Pumpkin Puree and Family Visit

My mother and father came to visit from West Virginia. We are always glad to have them, just wish they could come more often and stay longer. Katie kept them very busy while they were here. Mawmaw was worn out by the time bedtime rolled around. Katie and Mawmaw wearing silly hats.

Come on down here Pawpaw and play with us, oh, I'm getting sleepy.

Before they arrived, Katie and I made some pumpkin puree for pumpkin chocolate cupcakes. I read about them over at my buddy Warren's blog. Be sure to check it out, they were great.

Before you start any project of this manner you must first find a good helper which I am lucky to always have on hand. After cutting a fresh pumpkin in half Katie removed all the seeds.

Once the seeds are removed they look a little something like this.

Place the pieces in a bowl with a little water and microwave for 15 mins. to cook the pumpkin.

Once cooked remove the meat from the skin. I use a knife and fork in this manner and it works fine for me.




We then place the pieces in a mixing bowl like so.


Got out our handy dandy immersion blender.


The blades on the end just destroy the soft cooked pumpkin.

After about 60 seconds the deed is done.

Once you have done all the above you can simply put it into a freezer bag and then into the freezer for later use. We got 3 cups from this one small pie pumpkin, used 2 cups for the cupcakes, be sure to read about those here.

Canning Butter?? Yep !!

Yes you can can butter. I found this over at Green Apple Orchard and wanted to give it a try. Really Liv did all the work, I just took the pictures. We found Land of Lakes butter on sale today and bought 10 lbs. to can. This way it dosen't take up room in the fridge or freezer and it will keep for 3 to 5 years in a dark cool area. Hop on over to Green Apple Orchard and read the entire process.

5 lbs. being melted

Now ready for the jars.


A nice easy food storage project

Canning "Survival Chili"

Well I made a big batch of my World Famous Chili today and I canned what was left over. We love chili and was wondering if we could can it at home, Hormel does it so, I thought we should be able to also. After a little research over at Jackie Clay's Blog I found out how to can my own at home. We ate all the chili that we wanted and still had 5 qts. left to can. This will provide easy meals that you just heat and eat, that's my kind of cooking. I much rather can foods than freeze them because ya just never when the electric my be off and you loose all the stuff in the freezer that you can't eat up pretty quick. Plus this is good Survival food. Throw a quart in your 72 hour bag as you head out the door and you have a good meal that's easy to prepare. I guess I may have to start calling it "Survival Chili". In an power outage one can heat it up on your woodstove, you do have one don't you? If not think about it getting one soon, the grid is and will be even more unpredictable in the future (Near Future)

Here's the question that one of Jackie's readers ask:

Canning chili with beans

I was wondering if I am able to pressure cook can chili with beans. I am only able to find recipes without beans.

Yes, you may home can chili with beans. I do it nearly every year, which gives us convenient, instant meals without the chemicals included in store-bought chili. Besides, mine tastes like chili, not some flavorless goopy paste.
Make up a big batch of your favorite chili, then ladle the hot chili into quart jars to within an inch of the top of the jar. Remove any air bubbles with a wooden spoon or spatula.
Process the chili in a pressure canner only, at 10 pounds pressure for 90 minutes. If you live at an altitude above 1,000 feet, consult your canning manual for instructions on increasing the pressure to correspond with your altitude. — Jackie

2 qts. filled and ready for the canner. We canned 5 qts. in all.

Guess what I've been doing ?? haha!!

Just can't seem to quit making apple butter.

Getting jars filled and ready. 6 soldiers ready for battle.

I guess I better get to cracking those Walnuts and Hickory nuts.

Making Apple Butter

As you may recall, I was lucky enough to be given a lot of apples. Well, we love apple butter and have been making up a bunch for ourselfs and to give as gifts. All my family back in West Virginia have let me know that they expect some apple butter when we come back for Thanksgiving, so I have been busy.

First you need apples (Free ones will always taste better) We for some reason or another we don't have a food mill. I can hardly belive it myself, but we don't, so I had to peel all those apples. Like nearly all of my reciepes this one came from here. Lucky we found this really cool apple peeler at a yardsale this summer for 25 cents. Best Quarter I ever spent.

