Potatoes And Jam Finished

The potatoes have cooled and we have them in the jars now.  The raspberry jam are all sealed and have their labels now and ready to go into the cabinet.

 We are dehydrating strawberries and raspberries today.  Jacob said he could only find 2 bags of strawberries, but I think there are a lot buried in the bottom, so we have about 7 pounds of strawberries and 2-1/2 pounds of raspberries.

Some of the raspberries have a lot of little pieces, so I am not sure how that is going to turn out. I read where one lady said that if her tomato slices were too small, she had a hard time scraping them off the liners. That does not sound too good.

I have more tomatoes coming up. The eggplant are coming up now. I am not sure about the peppers. I went to the store and bought some bell pepper seed. Seeds are going on sale now, so it is hard to resist. I am starting more even of eggplant. With this dehydrator, I feel like I should plant a lot. I hope I do not end up tilling up all the grass and expanding more! I don't think the kids would like that.

Raspberry Jam

While the potatoes were dehydrating, Rachel and I decided to make raspberry jam.  It has been several years since I have used the water bath canner. Andy started looking for all the supplies and has been bringing in different things that had to be washed. I went out to the garage and found a dozen brand new half pint jelly jars. They have the lids and bands. We could not find our magnet and the Ball Blue Book recipe I was going to use for the jam called for 1 pouch of liquid pectin. I have not used this before, but I wanted to follow the recipe. The box comes with 2 pouches. I found it at several stores and it can get a little expensive at some of the stores.

The recipe only uses a quart of raspberries, so we am going to have a lot of jam to make or dehydrate a lot of raspberries. We are using some for the kefir, so I will keep some frozen also.

I bought 25 pounds of cane sugar while I was out shopping. I am going to be needing a lot. I have blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, elderberries and rhubarb to use. Rachel was busy washing things and getting the kitchen ready while I was shopping.

We measured a quart of frozen raspberries and put them on the stove on warm to start to thaw. The recipes calls for mashed raspberries, so I mashed them.

  We had the canner filled and getting hot and the jars and bands washed and hot in another pot.

In another pan we had the clean lids and you cannot let these get too hot.

When I thought the water in the canner was getting close to being ready, we heated up the raspberries and when they were bubbling we added the sugar, all 6-1/2 cups of it!

  

 

After the sugar was dissolved, we added the liquid pectin and brought it to a boil and let it boil for a minute. We then filled the jars using the funnel, wiped the rims, put the lids and bands on, lowered down in the water and the recipe said to boil 10 minutes.

We took the jars out to cool and could hear them pinging. All 7 jars have sealed so far. I am a little worried about it, but it should be okay, but the lids are over 7 years old and have been stored in the garage. I am not even sure I bought them new. We had collected jars in 2007. Andy and I just went nuts looking for jars at thrift stores and gathered up probably 1000 jars or so, so I do not remember where they came from.  We had a neighbor who cleaned out her shed and gave us all her jars too and she had not canned for years.

This was a lot easier than the apple jelly and all the apple peeling we had to do. We are going to get an apple peeler/corer/slicer before we do that again, but as soon as I find apples at a decent price, we will make apple rings with the dehydrator and I will save the cores and peelings and make apple peeling jelly. I hope to find enough apples and make applesauce too.

Dehydrating Potatoes

The dehydrator arrived yesterday and today was the day for dehydrating.

 It comes with a manual and a dehydrating book. I am watching videos on different sites that really explain how to dehydrate and there is a lot of information, which makes this very easy. I think having the right equipment for slicing the food will be very important and make it where you have the time to actually do this.

We bought the 9-drawer model. I really have no place to put this.  It is sitting on the kitchen table.  It may stay there forever...

The first thing that we dehydrated was shredded potatoes for hash browns.  We boiled 10 pounds of potatoes with the peelings. They were still a little firm, but I think we did let them boil a little too long. 

We shredded the potatoes with a cheese grater and put them on the trays.  It did not take long at all.

The instructions say to dehydrate at 125 degrees Fahrenheit for 6 to 8 hours. At 6 hours they were looking good. I let them go another hour and took them out, except there was enough for 2 trays that had some not quite done. I put those 2 trays in for another hour. I am going to let them cool overnight and I have jars washed that I want to make sure they are good and dry before I put the potatoes in. I will have the finished pictures of the potatoes in the jars tomorrow. I am trying to decide what to dehydrate next.

