Freezing Strawberries

Freezing or preserving fruit is one the easiest and most satisfying things you can do.  In my house we freeze almost any fruit imaginable.  Strawberries are plentiful now so I chose to freeze some.  You can do this sweetened or not its your choice.  I simply wash and dry the berries, slice the way I like them(quartered), and sprinkle a little sugar or honey on them, blend well and your done.  As for the freezing part a lot of people freeze them on a cookie sheet first, so they are frozen individually, I lack the freezer space this year so I am putting them in a bag and they will do just fine, I will just use them all at the same time when I unthaw.  I  used freezer bag  this time and  my husband get out as much air as possible, to prevent freezer burn, usually I use my vac  u sealer  but I have not found it yet from the move:) That's it your done and have some

strawberries for the middle of winter!

 

 

Canning Fruit Cocktail

I love to can, when I started to learn while pregnant with my now 7 year old I became obessed.  Since we sold our farm and moved last year we did no canning and to say it lightly our cabinets are bare! This is bas enough but I have found a new obession, Pinterest, follow me Tasha Otte.  I have found so many awesome recipes its not even funny.  I have found new variations of recipes I already can, recipes for things I never thought to can, and classic recipes I have never tried.

I have been pouring over many, many recipes trying to find new recipes to help in the middle of winter when your stricken with cabin fever.  I have found a couple recipes that I think will do just that.  I love canned fruit cocktail, my mom and dad bought it every week from the grocery growing up.  I would do the same but we try to avoid the metal can diet, but I did not think I could can my own fruit cocktail, I was wrong.  I want to share with you the two recipes I am going to give a try below.  Hopefully, all goes well with them and I can let you know what I think:)

Tags
canning http://domesticitychic.wordpress.com/2012/08/08/fruit-cocktail/

Fruit cocktail is one of the easiest canning recipes, though a bit time consuming. The best part about making your own is that you can control exactly what goes into the final product from fruit to the liquid it is contained in. Today, I made a fairly traditional fruit cocktail in heavy syrup (upon my husband’s request) with only a slight tweak. The following recipe is that I used, you can switch out fruit any way you like.

Ingredients
2 Ruby Red Apples
6 Barlet pears
2 Peaches
3 Nectarines
Grapes (less than a whole bag)
1 Jar Maraschino Cherries
7 cups water
4 cups Sugar
4 Tbs Lemon juice
1 Pint water
Mix 1 quart of water with 4 tbs lemon juice. Peel apples, pears, nectaries and peaches, dipping them in the lemon water mixture to prevent browning. Pack them into the jars along with the rest of the fruit. Bring 7 cups of water to a boil, add sugar and bring back to a boil. Fill the jars with the sugar syrup. Use a knife to release air bubbles and can as normal for processing for 25 minutes.

The second recipe:

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Tooty Fruity!!

If you are friends with me on Facebook then you know that this summer we did a ton of canning. Here’s one of our favorites thus far. We made fruit cocktail. Thanks for sharing the recipe with us Gail! We love it.The kids love helping in the kitchen, so I found the perfect projects for them. I didn’t have any cherry pitting tools, so I just found a few small dowel rods. They thought pitting cherries was so much fun. Hard to believe right? Thomas helped me peel the skins of the peaches and sort other fruit as well. He was so proud that he got to help. Once all the fruit was cut we simmered it in a light syrup. The fruity smell in the kitchen was fantastic.Then we jarred the fruit and syrup and processed the jars in the canner. Easy peasy. :) Okay, it was a lot of work, but I had great helpers. It was completely worth all of the hard work we put into it because now we have the best fruit cocktail saved up for winter. I only wish we had made more.

Colorado is known for their peaches, so we stocked up on some vine ripened peaches when they were ready. They are the best tasting peaches; juicy and succulent. It doesn’t get any better.

Here’s the fruit cocktail recipe that Gail so kindly shared with me. It’s definitely a keeper. Try it and your kids will be just like mine. One jar just isn’t enough at meal time. They ate it up like it was candy. Thank you again Gail!

Rosy Fruit Cocktail
Make a light or medium syrup (I just go to my Ball Blue book of canning and use theirs) to equal 5 1/4 cups. Keep hot, but not boiling.
You will need these fruits:
          1  2 lb. pineapple
          3 lbs. peaches
          3 lbs. pears
          1 lb. dark sweet cherries
          1 lb. seedless green grapes
Finely chop pineapple to make 3 cups.
Peel, pit, and cut peaches into cubes to make 8 1/2 cups.
Peel, core, and cut pears into cubes to make 6 1/2 cups.
Halve and pit cherries to make 2 1/2 cups
Remove stems from grapes and measure 3 cups.
Combine all fruit in a 4 - 6 quart Dutch oven or kettle.
Add hot syrup and bring to boiling.
Pack fruit in hot clear jars, leaving 1/2 inch headspace.
Remove air bubbles with a knife, wipe rims and adjust lids.
Process filled jars in boiling water canner for 20 minutes (half pints or pints). At high altitude I added 10 more minutes.
Remove from canner and cool on racks.
Makes 9 pints.
Stay tuned for more recipes. I am so behind in posting recipes.

