Making Pumpkin Butter

Pumpkin Butter

On the 31st of OctoberI carved a pumpkin to put out
front. Instead of putting a lit candle inside, like I normally
do, I decided, instead, to light the jack-o-lantern with
battery-operated tea lights.

On November 1st, not being able to bear the thought of letting all that fresh pumpkin go to waste, I chopped it in half and put it in a metal pan, face-side up.

Next I covered both halves with aluminum foil and roasted the pumpkin in a 325 degree oven for an hour and a half.

After it was nice and tender, I removed the foil and
allowed the pumpkin to cool. Then, I cut the pumpkin
into pieces, peeled away the skin, and put the
pieces in the food processor.

I processed the pumpkin until it turned into a
nice, smooth, creamy puree.

Next, I measured the puree out into batches, added brown sugar, honey, lemon juice, and spices and let the sweet and sticky mixture simmer on low until thick.

After that, I ladled the pumpkin butter into jars. After capping with new lids and caps, I put the jars into a boiling, hot-water bath and processed them for approximately 20 minutes.

Out of that one throw-away pumpkin, I got a total of 6-pints
of delicious pumpkin butter. I had never made it before,
but am very pleased with the results. I'm in hopes of
finding a pumpkin or two on mark-down so as to make a few more jars of pumpkin butter before the season is over!

PUMPKIN BUTTER

2 cups pumpkin puree

2/3 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup honey

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1 teaspoon cinnamon or more to taste

1/4 teaspoon cloves or more to taste

Combine all ingredients in a heavy-duty saucepan and bring to a boil over medium heat; reduce heat to low and allow mixture to simmer for 20 to 25 minutes or until as thick as desired. Serve fresh on biscuits, bread, or toast or ladle into jars, cap, and process in a hot-water bath for 20 minutes.

Until next time,

~Rebecca

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Violets, Violet Jelly, and More

Common Violets - Photo Credit

In early spring violets grows in abundance here in southwest Missouri and our backyard is full of them! 

Cyndi's Candied Violets

A friend of mine, Cyndi Cogbill, of Pawpaw Patch Productions, inspired me this year when she tried her hand at making violet syrup and shared pictures of the candied violets she made and the sugar cookies that she featured them on. Wow! Absolutely beautiful! 

Cyndi's Sugar Cookies Featuring Candied Violets

Cyndi also shared the link to a great article on the virtues of violets from Eat The Weeds and Other Things, Too and that is where I got the original recipe for violet jelly, which I will be sharing my slightly tweaked version of in this post.

Like I said, in early spring our backyard is full of violets! After looking at Cyndi's pictures and reading the article that she posted the link for, I decided to gather my supplies and try my hand at making violet jelly...and I'm so glad I did! Not only is it beautiful, but it tastes delicious! It's sure to be an annual treat in this household from now on! 

The first thing I did, was to gather two cups of violet heads (no stems...no leaves...just heads) and put them in a jar.

Two Cups of Loosely-Packed Violet Heads

 Next, I made an infusion by pouring two cups of boiling water over the violet heads, covering them with a lid, and letting them sit for several hours.

An Infusion of Violets and Water

Immediately after covering the violets, the water started turning a pretty shade of turquoise blue. 

An Infusion of Violets and Water

The longer the violets sat, the darker the color became. I don't have a picture of it, but the water eventually turned an almost dark blue.

After sitting for several hours, I used a coffee filter inside a strainer to strain the flower heads from the infusion. Then, I squeezed the juice from one whole lemon and added it to the liquid.

Upon adding the juice from the lemon, a chemical reaction took place and the liquid in the jar turned a beautiful shade of pink.

After that, using the liquid in the jar, and following the instructions below, I went ahead and made the jelly. One recipe yielded five half-pint jars.

