A Day of Canning

Last week I had the honor to share the kitchen with two very talented women: +Pyper Jean, my dear friend, and Barbara Salsbury from Solutions for Preparedness. On a day that Pyper and I were supposed to spend making our planners for next year, we ended up having an all out can-a-thon and calling Barbara over to assist.

Both Barbara and Pyper have been canning for years and years and years. While both my Grandmas can from their gardens, their productions are not on the scale that Barbara and Pyper undertake. That is, my Grandmas haven't canned on this scale during my lifetime. So, seeing what we could put up in just one steam-filled day (and knowing that Pyper never sleeps and has been canning stuff each week since about June) was astounding to me. It still blows my mind!!

Grape jelly!! That actually jelled!!

We started out with beets and ended up with 8 1/2 quart jars. Though I'm not fond of pickled beets, Pyper's grandma's recipe sure did sound interesting. It involved cloves. I'm not sure whether my Grandma uses cloves in hers, but like I said, it was interesting.

After the beets were done, I thumbed through Pyper's canning book for a while. I found a recipe for "Thanksgiving" jelly: apple, raspberry, cranberry. Well, there were raspberry bushes and apple trees in the yard, and Pyper just happened to have a bag of cranberries. We set out and picked raspberries and apples and canned that jelly fresh off the vine/tree. What an experience!! And I tell you what, that stuff smelled SO AMAZING. Like tart, cinnamony, holiday cheer. We got 8ish 1/2 pints of that yumyum stuff.

Next up was grape jelly. That's where Barbara came in. She and Pyper have known each other for quite some time. Since Barbara literally wrote the book on canning, Pyper enlisted her to help make sure the grape jelly actually jelled: something I also struggle with. Syrupy jelly. Runny jelly. Apparently, the trick is you add lemon juice and pectin and BAM. Thick, gooey, jelled jelly. Who knew?! Well, Barbara did, apparently.

And you have to boil it until, "it looks like it's going to turn into hard candy!" Stir constantly. Like, constantly, constantly. Like, don't stop stirring while someone takes your picture, constantly.

Me stirring under the supervision of Barbara

I don't remember how many pints we got of grape jelly, because we had a lot of odd shaped jars that we used. I do remember that our one batch was the exact perfect amount to fill up all those oddball jars. Amazing!!

After jelly, it was time for tomatoes. We blanched, peeled, stewed, and canned 8ish quart jars of 'maters. We has some tomatoes set aside for tomato basil jam. Unfortunately, we were completely out of sugar so the jam had to wait for another day.

My haul. Yumyumyum.

Pyper stopped over on Sunday to drop of my haul of our canning adventure.  I am beyond excited to have such a full pantry!! I feel like such the little homesteader. I cannot wait to get out of apartment living and into a house so that I can have my very own garden yet again. Siiiiiiggghhh.

I just love self-sufficiency.

Something I Never Thought I Would do...

These last few days have been full of activities I never really thought I would do. As you know, I debuted on Twitter yesterday which is something I never really thought I'd be into. But I did it, and now @LastinLineShop is a real-deal Tweet factory. The other major "never woulda thunk I'd be doing this" activity is drying berries.

That's right. Dehydrating dem yum-o red, red Raspberries.  Raspberries that apparently produce fruit here until it snows. Crazy! But yummy.

 
I was kind of adverse to the idea of drying fruit-type stuff. Why not just eat it all? Drying seemed like extra, silly work in my mind. Oh how wrong I was.

I found myself once again the recipient of the benevolent +Pyper Jean's produce and was a bit overrun with fruit. Which is by no means a complaint. I seriously cannot get enough raspberries. But seeing as my freezer is currently packed to the gills with other produce courtesy of my friend, I needed to either eat them all or....

...dry them.

Now, Pyper reassured me that the berries are amazingly wonderfully delicious once dried. To convince me 100%, she had me try some she had dried. I will admit, I was skeptical; but, holy moly, mother of sweet berry goodness were they delicious!! They start out tasting a tiny bit bitter, then the flavor blossoms into this deep, tart, concentrated berry bomb in your mouth. No exaggeration.

Well, maybe a little exaggeration, but they are yummy, and that's what matters.

So, thoroughly convinced that drying the fruit was the way to go, I was sent on my merry way with a dehydrator to borrow and a bucket of berries. 10ish hours later, my sweet treats were ready. Mhhhhhhh.

