Yes, I seem to be behind the proverbial 8 ball these days.....especially when it comes to canning the produce from the garden. We have so many projects going on behind the scenes that sometimes I hurriedly harvest food from the garden, breath a sigh of relief that I picked it before it was too late, and then kinda forget all about the fact that I still need to either eat it, freeze it, dehydrate it or can it before it rots. Yeah, I know......dumb blonde. Actually, it's more like new Farm Girl. Giggle.
We've been so preoccupied working on the studio that the pumpkins just got lost in the shuffle. And, besides, I really liked using them as decorations for Fall. Umm, yeah, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. As you can see, though, the pumpkins were starting to develop signs that they would soon rot if I didn't do
something with them. Alright, alright, I guess it's time to figure out how to can pumpkin.
It took a while, but I started by cutting the first 3 of them into manageable wedges. I have NEVER cut into pumpkins with such tough skins. This year I decided to grow a variety called Amish Pumpkins as they are supposed to be delicious pie pumpkins. These would most definitely not make good Jack-O-Lanterns......your thin knife would break trying to cut out eyes, a nose and a mouth. I've got a good sized blister on my right hand from working with these orange orbs over the last 2 days.
The bowl on the left is for the pigs....they love to devour the rinds, seeds and flesh of the pumpkins. The bowl on the right is for the chickens......they get the inner seed/gooey stuff. Yes, that's the actual scientific name for the inside of a pumpkin.....inner seed/gooey stuff. Seriously, look it up! Anyway, the animals went crazy for their pumpkin treats 2 days in a row. The pieces are then placed into the Ball jars and boiling water is ladled over them....put on the lids and screw rings and repeat.
Thank goodness my vegetable peeler worked just fine removing the outer peel. Then I cut the pumpkin into 1" pieces. After that, everybody gets dumped into a pot of boiling water for 2 minutes to blanch the pieces of orangey goodness. I can almost taste the homemade pumpkin pie and bread now.
Because pumpkin is a low acid food, it has to be processed in a pressure canner instead of a water bath canner. That raises the temp inside the jars high enough to kill nasty bacteria....and we don't want nasty bacteria, do we?
Seven quart jars fit nicely into the pot, 3 quarts of hot water gets poured over the jars and the lid gets locked onto the pot. Turn on the heat, bring the pressure up on the gauge and watch it for 90 minutes to make sure the pressure doesn't go too high or drop too low....if it drops below 11 lbs. I have to start timing the processing time all over again. And no one wants me to have to do that......no, let's not go there.
Because there is so much heat and pressure built up in the canner, you need to let it sit and cool down for several hours before even attempting to open the pot. That meant I did one batch early Friday morning, let it cool down and did another Friday night so it could cool down overnight. Then I repeated the whole process on Saturday. By Saturday night I still had pumpkin left over!!!
Well, I was done canning those babies, so I cooked the remainder of the pumpkin, drained it and pureed it in my Cuisinart. It sat in the refrigerator overnight to chill and now this morning I will portion it out and freeze it. Hey, there's more than one way to skin a cat.....or something like that, right?
In between all this fun (ahem), Joel and I finished the ceiling in the studio. Yippee!
Because of Joel's eyesight, I did all the cuts with the saw and the jigsaw. I'm feeling pretty empowered right about now, can you tell? And can I just say it? I HATE the nail gun. Working overhead with that sucker for 2 weeks has killed my shoulders. I am soooooo glad we are done working on the ceiling. But I love how it has turned out....just farm house-y enough to make me smile.
Joel's really glad the ceiling is done, too. He had wanted to have it dry walled, but I pleaded for the wood and he readily admits now that it looks awesome. I think he'd say anything now that this mammoth job is complete.
So, yesterday we built the boxes to frame in the inside of the window frames. I got them painted while the guys blew some of the bajillions of leaves into piles and burned them. I guess we'll try and install the frames sometime over the next few days and then it will be time to trim out the doors and windows. After that, the flooring can commence.
We're getting closer to "done",
Debbie