A Rainy 4th of July

Well here in Middle Tennessee we have been enjoying the passing rain showers for the last week.  Honestly, we enjoy them because it keeps the garden well watered with the fresh rain water.  We welcome this because we have city water, not well water, that means we have no idea what is in the water that we would water our plants with.  We have no worries in the house because we use our Kangen Water System for everything!  Well today the rain went to a whole other level, it was an all day, soaking rain.  I know we need rain but how I dread an all day rain, it just drains all motivation from me!  However, I always find something to do.  This little swimming pool was dry last night when we went to bed, when I took this picture it was over half full.  When I went to check the animals at dark tonight it was almost over flowing, thats alot of rain, at least the ducks are loving it, if you look close you can see the feathers, they were swimming in here!

Last night my in laws came back home with the kids, they had been gone for almost 2 weeks back home visiting before school starts in August. So today was an exciting day hearing about what they did and what they missed!  Today the boys went to the woodshop with their dad to check out the new CNC machine we bought last week.  They were pretty impressed!  I will get some pictures together tomorrow to post of the dog they carved. 

I had an experience the last couple days with on of my easter egger cchickens.  I have an easter egger chicken who on ooccasion will lay a really rough feeling egg, but it was really "rough".  Check out these pictures, it looks like mountains.

I am puzzled, I guess I will have to do some research!  I hope everyone enjoyed this glorious holiday celebrating our countries Independence.  We did not get to enjoy an spectacular fireworks because of the weather but we will try again tomorrow!

Homestead Gardening in Tennessee Naturally

We have used gardening  as a source of feeding our family and income for years.  When we moved to Tennessee we hoped to do the same but we knew it would take some work.  We started by fencing in the acre we wanted to plant our first year and running our pigs in it.  The pigs are great for rooting up the ground, which means they were able to eat and root up the ground so we could collect rocks.  We left them all winter and moved them to a large pasture in the woods in April to begin the garden.

Well April came and so did the showers, which was ok because there was a drought here last  year so bring on the rain.  Well the rain lasted weeks and by the end of April it was time.  We picked up rocks for what seemed like forever and we were ready to work ground, we thought.  All was going well my father in law plowed the ground, we picked up more rocks. Next, we should have used the tiller, but a part was broke and it was going to take a week to get, change of plans.  The ground was so nice we decided to use the disc to see what would happen. Well much to our surprise it worked great, the ground crumbled up so fine, it was perfect.  To understand my excitement we could have never done this back home in Ohio, our ground was so hard and filled with clay it took forever for it to crumble and it was never as fine and workable as it is here.

We were surprised that it only took two days and we were ready to plant.  We layed our plastic to prevent weeds from overtaking, but my father in law couldn't wait and planted somethings without plastic, not a big deal the weeds do not come up too quick here, but he did plant the rows too close, so now the cucumbers are a massive mess and its gonna be fun to pick.  We have been picking some peppers, herbs, a couple tomatoes, not too bad for planting late.  Here are some pictures of our garden, we grow with no chemicals at all!

Handmade Custom Picture Frames

I usually do not out a lot about our business on here, but I questioned myself why not?  I kind of laughed to myself and thought its free do it:)  We have been here in Tennessee for around 8 months and have slowly started to build our woodworking business. We currently make cutting boards, name signs, and molding.  However, we were doing ok but we want to build our dairy so we needed to expand.  We scraped up enough money and bought a Carvewright CNC machine. 

With the purchase of this machine it opened up a whole new chapter.  Basically, we can now create about anything a person could want in wood.  Its pretty exciting, but the last four days have been a bit trying to figure out the software.  I want to share some of our new creations with you.  We currently sell on EBay or directly through  us.  Hopefully, in the next few months we will have a website ready, but first I need to sell a lot more product to pay for this awesome machine.

Check out our store on EBay, do an advanced search for naturalhomestead.

This sign is carved in great detail.

The machine!

This is Oak 8"x10" frame, we made it have a distressed look.

This is a red cedar frame, we have many more designs but they are not dry for picture taking!

 This is an 8"x10" Oak stained red mahogany.

This is an 8"x10" Oak, clear coated.

Sugar to Honey Conversion Chart

Chickens & Ducks on the Farm

This is Red, one of my Rhode Island Reds, I walked in the coop and literally watched her pop out the brown egg:)

She always starts cackling when she is done.

This is actually the dogs tub.  I just rinsed it out and filled it for him, when I heard quack quack and found this!