Canned Organic Chicken Stock

We normally save the bones from organic chicken that we've eaten and freeze them until I'm ready to make soup or stock.  But this time the freezer was full and it wasn't really soup weather, so I canned most of the stock using this recipe, mostly.  I did my bone broth as usual - lots of chicken bones with bay leaves, a little salt and pepper and 1 T apple cider vinegar per quart of water added.  I had so many chicken bones that I put them all in my new 16 quart stock pot.  It was the perfect size.  After simmering for 24 hours, we strained out the bones (which we bury in the heart of the compost pile to add phosphorus and calcium to the compost.)  The saved stock, I reboiled and canned as directed.  I had originally added 10 quarts of water, but this boiled down a bit.  In the end I had 7 quarts canned plus about 1-2 quarts that I made into a quick lentil soup.

Canned 3 Exhausting Batches of Black Beans

In one day, I canned 3 batches of black beans using the quick soak method.  Given my schedule with school drop offs and pick ups, it was way too much since I can't leave the canner unattended.  I was good about rim wiping and tightening bands - in fact, too good about the latter.  While I had zero lid failures, one jar did break in the pressure canner.  Note to self: not THAT tight.

Canning Garbanzo Beans

I've canned a variety of things in my life and been meaning to try canning beans.  I was recently motivated to buy a bulk order of 25 pound bags of beans to reduce the likelihood of contamination when the big bags were broken down into smaller salable units.  I got a bag each of black beans, great northern beans, and garbanzo.  Now, having 75 pounds of dry beans, I figured it was time to can them!

I followed the direction on National Center for Home Food Preservation Website.  I'd also read a number of critiques of this recipe, so I was aware of some issues to tweak.  Specifically, the recipe doesn't clearly state how many beans to add relative to water to each jar, just saying to fill the jars with beans and liquid.  Not good, as many a canner has canned bean mush blocks by overfilling with beans.  Some people suggested only half full with beans and the rest with liquid.  Others suggested slightly different amounts.  Here is what I did.  In terms of consistency, it turned out great, so I want to reproduce it.

The recipe says that 5 pounds of beans will do 7 quarts of canned beans.  So not true!  But 5 pounds of garbanzo beans is the amount I boiled for 2 minutes and then let them soak for 6 hours.  (I was going for the quick soak method, but then got delayed longer than expected in getting back to them.)  I had to add more water a few times and there was no room to move in my 8 quart stock pot, so I knew I was in trouble.

I drained the water, rinsed, put in new water and boiled the beans for another 30 minutes, as instructed.  When the beans were done, they looked about the size of properly rehydrated cooked beans but probably not 100%.  In each quart jar, I put in 1/2 tsp of sea salt.  7 quarts I filled 2/3 full of beans and the rest with water from both the cooking liquid and from a separate pan of hot water that I had ready.  7 quarts is 1 canner load, so while those processed the required 90 minutes at a minimum of 11 pounds of pressure, I put the other beans into 5 quart jars.  They ended up about half full, which seemed like a good experiment.  I topped them off with cooking liquid and hot water as well.  But some of these were intense on the cooking liquid and others on the hot water.

When the first load was done, I turned off the heat and let it cool in the canner for about an hour (about 30 minutes would have done it, but life intervened).  I pulled those out, added more water to the canner and put in the next load.

Some of the rings on the first batch were VERY loose, so I retightened them to loosely finger tight.

When the second load had processed for 90 minutes, I had DH lift that hot and heavy pot off the burner and we left it overnight to cool.  (I wasn't going to wait up for it to depressurize enough for me to take the jars out.)

The results:
Load 1) 7 quarts filled 2/3 full resulted in about a perfect fill level at the end of processing.  1 of 7 seals didn't take.  I don't know why exactly.  That one is in the fridge.
Load 2) 5 quarts filled 1/2 full resulted in under-filled jars with more liquid than necessary.  2 of 5 jars didn't seal.  I believe this is because I didn't tighten the bands while the jars were still hot (remember, I went to bed).