This was very easy. I am planning on just storing the potatoes in canning jars with the lids and bands on, but not sealed. I have read if they are dry that they should last a couple of years at least. I still have not made up my mind on exactly what I plan on doing.  I really do not want to use the mylar bags or a FoodSaver, but I may change my mind on this with more research.

So Busy

A lot of the flooded cups did sprout. I am still confused on what most of them are,

From the flooded cups.

but they are outside in the sawhorse greenhouse. The onions, cabbage and bok-choy are out there too.

Onions

 The onions and bok-choy are growing, but the cabbage does not look so good.

On March 12, I also started basil and a lot of it is up already. I also started bok-choy again and eggplant and some of those are up. On March 12, I also started 55 tomatoes and cherry tomatoes.  There are 20 some of these up.  I also planted some more of the saved daisy and hollyhock seeds from 2 years ago.  I also started peppers, Lipstick, Garden Salsa, California Wonder, Carnival Mix, which is a bell mix, and only a couple of these have come up.  I planted some more kale too.

From the flooded cups

On March 14, I started some celery, thyme, parsley, Serrano peppers, and I also started some bell peppers called Green Juniper from 1997 seed. I want to see if they will come up. I did have some grow a few years ago.

Today, I started some heirloom tomatoes called Delicious. I also started more peppers, Cubanelle, Sweet Banana, Early Jalapeno, Ancho/Poblano, Thai Yellow Chili peppers that were free seeds, some more celery and parsley. 

The spinach in the milk jug is coming up and also spinach that I planted in a raised bed last fall is coming up.  

I am still making keifr. I am using frozen raspberries now and it is really good.  Jacob even thinks it is better than the store bought kind.

Andy ran the tiller over the ground for the new herb garden.  We will be working on that for the next few days.  I am going to plant the peas in the next day or so. 

We bought a dehydrator, the 9 tray Excalibur 3900.  I am going to be busy with this.  I hope to clean some of the freezers out and dehydrate squash and tomatoes.  I will dehydrate some of the fruit, but I also make to make jam and jelly too.  So, that is what I have been doing. 

Waiting For The Snow To Melt

Not a lot has been going on. We have more snow, but today it is in the 30s and starting to melt. We have warmer temperatures in the forecast.

I started some more onion seed today. I planted Brunswick and Jaune Paille Des Vertus. The other onions are growing and I just thought I might not have enough. LOL.

The second planting of onions

The first planting of onions

I started some Red Acre cabbage seed and some Snowball cauliflower and Violetta Italia cauliflower, which is purple. I am not happy with the cabbage and bok-choy that I have already started.  I think they are getting too leggy, but I always do think that.  I am going to start some Early Jersey Wakefield cabbage tomorrow.  The sweet potato vines are still growing.

We take Jacob tomorrow for testing that we go to each year. It is the Iowa Test of Basic Skills and the homeschool group go together on this. It starts in the third grade. Jacob has been going every year since the third grade and he is in the ninth grade this year. Rachel went from third through the twelfth grade. I am going to take some yarn and crochet needles and work on something. I am not sure right now. I did make another dishcloth, this was a round one.  I changed colors for the first time.  I made a lot of mistakes in it. I may try to make another one like it - only without the mistakes. It was suppose to look like an egg. I think I will use different colors or maybe just a solid color. I did not see the mistakes in the yellow until after I had started on the white or I would have fixed the worst part of it.

The sauerkraut is done and tastes pretty good. I am going to do it a different way the next time. We made raspberry kefir for the next quart. I will get some more raw milk tomorrow when I am in town and start another half gallon of kefir.

I made an order for seeds today. I ordered Jade bush beans, Rocdor beans, which are a yellow bush bean, and Cobra pole beans, Cocozelle heirloom squash, and Muncher cucumbers.  I am pretty much going by my list I made on the blog back in January.  A few things are different. I decided to grow celery for the first time. I am not sure about potatoes yet, and I ordered Tall Telephone Pea seed and I already have Little Marvel, so I will be planting more peas than I had thought and cauliflower, I don't think that was on the list. The Muncher cucumbers are not on the list, but I grew them last year and they were really good. I have a few different peppers on a couple of other seed orders I am thinking of trying. I will make up my mind Saturday and order the last of the seeds.

