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It takes 10 full minutes at a hard rolling boil to consider a jar sterilized. At this point in my canning life, I don't even remember what all the experts recommend for sterilization of canning equipment. I'm just going to tell you what I do: If something is going to be canned 10 minutes or less, I sterilize the jars in the canner first and fill the jars with hot product. This is a rare occurrence. I have used it for jams, jellies, and pickles. To be quite honest, I have been known to process my jams 12 minutes just to not have to sterilize my jars first. IF I were fast enough to do an open kettle processing, I would sterilize the jars for that too. When I'm pressure canning, I don't sterilize jars at all; clean is good enough. Everything inside that canner is going to heat to 240 degrees and for alot longer than 10 minutes, I believe that's adequately sterile. Your work area and all the equipment needs to be clean from the start. This means that your canner needs wiped inside and out with hot soapy water. Your jar lifters and magnetic wand need a run through the dishwasher. I have multiple canning funnels just because of this; I can switch filling different products on the fly without having to wash the funnel. I always wipe down my counters and stove an extra time before I start working. I usually choose to cold/warm pack my products over a hot pack. This saves me from getting my klutz self burnt and my food from being overcooked. It also means that I start over each canner load with fresh water; p.c. or w.b. If there was any siphoning, that gunk is not going onto the next batch of jars. This uses more water and takes a few extra minutes in the initial heat up of the canner. That doesn't bother me as I can work more safely for myself. While the canner is running, I'm doing dishes and washing kitchen towels and wiping down the counters where I'm done working or I've made a huge mess. Then, when I'm all done, especially if it's been a marathon day and I'm pooped, I can turn off the canner and head to bed for a few hours before coming back to take the jars out of the canner. We will cover flat sour another day. Happy Canning!

The number one reason lids fail to seal is because of an unclean rim. And you can tell me you wiped the rims over and over and I'm telling you that rim wasn't clean. I used to use dish rags to wipe rims. I'm converted to paper towels for wiping rims now. I just add them to the compost bucket as they are soiled. Let's look at the process: Don't use a rag to wipe rims. Use a half sheet paper towel, folded to create a cushioned edge. Just moisten the edge with water or vinegar. As you wipe a dirty rim, turn the edge of the towel over to a fresh area that is still damp. Keep dipping into the water or vinegar to keep the towel moist. Continue wiping with clean areas of the paper towel as you go around the rim. If a rim isn't apparently messy, you can use the first fold of the paper towel to wipe the whole thing. Change the the paper towel often, every couple jars. Once the jar rim is clean, set that jar to the side so it is not mixed up with the dirty ones. This should help keep the rims from being a cause of seal failure in your canning experience. Now.... there's alot of debate on whether or not to use vinegar or water to wipe rims with. Use water with products that aren't greasy. Anything fruit, veggies without meats; rims can be wiped with water. Dairy products also need to have jar rims cleaned with water only; due to curdling from the vinegar. Use vinegar to cut the grease of any kind of soup, stew, meats, broth, etc to keep jar rims clean. Butter, lard, tallow; all need to have the jar rims wiped with vinegar to get a clean rim. Try out wiping rims with paper towels. It might solve your sealing issue. Now.... what about when the product siphons out of the jar and the jars still seal?! Let's cover that another day.... Happy Canning!