Visually shuffling around the beans, I believe that 5 pounds of these garbanzos made about 11 properly-filled quarts of beans.  Next time, I'd estimate a proper canner load of 7 quarts would start with about 3.25 pounds of beans, or slightly less if I want to be 100% sure that I don't have too many.  If, like this time, the beans are well soaked and nearly full size, I'd go with the jars being 2/3 full of beans.  I liked the 1/2 tsp sea salt.  Also, either screw those lids on SUPER tight at the beginning, or plan on being there to take them out of the canner to retighten the lids when they come out of the canner still hot.

And a note on the water - the jars that were heavy on cooking liquid and light on the added water (the ones from the bottom of the pot of prepared beans) ended up with dark cooking liquid that wasn't pretty in the finished jars and mild (not not offensive as I've seen in some store-bought beans) bean sludge at the bottom.  Next time, I'd go light on the cooking liquid in each jar and lean toward using more fresh water on those last few jars.

So, of my 75 pounds, I've canned 5 and a friend took 1 pound.  I have a mere 69 pounds more to deal with!

Slow Down!

As a person who multitasks yet constantly feels like I'm being spit off the back of the treadmill of life, I found this article really interesting.  I try to simplify, yet I also find myself doing things that complicate.  Blogging, for example.  Web surfing.  Various garden projects.  Isn't it just easier to buy stuff at the store?  Faster.  Wait - that's the point.  A lot of my projects (which can be overwhelming in their number and scope, especially for my life phase, as I mother little ones) are simplification projects.  Growing food is a slow process, a labor of love, a developing oneness with the food.  And yet it is also watering, weeding, planting, composting -- translation -- time.  It is slow.  Yet it is also a time sink.  One in the same, I suppose.  There is this tension between wanting to get things done so you have time to move on to the things you want to do vs. just slowing everything down and enjoying the process.  Being mindful. 

Where do I waste time?  Web-surfing, email, reading news.  But is it such a waste?

We don't really watch TV, so the time isn't being sunk there. 

This article points to agreement about increased speed of life now.  We get places faster (cars, airplanes) and get information faster (internet, phones), so why aren't we overwhelmed with leisure time?  Doesn't that sound nice?  Being overwhelmed with leisure time.  Yet I don't know anyone who feels that way.  Why not?  Longer hours at work?  Greater expectations for ourselves and our families?  More scheduled activities for kids?  Multi-generational care across suburban (and global) sprawl?

Some of the ways we try to simplify in our home are:
- almost no TV
- minimal cell phone use (so we aren't getting calls everywhere we go)
- growing some of our food
- preserving some of our food (but again, is this just complicating things?  It would be faster to buy a jar of applesauce than make it.  But I guess that's the point - SLOW DOWN!)
- I don't like to run errands all the time, so I postpone trips like going to the grocery store (in the article he discusses the merits of skipping a bookstore trip that he doesn't really have time for anyway).  But this ends up with less frequent trips.  The ones I do make are time-consuming and feel like a marathon!
- intentional reduction in consumption.  Freecycle and Craig's List are not only cheaper, but also greener - by reusing stuff.  They are more of a process - than the quick accomplishment of just buying something new.  So does searching for a pressure canner for a year on Freecycle, Craig's List, garage & estate sales, and thrift shops count as "slowing down"?  Or is it just a complication and I should have just bought a new one and got it over with?

I'm afraid that I'm a long way off from having the answers.  I'm open to suggestions.  How do you simplify your life?

Finally got a canner!

I finally found a used canner!  On Thursday I went to an  estate sale and found a stainless steel stock pot that didn't list the size on the bottom but looked larger than my largest (8 qt) stock pot.  I bought it for $3.75.  When I got it home it indeed is taller than my other stock pot.  I measured the volume at 12 quarts!  Yippee!  It seems tall enough that I'd be able to do more than the pints that I can fit in my stock pot.  Then...  while surfing on Craig's List I found someone local selling a canner and canning jars.  After emailing back and forth with a young woman, I went to look at it on Saturday.  I thought I was going for a pressure canner, so I was beside myself with excitement!  When I got there, I discovered that the woman was selling her mom's boiling water bath canner (for a cut of the price) and didn't know a BWB from a pressure canner.  I was disappointed, but since I didn't have an big canner with rack and such, I bought the BWB canner (fits 7 quart jars at a time) plus 101 jars (mostly quarts), some lids, some accessories for $75.  It wasn't the screaming deal I was hoping for but it's decent.  Around here those jars would be $1-$1.50 each in the thrift shop, so not bad.  It is good that I got more jars, because I just used the last of mine for storing various gluten-free flours in.  I'd still been using these large canisters back from my gluten-days but it just didn't make sense.  Instead of 1-3 types of flour, now I use about 9, so the smaller containers make more sense.  Anyway, now I'm set for quarts!