I am going to start some winter sowing tomorrow. I am going to plant things in a milk jug and put cups in a clear box and put plastic over the top because I don't think I have the lids to the boxes, but these will be cold hardy things like spinach and some flowers. I am going to have to get a greenhouse one of these days soon so I can do this right. I have a hard time hardening plants and I do not have enough room for all that I do plant. We are going to finish the fence this year, so maybe next year I can plan on a greenhouse.

As for weight loss, I did not post my weight the last week of Feb. I did weigh and was down 0.8, but still up from my low. I have not been feeling well for a few days and just have not cared much about weighing. I can tell that if I want to lose weight that I will have to make major changes and when it is snowing and single digits outside, a salad just does not cut it. I did make chicken noodle soup. I ate that for supper, lunch the next day and supper that night, and still did not lose. I think that salt is part of the problem.  I will weigh Wednesday and see how it goes. Even the rabbits are tired of the snow.

Hot Shot

Huckleberry Kefir, Zucchini News And Another Dishrag

I put the kefir in the refrigerator last night. It sat on the table for 26 hours. Today, I thawed some huckleberries and made a quart of huckleberry kefir. It is good. We do not have a lot of huckleberries, but enough to make more. The next quart may be raspberry. I would not bother to make kefir if I had to buy the fruit. I have a lot of fruit in the freezer, so it makes sense right now to do this. I think it tastes better than the store kind. My kids sort of agree. I do not think my son likes he seed things in his and that is what you will have with berries.

Huckleberry Kefir

I am trying to make room in the freezers for the new garden produce this year.  I found a recipe for a yellow squash casserole. It used a lot of cheese and bread crumbs. It is very good, but not good for me on a diet. I have a Health Food board on Pinterest and the recipe is in there. It used 4 pounds of yellow squash, so it will come in handy this summer. I also have a recipe I pinned for Lemon Zucchini Bread. My daughter made that and it is really good. I have a lot of shredded zucchini squash too that I use for bread and soup.

Lemon Zucchini Bread

I enjoy using Pinterest for recipe ideas and I have another one for Zucchini Fritters I will be trying soon.

I also finished another dishrag. It did not take very long. I did it watching a movie last night. I finally figured out how to do single crochet and not have the rows growing or decreasing. My first dishrags were half double crochet and this one is single crochet. I am not sure what I will make next.

  

I am trying to use up the yarn I have and practice with this before going to buy any new yarn. I have some yarn that is not cotton that I have planned to make a scarf with. I like the cotton yarn better for some reason.

Sauerkraut, Kefir, And Other Goings On

I decided to start making kefir and sauerkraut.  I have never made sauerkraut before.  I looked at a lot of different ways to make it.  I wanted to make it in a jar and keep it raw.  I took a head of cabbage and shredded it and then put it in a big bowl with 2 tablespoons of salt and 1 tablespoon of caraway seeds.  I stirred it around and covered it with a towel.  I let it sit for about 30 minutes and then stirred it again.  I sterilized jars for the sauerkraut and the kefir.  I packed a quart jar with the shredded cabbage. 

There was a lot of juice.  I had a little left over and put that in a pint jar, but it is only half full.  I read to put the lids on tight, put the lids on loosely.  I chose to do it loosely.  Tomorrow I will check on them and I read to open the lids and let the gas out.  It is suppose to sit in the cabinet for 3 days, but others said up to 7-10 days, so I guess I will just check it each day and see what I think.  It can be stored in the refrigerator for months.  I am not sure how long a quart will last us, so I am not sure how often I will be making it.  I want to make some for my brother too, so the next time I will be using 2 heads of cabbage.  I bought 2, but I made coleslaw with the other.

I have made kefir in the past and I used raw milk.  I bought raw milk and kefir starter.  I did not want to heat the raw milk and found a place on line that used cold milk. You just put the milk in a jar, and put the package of powder in the milk.  I used a half gallon jar and 2 envelopes of the powder.  I stirred it up and put a paper towel on the top. 

It will sit for at least 12 hours and then I will use fruit I have in the freezer to flavor it.  I have blackberries, cherries, raspberries, strawberries, and huckleberries in the freezer.

I am going to make a new recipe I found for zucchini bread.  It is called lemon zucchini bread and I will make that tomorrow. 

