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Freezing Paw Paw Pulp

Paw Paws are very short lived, within a few days they go to black and mush, plus the fruit flies find them.  I collected enough paw paws this year that I decided to freeze the pulp.  It’s a little tedious to separate the pulp from the seeds and skin, but worth it in the end.  Paw Paw fruit can be used as a replacement for oil in baking, or in salsas or sauces, or even in a recipe in place of another fruit.

First Slice the fruit in half width wise, or lengthwise. 

The first time I did this across the width, I scooped out the fruit and pulled the seeds out.  The seeds have a small membrane around them that the fruit sticks to.  In order to get the most fruit, peel the membrane off and throw in with the fruit.  I found though, that slicing the the length maybe not in half, but a quarter, will cut through the membrane leaving the tips of the seeds exposed.  …

Peach Canning Newbies

What ever possessed me to buy 5 pecks of peaches?  It might have been the price and also that I am on vacation, but this is my first foray into canning peaches – though I have frozen some before.  I told my in-laws and my mom that I was going to get my mom to can peaches with me this week.  My brother in law – said – your mom travels all this way to see you, and you are making her work?  I told him that my mother doesn’t like to be idle and I am always finding work for her to do.  She does not like to sit around.

We didn’t start as early as we would have liked this morning – we started the day by packing my daughter up into the station wagon and her boyfriend’s truck to go back to college.  She’s one of my best kitchen helpers so she will be missed.  Then we went to see Harry Potter, because weren’t allowed to go without my mom. If you know @DebNg then you know about how much the family enjoyed the series- book more …

Canning Season Has Started

Not wanting to waste tomatoes by letting them sit around, my husband and I decided to try and attack them. I think heating the house up with the oven to simmer the tomatoes down works against the air conditioning. Today I am taking a different approach. We cored and cut the tomatoes into quarters and are simmering it in the large electric roasting pan – the one I use to cook a turkey for Thanksgiving, or leg of lamb for easter. The tomatoes are breaking down quite nicely, though I will need to strain out the seeds and skin before finishing making the spaghetti sauce.

I should mention that half the tomatoes are from the garden and half from a farmer at the market. We’ve been buying bulk tomatoes from him for a couple of years now. He mentioned that he might have canners next weekend, for 15.00 a bushel, a really inexpensive price for tomatoes that are not perfect. I bought ten lbs from him yesterday, and they are thick meaty solid tomatoes, just lovely.

We have problems if we don’t process them soon after picking or buying. So I’ve made one batch of salsa …

Make Your Cheese Last Longer with the FoodSaver FreshSaver

Cheese is a great snack, a good hors d’oeuvre for Easter or other family gatherings (like Mother’s Day), but you end up with partially eaten cheeses sitting around in the fridge going moldy.  I hate moldy cheese, but I love cheese.  The FoodSaver Freshsaver is a hand held, rechargeable vacuum seal device that will keep your cheese from getting moldy.  I swear, it’s wonderful for my cheese.  About the size of the palm of your hand, it stores in one of your kitchen drawers easily when not in use. I’ve had mine about 6 months and I love it.

Cheese without the FreshSaver system:

Cheese with the FreshSaver system:

Lots of fresh cheeses mmmm.

All you do is position the device over the seal and suction out the air until there isn’t any more air to suck out.  It doesn’t work well on wet foods, so jello would not work, however, you can …

Freezer Peppers, Onions and Ginger

These are three things that I freeze to be used at a later time. I don’t like waste, so I can’t see throwing good food away (or into the compost) when it can be preserved for later use. The last weeks or so before the first big frost peppers seem to kick into over drive.  We pick the big and medium ones and hope that before a hard freeze comes along the plants will put in all of their energy into making those smaller peppers grow.  On one end of the road, and down the other there was a frost last week, we covered the peppers, tomatoes and other plants, but in the morning we had a thick fog and no frost.  We were lucky, but it was a warning to us that we needed to take some time and get the peppers ready for freezing before they froze on the vine – not a pretty sight. 

• Peppers – Peppers freeze well, but you won’t have the same firm peppers when …
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  Freezing Broccoli

  September 21, 2009 - Written by Diana

  If you have an abundance of broccoli growing in your garden, or even if you buy too much and you don’t want it to go bad, you can freeze your broccoli to use at a later time.  The band went to a competition yesterday, and after we play our set, the band parents set up tables and feed the band.  One of our favorite sides for the kids is veggies and dip because it’s healthy and because they can eat it their fingers  and not have a mess.  There was an overload of broccoli this time and the band parents were giving it away.  I told my husband I would take it and we could freeze it, since I knew we wouldn’t eat it all before it went bad.  Freezing Broccoli is an easy process that can be done for other vegetables like carrots and cauliflower.

  Steps to Freezing Broccoli.

  • If you have a head of broccoli, break it down.  You can take the florets with stems, longer than what I had(veggie tray size).  Mine were already cut up into small pieces. Cut off the woody stem. Keep only the good stuff.

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  Canning Tomato Sauce

  September 9, 2009 - Written by Diana

  My end of summer chores involve making different stuff with all of the tomatoes we have.  A long time ago (I’m aged) I bought a Victorio Strainer 200.  It was so worth what I paid for it and is still working perfectly fine, probably because there aren’t any electronic parts or electricity involved, just crank power.  There are many different versions of this useful gadget, all are good.  My sister has something she calls a Foley Mill – that one looks like more work, but I’m sure works fine.

  First you clean and cut up the tomatoes so that they fit into the hopper.  Turn the crank, and push the tomatoes down with the plunger.  The tomato juice and pulp will come out of the side and the seeds and skin will come out the end. When we have enough skin and seed in the bowl we’ll put it through the hopper again, in order to squeeze as much pulp out as we can.

  After the tomatoes have all gone through the strainer, either …

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