Violet Jelly

VIOLET JELLY

2 cups fresh violets

2 cups boiling water

Juice of one lemon

1 package of pectin (I used Sure-Jell)

4 cups sugar

Place the violet blossoms in a glass jar and cover them with the boiling water. Place a lid on the jar and allow infusion to make for anywhere between 2 and 24 hours (I let mine make for about six hours). The water will turn various shades of blue as times goes on. Strain and discard the spent flowers. Add the lemon juice. Mix will change to a pretty pink. Place liquid in a large stainless steel pan, stir in pectin, and bring to a boil. Add the sugar all at once and bring to a boil again. Boil vigorously for one minute. Skim if necessary. Pour into sterile jars and seal. (I hot-water bathed mine for 15 minutes in a hot-water bather.) Makes approximately 2 1/2 cups jelly.  

That's all there really was to it. The process was simple and the reward sweet. 

Be sure to click on the links throughout this article to learn more about violets and different ways of using them.

Until next time...

~Rebecca

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Recipe For Cherry Jelly

Sauerkraut - Six Weeks In The Making

Finishing Up The Sauerkraut

Back in March, I shared a post with you about my daughter and I getting together to make sauerkraut. At the end of that post we had just put our freshly jarred kraut under the house to ferment for six weeks. We got together last Tuesday to finish the process.

We started out with 22 beautiful jars of fermented cabbage. When we brought them out from under the house, they were perfect!

We washed the outside of the jars, removed and cleaned the caps, refilled the jars with hot water (some always bubbles out during the fermentation process), recapped them, and processed the jars in a hot water bath.

I was a little disappointed, however, because, during the hot water bath process, we ended up losing four jars of kraut due to breakage. I know what happened to the first two jars (my own negligence), but I really don't know what happened to the second two. I'm wondering if, like everything else, they just don't make canning jars like they used to. Whatever the cause, a total of four jars broke during the hot water bath process and, in the end, we only ended up with 18 jars of finished sauerkraut.

We split the 18 jars between the two of us, giving each household nine jars of kraut to enjoy. Even at that, due to the fact that we don't eat it very often, the kraut will probably last both households for quite some time. I plan on getting some turkey bratwursts to enjoy a jar of ours with soon. Another thing that's good cooked and served with sauerkraut is a nice pork roast. Will have to think about that, too! :)

How do you and your family enjoy sauerkraut? Does anyone else out there make their own? If so, I'd love to hear about your experiences!

Until Next Time...
~Rebecca

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Putting Up Sauerkraut

Making Sauerkraut From A Vintage Family Recipe

#sauerkraut

Putting Up Sauerkraut

Cabbage has been on sale this week as a St. Patty's Day special and, last Friday, my daughter, Amber, and I picked up several heads each. This morning we, along with granddaughter, Audrey, got together and turned our 14 cabbages into 22 quarts of sauerkraut (for a detailed post on how I make my sauerkraut click here).

Before starting the process I read Amber and Audrey a portion of a letter that my great-aunt, Jessie, sent to her sister (my grandmother, Maudie), telling her how she made her sauerkraut (to read Aunt Jessie's letter click here).

Aunt Jessie's Letter To Grandma Maude

Here are few pictures of our sauerkraut-making experience today...

14 heads of cabbage waiting to be cut, shredded, and packed into jars.

I cut, Audrey shredded, and Amber packed the cabbage into jars.

A few jars partway through the initial process.

A single jar of cabbage. Isn't it pretty?

22 jars of cabbage stored under the house to ferment. 

It will be six weeks before we can get together to bring the jars out from under the house and finish the sauerkraut-making process, but it will be worth it! As Aunt Jessie says...

"...this is the finest Kraut I ever did eat...make it this way

and you wont regret it..." ~Jessie McCann Martin

Aunt Jessie must have known what she was talking about because I won't touch sauerkraut from a can. Homemade sauerkraut made from this recipe is the only sauerkraut that I will put in my mouth. And, it's a fact...I've never regretted making it this way. :)