Huh? What I mean is water can be canned. Recently, there have been alot of folks starting to worry about the continued cleanliness of their water source; whether a private well or a city-supplied connection. It would be impossible to store away an amount of water that would last you for years. However, it is very feasible to put up enough water to last for atleast a few days to weeks during an emergency. Many times, emergencies arise so quickly, there is no time to prepare in advance. Having water on your shelves could literally save your life in some instances. Canning water is simple and it's something you can add in while you're working on other products to can. How to can water: Gather clean jars in the largest size that will fit in your canner for correct processing. In my case, that is quart jars. Gather new lids and clean rings and get those heating in a simmering pot or slow cooker. Fill the jar or jars you wish to process with filtered water, now is not the time to fill jars straight from the tap. Lid the jars and add in a spare spot in the canner while you're canning something else, p.c. or w.b. Be sure to match the temp of the water and jar with the temp of the other product you're canning. OR fill 7 jars and process them 15 min in a waterbath canner. This water will store safely for years. Congratulations, you now have sterile water. This can be drank directly from the jar after opening. It can be served to family and pets. It can be cooked with. It can be used to cleanse wounds. Keep some additional water on hand in jugs for washing dishes, clothes, flushing the toilet. (I save all my vinegar and laundry soap jugs for this purpose.) Plastic is not an ideal vessel to store water in for drinking. I also don't reuse lids on my canned water just because of the potential of flavoring the water with whatever the lid was used for the first time. This is super simple and it's the number one thing I recommend to new canners just getting started. Can water. You can learn the process of your canner and how everything works while not being out anything if the seals fail. You also end up with an essential item on your shelf that didn't cost anything to put up. Happy canning!

When canning, you're going to experience some sealing issues. (see Crying Over a Broken Seal) I don't care how accomplished you are at canning, it's gonna happen. There's a multitude of things that can affect a seal. Very often, you can re-process the item or freeze it for later. Let's cover the items that aren't good for re-processing, first. It's difficult to re-process product that requires a long processing time. Items like soups, stews, beans, veggies; will all turn to mush if they go to 240 degrees for however long a second time. Alternatively, I wouldn't want to run a low-acid food through the waterbath for 3 hours a second time either. I usually repackage and freeze these types of products. About the only thing that I pressure can that I WILL go ahead and re-process due to a bad seal is broth. (Very often, I re-use lids when canning broth and if one of those seals is bad; I can re-process the broth easily.) Waterbath short processing time items are ideal for a situation of re-processing. Jams, jellies, fruit butters, fruit in syrup.... etc. I made some pie filling last week and had a jar not seal. It was simple to refill another jar with the product, put on a new lid and ring and send through with the next batch to get a good seal that time. Very often, you can tell shortly after the load comes out of the canner (within an hour), that a jar is not going to seal. The whole 12 hour crap is just that, crap. I firmly believe that leads to false seals and failed seals later on. Why not nip it in the bud right away and re-process? How to re-process product: Identify the jar that hasn't sealed. Check over a different clean jar (are there any nicks or cracks) and empty the product into it. Heat up a NEW lid and a fresh clean ring and use them for the new jar. Process along with the next batch (using the same processing time) in the canner. Usually this results in a good seal. What are the causes of jars not sealing while processing? For me, it is usually a nick in the rim that I didn't catch the first time OR I've re-used a lid one too many times. There's a laundry list of things that can go wrong. Was the ring tension too tight or too loose for the brand/type of lid that you're using? Was the pressure canner brought up to temp way too quickly and caused siphoning? Was there enough head space inside the jar for the food to expand while it cooked? (Pie filling is notorious for this.) I'm sure there are some instances that I'm not thinking of. Food preservation techniques are skills worth knowing and knowing how to correct problems is part of that skill set. If somebody asked me how to run a dehydrator, I would be flummoxed. You have to learn as you go! What items have you had to re-process or freeze lately?

