Strawberry Jam (No Canning Required)

Strawberry Freezer Jam in 30 Minutes

Strawberries are ripe here in central Ohio around the first week in June. 
I started making Strawberry Freezer Jam in the early 1990s and now my kids will not eat (or even like) commercially produced jam. Every year we go to a “Pick Your Own” farm to pick the strawberries fresh. 

When choosing strawberries, homegrown or farm fresh strawberries produce the best jam.  Store purchased lack the intense sweet strawberry flavor. 

I have also made cooked strawberry jam and it’s great for shelf life but there is just no comparison with Strawberry Freezer Jam for flavor. 

Sausage Kale Soup (Zuppa Toscana)

There is something so comforting and soothing about having a hot bowl of soup on a cold winter’s day. 

If you ever wondered about soup, traditionally, soups are classified into two main groups: clear soups and thick soups. 

I always call mine soup or stew; depending on how thick it is and if there are more ingredients than liquid. 

For soup sticklers, many definitions state: 

“Soups are similar to stews, and in some cases there may not be a clear distinction between the two; however, soups generally have more liquid than stews.” 

Quick and Easy Strawberry Cake

This is an easy sheet cake or layer cake that's ready in no time using a pre-packaged cake mix and frozen strawberries. 

We pick our strawberries at a nearby farm every year around the first week of June to make our own natural Homemade Strawberry Jam.  And I always buy extra strawberries to chop and freeze to use with desserts, on ice cream, or in salads.  

There is nothing like the taste of summer fresh strawberries!  

Well It's January and June is quickly approaching so I decided to use up some of last summer's strawberries to bake a cake for my husband Bill’s birthday.

This cake is also perfect if you’re looking for a Valentine’s Day dessert.  Or bookmark or Pin this recipe for summer and use fresh garden strawberries.  Great to serve at outdoor barbecues and summer dinner parties too!

How I Got Started Breeding Rabbits

Rabbits:  The Beginning

By Guest Blogger Alexis Lynch:  An Introduction

Hello! I’m Elizabeth’s daughter and after many requests from my Mom, I agreed to do a little guest blogging.  

I will be blogging about Rabbits: raising, feeding, housing and breeding along with other rabbit concerns.    

As a child I had a pet rabbit. It’s been so many years ago that I no longer remember the exact day I got him but he was a grey short-haired Mini-Rex named Thunder.   He was an average example of his breed, only special because he was my very own and I loved him. He lived near our clubhouse in an outdoor hutch my mother built from salvaged lumber.  I have many happy memories of taking him out to our sunny grassy yard where we spent many hours playing together.  Time passed and as all living things do; sadly including pets, Thunder eventually died. I remember crying and running to tell my parents. I never had another pet rabbit after that; my experience with rabbits thereafter stemming from what I read from books or online, watching nature shows or rabbits I saw at county fairs.

Perfect Sourdough Bread

Sourdough bread is great buttered, toasted, served with dinner, or used for sandwiches. 

In my opinion, bread making is an art and a science.

There is a special pleasure working with bread and just the aroma of baking bread throughout the house is well worth the effort.

I grew up eating my mother’s homemade bread.  We would beg and beg her to make it and it was always eaten hot from the oven covered with butter.  
My mother never looked at a recipe to make her bread, she just mixed it up and it was perfect. Every Single Time. Sigh.

I can't just whip up a loaf of bread, I always have the recipe right next to me and I have been practicing for years.  In the past, I’ve had as many bread failures as successes I think, but I kept at it. 

Using a sourdough starter is an ancient method to make leavened bread.

Bean Soup

Canning Bean Soup

Our busiest canning "season" is during the summer and early autumn months while we are harvesting our garden vegetables.
During the winter months, we love lots of soups and stews.
Usually, when I cook meals or casseroles, I try to make enough for two meals to save time later.  Half we eat now, and half gets frozen or canned for a convenient meal later.  

For soup, I make a large stockpot full and have plenty left over to can.

Having jars of soup in the pantry, ready to just heat up is a huge time saver and works just wonderful for a cold winter day meal.  Just grab one or two jars from the shelf and heat.  Add a side salad or sandwich and you have an easy no-fuss meal! And one without the added sodium, additives or preservatives found in commercially canned soups.

