Homemaking for Dummies

Grapejuice from Scratch

2011-07-07T16:33:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately I did not take the time to take any pictures for this one. I also would not recommend this if you have to go buy grapes. Definitely if you grow grapes and just have too many to deal with. So here goes:

I borrowed a super juicer machine and ran all my grapes through it. Many of them with the vine and all since the grapes were so little it was tricky to get them all off. Doing this adds more nutrients due to the "greens", but also can make it a little more bitter. After I juiced all the grapes (5 walmart bags full), I had to let it sit over night in the refrigerator. (if you are in a hurry, you can strain it through cheesecloth and skip this part) I had a gallon and a half of liquid. Mind you, what came out of the juicer looked a little like thick pea soup. (I used green grapes) After sitting over night, it had separated into three parts. The top had a foam on it, the middle was the good stuff and the bottom was the guck that settled. Spoon off the foam and pour the good stuff into a pot for boiling. Discard the guck. Now boil the good stuff for about 15 minutes. I added about a cup and a half of sugar to the juice. I still had foam being made and just kept spooning it off. Once you are done boiling, ladle into clean jars. Because it's boiling, you shouldn't need to process in a water bath, but you can if it makes you feel better. This is a juice concentrate. I was able to fill 3 quart jars and one pint with what I had made. Depending on how strong you like your juice will determine how much to water it down. I used a little less than 1:1. (less water) It mostly tasted like apple juice and my kids loved it.

As for "is it worth my time"... I would say if you have grapes just going to waste, yes. To go buy them, no.

Re-Canning

2010-10-19T16:14:00.001-07:00

I have been courageously testing out re-canning. I bought some #10 cans quite cheap at a scratch and dent store we affectionately call the "second hand food store". I wasn't worried about recanning the fruit, but the chili I was a little nervous about. The worst part is the conflicting info you find on the Internet. Of course, the FDA isn't going to spend much time on this matter and what they do ever put out is in CYA form. (cover your ***) So, the only info I have are people's opinions and they vary greatly. It seems like you should be able to transfer the chili into clean jars and waterbath to seal them. BUT, some seem to think you have to totally reprocess them in a pressure cooker and some said it's just plain dangerous - don't do it!!

I went with the safe route and reprocessed it for an hour. I even voluntarily ate the first jar to see if I would get sick. Nothing yet! Now, it hasn't sat on my shelf for months either. We will have to see how it goes. I don't want to give anyone my advice because that's just setting myself up, now isn't it?

I did find that it saved me some $ to recan the fruits into smaller jars. I have decided to designate those particular jars for recanning fruits, not for long term storage. It's a little work, but not bad. I have apples and potatoes coming next week!!

Pectin-Free Jam

2010-09-22T12:11:00.001-07:00

I wanted to find a cheaper way to do jam and also to not have to use my freezer. I found a recipe that does NOT use pectin. Most fruit has natural pectin so your jam doesn't really need it. Also, if times were rough, we wouldn't necessarily be able to jaunt down to the local Wal Mart and pick up a box or two. I have used both peaches and strawberries, very yummy and per my standard, quick and easy.

For each pound of fruit, use 1 cup sugar and 1 Tbsp lemon juice.

I used two lbs of peaches which filled two pint jars.

For peaches, remove skin. Whether you blanch and peel or just peel, it mattereth not. Once peaches are peeled, chop into small pieces. I use my $3 chopper I got at Wal Mart. Any kind of food processor would do as does the good old fashion knife and cutting board. Before you start, put a glass plate in the freezer for later.

Once peaches are cut, put into a sauce pan, add sugar and lemon juice, stir and bring to a boil. Let it continue to boil until it thickens.

As it boils, foam will begin to appear. Spoon off and discard. Stir constantly to keep from burning on the bottom. Once foam has mostly stopped forming and the consistancy is starting to look like jam, pull out the glass plate and put a dab of jam on it. Tip the plate and watch how fast it runs. If it runs quickly, it needs to cook longer. It should slide down somewhat slowly.

Jam will thicken even more once it sits for awhile. Once you have a "slow slide", ladle jam into clean jars. Wipe rims well with hot rag and top with lids and rings. Process jars in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes.