Jars of Unusual Size! Ha! (Well.... the dog thinks I'm funny....) I don't generally buy new canning jars. I started out with hand me down jars. Over the years, I've inherited quite a few and found even more through bookface. Friends and family know to send jars my way too. The newer jars don't have enough glass in them and I love seeing what jars I find in the boxes I bring home. This weekend, I found another small jar haul and I was so pleasantly surprised at what was in it! We use the 24 oz asparagus jars for iced tea, they are the perfect size. I can add a lid and ring to keep anything inside from spilling out too. I don't can in these jars just because of their more valuable use to us on the daily. They are very hard to find. IF you can find them new, they don't even come in cases of 12 anymore, only 9! I was blessed with 15 of these beauties! Then these squat 12 oz jars are also unusual. There were two in this batch and they appear newer than the old old ones that were used for filters on the old tractors. What?! Yes, you read that right, they were added to the air intake on the old tractors to sift out large particulates before the air went into the engine. I added water to the shoulder and it's exactly 12 oz. In the antiques, there were 18 glass top bail closure jars and a couple dozen blue quarts and pints. Then for regular canning jars there were a couple dozen regular mouth quarts and a couple dozen regular mouth pints. After that stop, I went to the thrift store and found 17 more jars! Yippee! Most are ready to be used for canning. I'm only going to have to soak a few of them. Grimy Jar Soak: Fill your kitchen sink with hot hot water from the tap. Add in a generous amount of dish soap. Pour in several glugs of white vinegar into the water. Place jars on their sides into the water, making sure they are fully submerged. Soak atleast 20 min for light grime. Soak for as many hours/days as necessary to take the gunk off the jars. Wash well inside and out, rinse with hot water. Jars are ready for use. IF I have to soak a jar that has had a seal failure after canning and putting away; I will also run them through the dishwasher after doing the soak process. It just makes me feel better about sanitizing the germies. IF this process does not take the lime scale off your jars, you can resort to using CLR. That's a whole other discussion. I have rarely had to resort to that method. What jar deals have you found lately?

Instead of getting the winter storm that the poor folks Northwest of us are, we are getting rain. Lots and lots of rain that is making everything soppin' wet. I've been working on paperwork all day. Supper is just going to be leftovers and I wanted a dessert to serve with it. A couple ripe bananas have been sitting on the microwave staring at me for awhile now. I keep extras in the freezer, I just freeze them whole. Don't peel or anything. They won't freezer burn with the peel on them. Thaw while whole; in the microwave. Then you have overripe bananas whenever you need them. They can also be canned, but that is another post entirely. I found this recipe online and have, as usual, tweaked it to what I have on hand. I don't have any loaf pans anymore, I lost them in the divorce. (Yeah, I know it's weird. Alot of that deal was weird.) That leaves me using a 9x13 pan to make this bread in. Since the recipe makes 2 loaves, it works out perfectly for a 9x13 pan. Use whatever 15.25 oz cake mix you have on hand, white or yellow. (Chocolate would also be good.) There were some small eggs from the new-to-me younger hens and I ended up using 4 of those to equal 3 large eggs. I had canola oil on hand, so that's what I used a half cup of. There were 2 bananas on the microwave and I pulled 3 more from the freezer. They were all just medium sized bananas, about 6 inches long and 1 inch around. If the bananas were larger, I would have used 3 instead of 5. Just break them up using the hand mixer. Handsome really likes pecans so I can get away with making anything pecan and he will enjoy it. This was a heaping dry measure cup of finely chopped pecans. They could certainly be omitted if you're not a pecan fan. Chocolate chips would be good too! I had thought I might add cinnamon sugar to the top but the batter thinking it could use the sweetness. I could smell the sweet of the overripe bananas and the cake mix combined when I was running the mixer and decided against it. Maybe some other batch of banana bread that doesn't use as much sugar in the batter. Usually, I reach for my banana cake recipe when I have bananas going too ripe. I didn't want to take the time to fix the frosting and it takes a long time to bake. This solved the problem in a fast and tasty way! What do you like to make with your overripe bananas?

The other day, I was hungry for soup; specifically, chicken noodle. I have everything on hand to make it and a bag of egg noodles ready to go.... I literally pulled jars of food off the shelves, dumped it in the pot, adjusted seasoning and ate the soup. But it was SUPER salty. Oh no, how do I fix this? I must have added more salt than I realized when I was canning everything. It's rare for me to cook anything that is overly salty unless it was pre-prepared food that came in a box. This was out of my skillset. Cooking will do that to you. Every once in awhile, God throws out a wrinkle to keep you on your toes! I googled what to do. One site said to thin the broth with water, so I added a quart. One site said to add a potato and cook it in the soup to soak up the salt, I had the leftover baked potato from the fancy dinner so I cut it up and added it to the soup. This soup was still so salty, it almost felt like hot and spicy on my tongue. It was a good thing Handsome wasn't coming to eat it. I really didn't know what else to do so I put the lid on the soup and stuck it in the fridge. Sometimes, food doesn't taste as salty the second day and very often I have to add salt to leftovers. My theory was that maybe that would work in this instance. I left the soup in the fridge to think about itself for the entire weekend. It worked. There is still a taste of some extra salt there, but it's lessened enough to be edible! Like big spoonfuls edible! Yay! I can't stand when food doesn't turn out. It's so upsetting. If I had the extra time to whip out a loaf of the Herbed Batter Bread, that would have been amazing with this soup! What have you fouled up in the kitchen lately?

