This morning I had done all my chores and sat down to start stitching and decided to run upstairs and make sure all the jars were clean for our milk delivery tomorrow. We get 2-1/2 gallons of milk per week and we generally have to start conserving towards the end of the week to keep from running out but somehow, this week, we had over a gallon left. That is what started the entire morning in the kitchen.
The Milk:
I poured off the cream from the last gallon, and ended up with a bit more than three quarts of milk so I canned the three quarts and saved the rest for us to drink tonight.
The USDA says milk is NOT safe to can so . . before you ask, and definitely before you try it, read everything you can and decide if it’s something you feel is safe to do. Here’s a website that talks about the potential problems and gives some instructions.
The Potatoes:
I think I have been canning potatoes for six months! No, but it probably has been four weeks! I put down a plastic shower curtain liner, then a couple of towels and spread the potatoes out there. I can 10 pints a couple of days in a row, then I say “I’ll use what I can and toss the rest when they go bad” but, the reality is . . I can’t let anything go bad. Today I canned 5 pints in the electric canner upstairs and 5 pints in the electric canner downstairs. Since they all go downstairs, I didn’t bring the 5 from downstairs up to be photographed so you have to trust me that there are 5 more pints downstairs.
Once I got the potatoes in the canners, I looked at the pile of potatoes left and decided to peel, cut, blanch and freeze dry more of them so I did that and got the freeze dryer going.
Fermented Honey Garlic:
if you’ve never made it or never heard of fermented honey garlic, this site has some good info. There’s a lot of info on the internet about it.
Mac & Beef Casserole:
I don’t really like this recipe but Vince loves it so I made it. Since it makes a lot and I don’t want to eat it for days, I divided it up into four containers, each enough for us to have and then have leftovers, froze it and will vacuum seal it once it’s frozen solid. It’s macaroni, beef, canned tomato soup, canned mushroom soup, chopped onions and garlic . . and that’s about it. I add two small cans of diced green chiles and, of course, Cajun Redhead seasoning. I also put pepper jack cheese on top just before it’s done.
The Pretzels:
I never say or type the word “pretzel” that I don’t smile thinking that when Chad was small, he called them “prantzels”. The Dot’s Pretzels arrived yesterday and we did buy the Club Pretzels at Aldi. The only flavor our Aldi had was garlic/green onion. They’re good but for my tastes, I don’t think they compare to the Southwest Seasoned Dot’s pretzels.
The bags I ordered are 32 oz. each. I don’t want them to go bad so I divided up the one bag I opened (southwest seasoned of course), filled five quart jars but I vacuum sealed four of them to keep them fresh.
Here it is after 6:30 p.m., and I’m just getting started stitching. All the other things were important too!