Seeing Red

Most mornings we try to get up and pour a mug of coffee and sit in the sun room before the sun rises.  We'll read a chapter or two in the Bible and the commentary notes to aid in context and understanding.  We're in the book of Micah now about to finish up.  It is a peaceful way to start the morning.  The sun room is aptly named.  It has a big window that faces east and we look out and watch the day begin, slowly and then in earnest.  On this particular morning, God was painting a masterpiece in the eastern sky, using blazing red, bright orange and muted pink and rounded out on top with columbia blue hues on His palette.  The red, specifically, was something to see!  "Red sky in morning, sailors take warning," I think the old Navy warning said.

But we weren't done with things red on this beautiful day.  We had already harvested the Cosmic Purple carrots last week, but before the upcoming rains, we needed to get all the Kyoto Red carrots pulled.  Tricia and I teamed up on the task, pulling, washing, clipping the tops off and feeding the carrot tops to the cows.  

While the cosmic purple carrots have purple skins and an orange interior, Kyoto Red carrots are red through and through.  In the past some of our carrots grew into weird shapes with multiple roots.  Not this year.  The Kyoto reds grew long and straight.

We brought them inside, scrubbed them with a vegetable brush and used a sharp knife to cut them into manageable pieces to cube into the vegetable chopper.  This photo shows how the carrots are a red tint all throughout.

They are quickly all cubed up and ready for processing.  The other day, with the cosmic purple carrots, we blanched and froze 10 quarts.  I think we'll pressure can most of these carrots.  When two people are inseparable, there's an old saying that goes, "They go together like peas and carrots."  These cubed up Kyoto red carrots remind me of that.  We would eat Swanson Hungry Man TV dinners sometimes when I was a kid.  I haven't eaten a TV dinner in a coon's age.  But these carrots cubed up remind me of the side dish of peas and carrots in those dinners in aluminum trays.

We began filling the jars hot pack and load into the pressure canner.  The canner will hold 10 at a time.  We'll have several batches to go until we get the job done.

Once we have the red carrots processed, we'll begin with the (boring) orange carrots.  We still have a row of those to harvest.

Canning Ground Beef

Canned meat has always sounded unappetizing to me, for some reason.  I guess I think about those little cans of potted meat and it reminds me of dog food.  Some people like it, but I've never been a big fan.  Different strokes for different folks, I guess.  We decided, in an effort to diversify, to can some meat and put it up in the pantry.  In the event of a disaster, we could lose everything in the freezer if the power went out for an extended period of time.

Since our cows gave us heifers two years ago, we didn't have any bull calves to bring to the slaughterhouse and our inventory in the freezer is running low.  So Tricia drove to Elliott's Slaughterhouse in Morse, Louisiana (where we bring our beef for butchering) and she bought some fresh ground meat - twenty pounds of it.  She put it in a big pot (14 pounds of it) and cooked it.

She cooked it all down, after adding salt.  I won't show this.  Everyone knows how to cook ground meat.  For canning, they recommend that you drain off as much of the fat as you can.  

As the meat cooked, we washed the jars, rings and lids.

When the meat was cooked, we used canning funnels to load the pint jars with meat.

We filled them up to the top and pressed it down a little.

You're aiming to have them filled an inch from the top.

We added a little boiling broth or water to cover.

Then we put half of the jars into the pressure canner, adding water and a tablespoon of vinegar .

Let the steam go out the top pipe for ten minutes and them put the weight on the top.  We did ten pounds of weight.  The pressure valve will pop out.

The top weight will begin to rock.  That's when you start your timer.  We pressure canned it for 75 minutes.  When the time is up, we turn off the stove and move the pressure canner off the heat until the pressure falls.  You are not to open the lid until the pressure falls.

Then it's time to use canning tongs to remove the canned meat for further cooling.

We cool them off and then will label them and stack them in the pantry.

It's good to have a little food stacked away.  Meat canned this way has a shelf life of 2 to 5 years.

Putting Up Tomato Sauce

Lots of tomatoes have been coming in.  They fill the island and the refrigerator and they are piling up.  We pick them about a day early and let them finish ripening indoors, but pretty soon we have piles of tomatoes.  What to do?

