10 and counting

Well it's getting very close now. 10 days and counting. I never ever thought we were actually going to make it this long. We've been very busy trying to get all of the last minute details done. We got our Christmas tree already and have been working to decorate it. We are very excited for our boys first holiday!

On the home front I am working on getting everything ready for winter. I did the last of the garden prep and put a whole bed of garlic in to come up in spring. I also got all of the firewood split and stacked. We had a nice fire last night which is just perfect around the holiday time.

At work I'm still making preparations for my time away when the boy is born. I've been making a lot of what I've called "virtual lessons" using a website called voicethread. Below you'll find a podcast that goes into some detail as to how I use it in my classroom...enjoy!

http://teachersites.schoolworld.com/webpages/JSmoyer/files/smoyer%20podcast%20assignment.mp3

I'm back!!

Well after quite a long absence I'm back! Things have been very busy over here lately and I haven't really been able to dedicate my time to blogging. I'm going to try it again but I'm not sure how much time I'll have to dedicate to playing around with blogging again. I think the picture below is self explanatory as to why my time will no longer be my own very shortly. At the time of this post we are 28 days and counting until showtime.

It's clearer to me more then ever now though as to why the goodness and the skills that I'm trying to preserve are so important. I've been working harder then ever on such things around the home so I have as much a I possibly can pass onto this little guy. While I may get behind on blogging about them, rest assured I'm learning and trying more then ever in preparation to pass them onto the next generation. Hopefully, I will have some more in the next few days related to Thanksgiving, laundry detergent I made for my wife with all the extra clothes we have now and all types of other fun things!

Back to School Lunches

By this time of year all the kids should be back in school and you may be having the fun task of packing lunches every day. At our home there are no kid's lunches but we are still going to school every day and need some packed lunches. They are usually healthy and cheaper! Like most parents I know the ideas for fresh healthy lunches also get few and far between as time goes on. So before you start to hear the complaining from your kids or your significant other check out this article from iVillage (home of gardenweb one of my favorite forums!) that talks about how to keep lunches healthy, fresh, and will keep eaters of all sizes interested!


http://food.ivillage.com/slideshow/food/fresh_ideas_for_packed_school_lunches/

Canning Storage

As I increase the amount of canning I'm doing this fall I started to have to tackle the issue of storage space. Personally, I think one of the biggest hold-ups that stop people from canning in this modern day world is the lack of convenient storage space for all of the canned goods. Usually, people have a limited space in a pantry (if they have one at all) where they rotate the stock of goods through by what they buy at the grocery store. This allows a variety of different products to be stored but also keeps them rotating so you don't have 40 jars of tomato sauce taking up all the room you have for cereal.

So, the question becomes what do you do WHEN you do actually put up 40 jars of tomato sauce after a particularly good growing season. There are lots of different places in the home that would make good storage of your canned goods. I've even read articles of people who make storage for their canned goods under their beds.

For me the solution came with a small room in my basement that houses the oil tank (thank goodness I don't use that often!) and a pump for the cistern built into our foundation. This little room met the requirements for good canning storage

• Cool (something in the 40s-60s would be best)
• Won't freeze
• Dark
• Low humidity
• Easy access

This room fit the bill as it is underground below our front porch. It's out of the way but still maintains easy access so I don't have to ask my wife to crawl into a hole when she wants some green beans! The temperatures have been OK so far. I think over the winter I may insulate the room from the rest of the house effectively making it a "cold room." It will be slightly tougher than most since it's concrete walls but I will make due. It also has a small vent window that I can utilize if I start to store things like apples in there. Apples give off a gas that if not ventilated will accelerate the rotting process of things like potatoes (which I have stored in this room).

To make the room perfect for the canned goods I make storage in two categories. Storage for the canned goods themselves and storage for the equipment. My wife was getting slowly frustrated with the amount of new jars and big pots and pressure canners I had stored around the kitchen. For the canned goods I simply bought a set of metal shelves. I normally would just build shelves to custom fit the space but I wanted something that wouldn't be affected by dampness.

 
For the other supplies I built a table that spanned over the cistern pump. This is perfect for all the extra jars waiting to be filled.

I'm monitoring the humidity in there right now and that seems to be working out ok. If I notice any rusting on the rings I'll have to pull them off and store them differently. Hopefully, you too will be able to find some space for your own goods. Be creative there is plenty of spaces to hide these little treasures until you want them...or you need them.

Homemade English Muffins

Although I haven't posted any of those adventures yet making homemade English Muffins is a continuing step in a long line of bread-making endeavors. For some reason "dough" products like bread, sourdough bread, pancakes, English Muffins, etc. have been at the forefront of my food trials in order to prepare food for my family that is both healthy and something that we can make ourselves. I think I got wrapped up into the entire "yeast" family because I know that with some skills I can take flour, sugar and some yeast and turn it into so many different healthy things for my family. I take comfort in knowing that having these staples on hand will allow me to provide for ourselves no matter what else is going on out there.