This whole egg lady thing has taken off faster than I anticipated! Along with the chicken feed issues and with my original crew preparing to molt; I've not had eggs for myself for 3 weeks! Since I am actually selling eggs and not just giving them away, I decided to try and find some started pullets or some "used" chickens already laying to supplement the week's dozens. Handsome found us a sale to attend a couple hours away from home. We ended up spending 14 hours at the sale and of course another 4 hours traveling to and from. This was just so I could get a few more laying hens. (He is so patient with my ass on this kind of stuff.) It was one of the most fascinating and educational days I've had in a long time. Technically, it was a small animal auction so there were mini cows, mini donkeys, all manner of sheep, goats, pigs; every kind of farm animal you could think of in a smaller size. All manner of home-raised birds from parakeets to peacocks to turkeys, ducks, quail, geese, rabbits.... And chickens. Competition chickens. Fancy chickens. Red Chickens. Blue chickens. Miniature chickens. Big huge roosters, chicks, hatching eggs, and quite a few "used" laying hens. Then there was the pet side with any kind of reptile, hedgehogs, a monkey, a tortoise, hamsters, rats, sugar gliders. It was fascinating! Ultimately, I was able to add several hens to the flock and Mr Gray, my calm sweet rooster, has enjoyed moving in with them. They laid 5 eggs during the day of the sale. The following day, they laid 7 more eggs and I haven't had any eggs from them since. I'm not surprised. Moving to a new home, new feed, new boyfriend has to be stressful! Hopefully next week they will have settled in their new coop and decided that I'm an okay hooman and will lay some eggs for me. I just picked up another 2 dozen a week customer this morning so.... um.... girls?!

Did you know that the oldest incidence of a toothbrush dates back to 3500 BC? Archaeologists found sticks that people chewed on to help clean their teeth! (Thank you Google for your information.) PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: How long has it been since you replaced your toothbrush? Or the brush head on the electric one? Back in the day, somebody told me that toothbrushes should be replaced every month. Every month! I'm lucky to remember to eat, let alone change out the toothbrush. I change ours out when I think about it. You're reading this because I thought about it! I also change them out when one or both of us gets really sick and the sickness is over. (I also wash all the bed linens after an illness too, even if I just changed them out the weekend before.) I don't need any extra germies hanging around to catch us up again later on. The way I see it, the dishes I eat off of for a few minutes each day are swept away to be washed but that toothbrush that I just ran around all over my gunky-early-morning-breath mouth just sits there, all wet, waiting for nightfall to do it again. And the germies just keep reproducing all that time. Then you have a pile of old toothbrushes, right? We were taught to save them to clean with.... Well, I don't. I save the most recent one and put it under the kitchen sink to use for something little and the older ones get thrown away. I just don't reach for a toothbrush to clean with as often as I was taught to save them. I suppose some of the old ones could be taken to the garage for working on tools and whatnot. It's not an expensive item. Maybe, just maybe we could buy NEW toothbrushes to use for cleaning small items and working on tools; if we needed to?! Anyway, what are other things that are supposed to be done around your place more often than you get to them? I've got a whole list!