While cooling, wait for the "pop" and now you're good to go. Remove rings, wipe down with a rag and store on shelf for at least two years.

Homemade Bread

2010-09-22T11:46:00.000-07:00

I wrestled with bread for many years. I finally made friends with yeast. First, let me just say: I'm not a bread professional! I have, however, figured out how to make a fairly tasty loaf of bread. I changed a few of the things I was doing at the same time so I'm not sure which was most effective but I'll clue you in. Use good yeast. Not the little packets that come attached in sets of three. Buy SAF instant yeast, it really is better. Second, use a thermometer to test the temperature of the water, 115 is hotter than you think. So here goes, easy and quick, but oh-so yummy bread.

This recipe makes three loaves, which is about all my mixer and oven can hold at one time anyway. Start with 3 cups of hot water (about 115 degrees) Put half cup sugar in a bowl with hot water, dissolving the sugar. Add 3 Tbsp of yeast, stir gently until yeast is moist and wait.

This is what it looks like at first, after several minutes, it will look like little explosions in your bowl, making a foam like below.

Once you have a good foam (5 - 6 min), Mix in half a cup of oil and about a tbps of salt. As your mixer is going, begin adding the 9 cups of flour. Continue to mix it until the sides of the bowl are clean. If it's sticking to the sides, you need more flour, if it won't stay in a ball, a little more water. Mix for about 5 - 8 minutes.

Now that your sides are clean and it's soft to the touch, but doesn't stick to your fingers, dump it onto a floured surface and divide into three balls. I weigh mine to try and make sure the loaves are equal, but that's not necessary. Once they are divided, knead them into loaves. I kind of stink at this part, but get them as smooth and pretty as you can.

Put them into greased (Pam) bread pans and cover. Let rise until about doubled. (30 - 40 min) A warm humid place is best, like my garage.

Once they are doubled, bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes. I start at 25 and sometimes add a few more, but lots of times when I just went for 30 they were a little dark. Make sure you given them plenty of room to continue rising in the oven. I had wire rack marks across the top of some loaves one day!

When done, they should slide right out of the bread pans and on to a wire rack. Take a stick of butter and rub around the top of each loaf. Let cool almost completely before slicing. The inside continues to cook while cooling. When I slice mine, I keep all the "ends" and put them in a Ziploc baggie for my kids to eat after school. This is the only crust they are willing to eat and they love it!

Homemade Bread (3 loaves)

1/2 cup sugar

3 cups hot water

3 Tbsp yeast

1 Tbsp salt

1/2 cup oil

9 cups flour (apprx)

bake 25 min at 350

Too busy to be domestic

2009-11-19T14:42:00.000-08:00

Catching up on blogging, much needed. I have been way too busy to be domestic lately. CouponSense has kept me very busy this time of year, not to mention running and trying to make it to all my kids activities. I have a whole list of projects just calling my name. Coming soon, the cinnamon rolls from a while ago and how to clean your plants without a rag.

Pies from Pumpkins

2009-10-25T20:49:00.000-07:00

We had acquired several "pie" pumpkins while we were back in Illinois these past few weeks. I decided to try my hand at making pumpkin pie from actual pumpkins. First, I didn't realize these smaller pumpkins were specifically for making pies. They are sweeter and less grainy than carving pumpkins. You can use carving pumpkins, but you have to add more sugar. Learn something new every day.

To start, I rinsed off the marker my kids used to decorate them then cut them in half, placed them face down on a cookie sheet and baked them at 350 for about 45 minutes.

When they were soft, kind of like a cooked potato, I scooped out the stringy stuff and seeds and put them aside. I went through them later to pull out seeds for planting more next season. After that, I took a spoon and ran it around the shell, separating the "meat" from the shell. It comes off pretty easily.

Once all the pumpkins were emptied, I used my KitchenAid and put it on the whisk for about 15 minutes. I had to keep the speed pretty low or it would splash. There are more sophisticated ways of doing this, but I don' have a sieve or food processor, so I settled for good old fashioned mixer.

