Good or not so good?

[Sunshine]

I'm making pickles. Yes I am.

I got the urge to make preserves the other day. Not sure I will, though. It would make nice gifts, but I don't eat a lot of stuff like that these days. I so want the diabetes to go away. My doctor said he thought it was just due to the stress of the pulmonary hypertension and when the disease was controlled and I lost a few pounds it would go away. It is, I did, it didn't. Yet. But I'm still working on it. Lost 10 pounds since retirement.

That's impressive!

I've never canned before the last year or so. My grandma did...cherries, and beets, and plums, and grape jelly, and green beans...and I don't know what else from her big garden. My mom only did jam (and not every year)...and she did tomatoes and peaches a couple of years. She was scared of pressure cookers and when she grew up, it was only her dad who canned...they made sausages and canned those.

I started canning rather late in the season last year, and then didn't do any all winter...but I've been going steady since spring. I've done...beans, chicken, potatoes, carrots, green beans, applesauce, peaches, peach jam, strawberry jam, orange marmalade...I think that's it. Oh, and the pickles. I'm going to do some more carrots, some more potatoes, and hopefully some more green beans. And now we have berries coming..blackberry, huckle berry, and salal...I'm going to make jams of those too, as well as blackberry wine.

I was going to do dandelion wine, but I still haven't started it.

I have a family to feed, though. My son has a full house and when they come (and they come often) they always leave with something. Tomorrow they're taking pickles and peach jam home with them.

Before I had to become the breadwinner, we had a very large garden. I canned and froze veggies until I would almost drop. When I reached that point, then our friends came and picked the rest until it was gone. Needless to say that when I went to work and my kids had to eat things out of a can, their palettes were greatly insulted. LOL

One of my favorites was my canned tomato juice. In each quart of juice I put a teaspoon of sugar and a teaspoon of salt. I also made kraut, but I don't recall the amount of salt I used. We would put in under the house and let it work off under the house. We grew the cabbage. Beautiful big round heads. I did sweet and sour beets as well, those spiced things are just too strong for me. Frozen corn, beans of several varieties, squash, freezer preserves, traditional preserves, canned green beans, and a variety of pickles and relishes. We ate good from that garden. We always grew KY Wonder green beans which are far better canned than frozen. In the fall we had turnips and turnip greens. In the spring we had radishes, lettuce, and little green onions. Sooooo, good. Soooo good for you. Soooo much work.

 

[Sunshine]

I felt like we really needed to move away from processed and fast food. I felt guilty every month because of the money we spent at MCDONALD'S...and guilty about the fact that I know it satisfies exactly zero of my kids' nutritional needs. But it's cheap and it's fast...so I decided to can things I can fix quickly at home. Hence the beans and chicken. Oh and I canned some pulled pork, too..which turned out really good. I feel better, and even though I've only been doing this for about 2 months, we've already saved money and cut our fast food habit probably by 5/6.

Yeah, I get so tired of reading on forums how poor people can't afford anything but processed foods. LOL. What a crock.

 

[koshergrl]

It takes an initial investment...I put a good chunk of my monthly grocery budget into produce for canning, which is why I am sometimes up late...when it needs to be processed, there's no getting away from it, or we'll go hungry at some point.

It takes some cajones to leap from keeping money on hand for fast/prepared food, and throwing it into the canner instead, I do know that. My budget is shot for this month, and my fridge has very little in it. But I have canned meat, canned beans, flour, some canned fruit, lots of jam, a little fish and a big roast in the freezer. That's it, and it will easily get me through to next month.

 

[Sunshine]

It takes an initial investment...I put a good chunk of my monthly grocery budget into produce for canning, which is why I am sometimes up late...when it needs to be processed, there's no getting away from it, or we'll go hungry at some point.

It takes some cajones to leap from keeping money on hand for fast/prepared food, and throwing it into the canner instead, I do know that. My budget is shot for this month, and my fridge has very little in it. But I have canned meat, canned beans, flour, some canned fruit, lots of jam, a little fish and a big roast in the freezer. That's it, and it will easily get me through to next month.

Same with a garden. There is some outlay for canning jars, etc.

 

[Sunshine]

I have a 'mint garden.' It is not in the same place as my herb garden because mint can be invasive. Anyway I have several varieties. I planted my lemon balm in with the mint as it spreads too, but through reseeding rather than root growth. Anyway, one of the plumbers spat over the side of the deck INTO MY MINT GARDEN! Gross! That was on Tuesday. Anyway when I got my water to go to town today instead of putting mint in I used lemon balm. Wanted to give the spit time to decompose. LOL. I had never used lemon balm before, but it is very pleasant in cold water. The mint, I just shake up, but you have to make some cuts in the leaves of the lemon balm. Nice lemony flavor in your cold water.

 

[koshergrl]

Is lemon balm the same thing as pennyroyal? I read somewhere that pennyroyal was called lemon balm by some...

be careful, if so. It's poison.

 

[Sunshine]

Is lemon balm the same thing as pennyroyal? I read somewhere that pennyroyal was called lemon balm by some...

be careful, if so. It's poison.

I don't think so. Pennyroyal is mint but it grows low, I believe but not sure, and its oil is poison. Lemon Balm is not poison. In the old days women used Pennyroyal for birth control, to cause abortions.

Mentha pulegium - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/p/pennyr23.html

I have some that looks like that in the pic, but it is wild and not part of my mint garden. I just let it live as a wild flower in my rock bed. No eating of it.
They sell the lemon balm at Wally World and Lowes along with other kitchen herbs.

 

[earlycuyler]

A dehydrator is pretty fun to. We got a huge one last year for not allot of bucks if you think about all the produce we threw out. Kids like it to.

 

[Sunshine]

Lemon Balm:

Melissa officinalis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Sunshine]

A dehydrator is pretty fun to. We got a huge one last year for not allot of bucks if you think about all the produce we threw out. Kids like it to.

I used one too, mostly fruits for the kids' snacks. Dried strawberries are the bomb! I still have it. I think. Not sure if it works or not though.

I also did a lot of dried apples and bananas. First I dipped them in pineapple juice. They were nice and tasty.

 

[earlycuyler]

We do everything. The wife does a pretty dang good potato type soup mix in it and seals it up with a food saver. Just add hot water and wait a few .

 

[Sunshine]

Well, it is really irritating to me when a recipe touts itself as being 'quick and easy' with 25 ingredients.

All You magazine had a recipe for a pasta dish using cheese tortellini. I had all the ingredients, far fewer than 25, on hand and thyme in my herb garden. I made it for lunch with leftovers for supper. OMG! is it ever good! There is another pasta recipe in that same mag which I tore out, and will try at another time. But this one is a winner!

 

[Sunshine]

I am taking food to my big sis this week. Bought all the stuff for spaghetti. Wish I had planned to take this, Oh well. Later maybe.

 

[dailynewsflashe]

what is that? is that a food? i haven't eat thooooooooooseee junks... for me.. NOT SO GOOD..

 

[koshergrl]

I know, I'm with you on the "quick and easy" recipes with a million ingredients...most of which one doesn't have on hand...