Sourdough Bread Starter

Sourdough Starter

Let me start this post by saying I am no expert when it comes to bread making and I believe bread making is an art form. I have been practicing for years and kicked up the experimenting in the last few years.  
I have tried to get a sourdough starter going a few times with no luck.  But my son Daniel absolutely loves a good sourdough bread so I persevered. 

Making good loaves of bread is time consuming so it's not for everyone.  But the joy and feelings of accomplishment you get when the bread turns out perfect are well worth it. 
I have never actually met anyone who has been successful at getting a starter to ferment or live. 
There are plenty of websites with instructions, and even rants about how easy plain flour and water is to start,  but what good are they if they don't work for me or you? 

Well let's get started.  Here are a few tips on how I got my starter to work.

It needs restating and underscored that the better the ingredients the better the end product.  

Also, if quick and easy bread is what you are more interested in try my Easy Beer Bread recipe. 

Sourdough is time consuming.  It just is.

Homemade Vegetable Soup

This soup can be made with garden or farm market fresh vegetables, vegetables you canned during summer months, leftovers or store purchased.

Making a large pot of soup at one time leaves enough leftovers to heat up on a cold snowy day when you are short on time.  
Canning the soup will be even handier to quickly heat and serve for a quick meal after a day playing in the snow or hiking. 

Tip:
Here’s a great tip a friend gave me.  Anytime you have leftover vegetables from a meal, simply store them in a Ziploc freezer bag.  Keep adding different leftover vegetables until you have enough to make a pot of vegetable soup!

And don’t be afraid to add different types of vegetables like squash, cabbage, peas or lima beans.  Each will add their own distinct flavor to the soup.

Canning Tomatoes

Easy Home Canned Tomatoes
Tomatoes are one of the first things I canned well over 20 some years ago as a beginner canner.  I read it was one of the easiest things to learn as a newbie canner and they were right.

There is nothing better than a fresh tomato straight off the vine, but I think the second best thing is a jar of home canned tomatoes in the middle of winter!

I use canned tomatoes in chili, spaghetti sauce, soups and casseroles and many different recipes.  If I run out, I also make salsa or tomato juice from the tomatoes I canned. 

I can so I can preserve my garden harvest but also because I can control what's in my food.  I grew it and I grow organic. I know what's in each and every jar. 

Canning is the process in which foods are placed in jars and heated to a temperature that destroys microorganisms and inactivates enzymes. This heating and later cooling forms a vacuum seal. The vacuum seal prevents other microorganisms from recontaminating the food within the jar.

Canning Rabbit Meat

Rabbit is quickly becoming the new white meat.  Prices in stores vary greatly but I have seen prices range between $10.00 to $18.00 per pound!

Rabbits are efficient meat producers meaning they provide good meat without high cost or much waste.  Also efficient in that rabbits, using the same amount of food and water that a cow needs to produce a pound of meat, can produce six pounds of rabbit meat.

Rabbit meat is mild flavored, tender, high in protein, low in fat, low in cholesterol, low in sodium and low in saturated fatty acids. 

And, comparing it to beef, pork, lamb, turkey, veal and chicken, rabbit has the highest percentage of protein, the lowest percentage of fat and has the fewest calories per pound, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Remember, rabbit meat can only be pressure canned.  Water bath method does not produce high enough heat or pressure to kill any and all bacteria that could lead to botulism and food poisoning.  Make sure to read the directions that came with your pressure canner before starting.

How To Make Grape Juice

Ripe grapes in Michigan

Homemade Grape Juice

A few years ago my daughter's mother-in-law Julie gave us 2 cases of grapes.  I decided to come up with something to do with all those grapes besides just eating them and making grape jelly, so I made grape juice.

Recently I have been getting grapes from our neighbor’s vines for free but I noticed this spring they removed all their vines and the trellis they were hanging on.  My heart sank. 

To have our own supply I have planted 5 grape vines in the last 3 years. Three are doing very well; two are struggling, but hopefully we will have our own grape harvest.

Homemade Vanilla

Making Vanilla is Easy!