Once it was pretty well pureed, I took out the whisk and there was a bunch of glop stuck to it. At first, I tried to pull it off to use it, but then realized, it was all stringy and hard. It turned out to be a good thing that the mixer caught all that and kept it separate, so I just threw it away. the rest was mostly smooth and ready to make into pumpkin pie filling. This is the recipe I used, there are MANY out there to choose from, but I chose this one and was happy with the outcome:

3 eggs

1 1/2 cup pumpkin

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 tsp. nutmeg

1 tsp. ginger

1 tsp. cinnamon

1 cup milk

2 tsp. melted butter

1 Tbsp. flour

In a clean empty bowl, beat eggs well. Add pumpkin, sugars, and spices, mix. Add milk, mix. Add the flour and the melted butter, mix well.

It was very runny when I was done mixing it and that's OK. I will advise that if your pumpkin puree had any water that you could pour off, do. My pie was a little wet in the end.

I chose to not make my own pie crust so I rolled out my refrigerated one and emptied my filling into it. Cover the edges with foil so they don't burn and you are ready for the oven. Bake at 450 for the first 15 minutes, then lower to 350 for another 45 - 60 minutes. A knife inserted should come out clean. I baked mine closer to the hour.

Voila! Pie from scratch. What I did find is that the next day, it had settle more and wasn't "wet" at all. Even though it was "wet" the first day, it was still good, just a different texture. It was really good and what you would expect a pumpkin pie to be the next day. My four small pumpkins made enough for 3 pies. They were really small so I'm guessing an average pie pumpkin would make 2 pies.

I don't think I would normally do this, but I was glad that I did and that now I know how. I'm sure on those Thanksgiving's of old, a pumpkin pie was a real treat!

Applesauce - Not Worth My Time

2009-10-17T07:04:00.001-07:00

Making applesauce. Cranky. Won't do it again. Way too much effort for the product. My opinion only.

Canning Pork

2009-10-05T20:43:00.000-07:00

Canning meat is just about the easiest thing to do. No fuss, just a few minutes standing around cutting it up. This can be done with just about any meat except sea food, which is not recommended for canning. As always, start with clean jars and lids and the meat of your choice. Mine for now, is pork that was on sale.

This was a seven and a half pound chunk of pork and it filled 8 pint jars or 4 pints and 2 quarts. (I ran out of pints) Start by removing the visible fat. This is disgusting and a little bit of a chore. I'm a bit squeamish about touching raw meat, so I wear gloves. Having too much fat in your jars isn't good and can interfere with sealing.

After you have removed as much fat as possible, cut the meat into small chunks. They don't have to be really small, just small enough to fit into the jar and not leave big gaps between the meat inside the jar.

Place into jar leaving about an inch or so of space at the top. Do not add anything. I guess you can add seasonings, but no water. I choose not to season my meats before processing because I can always store things such as green chilis, bbq sauce, etc. separately. That way I'm not committed to a certain "type" of meat. My preference. After getting all the meat into the jars, wipe the rim of the jars well with a hot rag to remove any residue that may have been left from the meat. Put on lids and bands and put into pressure cooker filled with a couple of quarts of water.

Secure lid to cooker and wait till steam is coming out in a steady stream. Put cap on steam spout and wait for pressure to rise to at least 11 pounds, then start timing it. It's one hour 15 minutes if you are just using pints. If you have any quarts in it, you need to do one hour and 30 minutes. It ok if the pressure rises a little past that, just don't let it get below the 11 mark. You need to keep a watch on it during the processing time. Once it's done, remove from heat and let the pressure go down to zero. Do not remove the cap to the steam valve until then. Remove jars and let cool. See all the natural juices that show up!

Once your jars have cooled, remove bands and wipe around jar rims. For some reason, mine always boil out a little bit so there is juice in the water of the pressure cooker and under my bands. There is no need to replace the bands unless you just want to. Now listen for that beautiful sound of the "pop" telling you - well done! I like to do them in pints because it's absolutely delicious to use for BBQ pork sandwiches for lunch. It's about enough for 3 adult sandwiches. Don't forget to label and put an expiration date on it. I just use little sticky tab labels and I like to put when it expires, not when I made it. Saves me from having to think later. From everything I have read, processed meat lasts at least 2 years so that's when I put for the expiration date. There's no way it's making it in my pantry that long!

