Canning and preservation continues

Cabbage Rolls

Last evening I finally tried the "unrolled cabbage rolls" recipe.  I have been wanting a different way to preserve cabbage as well as a more ready-to-eat out-of-the-jar type meal; this recipe meets fulfills both goals!

The recipe I used: "unstuffed cabbage rolls" gets good reviews from the facebook homesteading group users.  I made slight mods because I didn't have enough garlic and wanted to use up some fresh tomatoes.  Also, I converted to weight based instead of "small cabbage, large onion, etc. and doubled the recipe because I wanted to use as much cabbage as I could.

The modified recipe I used was as follows:

• 1.5 lb Ground venison
• 11 oz chopped onions
• 3.5 lb chopped cabbage
• 1 C shredded carrots
• 9 1/4 C tomatoes (I used about 6 1/4 fresh pureed tomatoes and 3 cups canned tomatoes)
• 1 C water
• 2 tsp ground black pepper
• 5 1/4 tsp garlic salt (to make up for lack of garlic and to ratio sodium in 2 tsp of salt)

Made 11 pints.  Pressure canned for 75 mins with 15 lb weight.

second batch:

I made a second batch Saturday night to use the remaining cabbage from last week.  Here is the recipe I used:

1 3/4 lb meat
12     oz onion
64     oz cabbage
9 1/4 oz carrots
8         C pureed fresh tomatoes
3              C canned tomatoes from last year
10         oz water
2 1/4 tsp pepper
8            tsp garlic salt

Made 13.5 pint  (I actually canned a half-pint).  Same PC directions.

Applesauce

I made first seasonal applesauce from some of the apples that I gathered at mom's last weekend.  I only did a bus tray full even though I had a bushel in addition to the bus tray.  Some of these apples are ripe, many aren't.  This turned out to be a problem worth noting in the future.  Unripe apples have a lot of pectin and that pectin makes it hard to cook the apples without burning the apples on the bottom of the pan!

Anyway, I burned the apples on the bottom of the pans even though I added a little extra water (1 C instead of 1/2 C as usual).  I went ahead and ran the apples through the victorio and mixed it all together - it did have slightly burned taste so I added some cinnamon - which I don't usually do - in case I want to cook with it.  I canned 9 quarts and 1 pint.

Tomatoes

I brought back the tomatoes I had left from last weekend.  We didn't have time to process them down in the city-house because Katherine has to work on the taxes (she didn't come along with me this weekend so she could try to finish them up).  After an experiment with powdering some dried  tomatoes earlier this week, I decided that  that I would dry these.  I processed them immediately when I got to the farm yesterday afternoon so that they would have plenty of time to dry.  I processed a full 12 trays in the dehydrator, which I think is equivalent to about 7 quarts of juice/sauce.

I picked some more tomatoes.  The tomato plants are looking a bit rough and the tomatoes are looking very poor.  Lots of rotten and "blighted" spots.  I noticed that the eggplants are still looking good but maybe being encroached on by the tomatoes, so i decided to start removing the tomatoes.  I chopped down the plants near the eggplants first an pulled out the trellis stakes there.

Here are the unripe ones.  I am leaving them on the porch this week.  There is enough other food preservation to do, and frankly, I think that I have more than enough tomatoes at this point!  Of the ripe ones that I picked with this batch, some went into the unrolled cabbage rolls above.

And the rest I made into "vitamix sauce".  7 quarts.

String Beans

I decided to pull the bean plants and harvest the beans.  I got about 1/3 through and filled a large bus tray!  Takes a bit of time but there is shade there in the afternoon so I will continue then.

Update: I finished picking the beans - an additional 5 gallon bucket and half of another!  Whew - will be fun processing these this week.

Carrots

The carrots that I picked at mom's place last week finally got processed - i dehydrated them!  Most of them anyway.  Whats left I will pickle this week - or maybe use some other way.  I should mention that I also got some carrots from the paw-paw patch.  They are little baby carrots!  I think maybe I got  2-3 lb.  Still undecided how to process them.

Dried carrots.  They really shrink!

Here are some from the paw-paw patch.  I didn't dig them all - I don't think I will.  Its  just not worth it.

Beets

I also picked the beets in the paw-paw patch.  There were so few, I decided to give them away to Curtis Raker (a farm neighbor).  Curtis had stopped by while I was  picking the beets and carrots and offered me some radishes.  I declined the radishes, but saw a good opportunity to get rid of the beets!

Red beets.  Probably enough to make a few pints of beet pickles.

Cauliflower and broccoli, and eggplants

The broccoli is still putting out side branch florets.  I gathered enough (1.5 C) to  cook with my soup for dinner.  The cauliflower produced a couple of nice heads this week.

I gave the top one to mom and brought the big one back for me and Katherine.

I didn't get any pictures of the eggplant that I harvested this week.  I got about 5 small ones.  I gave one to mom and brought the rest back.