From the garden to the pantry all in a single afternoon. Dill pickle spears are our family's favorite way to preserve the cucumbers we grow each summer. After a 5lb harvest this weekend, it was time to break our the canning kettle and put up some pickles! My dill pickle recipe is a little different than others you may find. For starters, you don't have to soak the cucumbers in salt water first. You also don't have to cook your cucumbers in the pickling liquid. ...
Canning & Preserving
Dandelion Jelly
A weed is anything that grows where you don't want it to. Years ago, we were trying to have the perfectly manicured suburban lawn. Lush and green without any weeds of any kind. After spending a single season ripping out everything that was undesirable, and trying to get the grass to thrive, we realized we were fighting a losing battle. Short of dousing the entire yard in chemicals and starting over, we weren't going to have that perfectly green lawn. ...
Vegetable Soup Base
I am really enjoying the monthly projects during the Food In Jars Mastery Challenge! This month our focus was supposed to be on salt preserving a fruit or vegetable. I have made preserved lemons before, so I thought this would be a great opportunity to try something new. I wanted to cure olives, but they aren't currently in season. Then I saw some comments about homemade vegetable soup base circulating among the members of the challenge group. I knew this was ...
Homesteading Goals for 2017
Homesteading Goals for 2017 Homesteading is a lifestyle of self-sufficiency. For our family, it's a way of life on our little 1/4-acre in the middle of suburbia. While there is still a lot we rely on others for, there is a lot we can do for ourselves. Through gardening, food preservation, and a lot of DIY we are teaching our children to be self-reliant and we are working together as a family to have the things we need. These life skills are a primary focus when we ...
Blood Orange Marmalade
Have you ever tried a recipe just because it pushes you out of your culinary comfort zone? I plan on doing a lot of that this year, and its all thanks to the Food In Jars Mastery Challenge. Each month, I will be participating in a culinary challenge. Something that builds on the food preservation skills I already have, but pushes me to try something new. I already am familiar with a lot of these techniques, but they aren't things that I do on a regular ...