The fastest way we've found to make a bunch of tomatoes disappear is to make tomato sauce.  We blanch the tomatoes, core them, remove the skins and slice them up.  Then we clean our jars, lids, and rings, leaving in warm water until we're ready to fill them.  We put a tablespoon of lemon juice along with a 1/2 teaspoon full of salt in each jar.

We throw the sliced tomatoes immediately into a pot and allow the chopped tomatoes to reduce.  A lot of the water will evaporate in the form of steam, leaving a flavorful tomato sauce.

We use an immersion blender to chop up any remaining pieces of tomato.  Some people remove the seeds, but we just leave the seeds in the sauce and continue cooking while the sauce continues to reduce and concentrate.

When the tomato sauce gets to the consistency you like, remove it from the burner.  It will be a nice, deep-red color.

Using a canning funnel we fill the jars.

We clean up the rims and then affix the lid and ring to each jar.

In the meantime, we have 3 quarts of water and a tablespoon of vinegar heating up in the pressure canner.  We load the pressure canner up with jars.

We put the lid on and wait until steam starts coming out.  After it has been steaming for 10 minutes, we put the 10 pound pressure regulator on the top of the canner.  When the regulator begins to rock, we time it for 15 minutes.  At the end of 15 minutes, we pull the canner off of the fire and allow its pressure to drop on its own.

We continue to make tomato sauce for use throughout the year.  So far we have several gallons made with more to come.  I'll show you something else cool we do with tomatoes next week.

Can you Can Carrots?

Yes we CAN!

Once we finished harvesting all the carrots, we ate a bunch fresh, made ginger carrots using lacto-fermentation, blanched carrots, and finally we're going to use our pressure cooker to can the remaining ones. We cleaned them up real good and cut off the tops to put in the compost pile.

Cutting off the tops

Here's the finished product ready for processing.

Cleaned up and Ready

In the meantime, we cleaned up some pint jars along with the lids, gaskets and rings. We're using Tattler brand lids that you can use over and over.

Splish Splash

For the next step, we cubed the carrots using a little product that Tricia purchased on the Home Shopping Network.  I think we've only purchased one item off that TV channel and this is it.  It really saves a lot of time and work.

Act now, this could be yours for only 3 payments of....

Jars are sterilized and ready to be filled with cubed carrots.

Jars are washed

Tricia begins filling the jars up with carrots, leaving one inch head space in the jar.

Fill 'er up, please

We were able to fill eight pint jars with cubed carrots.  We had a little left over, but decided to eat them rather than half-fill a jar.  Eight pints are fine since our pressure cooker will hold a maximum of ten pints.

Bright Colors!

Something about putting things on the window sill and letting the sunlight shine through makes things look nice.

Sunshine shining through jars of carrots

Since we're using the reusable Tattler lids, Tricia is affixing the gasket to the lid.  The lids are plastic, but are BPA-free.

Tattler lids

Now she's adding boiling water to each of the jars of carrots, filling them up to 1 inch from the top.  My parents used to use that line, "You're gonna be in hot water if you do that, son."  That was a bad thing.  In this case, carrots in hot water is a good thing.

Packing with hot water

Now she puts the gaskets and lids on top of the jars and then tightens the rings.  Then she backs off just a smidgen on the ring tightness - a smidgen in this case means a quarter turn.  This allows hot air to escape during processing, but once you remove them from the canner and move to the counter, firmly tighten to get the rubber gasket in close contact with the jar to make an airtight seal.

Lids going on

We add two tablespoons of vinegar to 3 quarts hot water and then put the jars into the canner.  The vinegar is added to the canning water to negate any water staining on the jars.

Vinegar to stop staining

Lock the lid on, and turn the heat to high.  Let the steam come out of the top for 10 minutes.  Then add the pressure regulator (10 pounds) to the top and watch until it begins to rock gently.  Once it rocks, you start timing because that means your pressure has reached the point where you want it.  Higher pressure is needed to bring the water to a higher temperature than you would in normal hot water bath canning. You need the higher temperatures for canning vegetables and meats to kill bacteria.

Waiting for the Rocking...

Once the pressure cooker has depressurized, we pull the jars out on the counter and allow them to cool on some racks.

Canned carrots for the pantry

These will go into the pantry for safe-keeping and adds to our inventory.  (We want to be like the ants - NOT the grasshopper!)