Real vanilla is quite pricey but is one of the best flavors to use for wonderful desserts and in treasured recipes.  I myself absolutely love double strength vanilla. Making your own insures a high quality product that is free of artificial colors or sweeteners.  Homemade vanilla also makes a wonderful gift similar to a bottle of fine wine. And like fine wine, vanilla matures with age.

Making your own vanilla is cost effective and has only two ingredients:  Vanilla beans and vodka. Most commercially bottled vanilla is 4 ounces which is ½ cup.  I can't think of many things I pay that much for and get so little.

The first and most important question is: How many vanilla beans are needed to make vanilla?

Growing Your Own Garlic

Growing, Harvesting and Storing Garlic

It’s the end of March and I have the worst case of cabin fever I have ever experienced. We've had an unusually hard long winter here in Ohio, and all across the Midwest, with temperatures remaining well below freezing and even well below zero for long extended periods of time, ugh.  Usually our snow melts after a few days, but not this year. 

Gardening and seed catalogs are arriving in my mailbox nearly every week.  But most days, it’s almost too cold to walk down the lane to the mail box!

I am already planning the lay out of the vegetable garden and what I need to plant, one of which is garlic. We love garlic and I use it in many recipes and dishes.

Apple Cider Vinegar, The Magic Elixir

Why Use Apple Cider Vinegar?

Vinegar is a “staple food” stocked in my pantry and I’ve been using it for various things for years. 

But not until my daughter Alexis developed what looked like a skin rash that later left discolored spots on her skin, did we discover the health benefits and the many other uses for vinegar.

In recent years, Apple Cider Vinegar has once again become popular as we look for healthier more natural ways to heal ourselves without all the chemicals and side effects.  Vinegar is being used as an especially helpful cleaner and as a health and beauty aid.

There are many different types of vinegar on the market.  Some include rice wine vinegar, red wine vinegar, balsamic vinegar and white distilled vinegar. 

Natural Tomato Soup

A Healthier Soup Alternative
Tomatoes are ripe on the vine here in Ohio and since I plant my own, I have an abundance!  The smell and taste of a ripe tomato fresh from the garden is one of my favorite summer joys.

But what to do with all those tomatoes can quickly turn into a summer dilemma. 

A few years back,  good friend of my niece Sarah posted a recipe for homemade tomato soup on Facebook.  I changed the recipe after the first year by adding 1 less green bell pepper (over powers the tomatoes) and by adding 1 to 2 extra bay leaves.
I have been making it every summer since. 

It’s a pretty easy process and the soup is delicious, especially in the middle of the winter.

For best results use only fresh produce from your garden or organic produce from a local farm market.  Store purchased produce has no where near the flavor of fresh locally grown, but you probably already know that.

Determining how many tomatoes you need is no easy task.  I have found that I need approximately 12 to 14 pounds of tomatoes to make about 8 pints of soup.  (or one canner load) Or another way to figure it is you need approximately 2 large tomatoes per pint.
I add more tomatoes to mine, making my soup mostly tomatoes with the veggies added for flavor. Adding too many vegetables makes it tastes more like vegetable juice!

Easy To Make Doughnuts

Homemade Doughnuts

Cutting out doughnuts with my old cutter

I have been researching flour and trying to find a better quality and healthier brand to use.
I came across an article in the Mother Earth News magazine my husband recently picked up for me. It’s about bread making and using a more natural flour.  One of the flour brands recommended was King Authur.

There is nothing better than homemade-fresh-from-the-oven bread topped with real butter.  When growing up my mother made us loaves of bread, and I have yet to taste better.

Real Greenies Have Manure On Their Boots!

I couldn't have said this better. I am irked daily to see people “confessing” to be green who haven’t a clue of what real love and respect for this earth is. They have rarely walked a quiet woods, planted a tree that produces food, tended a garden to feed their family, composted for the soil sake, recycled to reuse or anything of that nature. I believe most professed “city greenies” don’t even know how or what it means to be self sufficient!

Could I do more, do you ask? Why yes, of course! But I am not preaching “green or die”; I am not condemning everyone to a smog hell who doesn’t ride a bike to work!
Below is pretty much how I feel, just could never in a million years put it into words or a speech as this blogger has done!

Elizabeth