Coupons Organized

2009-10-01T10:02:00.000-07:00

Since I have started CouponSense, I have spent a lot of time trying to figure out the best way to make this work. I can't claim origination on this one, I'm a total copier. My problem was that they tell you to not clip your coupons, but file them away under a letter and they will tell you when it's best to use them. Ok, makes sense to me. Problem: I need batteries, I'm at the store, I know there is a coupon somewhere in my file box at home, just not sure where. Bought batteries with no coupon. Frustrating. Soooo, a friend tells me to cut all the coupons each week and file them in a binder.

Here's what I did. Got an old binder, filled it with trading card holders. Found some old dividers and some scrap cardstock. I used the dividers to divide into sections such as frozen, canned, snacks, cleaning, etc. I cut little squares of cardstock to fit in each pocket. This lets me use both sides of the pocket. It is a divider now as well.

I (my children) sat and cut all the coupons out of the papers I had. I sorted them, then put them in the pockets according to category. This was a long and not fun task. They don't all fit right and some could go into different categories, but I did my best. Now, every time I get new coupons, I just add them in. As I shop, I take this with me in case I need something that wasn't a "great deal", but I could still use a coupon for. I just flip through, find it and pull it out. I also keep a calculator in with it so I can figure out prices per ounce. I spent a pretty good amount of time at Wal Mart writing down their prices on things so I could compare the sales at other grocery stores with their prices. Sometimes Wal Mart has better prices than some other store's sales. I just need to type those all up and then I will stick those in my binder as well so I have an easy reference. With the pockets in the binder, I can just slip the calculator and the weekly adds into them and have a nice organized shopping companion.

I'm sure if I am shopping with my kids, this will not be as easy as it seems, but I'm trying now to fit my shopping in at different times when my kids are not with me. If I need to take them, I guess I just throw this into my backpack and carry it that way. I'm starting to see the rewards of the program, but not in full swing yet.

Gardening

2009-10-01T09:33:00.001-07:00

DISCLAIMER: We are not expert gardeners and have rarely gotten much from our gardens, BUT we have learned a few things along the way.

First, start by finding one of these...beg, borrow, steal....it's worth it. Ok, maybe not the steal part. Anyway, a tiller is a must have to save your back and hands from all the manual tilling. We borrow one every year. When I say "we", I mostly mean Glade because he does all of the hard work. He tills it up, pulling all the roots and dead stuff out as he goes.

Then he adds a few bags of fertilizer/mulch. We were told that our ground is fertile enough that we didn't need it, but we weren't getting much fruit, just a lot of plants. A bag of Miracle Grow sort of spilled onto one of our tomato plants and it did great. Now we just use it because it really does make a difference. Any kind will do, it needs to have nitrogen in it.

I should have taken pictures along the way, but it was too hot and dirty to think about much else other than "let's get this done". Glade made our rows with a hoe in line with our automatic sprinkler system. By the way, I would never have a garden without a sprinkler system. It was really easy to put together and we just tapped it off our existing system with pvc.

We have started planting on top of the rows instead of down in the trenches. This makes it easier to keep weeded. You can just hoe out the trenches and pluck what grows on the top. Still not good at that weeding thing, totally stinks to do it. We started by laying a seed down on top of the mound and then poking it down with our fingers. Not good on my nails and it was hard to always remember exactly where you put the last one. About half way through, Glade started "furrowing" the top of the mound for me and I would just drop seeds in. Bo followed me covering up the seeds. Easy and fast! The picture below shows the "furrow". Basically just dragging your hand down the middle of the raised mound creating a crevice. Then you just pull the dirt back together once the seeds are in.

After all the seeds were planted, we turned on the water to make sure all the trenches would fill. Glade had to make little adjustments with the hoe to allow water to flow in all the areas, but it soon was and the water soaked right into the berms. Now we wait and pray. Don't the scriptures say to pray over your fields and flocks???

We always have issues with grass crawling in, so this year Glade made a pretty good drop off from the grass to the garden and then we sprayed it with grass killer all along the edge of the dirt.

Hopefully in just a couple of months we will have corn, tomatoes, snap peas, broccoli, carrots, lettuce and cucumbers. We planted more of the stuff I can "can" than of others. This isn't really the right season to get much to can. I'm hoping we get good cucumbers so I can learn to make pickles. I will be picking Grams brain when I get back there. We also stopped planting things we didn't really like just because it was the season to plant it. I know...duh.

