Canning Jars--When They're Empty

I think we probably all know what to do with our canning jars when they are full:  line them up on shelves and admire our handiwork.  :0)

But what about after we've eaten the contents of the jars?  Then what do we do with them?

Here is what I do with them.

First, they get washed with the dishes that night.  Then they air dry upside down in the dish drainer until the next day.  After that, they get put into this handy dandy tote I got years ago.

The tote lives in the cabinet next to my dishwasher, and I add jars to it until it is full.  It holds about 10 pint or 8 quart jars or a combination thereof.  When it is full, I carry it down to the cellar, where both full and empty jars are stored, and empty it out.  Usually while I'm down there emptying, I do a little cellar shopping and fill the tote back up with jars of food to take to the pantry in the kitchen.  I try to keep a couple week's worth of canned goods on hand in the pantry, with the rest staying down in the cellar.

Once the empty jars are to the cellar, they go in a couple of places.  The gallon and half-gallon (which don't fit in the tote, but occasionally get used and so are included) go up on the top shelf.  They are for things like pickled eggs and sun tea and anything else that requires a really large jar.

The other sizes go into labeled storage containers based on size and type.  My storage bins are all Rubbermaid 18 gallon totes that I have collected through the years (on sale, of course).

Ugh, albino cellar spider got in the picture!

On the other hand, let's turn this into a learning experience:

  "Look!  A perfect example of the lack of pigmentation in subterranean species!"

Once those are full, usually toward mid-winter, I have to start putting my empty jars on the cellar shelves themselves.  I try to keep them grouped by size and mouth-opening (wide versus regular) in whatever areas we have all ready used up most of the full jars.

I'd love to keep all like jars together in containers to help keep them clean, but, alas, the stores around me no longer carry my preferred brand (Rubbermaid) and I'm not about to buy the brand they do offer.  I tried that brand a while back and found their bins to be more brittle and not last nearly as long. My Rubbermaid bins are all 12-20 years old and still going strong.  So, until I come up with a better solution, empty jars go into their assigned storage bins, and once the bins are full, the empty jars go on the shelves.

Mystery Meat

One of the hazards of having home raised meat (versus meat bought at the store) is that now and then we end up with a package that is unlabeled.  Mystery Meat.

Most times we can make an educated guess what is under the white wrapper (aka freezer paper) based on what portion of the freezer the mystery package was located in.  Or, if worse comes to worse, we can always unwrap it and take a peek.

However, once in a while, we get a package that is unlabeled and I have no idea what it is!  Such is the case with the meat I am cooking today.

Today's mystery meat came to me a while back (okay, over a year ago.  Mystery meat is scary stuff) as part of a couple of boxes of meat that Mother-in-Law had sent home with DH's sister who lives not far from us. Sister was to bring the boxes of meat to us (she also had her own two boxes of meat to keep).  So, by the time the boxes arrived at my house, via DH going to his sister's place to pick them up--and getting a brief overview from her of what their mother had sent--the large roast-looking thing half out of it's unmarked freezer paper was truly a mystery.  DH had no clue what cut it was.  His sister could shed no light on it's identity either.  What I had in front of me was a frozen hunk of something. . . about six pounds worth, with at least one bone in it (a rib, I think), some fat on the edges, and the flesh was kind of reddish.  Most of the meat in the boxes Mother-in-Law had sent were pork from the pig she had taken to the butcher the week before.  But there were also a few packages of beef cuts too.

Hmm.  The meat looked rather red for pork. Yet it didn't seem quite the right shade for beef.  At the time, I rewrapped it with fresh freezer paper, wrote "Beef?  Pork?  Roast" on the package, and stuffed it into the chest freezer.

From time to time since that day, I have stumbled across it in the bottom recesses of the deep freeze.  Intimidated by it's lack of species identification, I have looked the other way and instead grabbed roasts that were clearly marked.

Until now.  Now I have come to a point where it is the only roast left in the freezer.  Gulp.  Time to face the mystery meat.  And, note to self, time to really push for DH to allow me to start raising our meat since his mother is no longer the reliable source she used to be.  Used to be we'd ask her to raise a pig for us, and she'd do it with us paying for feed and butchering.  Except for when she decides, half-way through the raising, that it somehow isn't fair to DH's siblings that we get a whole pig, so she divides one pig five ways.  Ugh.  Which creates a scarcity of meat in my freezer right about now.  Especially since DH's sisters don't want hocks and sausage, just chops and hams and bacon and roasts.

Anyway. . .

I allowed ye olde mystery meat to thaw in the fridge all weekend.  This morning, I unwrapped it, smelled it (yeah, like meat that has been in the deep freeze for over a year is really going to smell like fresh beef or fresh pork, sometimes I amaze myself), and attempted to put it into my six quart crock pot.