Do you have extremely hard water like we do? Do your dishes come out looking like crap? Try some of these things to help! First, make sure the filters in your dishwasher are cleaned out. They are in various places on different machines. I've had one that the filter was located under the sprayer arm and another that had a square filter in the back corner. If you still have your book, check it or google your model to find where the filter is located. I usually have to take a brush to the thing to get it clean but it makes a world of difference in how the dishes come out. This really should be done monthly. (I didn't even know about dishwasher filters until I was 40.) The cleanout doesn't get done around here as often as it should, Handsome's long arms are needed to reach the thing and take the parts apart. And I forget to ask him! Soap makes all the difference in cleansing the dishes. There's a pre-rinse that happens to your dishes and an actual wash cycle. It helps take all the gunk off if there is soap available for the pre-rinse. That is why there are 2 spots for soap in the door. With the "new" dishwasher pods on the market, and those pods getting placed into the closed soap spot, that means that there is no soap in the pre-rinse cycle. What I did to solve this is purchase 2 different kinds of pods. I buy the fancy Cascade** ones and the cheapest store brand ones. I place the fancy pod in the soap dispenser that closes and the cheap one in the silverware basket. Then, when the pre-rinse starts, there is soap available to help start dissolving the gunk off the dishes. I do not use any rinse aid at all; dishes are clean. One other thing to do is to run a cleaning cycle in your dishwasher every whipstitch. I started using these cleaner tabs** and I like these better than the little bottles of stuff you can buy at Wally. The dishwashers were very clean and fresh smelling when I used these tabs. To use them, you leave the dishwasher empty; add a tab to the empty silverware basket and set the machine to a normal cycle. So easy. Without a water softener to help with the hard water, everything around here shows a layer of lime scale. What do you do to help reduce the hard water issues you're facing? **I have signed up with the Amazon Associates Program. You can click this link to purchase the item that’s suggested. I may earn a small commission, which helps support this website.

Every once in awhile the ingredients all end up in your fridge that equal something weird but wonderful! This is not your typical recipe but it's definitely worth a try. I found the original recipe on bookface and of course tweaked it for the ingredients I had on hand. The only problem I had was getting the cabbage to cook tender in the crockpot, it took 12 hours and maybe it's because my crockpot is old? Bestie gave me this HUGE head of cabbage and we just aren't cabbage eaters. I sure didn't want it to go to waste. I also ended up with an 8 oz package of feta cheese and without a fresh salad to toss it on, I was at a loss as to what to use it for. The feta subbed in great for the shredded parmesan the original recipe called for. We've talked about polish sausage before, I like the Hillshire Farm Beef Smoked Sausage for recipes like this. The most expensive item in the recipe was the quart of half and half; that's what I didn't have on hand and had to go purchase to make the recipe. Anyway, the lady in the video just raved over this dish and I thought, I can make that work. I'm tellin' ya, it's worth a try. It doesn't smell farty like usual cabbage dishes do and the cream sauce is divine. It's nothing to look at coming out of 12 hours in the crockpot but if you can manage a little adventure in your cooking; try the Italian Creamed Cabbage it's worth it! What have you made lately that was creative in the kitchen?

