Thursday, August 12, 2010

Before and afters

As most of you know I have been up to my eyeballs with pressure canners, jars, veggies and fruits for the last few weeks. We leave tomorrow to go on a 10 day camping family trip with some of our children and grandchildren so last night we went to water our gardens to make sure they had plenty of water. I knew we would have to pick a few beans etc as they had almost been ready when we had been there on the weekend. Well let me tell you we were so very surprised we had so much food to pick!! But because we were leaving I had to get it all canned last night.

Sigh let me tell you starting to do this at 8 at night was not my cup of tea. Then just as I start and Keith was going to get the camping things out of the storage room, he gets a call from a church member who was beyond being rational and Keith went flying over there to see what had happened. Needless to say he showed up 4 hours later when everything was washed, chopped and jared already. All I had to do was wait for them to be processed in the canners which took till 1:30am.

So here is the result of last 2 days work towards our year emergency food storage:

Before:

Middle:

After:




2 jars of cucumber sweet relish
2 jars raspberry jam
3 jars of grape jelly
3 jars of pickled beets
3 jars of green beans
6 jars of yellow beans
3 jars of mixed peas and carrots
6 jars of salsa
12 more jars of apple pie filling to top the 15 I already had made earlier this week)
9 jars of applesauce (2 already went to another home

Friday, August 06, 2010

Changing the World

TODAY I'M GONNA TRY AND CHANGE THE WORLD
GONNA TAKE IT ONE DAY AT A TIME
I'VE MADE MY RESOLUTION
I�VE OPENED UP MY EYES
TODAY I'M GONNA TRY AND CHANGE THE WORLD


I'M GONNA SAY HELLO TO MY NEIGHBOR
GREET HIM WITH A SMILE
SHAKE THE HAND OF A STRANGER
SIT AND TALK FOR A WHILE
TELL SOMEONE I LOVE THEM
FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART
TODAY I'M GONNA TRY AND CHANGE THE WORLD

GONNA MAKE SURE MY CHILDREN
KNOW THERES A RIGHT AND WRONG
I�LL NEVER TURN MY BACK
ON THOSE OF US WHO NEED SOMEONE
I�M GONNA TRY TO SEE MYSELF
THROUGH ANOTHERS EYES
TODAY IM GONNA TRY AND CHANGE THE WORLD

TODAY I'M GONNA TRY AND CHANGE THE WORLD
TODAY I'M GONNA TRY AND CHANGE THE WORLD
NOT FOR ME, BUT FOR THOSE I'LL LEAVE BEHIND
I'VE MADE MY RESOLUTION
CHANGE IT ONE DAY AT TIME
TODAY I'M GONNA TRY AND CHANGE THE WORLD

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rtaBrHg1Bo

if you get the chance to see the actual video from Johnny Reid.. watch it..

Tuesday, August 03, 2010

Yesterday's Results

Yesterday was a great day. I talked to my mom twice for about an hour each time and we just chatted about the old days while I worked on my canning. I am so loving doing this. I haven't been able to do canning or plant a garden since we moved back from Vancouver 10 years or so ago because of my health and not having a place to garden. But now with the community plots that we got this spring it is very gratifying to reap what we sow. I am big on traditions and doing things the way I was taught and Mom and I talked about her recipes that I was using and where she had gotten hers from. We laughed at the silly things we as women do...it was a good day all around. But today I am taking the day off and heading over to Kitsilano Beach with Lareta for the whole day and just relaxing.





Sunday, August 01, 2010

moms~cookbooks~canning

A few years back my mom gave me some of her cookbooks..one of them was her very first cookbook that she had gotten before she had even gotten married. In those days you would save little stamps that were on Blue Ribbon products such as tea, coffee, baking powder etc. The company had a catalogue and you could send your stamps to them for products much like today's airmiles. So she had been getting them from her mom and when she had saved enough she ordered this cookbook to put in her hope chest. Now if you have no idea what that is.. let me know.. that would be another topic hehee.. Anyway some of the recipes you can tell are for another era as tehy call for milk that has not been separated yet :) and if you don't know what THAT means you really are from the new generation !!

At the back of this book are some blank pages which my mom kept a sort of journal of notes about recipes and so on. She also kept track of what she canned. What reminded me of the back of the book was yesterday when I finished doing some canning. I should have skipped that whole section of the book though :-D

The following was from a week in 1960. Now you have to understand that she does not have running water or dishwashers and has 4 children under the age of 6. The measurements are in Imperial measures as metric had not been invented yet at least not in our corner of the world. Qts are quarts which is about the same as a litre, pts is pints which is about the same as 1/2 litre, a bag was a very large gunny sack that held about 75-100 pounds and I have no idea how many kilos that is.

15 qts mixed vegetables
30 qts peas
27 qts beans (pork and beans)
2 bags of carrots
1 bag of turnips
30 qts dills
20 qts sweet pickles
30 qts beets
6 pts mustard pickles
6 qts green catsup
75 qts vegetables besides carrots and corn
100 qts pickles
30 qts chickens

You can see how I felt a little inadequate by my picture at the end of this when I read what she did :) Gotta love a mom's guilt from days gone by hehehee