No go.  The darn bones (I have determined there is more than one, it might be some sort of rib roast??  I think I might even see some split vertebrae) are too long to fit into even my big crock pot.  Well shoot.

Plan B.  I got out the covered enamel roaster I usually use for chickens, and stuck it in that instead.  Tossed some of my fail safe meat seasonings on it (namely Lawry's, pepper, onion powder and garlic powder), poured in a cup of water to keep the mystery meat from sticking to the roaster, put the lid on, and stuffed it in the oven on 325 degrees.  For a long time.

Well, for an afternoon.  Nearly four hours so far.  Whatever it is (I think a pork shoulder cut at the spine and then in half??), it is going to end up as shredded/pulled meat at dinner time.  I just have to decide now whether to go with barbecue sauce on it, or if I want to spice it up Mexican with chili powder and cumin, or if I want to go with pasta and tomato sauce to try to make it Italian.

Because if it truly is a giant hunk of pork, I'm going to require some strong flavors to mask the porkiness.  I typically prefer my pork smoked, as in ham or bacon or hocks rather than as a roast.  Or in thinner cuts I can grill or shake-n-bake (homemade seasoning, of course) like chops and steaks.

But at least the mystery meat will be dealt with.  It will get eaten, and no longer lurk menacingly in my freezer.

Challenge #5: Go Outside!!

Here's your challenge for this weekend/this coming week:

Go Outside!

Truly, no matter how wet, snowy, cold, etc your weather is, put on some clothes appropriate for conditions, and get yourself outside for at least half an hour.  Most people do not spend enough time outside any time of year, and especially in the winter.  Go outside.  The fresh air will do you good.  And half an hour is not going to kill you, even if your wind chills are twenty below zero, as long as you are dressed warmly.  That means hats, gloves, scarf over face, boots, heavy coat, and long johns under your jeans (if you don't have snow pants or other bibs for a second layer on top of jeans) for you northern people.

Now, what do you do outside for your half hour?  Well, maybe you just take a walk down the road--or on the sidewalks if you have them.  Or maybe you get silly and make a few snow angels in the yard.  Or maybe you just walk around and look at naked trees.

Really.  Look at those bare trees.  Up close, they are fascinating this time of year.  They aren't dead, they just have no leaves.  Look closely and you'll see the developing bud tips for this Spring's leaves and blossoms.  Look at the bark near the ends of the branches, and you might see a color difference from closer to the trunk.  That is new growth.

If you have equipment available to you, and ice or snow, take a snowmobile ride.  Or go skiing.  Or snow shoeing. Or sledding.  Or snowboarding.  Or ice skating.  Or even ice fishing!

If your snow is more wet than powdery, try making a snowman.  Or some snowballs.  Take someone outside with you and have a snowball fight.  Or a contest to see who can hit the most trees with snowballs (or the side of the house, just not the windows!).  Build a snow fort, or try your hand at igloo building.

Take your camera outside and practice a little amateur photography.  Just remember to keep the camera inside your coat (versus in your pocket) when you aren't actually aiming it at anything.  Your body heat will help keep those batteries warm.  Camera batteries (well, any battery, really) don't like cold and will die quicker the longer they are exposed to cold temperatures.

Winter is no season to avoid going outside. There are lots of enjoyable things to experience outdoors in the winter time. Get out there!

Adventures in Plowing

We got about six inches of new snow overnight and this morning.  Of course, it was accompanied by a north wind, so all that fluffy powder drifted really well.  So well that when I got home about one o'clock this afternoon, my driveway was pretty much drifted shut.  All nearly five hundred feet of it.

Being adventurous (which could also be a synonym for 'stupid' or 'naive'), when I was halfway through my turn into the driveway from the road, and I saw all those deep drifts in front of me, I sat down deep in my seat, took a good grip on the steering wheel, gritted my teeth with determination, and hit the gas!  I love me my four wheel drive trucks!

Bucking and sending snow flying all the way up the driveway, around the left loop and right to the front of the garage, I was gonna make it to my destination, or have a great story to tell about how the Suburban ended up in the hay field!  Putting it into park on the cement apron was almost anticlimactic.

Except that I knew I'd been darn lucky to not get stuck, and neither of my daughters, nor my DH would be able to make it up the driveway in their cars when they returned home today (DH usually drives a company car Monday through Friday).  Not with drifts that would come almost to their hoods.  So, therefore, it was up to me to plow the driveway.

More adventure!  Hooray!  I have to confess that while I regularly plow the driveway at the horse farm, I very rarely plow our driveway at this little place here.  That is something DH does.  So, while I have tons of experience plowing a driveway with the front end loader of a 4300 series John Deere tractor with lug tires, I have no experience plowing a curving 500 feet with the loader bucket and back blade of a John Deere 790 with industrial tires.

