Canning in Feb!

I started doing some canning already. The grapes were on sale, the store was trying to get rid of them becuase they were starting to get soft. Because they were such a good deal I could not pass them up. For only a few dollars I got them and had the rest of the ingredients at home. In just a little while we had nine jars of fresh grape jelly.

The opand Marmelade was fun to make. We love to use it on porl when were smoking a tenderloin as well as in other dishes. Orange marmelade is also delish on some fresh home baked biscuts.

To make your own orange marmelade take 4 oranges and 2 lemmons. Use a veggie peeler to scrape the colored skin off, leaving the white skin on the fruit. Put the colored peelings in a bowl to the side and let them dry a little while you are prepping the rest of the fruit.

I choose to cut the fruit and peel the white part off, throw the white part away and reserve the fruit in its natural juices in a bowl for later.

In your food processor or food chopper grind the peelings. Do not puree then, you want them in small pices, these pieces will make the finished product look really pretty.

After grining the peelings put them in a dutch oven with one cup of water and a teaspoon of baking soda. Cover and bring to a boil, letting them boil for 10 minutes.

In the meantime put the fruit in the processor and pulse it until the fruit is in small pieces. After the peelings have boiled for 10 minutes add the fruit, along with 4 cups of sugar and let simmer for 20 minutes with the lid on the dutch oven.

After the 20 minutes of boiling add one packet of pectin to the mixture and turn the heat up to med high. Stir contantly and let the mixzture boil for 2 minutes.

At the end of two minutes pour the mixture into your canning jars, put the lid on and turn the jar upside down.

You will hear a pop in a few minutes which means the lid has sealed with the jar. Turn the jars right side up and let sit until ready to use.

Plants I have started in doors

These are the plants that I have started in doors. I have cabbage, chives, green hot peppers and red hot peppers started. As you can see the cabbage is wanting to grow, it has started to pop up which happened over night. These were planted on the 25th of Feb. On the 28th I watered them for the first time and nothing was showing, my husband pointed out to me on the 1st day of March that the cabbage decided to show itself! They were not there the day before, so this was pretty exciting for us.


As you can see, the chives are planted in nothing more than an empty 2 liter coke bottle. I cut off the label, then cut around the bottle, and washed with some miled soap. I then put some starter soil in the bottom part, moistened it with warm water and put the seeds in. You can actually leave chives to grow in this same container by taking the top off of it when they start to grow and putting it in a window to catch the sun or outside.

As I have more containers I will be planting more herbs and drying them out.

What is this blog about?

I have always been a pretty crafty person, but recently with the economy in the tank I have given more and more thought into living basic, not necessarily like they did in the 1800’s, but close, with the help of modern gadgets.
A couple of months ago we went from being a two income household, to a one income household. Needless to say, it was time to tighten a lot of ropes. Even for those who still have two incomes, they are feeling the stress as well.
First of all, we do not buy anything unless it is either on sale or we have a coupon for the item. Going to Fred’s Dollar Store on Friday’s helps stretch the money even more, Friday’s are double coupon days at Fred’s!
We normally can and freeze a lot of food in the gardening months, but it takes up a lot of space and we actually end up with some waste anyway. So we recently purchased an inexpensive food dehydrator to try and help save some space, save more money, and to try some new things.
We also have a son with ADHD, and controlling his diet so that he consumes as little dye and preservatives are very helpful with him. The less foreign dye and preservatives he consumes, the less active he is.
I look forward to writing in this blog and if you have anything to add, tips, recipes etc, please add your comments.