And I figure I'll use that 12 quart stock pot for some of the canning cooking (like big batches of applesauce), then process the jars in the BWB canner.  Now I just need a bigger kitchen to hold all the big pots!

Garden Update April 2010

I started seeds MONTHS ago so that I'd be ready to go early to plant them.  And here it is the end of April.  Just this weekend, I finally put 7 basil plants in the ground, 3 patty pan squash, and 5 shallots.  The best laid plans...  Anyway, it was good to finally get them in.  And I planted them with some gorgeous compost that we'd sifted a couple weekends ago.  We used the coarser woody chunks as mulch on the yard to suppress weeds.  The fine compost I put in a trash can to store until I needed it in the garden.  In addition to a healthy crop of pill bugs and ear wigs, I couple squash-like plants sprouted in the trash can.  So I planted those in the garden today too and labeled them "mystery".  DS, who loves flowers, was pleased that we were able to plant about 7 marigolds that were already blooming after starting them from seed.

I gotta hand it to our citrus trees.  Today I picked the last orange tree clean.  They've been feeding us steadily since early December.  I've harvested over 216 pounds of mandarins, tangelos and navel oranges!  That's a lot of produce.

I've been keeping my "garden finance log" with the expenses and yields of the garden, starting in Nov 2009 with a large seed order.  To date, my garden expenses (which excludes water - hard to quantify - and labor) are $132.21 and my yield is $449.41.

We picked more of our carrots today, which is such a great crop for kids.  It is so fun to see what comes up out of the ground!

Rummage Sale Score

Do you have the garage sale bug?  I must confess that I do.  I was particularly excited to see a multi-family sale and a girl scout rummage sale very nearby.  So today I went out looking for a pressure canner, canning jars and a tag-a-long bike. 

I found none of these.  But, as is the way with rummage sales, I found other things to spend my money on.  Since DH doesn't share the garage sale bug, and thus his reaction leaves something to be desired, I gotta tell you about my finds.
- got a basketball hoop for DS for his b-day for $3
- a cute, two piece outfit in great condition for DD for $1
- a silicone mini-muffin baking pan in heart shapes for 50 cents
- a new Topsy Turvy Tomato thingy for $2.  (I kept eying those in the stores and catalogs but couldn't bring myself to buy one retail.)
- a bunch of kids books, including hardbacks that look brand-spanking new for 50 cents each
- and here is the real score - hundreds (literally) of packages of various crafting supplies for about 7.5 cents a piece.  I spent $20 total on that.  I'm going to be selling at a swap meet tomorrow (for other reasons) and have repackaged and crafted with some of the items already to resell.  Some necklaces, pins for jewelry, fridge magnets.  I needed a way to display them.  After killing the black widow spider that had taken up residence on an old cork board in the garage, and dispatching the egg sac as well, I brought the board inside.  Using a stapler and a large piece of black cloth that I'd recently received via Freecycle, I covered the cork board to look more professional.  I made up little signs for the display items and attached them to the board in little baggies with push pins.  To attach the un-bagged magnets, my husband dug some wire mesh out of the garage.  I cut a piece with tin snips, covered the sharp edges with black electric tape, and attached that to the board with push pins.  The magnets hold onto it so well!  In all, I think I made about 100 items to sell on that board.  If I sell even 20 of them, I'll make my money back plus have 90% of the crafting supplies left.  Cool!
Wish me luck tomorrow.  Hopefully I'll make some money at the swap meet AND find a pressure canner, canning jars, and tag-a-long bike.