Hence the adventure.  My challenge:  get at least one loop of the driveway cleared all the way to the road, wide enough to get a car through, without getting the tractor stuck.

Well, I'd been out there about half an hour, and was only maybe 100 feet down the driveway, alternately scooping with the bucket and pushing with the back blade when I see this young man walking up the driveway, wading through drifts and coming toward me.  I'd noticed him and his plow truck pull into the neighbor's drive across the street about five minutes earlier.

Hmm, I thought, maybe this nice young man is coming to ask if I'd like him to plow out my driveway with his truck. Wouldn't that be nice!  Because by then I'd figured out that it was going to take me forever to get my driveway plowed with our dinky tractor and it's not-so-grippy tires.  The adventure wasn't looking so appealing any more.

But no, he wasn't coming to ask if I'd like to hire him to plow my driveway open.  Instead, he was coming to ask if I could help him.  It turns out that he'd slid a bit sideways in his truck with his last pass up the neighbor's driveway, and the back quarter of his truck was a mere inch from the back bumper of a truck that was parked diagonal near the end of the driveway.  His plow blade was in the snowbank he'd created, so there was no room to go forward and adjust position.  Backwards would result in his truck and the parked truck colliding, and neither paint job would be pretty after that.

So, could I please take my tractor across the street and give the back end of his truck a yank sideways?  Oh, and by the way, was I DS1's mom?  And had DS1 ever mentioned the name Such-and-Such?

Weeeelllll. . . Yes, I sure was willing to try to yank that truck out of it's predicament.  And yes, I am DS1's mom.  And yes, that name did sound vaguely familiar (although I couldn't remember if he was one of DS1's high school partners in crime, or one of the schoolmates that had antagonized DS1 all through high school--and blown up or otherwise wrecked 6 mailboxes belonging to me as well as spray painted nasty words on the road at the end of our driveway during DS1's school years. . .).

Long story short, I managed to blast my way out of the driveway with the tractor, Such-and-Such had a nice tow strap in his truck, he wrapped it around the frame of his truck where he wanted me to apply pressure, and I proceeded to yank the heck out of a plow truck until it was free.

Am I cool, or what?!?  Saving the bacon of a young man in his mid-twenties.  Yes, I am some kind of cool, even with a dinky tractor and gardening tires.

After that, I had to go back to my own driveway (Such-and-Such was plowing for his father and had other driveways to open up before their owners got home from work, but he did give me $20 for my help).  It took me another hour to accomplish, but I managed to get from the road, around the right hand loop, and all the parking area near the garage plowed.  Then I took pictures of my handiwork, and came in the house.  DH can get the left loop opened when he gets home.  I've got dinner to cook.

the right loop;

which is about 1/2 the length of what I plowed

teenager parking area plowed

(Suburban temporarily parked there so I could plow the cement apron to the garage)

lots of turning room at the garage area

Burger Veggie Soup

That's what I'm calling the recipe I made up last night.  I wanted to have soup for dinner, but hadn't done the prep work on Sunday evening for bean soup or chili (namely soaking the beans overnight since I don't buy canned beans, only dried ones).  We'd just had potato soup last week, so that was out.  All my chicken soup carcasses from butchering day--what was left of each chicken after I 'parted' it out into wings, breasts, leg quarters--were still frozen solid because I hadn't planned ahead.  (Can I say that doing Super Bowl food always throws me off for a day or two?)  Likewise I had nothing thawed for turkey soup.  Pea soup didn't sound all that great.  Venison stew was out too, unless I wanted to try to quickly thaw a pound of stew meat in the microwave; which I didn't.  I have a thing about the microwave. . . food just doesn't come out of there the same as it does thawed/cooked by other methods.  I really have my suspicions as to the nutritional value of anything microwaved.

What I wanted was something that was both quick, and hearty.  Something flavorful.  Something I could throw together with what I had readily available.  I looked through my food stores and brainstormed.

Quick meat: a pound of venison burger.  It can go from rock-hard frozen to browned meat in thirty minutes.

Soup base that didn't require boiling beans, or bones, for an hour or more: tomato juice.

Flavors and filler: assorted veggies.

And that is how Burger Veggie Soup was born.  It was easy, quick (for a from-scratch soup), delicious and filling.

If you would like to try it for yourself, here is the recipe (I confess, all measurements are approximate, I didn't measure with anything other than my eyeballs.)