What do ya'll fix for a fancy dinner? I was determined to fix something "nice" for Handsome for Valentine's Day. I was flummoxed as to what.... I found some nice ribeyes in the freezer; but how was I going to fix them? I hate running the broiler, especially just for 2 steaks. I haven't fired up the grill in ages and it was pouring rain outside. Then I remembered the scene from Twister where they are frying up steak and eggs in the skillet! Ta Da! Wouldn't be any different than a restaurant cooking them on the flat top, would it? It worked beautifully and those steaks turned out more perfect than I've ever made them. Beautiful crust on the meat.... Perfectly medium to medium rare in the middle and that was with holding them for 15 min til Handsome could get off work! I was so proud of myself. Even though I had thawed the steaks overnight, they came back out of the fridge still frozen. I ended up thawing them slightly in the microwave just to get the wrappers off. You have to marinade steaks for several hours to instill flavor into them. If you don't mind a steak just tasting like a piece of meat, just throw it in the skillet with some salt and pepper. I like some additional seasoning on mine. HOW TO MARINATE STEAK: Place atleast partially thawed steaks into ziploc bag. (If doing several steaks, pull out the sheet pan and use that.) Pour a glug of olive oil onto the steaks, a couple glugs of soy sauce (or Dale's** if you can find it) and then liberally sprinkle both sides of the steaks with your choice of steak seasoning. I use Montana Steak Seasoning from the Mennonite Store, it's about the same as the McCormick Montreal Steak Seasoning**. Then place the whole shebang back into the fridge. Remember to flip the steaks around atleast a couple times so they are coated in the marinade. I've used this marinade for decades now and it's always a hit. After getting the steaks marinading, I ran over to the local grocery store for some side dishes. I have plenty of food on hand but no potatoes big enough for baking and what's a steak without a potato anyway? They were so big, we ended up splitting one and now I've got one to make fried taters with later, yum. HOW TO PAN FRY A STEAK: Heat your skillet to med-high and add in 2 tablespoons butter. After the butter melts, lay the steaks in and allow to sear before turning. While they fry, turn a couple more times and they will develop a beautiful brown crust. Cook until the center of the steak doesn't budge easily when poked with a fork. Try this: squeeze your index finger and thumb together with both fingers extended out straight. Feel the squishy part between the 2 fingers, feel how firm that is? That's how firm the steak should feel with the fork and it will be medium to medium rare. Place steaks into a casserole dish and cover. Let rest 10 min before serving. Steaks can be held in a warm oven in said casserole but they might cook a bit more. HOW TO BAKE A POTATO: Scrub the tater. Then poke it all over with a fork; not very deep, just touch the fork to the skin and make little dents. Pull off a square of aluminum foil about twice as long as your potato is round. Set the potato caddy-wampus on the foil and pour a glug of olive oil over top. Pull up the corners of foil and wrap the potato tightly. Gather the excess foil on the top and make sure all edges are folded under so the oil doesn't leak out. Place into a 350 degree oven and start checking the potatoes after an hour. These took 2 hours because they were so large. To tell if a potato is done, put on your oven mitt and reach into the oven, squeeze the tater gently and see if there is any give. If the potato is still hard or doesn't moosh easily, it's not done. If it mooshes easily, it's ready to go! We needed to have something green with our dinner! Broccoli is a favorite around here and since I haven't grown any lately, I had to buy some. One thing to keep in mind, Broccoli is one of the most pesticide-coated vegetables grown. The growers have to use the chemicals because all the little bugs love to eat it too. I don't wash the broccoli before I cook it, I just drop it into the boiling water and pray the crap boils off of the vegetable. HOW TO COOK AND SEASON BROCCOLI: Trim a couple heads of broccoli to your liking. We only use the florets and I leave them large, like 2 bite size. Set a stock pot half full with water and heat to a boil. Drop in the florets and boil just until a fork starts to poke into the stem. Drain broccoli and leave it in the colander. Place 3/4 a stick of butter into the stock pot and generously sprinkle Seasoned Salt** into it. Add the broccoli back in and using a squishy, rotate the broccoli in the butter/salt mixture. To keep warm, place into a casserole and since you didn't overcook the broccoli to start with, it won't be mush by the time he gets off work. Now that you've cooked your taters to mooshy, the steaks to partially firm and the broccoli to tender crisp, you can eat! By the time we were done eating all this; neither one of us had room for dessert. But I had, of course, made dessert.... HOW TO MAKE A JELLO CAKE: Jello Cake is a real favorite around here. Even though it isn't difficult to make, it takes some planning to have it ready by dinner time. Bake a white or yellow cake mix to the package specifications; in your chosen pan size. I like to use a butter recipe cake mix and a 9x13 pan. Let cool 10 min or so. Using a fork, poke holes all over the cake and keep them evenly spaced, about half an inch apart. Mix up a 3 oz package of jello to the package specifications; reduce the cold water a little. I like to use strawberry jello. Set out a container of whipped topping to thaw. Place cake in the fridge until the cake is cool and the jello is set. I don't cover the cake, I don't want the condensation staying on the top. When the cake is ready, frost cake with 8 oz or more of whipped topping. Serve in big slices. This would be fantastic made with a homemade cake and stabilized whipped cream. That's all you need to make a fancy dinner that doesn't totally break the bank but is far less stressful than going out to eat on the day of Valentine's Day! **I have signed up with the Amazon Associates Program. You can click this link to purchase the item that’s suggested. I may earn a small commission, which helps support this website.