Canning Pineapples and Peaches

2009-10-01T09:06:00.000-07:00

Pineapples went on sale for $1 each so I decided I would try to can some. I'm pretty sure it isn't really that cost effective and I'm really sure that I'm never going to just have an abundance of pineapple that I need to do something with, but I still wanted to try. One pineapple fills a quart jar or two pints. These were fairly small ones.

I started by cutting them up, which is always a chore. Man they were good. Maybe they would have filled more jars if I hadn't kept taking pieces for myself! Anyway, I just cut them into little pieces and put them into the jars.

I was also told that you don't have to peel peaches to can them. Part of the headache of doing peaches is the blanching and the pealing. I decided to just do a few jars the easy way and see how they turned out. So I just washed them, cut them and stuck them in a jar as well. I added about half a cup of sugar to each quart (less to the pints) and then filled with boiling water.

You need to use a rubber spatula to poke around and get any air bubbles that might be stuck down in there. I can never tell if I've done a good job at this and can never see a visible bubble, but I do it because "they" say you should. Next I wiped the rims well and put the lids on.

Next I water bathed them for 20 min. That is 20 min AFTER the water starts to boil. This part always confused me as to when to start the 20 min. I will be trying them soon to see how the flavor of the pineapples are and if the peaches are any good with the peel still on them. I was told the peel will fall right off when you take them out of the jar. We shall see!!

Sample Menu

2009-09-24T14:30:00.001-07:00

By request, here is a sample menu for our family. Mind you, we eat very simple things and are not very adventurous. You may need to click on it to be able to actually read it.

Here's what goes into planning my menu. Lately, I have been trying to build it around what's on sale that week. For instance, if hamburger is on sale, I will make meatloaf. If biscuits are on sale, that's what we have for Sunday breakfast. Speaking of which, when we don't have 8 o'clock church, I make a big breakfast on Sundays. Any other day, it's cereal, oatmeal or frozen waffles. I also like to plan what treat I will be serving for Family Home Evening (FHE). When I don't, we end up with standard cookies or some packaged snack they eat every day anyway. I also choose Monday to try new dishes or make something I know isn't the favorite. Kids eat better when dessert is on the line!

Saturdays I leave open for who knows what. Sometimes we may go out again or we might eat leftovers, it's just a "find it and fix it" day. Also, Sunday dinner is planned by a different family member each week so I can't really shop for that.

Wednesday's are busy as well, so it has to be something I can fix quickly and early so everyone can be out the door by 5. When I have something like Bunko or Enrichment, I like to plan something easy and that I don't really care for like grilled cheese so I can make it and not care if I eat it or not. I'm weak like that.

It really takes very little time compared to the stress free week it will provide for you. All things are movable and changeable if things don't work out like you planned, but what a sweet thing to look at a piece of paper, know what you are going to do, know what time you need to start doing it and then not give it another thought.

Throw it Away

2009-09-23T10:26:00.000-07:00

I'm not great at it, but I'm getting much better. I have a little bit of the "organize it" bug lately. What I find when this happens is that I have a lot of CRAP. I sort through things and think "why did I keep this" or "how old is this anyway". Just throw it away! Our garbage man came yesterday and my bin is already full. I honestly don't know what I was thinking when packing some of this stuff away. Good intentions are the culprit. I'm going to fix that or don't waste it or it's still usable. The reality is....fix it now, or get rid of it. You won't go back. Use it now, or get rid of it. If you are currently using it, get rid of it! Oh how refreshing to have clean and organized shelves and drawers. I won't miss a single thing out in my trash barrel. I just wish I hadn't kept it so long in the first place.

If you just can't bare to throw it away, give it to Good Will or DI. See if any friends or relatives could use it. If they all laugh at you or make a funny face....the garbage is probably the best place for it. I'm really not advocating being wasteful, but some things have a time and a season and then need to be disposed of. Before you toss it on the shelf, think to yourself...."Am I really coming back for this??" Out with the clutter!!!