Until next time...
~Rebecca

Green Grape Jelly

A few days ago I posted that, due to the fact that our grapes were shriveling up on the vine, there would be no grape jelly this year...and had the triple digit temperatures continued without rain...that would have been the case, but, praise the Lord! Just a day or two after that the heat broke and the rains came. I noticed yesterday that, even though it was true that most of our grapes were, indeed, gone, there were a few bunches here and there that survived under the shriveling leaves of one plant. They weren't completely ripe, but they were ripe enough, and, since they were, literally, falling off the vine, I decided to salvage what I could. I checked on-line and found that some recipes for grape jelly actually call for unripe grapes! On the way back from doctor appointments today I stopped in Lamar and got pectin and sugar. When I got home I picked what grapes I could salvage and, although it's not what we would usually end up with at the end of the summer, I was still able to put up a double batch of green grape jelly (green as in 'unripe'...not color...the jelly is still purple) and it tastes delicious! I am very thankful to the Lord for enabling me to at least get up a small amount of jelly for my family after all!

RECIPE: Tomato Preserves

I got a request from a friend on Twitter this morning wondering if I had a recipe for 'tomato jam' and, while I'm not sure that this is exactly what she's looking for (if it is, here we call it 'tomato preserves'), here's what I've got. Lylah, this is for you!

TOMATO PRESERVES

1 tablespoon mixed pickling spices
1 piece ginger root
4 cups sugar
1 cup thinly sliced lemons (about 2 medium)
3/4 cup water
1 1/2 quarts Roma tomatoes (about 2 pounds)

Just cut a slice off the end of the tomatoes, but do not core. Tie spices in a cheesecloth bag; add to sugar, lemons, and water in a large sauce pot. Simmer 15 minutes. Add tomatoes and cook gently until tomatoes become transparent, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking. Cover and let stand 12 to 18 hours in a cool place. Remove spice bag. Drain; reserving syrup. Boil syrup 2 to 3 minutes or longer if too thin. Add tomatoes and lemon; boil 1 minute. Pour hot into hot jars, leaving 1/4-inch head space. Adjust caps. Process 20 minutes in boiling water bath. Yield: about 6 half pints.

Recipe For Cherry Jelly

We didn't get many cherries this year. All the rain that we had early on made for an abundant crop and the cherries were beautiful, red, and juicy. So juicy, in fact, that the birds, literally, flocked upon them. By the time things settled down to a point that we could pick them and turn them into jelly, most of them were gone...and we're talking over the period of about three days...and the ones that were left were, in fact, pretty wormy. But, despite all that, I did manage to put up 10 pints of the precious stuff.

Here's how I make cherry jelly...

For each batch you will need 3 1/2 pounds of sour cherries (these are the little, bright-red, pie-making cherries...not the big, dark ones that you buy in the produce section of the grocery store), 4 cups of sugar, and 1 box of Sure-Jell brand fruit pectin.

After picking cherries, most people pit them. I don't. I just wash them (being careful to pick out any bad ones, of course) and put them in a stainless steel pan with just a smidgen of water in the bottom. I turn the heat on low, cover the pan with a lid, and let the cherries simmer for an hour or two to let them soften and juice.

When the cherries are done juicing, I strain the juice into another pan using a colander, or sieve, and a fresh, clean, lint-free towel or cheesecloth. I let it drain until the juice stops dripping through.

While the juice is draining, I gather everything together that I will need during the course of jelly-making...jars, lids, canner or hot water bather, jar-puller, pectin, sugar, etc. I have all the jars and equipment clean and ready to go once the juice is finished draining.

Before making the jelly I measure out 4 cups of sugar into a glass bowl and set it aside. It will be added all at once later, so it makes it easier to have it pre-measured and ready go once it's time to add it.

Okay...to make jelly...and from this point on everything goes very quickly, so be prepared...

I measure 3 1/2 cups of cherry juice into my stainless steel dutch oven and turn the heat on under the burner to high. To this I stir in 1 box of Sure-Jell Premium Fruit Pectin. I stir constantly, and when the juice and pectin reach a rolling boil (this is a boil that doesn't stop boiling while being stirred), I dump the 4 cups of sugar in all at once and keep stirring. I allow the mixture to return to a rolling boil and boil for one minute. After one minute, I remove it from the heat, ladle the jelly into jars, skim off any foam with a spoon, wipe edges with a wet rag, cap, and hot water bathe for 20 minutes.

