heads and made a batch of Italian sweet pepper and garlic mix for the fridge.

8/14: Geez, have I lagged behind with entries. Around mid-July we got in some of our earliest summer squashes- I did a half-gallon jar of fridge lime-zukes, and a pint and a half jar of spicy lime-zukes.
We have run out of nast capers :(. The radish relishes are awesome and long gone. Cracked into the pickled garlic- they have skins, but nice sized perfect cloves come out when pinched just about as easily as when you roast garlic. The Shoyu Garlic Bulbis is almost gone, those were extra spectacular- more reason to start a nice mother patch or few out back.
Toothache plant- just put the third dried batch in the freezer this morning. A few weeks ago I picked the first flush, about a quart dried. Second flush yielded up about quart and a half dried. Third flush about a quart dried. 
Anywho, today... The garden is growing in, and got a dozen beautiful fresh picked Ambrosia ears of corn yesterday.  So this morning I shucked and cut off the kernels- none of us like eating on cob much. Got a nice quart of kernels in the fridge to make some chowder with, and another quart or so in the freezer for later. And five quarts of lovely corn stock, yum. Gonna use a quart for the chowder, but then four for the freezer. And the first good flush of Roman Candle Tomatoes were ripe, loosely filled 3 trays on the dehydrator- the rest of the tomatoes, Freds and Roman Candles, that we don't eat up tomorrow will be put in a Ziploc bag for the freezer to keep till I get more tomatoes in.

8/15: 1 quart, 1 pint of portabella mushrooms dried up

8/23: First flush of tomatoes is in! Got 6 pints of Smokey Spicy Enchilada sauce in a couple half gallon jars cooling on the counter to go in the fridge overnight to cure up. Already have the next batch of Freds cored and in a container for the next batch, this one is going to be a mild garlic. Pulled 10 pounds of tomatoes to the freezer to make a big batch of Garlic salsa with.

8/24: Got 6 pints of Mild Garlic Enchelada sauce in a couple half gallon jars cooling to go into the fridge to cure up. The farm stand had lovely large heads of fresh cauliflower for 3 bucks each- the salsa tomatoes will stay in the freezer for now, I'm going to be canning up a couple heads worth of lemony cauliflower first.

8/25: 14 half pints of Mild Garlic Enchelada sauce canned. Full pint of hot pepper powder ground up and in the pantry.

8/26: 14 half pints of Smokey Spicy Enchilada sauce canned, 6 pint and a half of Lemony Cauliflower canned.

8/27: a quart jar of fridge Milwaukee pickles- I froze up brine a while back, and am doing a jar of fresh cuke spears to see how well or not it flavors up.  Set up another crock of enchilada sauce, this time just regular to do pints with. It yielded low, about 5 1/2 pints, because I used more romans than freds.

8/29: Got the next batch of regular sauce in the fridge, it yielded a high 7 pints.. so I will get my dozen pints canned off.

8/30: Got a round of hot peppers smoked off and in the dehydrator.

8/31: Got 12 pints of enchilada sauce, and 8 half pints of pickled edamame done.  There's one half pint of edamame that didn't seal that makes for 9, it's in the fridge. The peppers have been pulled and are lovely. I smoked off 6 pie tins of Roman Candles, it's in 3 trays on the dehydrator now. I topped then quartered them off because they are so nice and long. Two tomatoes of 8 quarters per pie tin, 2 smoked pie tins per dehydrator tray. Overnight drying to get them really good and crispy before vacuum sealing off.

9/2-4: The tomato trays ended up fill a 1 quart jar when done, they took forever. Got a batch of 14 half pints of Flaming Fred enchelada sauce done, and 5 pints of sloppy joe sauce.

9/8: 2 quarts, 1 half pint of Italian sauce cooked up and chilling in the fridge. 6 pints of enchilada sauce chilling in the fridge.

9/12: 6 pints, 5 half pints of Italian sauce, 6 pints of enchelada sauce, and 5 pint and a half of Lemony Cauliflower canned up. 2 12 oz jars of Magic Dust, and 2 8 oz jars of Veggie powder jarred up.

9/29: 1 8 oz jar of dried Trinidad Perfume, 1 quart jar of dried Tobago seasoning, and 1 pint jar of smoked Aji Limon peppers jarred up.

10/8: 32 cubes of Ham DemiGlace in the freezer. This is a reduction from 8 quarts of heavy ham stock, so 2-4 cubes per batch of whatever. And the freezer space is about a quarter of what it normally would be. 12 oz of squash flour ground and jarred up. 

January, 2018- Gosh, I did do some preserving after the beginning of October. Got some turkey stock made and a couple rounds of dehydrating done. But now it's 2018 and I need to publish this list.. 

White Christmas needed to stop, then it did

Well then, Mama N.

Snow started mid-day Christmas Eve... and only stopped for a couple hours here for two weeks. The neighbors were kind enough to push us a few times through the snow.. at one point I went out and measured the snow standing on the birdfeeders..... over 15 inches of snow, and that was before the last heavy couple days of snowfall.. We usually get this much snow over the winter, sometimes a lot at a time.. but this was the first year we have been hit for so long without any break with so much snow buildup. And the whole time we were in a deep cold spell- I'm really happy I got the bug to really cap all the windows inside this fall, I think it really made a difference heating-wise during this cold snowy spell.
Well then.. today we hit an almost record breaking high of 60. All the snow is melted off except for the big plough pileups here and there. Springtime warm with a lot of fog off the remaining snowdrifts. Fine day to finally get out south and hit the craft stores.
Tonight we are under a winter storm watch.. cold front moving in leaving us with an inch or two of white.

I'm glad I got out today while I did. I got some excellent deals at the craft stores today. A 45 dollar Lemax jeweler for only 8 bucks. And a stack of organizers on sale. Some at Michaels at 50% sale+25% off total purchase coupon. And a couple of 30% ones at Jo-anns- had a 5 bucks off total purchase too for there. I'm accumulating enough little bits to make minis and minis building up to need some more reasonable storage for it all, lol.
Been working on some projects- I got a set of large market boxes done, and drafted up and made a new small market box set. A four set of ploughmans boards. Working on a half dozen fish and chips, and a bunch of bits to pull together into brown paper bag lunches.

Making a jewelers display counter. Because while I was making that, was thinking about what to display naturally.. and started checking around online more for inspiration than anything else. Holy fuck. If I thought mini food and some other minis stupidly expensive and I got skill enough to suit myself... mini jewelry is just insane. Relearned how to use a regular wire jig to downscale to make tiny jewelry. And had the dickens of a time finding flocked paper today to make mini displays with. Found some small sheets of flat black only. Found a couple sheets of an odd pressed white stuff on clearance that might work nice too. Everything else is flats/matts and glitters right now.

I've been taking a bunch of pics and notes of stuff while making things recently. More to keep track of what I'm doing while building than anything else. Might post up some tutorials for future reference soon..