Dinner Menu

2009-09-21T11:34:00.000-07:00

This seems old school, everyone knows that...kind of stuff, but it's totally life saving! Sometimes I forget how great it is to have a menu. I get busy and think I don't have time for that when in reality, I don't NOT have time for that. Sometimes I make a menu for a 5 week period and sometimes I just go by the week, planning around what's on sale that week. Either way is perfectly nice for me. When I do the longer term one, I let my kids pick some of their favorite meals and I fill in the rest. I made a list of everything I have ever fixed so I have something to go off of when I'm drawing a blank. It's very helpful.

I try to remember Sunday breakfast and Tuesday is always FFY (fend for yourself) since it's a busy night. I also try to get easy to make "convenience foods" for the weekend when we go out and they cook for themselves.

When I'm diligent at keeping a menu, my shopping is easier, and usually cheaper, then everyday, I just know what I'm fixing and know that I have everything I need to do it. Very few run to the store trips to pick up forgotten items. It's totally great for relieving that stress of "what's for dinner?". It's also helpful to cook the meat ahead of time and freeze it in individual baggies. Dinner comes around and you are making spaghetti, you pull the bag out of the freezer, cook in the microwave for 2 minutes and voila! No frying, greasy mess tonight. Same with chicken you will use in casseroles or mixed with other ingredients. Crock pot the whole bag or whatever.. of it, divide it up into bags and freeze. Comes out shredded and perfect for a casserole or haystacks etc. I just use a blank calendar like this one and fill it in as much or as little as I feel like. It's seems like a little bit of work, but totally worth it!

Apple Pie Filling

2009-09-21T09:43:00.001-07:00

This weekend I tried canning apple pie filling. Apples are cheap right now so I just bought them at the local grocery store. I have the opportunity to buy them in #38 boxes, but that is actually a little more expensive and it also requires me to "do" something with them quickly and in bulk. I prefer to do a batch at a time when it's convenient for me. Later this week, I may go buy more apples and do another batch. I don't get as overwhelmed and frustrated as when I try to do mass batches. Just a preference. This is the recipe I used.

5 1/2 cups sugar

1 1/2 cups cornstarch

1 T cinnamon

1 t nutmeg

2 1/2 cups cold water

5 cups apple juice

Cook and stir until mixture thickens. This makes enough filling for about eight quarts of apples. The processing time is 30 minutes boiling-bath.

I used my fabulous apple corer/peeler to do the apples. It went very quickly. I used just about 30 apples to fill 7 jars. My water bath holds 7 quart jars so that's what I plan for when I'm doing small batches. Two things I would do differently next time: I started the syrup boiling thinking it would take a while and then started peeling the apples. Definitely fill all the jars first. My syrup boiled and thickened so quickly, it was almost too thick to pour into the jars by the time I got the apples ready. I also needed to use a plastic knife to push the syrup all the way down to fill in the gaps. I found it better to actually layer the syrup and apples. Two sets of hands for this is best.

I would also change the recipe a smidgen to add more cinnamon and nutmeg. It smelled divine, but upon tasting, it was a little bland. In the future, I would use 2 T cinnamon and 3 tsp nutmeg.

Once they cooled I remove the rings and wiped all the gooey syrup away. This is something I just learned about. Now I know why my peach lids are so hard to get off. Some syrup will boil out and leave residue under your bands. This happens with most things you can, so always remove the rings and wipe down. You can replace them or leave them off, it matters not.

Salsa

2009-09-21T09:19:00.000-07:00

This is a repeat post from my other blog, but now I have more information. I have been obsessed with canning lately so that's what I have right now. Canning info. We had tons of tomatoes left after a dinner event so we decided to can salsa. We have a good recipe we like so we started with that. We filled the first 4 jars when I decided to look up how long I needed to water bath them. That's when I found out they needed extra lime juice to help with the acidity level. I had no idea. The next several batches, I just squeezed a lot of lime juice into each one hoping it was enough. I didn't do anything with the first four jars. We water bathed them and they all sealed. This was back in July. We have eaten several jars and they are delicious. However, I found 4 jars that have unsealed. In examining them, I could see white powdery stuff all in the bottom. I dumped them out and they smelled awful! I'm guessing they fermented and that caused the seal to break. Not good at all! So, bottom line....if you can your own recipe, add lots of lime juice!

Not sure what caused the jar to break, but one did while in the water bath.

Our first successful attempt at canning salsa.

So easy, everyone was able to help.