Place apple on top.

Start turning the hand crank.

And you have a neatly peeled apple. These are much faster than peeling by hand but the best part is that it wastes none of the apple. All you get is a very thin peel.

The most important part of making apple butter is having a good helper. Katie is testing the apples to make sure we use only the finest in our apple butter.

Me, happily at work.

Cut the apples into slices and cook until soft.

It's gonna look something like this. Cook in a crokpot over night. It gets darker as it cooks.

I am a Hunter - Gatherer

I have, I guess always been somewhat of a Hunter - Gatherer all my live. I love to look for and find things that I can use or re-use in some way or another, wether it be food, lumber or just good old junk. As of late I have been a Gatherer. Gathering walnuts, hickory nuts, pears and apples all for FREE. Walnut trees are all around us as are hickory trees so nuts are a good easy distance from the house. Fruit trees on the other hand is not something we have got around to planting just yet, got to get that done this fall or in the spring. Luckily, a guys down the road has 2 huge old pear trees. I seen him the other day and he told me that everyone in his family had picked pears from the trees and they are still loaded with fruit. After a few minutes of conversation he ask if I would like to go and pick some for my family, well not being one to turn down free food I said I would love to have some. He told me to get all I wanted but watch for the bees, they seem to be everywhere there. I picked, from the ground and from the tree nearly a bushel of fresh pears. Well as fate would have it, one of Liv's family members seen me picking the pears and ask if I would like to come to his place and get apples. Wooo-Hoooo !!! You bet I would. His trees had produced like crazy. He said that about 20 people had come to pick apples and they are still everywhere you look. He was right! Never have I seen so many apples from so few trees in my life. The limbs were so heavy that some had been proped up with 2x4's to keep them from breaking. I was told to PLEASE take all that I could to keep them from rotting on the ground. I picked 7 large bags full. I have plans to make Apple Butter and Apple Cider and some Apple Sauce, some will go in the freezer and some stored in the shed for winter eating. We have been so blessed this year with people giving us food. The folks around here are for sure the best.

Katie and her Mimi Gracie (Liv's Mother) gathering hickory nuts.

Just a few of the many walnuts that we have gathered.

This is just 1 of 7 bags of apples that I gathered. This one weighs 23lbs.

Punkins, Punkins Everywhere !!!

First let me say that I am very sorry it's been so long since the last post. This simple life that I am trying to live is getting more complicated by the day. Long story and I'm not going to bore you with my problems.

We harvested some punkins and gourds from the garden the other day. Got some nice looking gourds and some yummy punkins.
This is not what I had in mind as food storage but, atleast it's a start. haha!!My girls cleaning out 2 punkins and getting ready to carve them.Katie getting a hand full of punkin flesh.We ofcourse roasted the seeds and they were great.Made 2 loafs of pumpkin bread with this recipe from pick your own. I have already eaten half of one of them. Sooooo Gooooood.Pureed some of the pumpkin to freeze. Seems it's not really recommended to can pumpkin.
Savannah's pumpkin. Katie's Thomas the Train pumpkin.

Finally some rain

Thank God we finally got some rain today, been dry for over 3 weeks here. The garden was begging for water and I'm glad I didn't have to do it myself. I belive that when you water your garden you are simply keeping it alive, things just don't seem to grow until the rain comes. Looks like we have a good chance of rain all week and we are are looking forward to it.

The cherry tomato plants are covering us up with sweet little tomatoes. These plants just popped up around the edge of the compost pile and I transplanted the over to the garden area. We are getting about this many cherry tomatoes each day now and I am freezing some for later use in soups and chilli. Just wash them good and let them dry then place in a freezer bag. We are so lucky to have a foodsaver to vacum seal all our food before it hits the freezer. When ready to use just thaw and run hot water over them and the skins will slip right off. I'm not a big fan of putting things in the freezer but this is a lot eaiser than canning them. If ( when ) the electric goes off these can be a tasty treat rather than let them ruin.