The bok-choy is up, but I think I planted this too early.  The cabbage is up and some of the onions.  I think the last onions I planted are too warm, so I am going to move them out of the greenhouse.  The sweet potatoes have a lot of roots developing now.

I wish I had saved my milk jugs I had last year.  I had tried the winter sowing and I had good luck with spinach.  I could have used them for the bok-choy.  I have one milk jug, so I think I will plant something in one tomorrow. 

Gardening Goings On

I can see some onions coming up in the greenhouse. I wrote this down in my gardening notebook. I went outside to check on the garlic, but that area of the garden is still covered in snow.  I looked at the raised beds where I planted spinach last fall to overwinter and I think I see some coming up in different places.  This will be really nice!  I have some Swiss chard that is coming back to life from what was leftover last year. 

I also found some of my sweet potatoes sprouting in the bowl.  I dug these up last year.  They are Beauregard sweet potatoes.  I have been back and forth whether I am going to spend the money to plant sweet potatoes this year.  With the price of them and the weather here, it is kind of iffy if you will get a crop of sweet potatoes worth the money and effort, but starting them from your own slips that you grew, well that is smart and frugal.  After we expand the garden next year(which Andy is not aware of yet), then I will make room for them, but since I have slips from these expensive Beauregard potatoes, I am going to try to get them to live until planting time, which is the first of June usually.  I could also just feed them to the rabbits.  They love them!  I have had them growing by the window for them in the past.  It looks like I will have quite a few of them from these slips, but they are very small, so I am not sure if I can keep them going until June.

Sweet potatoes last year.



I used to cut slips off of these sweet potatoes and give to the rabbits during the winter and they just keep growing and coming back.  

What I Accomplished in January

It is hard to believe January is already over. I had a lot of fun beginning new things. This month I started a blog. I was not sure if I would really enjoy this, but I am and I think it is helping me with my diet.

I started collecting pins on Pinterest.  I now have 507 pins.  I am going to use these pins to help design the garden and use them for ideas to decorate and improve the house.

I made laundry soap, which was a big success. I am interested in how long the soap will last that I made.   I made the lotion bars, which I will be making more of those and that was a success.  I have started to crochet and this is addicting.  I love crochet!  I made a seed box, which is something I have been thinking of doing for a couple of years and I am so glad that I did.  I am also happy about the weight loss so far.  I lost 4.8 pounds for the month of January. I am motivated and I have started exercising, so all in all, January was a great month.  Thank you for following so far and see you in February! 

My First Crocheted Dishrags

I have been watching videos and practicing how to crochet and I have finished 2 dishrags. The first one I was not happy with how the border turned out

. I washed some dishes and wiped the cabinets with it. I thought it worked really great and my daughter liked it. I put it through the washing machine and it came out fine. I let it dry flat. 

The second dishrag came out better and the border was nicer, but still not perfect. These were made with the half double crochet stitch and the border was single crochet.

I am going to practice more this month. I have not decided what my next project will be. I really enjoyed the half double crochet stitch and enjoyed making these dishrags.

I have practiced the single crochet, the double crochet, half double crochet, and treble crochet. I am hooked on crochet!

Lotion Bars

I have been reading about lotion bars and have seen pictures of them on Pinterest and they look so easy to make, so I decided to make some.  I never put lotion on because of the chemicals and strong smells, but sometimes I will use a non-scented type, but I do not like the way my skin feels.  My husband has really dry skin on his hands.  He wears lotion all the time.  The kind of job he has, he has to wash his hands a lot, and in cold weather that makes it worse. 

My daughter wears all kinds of lotion, perfume, makeup and I worry about her becoming sensitive to chemicals in the future like I did.  I used to love to wear perfume and use lotions.  Now, I cannot even have a box of laundry detergent sit in the house if it has a scent to it. Unscented lotion bars just seemed to be too good to pass up, so my daughter and I made a few today. 

What Is Needed:
Measuring cup.
Pan.
Spoon.  
Beeswax.
Olive oil.
Coconut oil.
A mold to pour the lotion into.

I had some beeswax that I had bought for my son's wood sealant. 

Wax melting

We melted the wax the same as we did with the wood sealant project.  After it melted I checked and there was 1/2 cup of melted wax. 

