My “Real Food” Pantry

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Baking Day!

This week Crystal and Fishmama are co hosting a baking day, and since I haven’t done one of these since before the baby was born, I’m quite overdue! I love having a couple meals in the freezer ready to go, or at least partially finished so it doesn’t take so long to cook up each night.

My plan for today is to get the kitchen clean, grocery shop for needed ingredients, and get some food prep done.

Food prep:

• soak oatmeal (for breakfast)
• soak rice
• soak beans

Then tomorrow I plan on making:

• Granola Bars, 2 batches
• Blueberry spelt muffins, 2 batches
• GF zucchini muffins
• GF applesauce muffins
• cooked ground beef, 2 pounds placed in 1/2 pound amounts in ziplocs
• cooked taco meat, 2 pounds
• make crockpot chicken (some for dinner, some for later)
• make chili
• make mexican rice

Tuesday night prep; clean kitchen, get chicken broth going in crockpot, soak pancake batter

Wednesdays plan:

• make pancakes (some for breakfast, some for later)
• make cream cheese chicken pasta casserole (half for dinner, half for later)
• make fermented ketchup
• make mayo
• marinate and freeze steaks
• marinate and freeze chicken
• make playdoh
• make spaghetti sauce, 4 batches
• make pizza sauce, 4 batches
• make bbq sauce, 2 batches

While my list is rather daunting, I’m hoping to make some good headway and get most of this list done in just a couple days, though it may drag out all week if my kiddos have anythign to do with it!

And you can follow along on twitter using the hashtag #bakingday!

How to peel tomatoes

Lately I’ve been canning salsa and making our own fresh spaghetti sauce with all the tomatoes coming out of our garden. My problem is that currently do not have a way to either pulverize the skins and seeds (a.k.a Vitamix blender) nor do I own a sauce maker that separates everything for me.

I have to do it the old fashioned way.

With the dipping the tomatoes into boiling water for 30-45 seconds and then putting them into ice water. But it’s time consuming with the fact that you can only add so many tomatoes to the pot at once without cooling the water down.

So here’s what I do now:

• Fill one side of your sink with washed tomatoes and make sure the plunger is in the bottom.
• Fill up the other side with ice water
• Bring a large pot of water to boil
• Once it’s boiling, dump the water into the sink with the tomatoes
• After about 30-45 seconds, take a gloved hand (or pair of tongs) and pull out the plunger from the sink.
• The tomatoes can then be transferred to the ice water to cool. (not necessary if you’re canning them, but stopping the cooking process can make it easier to cor and cut them up!)

This makes it so much easier to do a large batch at once!

This post is linked to:

Kitchen Tip Tuesdays over at Tammy’s Recipes

Works for me Wednesday at We are That Family

Canning Peaches

Last week I was able to can a whole bushel of peaches for use over this winter. And although it took quite awhile to get it all done, it’s worth it in the long run to have a “healthier than storebought” option.

And while I was canning them I thought I’d do what any other sane blogger would do and take pictures along the way to show you how I did it!

First up, wash the peaches. (I didn’t take any pics of this, sorry. But I figure you’re all smart enough to get this part done without some major play by play)

*tip – make sure the peaches are ripe! and use the types that come right off the pits, other wise you’ll end up with mashed goo instead of slices of peaches.

Next, blanch them. (yea, I still didn’t have my camera out, so bear with me here) To blanch, get a pot of water at a rolling boil. Stick a few peaches in for about 30 seconds, then spoon out and place into a sinkful of ice water.
*tip – use LOTS of ice, because it melts fast when you put steaming hot peaches in it and you want to stop the cooking process quickly so as not to soften the peaches to much.

After they are blanched and have been in the ice water for a couple minutes, you can take them out and get ready to start slicing.

Peach Pit Jelly

In the whole “waste not, want not” way of thinking, I decided to make some peach pit jelly after a friend had mentioned it. I figured it would be a great way to use up what would normally be thrown away!!

Now, we don’t eat jams or jellies very often because of the sugar content. I think last year we went through about 1/2 dozen pints of jam, eating it maybe once a week or so. And this year hopefully we’ll eat even less as I try to cut sugar out of our diets more and more.

But anyways….I followed this recipe but changed it slightly because I used Pomona’s natural pectin and calcium water.

First I dumped all the skins, pits, and peach-y leftovers into a pot and poured in enough water to cover.

Appetizing no?

Then I left it out on the stove overnight looking all nasty and yuck. Seriously, it did not look appetizing at all!

After it sat out I then strained it through some cheesecloth and followed the directions in the Pomona box. I did not take pictures during this as I obviously have a hard time following directions. I put the pectin in at the wrong time, put the sugar in at the wrong time….and made a wretched mess as I let a sugar-y, peach-y pot overflow all over my stove.

After it finally got to about 220 degrees, I poured it into my jars and processed in a water bath canner for 10 minutes.

And it’s delightfully delicious!

FYI – I used 3 cups of sugar to 4 and 1/2 cups of peach ‘juice’.

Recipe : Dill Sun Pickles

My mama’s sun pickle recipe: (alright so it’s not really hers…but whatever!)
6 1/2 cups water
3 1/4 cups white vinegar
2/3 cup canning salt (or use Celtic sea salt as a healthier option)
4-6 cloves of garlic (you can add more if you really like garlic)
1/8 tsp. alum
about 10 medium pickling cucumbers
fresh dill, about 8-10 heads

1. Either slice or spear each cucumber.
2. Chop garlic into somewhat smallish pieces.
3. Pour water, vinegar, salt, and alum into a large mixing bowl or one gallon jar. Stir to dissolve salt.
4. Place a head of dill into a one quart jar along with half a chopped garlic clove. Add pickles until half full.
5. Repeat layering and pour water mixture over cucumbers and place lid on jar.
   
6. Set out in the sun for 2-3 days, chill and enjoy!

Now for some major tips to make these pickles last for about 6 months.

1. If your cucumbers were picked the day you make them, just wash and slice. If you don’t know when they were picked or were picked previously, soak for about an hour in ice water to re-crisp them. Otherwise they may go soggy to soon.
2. Use a double lid with ring and rubber seal. (canning lids) This helps with the fermentation by letting air out but not in.
3. Do not open the lid to taste test during the 2-3 days period. Only open and enjoy when you’ll be eating the entire jar within a couple weeks.
4. The sun part is most likely not necessary, since I have seen other recipes that are extremely similar and they just keep them inside. Although I do love the faded effect these pickles get from the sun, so mine always sit outside!

Hope you try them out, you won’t be disappointed! And granted, this isn’t a fully natural/fermented food, but it’s a lot better than what’s in the stores!

** Please do not construe my posts as medical advice, because *ahem*, I am not a doctor or medical professional. I am but a student of Nourishing Nutrition and Natural Health. I only hope to ignite a passion within you to do your own research and begin your own journey to better health. And to make sure you don't miss a single post, you can add my blog's RSS Feed to your reader or you can sign up for free updates by Email.