That's it! Pretty easy once you get the hang of it! And it's so beautiful in the jars!

Making Sauerkraut From A Vintage Family Recipe

"...And this is the finest Kraut I ever did eat. I am thinking of getting my self some cabbage and make some when we go to town make it this way and you wont regret it..." 
                                                      ~my great-aunt, Jessie McCann Martin

Grandma Maude's Handmade Binder

Among the many things that keep me connected to my grandmother (my dad's mother), Maude Belle McCann Brown Graham, is this treasured binder that she made in December of 1941 to house her, then new, Ball Blue Book, as well as other favorite family recipes in, among which is her sister, Jessie's, handwritten sauerkraut recipe. It's not only the recipe that my grandmother and Aunt Jessie used, but it's the recipe that my mother used, and the recipe that I have used since first learning how to can.

Dec. 1941 - Maude B. Graham - Birch Tree, MO

Grandma's 1941 Ball Blue Book

Yesterday we were blessed with three large heads of cabbage.

These were some of the biggest cabbages I've
ever seen and I think they were home grown!

They were too big to fit in our fridge, so this morning I set to work turning them into sauerkraut. Once again, I used Aunt Jessie's tried and true recipe.

Great-aunt Jessie's Handwritten 'Sour Kraut' Recipe

 Aunt Jessie's recipe reads as follows (and I quoted it word for word exactly the way Aunt Jessie wrote it)...

"...here is how I make my sour kraut I cut It with a cutter and then pack it tight In the Jars I use the handle of a butcher Knife and press it tight and dont leave no air holes In it and then I put a tea spoon salt to a qt or a table spoon  to a half gallon. and have a tea kettle hot boiling water and fill the Jar with hot boiling water and seal tight. and set the jars in a pan for they will spit out some. And this is the finest Kraut I ever did eat. I am thinking of getting my self some cabbage and make some when we go to town make it this way and you wont regret it..."

Using photos and a few further instructions of my own, I have decided to share Aunt Jessie's recipe here on HEARTH AND HOME...

After preparing the quart jars and tearing away the outer leaves of the cabbages (which were a real treat for our chickens), I set to work cutting one cabbage at a time into quarters, coring it, and slicing the quarters into food-processor-sized slices. 

Old glass mayonnaise jars work great for sauerkraut!

Slicing The Quarters

Preparing The Cabbage For Kraut

Alternately, I worked between slicing cabbage, running it through the food-processor, filling a big bowl with shredded cabbage, and packing it into clean jars.

The food-processor did a great job
of shredding the cabbage for kraut!

Shredded cabbage was everywhere!

Packing The Kraut Into Jars

You want it good and tight!

A wooden spoon helps to tamp it down.

Next, it was time to add salt...1 teaspoon per quart and boiling water to each jar. I'm not sure what kind of salt Aunt Jessie used, but I used regular Morton Canning and Pickling Salt.

Adding salt to each quart...

...and boiling water.

After that, the next step was to release the air bubbles. I did this by just running a regular table knife up and down the inside edge of each jar from top to bottom several times. After that I finished filling the jars to within a half-inch of the top with more boiling water.

Releasing The Air Bubbles

Adding More Hot Water To Fill

Then it was time to clean the rims of the jars and cap them with lids which had been kept on the stove in boiling hot water.

Cleaning The Rims Of The Jars

Capping The Jars

The final step in the canning process...at least this leg of it...was to rinse the jars and line up them up on the cabinet to admire their beauty.

Rinsing The Jars

The Finished Product (For Now Anyway)

I got eight, fully-packed quarts of sauerkraut out of the three heads of cabbage. While I was preparing the kraut, my husband was preparing a a cool, dry place under our house to store the kraut while it ferments. That is where it will stay for the next six weeks. After that we will bring it out, wipe the jars, refill any jars that are low on water, recap with fresh caps, and bathe them in a hot water bath for 30 minutes. After that, the sauerkraut will be ready to eat.

(This article is linked back to The Legacy of Home's 'Vintage Home Link-Up' page. Please visit it to find other great articles on 'vintage living'.)