Burger Veggie Soup

1 lb venison burger

1 medium onion, chopped

1 tsp Lawry's

1/2 tsp black pepper

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 qt tomato juice

1 qt canned tomatoes

3 medium potatoes, diced

2 large carrots, chopped

2 stalks celery, chopped

1/2 cup peas (frozen or fresh)

1/2 cup diced bell peppers

1/2 cup corn kernels (frozen or fresh)

In a 10" skillet, brown burger over medium heat with onion and garlic.  Add Lawry's and black pepper when burger is almost done.  Cook until browned.  Drain if desired or needed (usually I don't need to drain venison)

In soup pot (at least 6 qt), put browned meat mixture and all remaining ingredients.   Heat to boiling on high, then cover and lower heat.  Simmer at least 45 minutes, longer cooking time enhances flavor.

Serve with buttered bread, crackers, or croutons.

Oooooh, Sparkly!

This morning dawned way colder than expected.  Yesterday's forecast gave an overnight low in the single digits.  What I woke up to this morning was negative ten degrees!  Of course I didn't find this out until I was out the door and scraping frost off my windshield to go to the horse farm and get the morning feeding done.  I totally did not have my nose and mouth covered by my scarf, because I didn't even have my scarf on.  And I had left my fur hat in the house because, well, after last month's bitter cold mornings, single digit temps just seemed too warm for fur. So I had just worn my knitted hat.

While I was feeding, the sun rose in clear skies, and everything was crystalline in the bright light.

Beautiful. Sparkly.

I snapped some pictures once I returned home from feeding.  The feathery frost coating on the trees won't last long; the sun is warming things up pretty quickly.  Today's high temperature is supposed to be twenty degrees--so a thirty degree increase from sunrise to mid-day.

Stay Indoors, He Said

Today we had a moderate amount of snowfall.  This morning, when giving the day's forecast, the weatherman said that snow would be heavy at mid-day, and that people should just stay indoors.

DH and I looked at each other incredulously.  "Did he actually say 'stay indoors'?" DH asked with disbelief.  "Are people actually that afraid of snow?"

I shrugged, but confirmed that I, too, had heard the weatherman say that the outdoor conditions would be such that people should stay in their houses.

Needless to say, neither DH nor I heeded the weatherman's advice.  After a late breakfast (omelets with chorizo, ham, onions, peppers, mushrooms and cheese), he headed outside to see if he could get the 2-up snowmobile running.  Last week he'd gotten two new bogey wheels for it, but then discovered it was seized up from not being run at all last winter.  The snow picked up in intensity while DH was being snowmobile mechanic.

Within an hour, I heard the joyous sound of a snowmobile coming toward the house.  It lives!  The Bearcat lives!

DH on the Bearcat

Having the Bearcat back in working order meant that we could head out to the fence line to prune apple trees.  DH had tried last weekend to take the tractor over there, but it had nearly gotten stuck in the drifts in the field.  Time to switch from tractor transport to snowmobile.

And so we did.  Forget staying in the house just because a goodly amount of snow was falling from the sky (and, truth be told, driving in our faces if we faced the right direction).  There was stuff to be done outside.  Pruning trees is a mid to late winter activity, before the sap starts running again.

I bundled up in bibs, boots, coat, hat and gloves, and grabbed the loppers and the anvil pruners.  Then I hopped on the snowmobile behind DH, and he took me to the apple trees, going the long way.  From the garage, through the yard and the edge of the garden to what we call the South Road (which is just a path we keep mown from the garden to the woods), back into the woods, and out the other side, then down the north fence line stopping at each apple tree in turn.

View from the backseat of the Bearcat, heading into the woods on the South Road

We spent an hour or so trimming trees on the fenceline, me working the anvil pruners on the branches I could reach and DH using the loppers for the ones higher up.

Pruning a wild apple.

At one point, I lost my balance trying to move through the snowdrifts under the tree's canopy and did a slow-motion fall flat on my back.  Which made me laugh at the ridiculous feeling of knowing I'd tipped beyond the point of no return, yet it took so long to actually land on my back in the snow.  It was like I balanced on the edge of one heel for three or four seconds, knowing I was going over all the way, before actually completing my fall.  DH found it pretty funny too, especially when he stood offering his hand just out of my reach.

After pruning the trees on the north fenceline, we rode the snowmobile over to the orchard, where DH dropped me off to prune those fruit trees.  They are all much shorter than the ones in the fenceline, so I was able to prune them myself.

Once that task was complete, I went inside to work on dinner.  In light of the warm spell we're having--high near 30 degrees today!!--I had decided it would be a good day to grill the last package of hot dogs I'd discovered in the freezer.

Of course, with all the snow we've had since the year began, even being under the deck our grill had quite a bit of snow around it.

drifted in grill

 So I grabbed my knee boots before heading out to grill the hot dogs.

grillin' boots

I can't imagine how boring the day would have been had we obeyed the weatherman's warning and just stayed inside today.  Afterall, that snow is so unsafe.  And, cold.  How could anyone possibly be out in it for hours without causing harm and misery to themself?  How could they possibly have fun, or laugh, or accomplish anything?