Who'd a thunk?

Super easy, super yummy. In my mind that's a win.

Have you ever dried berries?

New Twitter Account & How To Make: Coffee Soap

Have you ever come across an idea for a project that will not get out of your head? It just gets in your brain, takes root, and keeps itching away until you actually give in and embark on the project. It used to happen to me a lot. Read: daily. But lately, as I have been distracted by a certain little babu, my brain hasn't had too much free space for craft obsessions.

But since thing have settled in to a sweet little rhythm, my brain has been able to latch on to something: soap making. I saw an article on PopSugar about how to make soap using up old coffee grounds.

And I thought, "Well, I like coffee."

It's really super duper easy to make some fast soap. You can do it in an afternoon! To some, the melt-and-pour method of soap making is cheating because it involves using a premade soap base. In my mind, it's the safest method for me to make soap in an apartment. No lye, no fumes. Safe for baby and me! Are you sold on this? Let's get to it!!

Supplies:

Meltable clear glycerin soap (got mine from Michael's)

Old coffee grounds

Vanilla scent (optional)

Microwavable glass bowl

Spoons

Mold (I used candy making molds: $2 at Michael's) 

  

Step 1: Cube your wax

Most clear glycerin comes with pre-scored lines to cut 1 oz sections. For my mold I needed about 5 oz, but I cubed up 6 just to be safe.

Step 2: Melt wax

Follow the directions on your wax package for microwave melting. Mine said to start with 30 seconds, then melt and stir at 10 second intervals. 

Step 3: Add scent and coffee grounds

Just like the title says, yo. Mix in the scent and how ever much of the grounds you want. I did about 2 tbs of grounds, and 5 ish drops of the scent. 

Step 4: Pour into molds

While doing this, stir the glycerin a bit between pours to keep it from solidifying. Just make sure you don't drop your spoon into the mixture. Because it is annoying when that happens. Not that I know from experience or anything.

Once you are all done pouring your soaps, you can let the excess soap harden and save it for another pour. That's the beauty of melt and pour: you can reuse it as many times as you want! I didn't save mine because it was kind of a grounds-y mess. 

 Step 5: Wait for the soap to harden, then pop them out!

It takes about 40ish minutes, depending on the depth of your mold. You can pop them in the freezer to speed the process, but I saw no need to do that. 

Look how beautiful they look!! The pictures doesn't really do the prettiness justice. It's so deep and transparently and yummy. The soap is so great to use. It's got a great lather, and the coffee grounds are delightfully exfoliating. And the smell? Heavennnnnn.

You can spray rubbing alcohol on the bottom of your soap while it's wet to get rid of the ugly bubbles, but I didn't. These were just my practice ones. And plus the bubble side will be down when it's on the soap dish. Nobody is going to be critical. 

I can't wait to make more soap! I have so many plans for fun herb mix-ins. Have you ever tried to make soap? Cold Process? Melt and Pour?

In other news, I made a Twitter account today! Follow me! I'll follow you back. @LastinLineShop

Drying Herbs

 Over this summer, thanks to the ever loving and benevolent Pyper Jean, I've amassed a nice little stash of delicious herbs.

Chocolate mint

I've never dried my own herbs before, and I was under the impression that it takes tons of effort. I mean, yeah, I'll use the heck out of fresh stuff from people's gardens, but that's as far as it can go. Mostly because I was terrified of the process. I vaguely remember seeing a screen set up that required a fan and carefully timed leaf turning schedules. Yeah, you don't need any of that nonsense.

Chocolate mint dried for tea

All ya gotta do is pop those plants on a wall outside. Or inside. Or anywhere!! Lucky for me, the previous tenants in our apartment put lots of nails in the wall on our balcony: perfect for herb drying.

Sage

I dried chocolate mint, oregano, sage, rosemary, tarragon, orange thyme, lemon thyme, and regular thyme. I am so pleased to now be culinarily adept enough to be able to say to myself, "Oh I should season this with some of my home-dried herbs!"

Because I'm the only one who really feels special about it.

Well, my wallet does too. Do you know how expensive herbs are at the grocery store?? It is straight up RIDICULOUS, yo. But now, I'm not slave to the Spice Islands or  old man Mckormic anymore.

Herb gardens!!!!! For the win!!

Oregano

Have you ever dried herbs at home? What's your favorite herb?