Wax and oil

The recipe I was following said to use equal parts of beeswax, coconut oil and olive, oil.  We poured 1/2 cup of olive oil and 1/2 cup of coconut oil into the hot wax and stirred until it was all blended and melted.  We poured it into a muffin pan.

We had enough to make 5. We took them out of the molds after waiting a few hours.

I put some on my hands and my hands feel really soft.  I am going to use some on my feet as well.  My husband said he likes the lotion bar.

He is going to take one to work and put next to the sink.  I would like to make white bars.  I am not sure why.  I guess they just look pretty to me.  I am not sure why these did not come out white. 

We will try several different recipes until I find the one we like the best.  I am sure my daughter wants to make scented lotion bars.  I would rather have square bars or smaller round ones.

I have decided to put some in metal tins and that way my husband can carry it to work and it might work for carrying one in your purse. 

Making Laundry Soap

I made liquid laundry soap in the past, but I didn't like it, so I have not been interested in making it again.  My friend Ellie made some of the liquid laundry soap and really likes it and her granddaughter has been making the powdered laundry soap and she is pleased with her soap, so I decided to give it another try.

I went to the store Friday and I bought the ingredients.
Washing soda - $3.24
Borax - $3.97
Zote bar soap 0.97 each.  I bought 2 pink and 1 white, so that would be $2.91
Total $10.12.

I used all of the washing soda, the 3 bars of Zote and almost all of the Borax.  I decided to make both kinds and give this a good try this time.

Zote soap after being ground up in the food processor. 

The powdered soap was easy.  My daughter and I used the food processor and ground the soap.  I used 2 bars of the pink Zote, 4 cups of Washing Soda and 4 cups of Borax.  You use 2 tablespoons in a load of clothes.  I have a little over 7 pounds of powdered soap.  I was worried that the smell would be too strong.  I cannot be around perfume and strong smells.  This has a clean smell that is very faint.  The soap I buy at the store has no smell, which that is why I bought it, but a faint scent would be nice.  I think the clothes are softer than the clothes washed in my other store bought soap.  My friend said that the clothes she hangs in the house are softer.I can't wait to hang clothes on the line outside. 

The final powdered soap using pink Zote. 

The liquid soap takes longer, but it was not hard to do.  I got a big pot and put in the 1 bar of white Zote that was all ground up.  I put 2 quarts of water in and had the stove on simmer.

White Zote melting on stove. 

I think it took maybe an hour to melt the soap.  It was getting thicker and kind of gelled.  I used a hand immersion blender to make sure I had all of the soap pieces melted.  You do not have to do this.  I then added another 2 quarts of water and 2 cups of Washing Soda and 2 cups of Borax.  I mixed it and poured it in a 5 gallon bucket.  My friend did not add the Borax and Washing Soda to her melted soap on the stove.  She put her powder in the bucket and then poured the melted soap in the bucket. 

The liquid soap the next day. 

Either way will work.  I saw a lot of different recipes.  I just wanted to make sure I mixed it really well since I did not like the soap I had make years ago.  I added water and you can see in the picture how much I put in there.  I probably should have put a little more water. I also added a cup of white vinegar to this.  I let it sit overnight.  

The liquid soap. 

Saturday morning I stirred the bucket of soap and poured it into the jars.  I washed my really dirty jacket I wear to do chores and I really think it is cleaner than it has been in a long time.  I used 1/2 cup since my jacket was so dirty.  I have read to use 1/4 cup per load in the washer, but other places said to use 1/2 cup. I am pleased with the liquid soap.  I am just not sure which one I like the best yet.  I do like how easy it is to make the powdered soap.  

I am not sure how long this will last.  I use 2 boxes of laundry soap a month and sometimes more.  The brand of soap that I buy can cost around $11 on sale and if not on sale up to $13.  If I only buy 2 boxes a month that is $22 a month.  I made all this soap for only $10.12.  I would guess this will last at least 4 months or longer.  In 4 months I would have spent $88 with the store bought soap.

I will decide if I like the liquid or the powder soap the best. My daughter and I both noticed that the bar of white Zote seemed to be softer than the pink and was easier to cut to put in the food processor.  The pink is prettier.  The powdered soap has a stronger smell, but that probably is because I used 2 bars and the liquid only has 1 bar.

The next time I might make powdered using the white Zote instead of the pink and see if there is a difference.  This was really easy and so far very much worth the effort.