The recipe I used to make these are as follows (found on another Blog and cited from (Beth Hensberger's Bread Bible):


1/4 cup warm water (105 - 115 degrees)
1 tablespoon (1 package) active dry yeast (or a little less than a tablespoon of instant yeast)
Pinch of sugar
4 to 4 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons salt
1 egg
1 1/4 cup warm milk
2 tablespoons melted butter
Cornmeal (for dusting)

If using active dry yeast, combine the water, yeast, and a pinch of sugar in a small bowl and let stand until foamy, about 10 minutes. If using instant yeast, as I did, you can just mix the yeast in with the flour and omit this first step and the sugar.

Combine 2 cups of the flour and the salt in a large bowl. Make a well in the center and pour in egg, milk, butter, and yeast mixture. Mix until creamy, about 2 minutes. Add the remaining flour 1/2 cup at a time, stirring in each time, until you have a soft dough that just clears the sides of the bowl.

Turn the dough out onto a floured work surface and knead for 3 to 5 minutes. Return the dough to a clean, greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and allow the dough to rise until doubled in size, about 90 minutes.

Sprinkle a work surface with cornmeal. Pour the dough out of the bowl and onto the surface. Sprinkle the top of the dough with cornmeal and then roll the dough into a rectangle about 1/2 inch thick. Use a large round cookie cutter or an upside down drinking glass to cut the muffins out of the dough.

Heat a large skillet over medium heat. Place the muffins onto the skillet and let the bake for 5 to 10 minutes until quite dark before flipping.

An optional step, if you are concerned about baking them all the way through (which I was), is to have your oven heated to 350. After baking the muffins on the griddle for 5 minutes on each side, place them on a cookie sheet and place them into the oven for an additional 5 to 10 minutes. This assures that they are baked through.

I tried a small a small one that I had made from the leftover dough when it had cooled and it tasted great! Good bit of firmness on the outside but nice and chewy inside. Wasn't too dense and seemed to have decent crumb inside to make some good nooks and crannies. I can't wait until breakfast tomorrow!

Sweet Pickle Relish

Despite the fact that the temperature is slowly cooling off here in Zone 6 I'm still slowly collecting cucumbers off the vine and continue to try different recipes with them to see what I like and what I will try again next summer. This batch went to a sweet pickle relish whose recipe I found in the Ball Blue Book of preserving.

The recipe I followed was:

Sweet Pickle Relish
1 quart chopped cucumbers
2 cups chopped onions
1 cup chopped sweet green pepper
1 cup chopped sweet red pepper
1/4 cup salt
3 1/2 cups sugar
1 TBL celery seed
1 TBL mustard seed
2 cups cider vinegar

Combine cucumbers, onions, green and red peppers in a large bowl;

 sprinkle with salt and cover with cold water.

 Let stand 2 hours. Drain; rinse and drain thoroughly Combine sugar, spices and vinegar in a large saucepot. Bring to a boil. 

Add drained vegetables; simmer 10 minutes.

Pack hot relish into hot jars, leaving 1/4 inch head space. Remove air bubbles. Adjust two-piece caps. Process 10 minutes in a boiling-water canner.

Yield: about 8 half-pints

One of the only things I changed with this recipe is the type of jars used. You shouldn't go UP in size because of the changes in density that will mess up your processing times (not enough heat the to center.) But, because I didn't have enough half-pint jars I used small 4oz jelly jars. This might work anyhow since we don't use a TON of relish at a time.

We even had enough to get almost a full half-pint for ourselves to keep in the fridge to try immediately.  Although I'm guessing the stuff that sits a while might get better flavor over time. Since it's Labor Day weekend I definitely think I'll have to grill some hotdogs and hamburgers and give this a try this weekend! 

A Day of Labor

The unofficial end of summer is here. It seems like I was just starting planting for the year and rueing all the rainy weather we had in the northeast early in the season and looking forward to some beautiful summer weather. Tonight as my wife and I went for a walk outside with the dog you could start to feel the coolness that is starting to creep into the evenings here. When the labor day weekend is over we are set to receive a shipment of tulips and irises that will have to be planted in preparation for the winter.

As my wife and I get busy with work again we've also been spending some time putting up more food for the winter. The post for these should come out in the next day or two. As much as I always love the summer I look forward to the change in seasons as well. About a month and we'll travel to the National Apple Festival in Gettysburg, PA and then come home and do all the apple processing of our own. Apple sauce again this year and hopefully butter, pie filling and maybe some dried this year as well. Time to get the home ready for winter. A whole new set of adventures to be had.