Hey, I'm back! And it hasn't been a month! Lol!
I hope everyone had a great Halloween. We spent a good portion of that evening worrying about my husband getting home from Anchorage in one piece as the roads weren't great, but once he got home we all had home made pizza and breadsticks for dinner, watched some Halloween movies, had some candy and were not surprised when trick or treaters did not show up again this year (roads were not great and we might get a surprise trick or treater once in a blue moon, but for the most part they don't come this way).
We enjoyed Halloween treats and I made some popcorn (my son ended up eating it all, but hey, I tried *laugh*).
I even made some Halloween themed chocolates, which was fun. I've had the same candy molds for years and years and we try to make some chocolates every year as part of the holiday. With the son's peanut allergy, buying Halloween themed chocolate doesn't work as everything is cross contaminated with peanut. So, we make our own :).
It was a long, hard week last week. The weather went to "nasty garbage winter" really fast for the first foray this winter and it was terrible out. My husband had made an appointment to get new winter tires on his car the week before (the garages get backed up HARD up here during the first part of winter as everyone runs to get their winter tires on their car, so schedules get backed up fast), but he had to make it to the weekend to get them. We ended up with a 200.00 tow bill to tow my husband up a hill in Anchorage on Monday evening as Anchorage roads ended up being polished ice between the weather and Anchorage road maintenance services (they are notoriously bad). It was not a cheap bill (especially to get towed 8 feet or so), but we would have paid more as it was the only way my husband was going to get home safe without sliding sideways down that hill. We made it through the rest of the week with him getting home in one piece (thank goodness) and he now has new studded tires on his car, so I feel a lot better about him having to commute now, especially with the temperatures hovering around freezing a lot.
Last week for me was also super busy, so let's get to what I was up to all week long.
1. Lots of canning!
Well, okay, not lots. But, I did get a bunch done around here when it came to that.
I canned up the big bags of strawberries I had in the standing freezer downstairs to help work toward getting it emptied and defrosted. I then moved on and canned up the mixed berries as well and I ended up throwing random bags of raspberries that I had found buried in the freezer as well as some blackberries and a half empty bag of blueberries. The mix turned out really yummy tasting! The raspberries kind of disintegrated in the process, but I really don't care as my plan is to thicken the mixture when I open the jars to make either a syrup for pancakes and things or to make into a pie filling to fill a tart or other dessert with later in the winter. The same with the strawberries. I don't care that they get kind of mushy and don't hold up to canning well as we just use them to spoon over cake to make strawberry shortcake during the winter months.
2. I ended up deciding to can up some beans. I took stock of our food storage the last bit and realized that we have a TON of beans around here. We ended up with a ton of beans over the years from when people have moved and by figuring out the weights of the cans of beans we had and the bulk bags we also were given...I'm drowning in beans. So, it is time to start working our way through them slowly but surely. I stuck to small batches of canning as I wanted to make sure that we would use what I canned before I can more. I don't want to be drowning in cans of beans for years until I finally throw some away or something. I'd rather just can them as we need them and that way nothing goes to waste.
So, in no particular order (I'll link to the recipes I used in case you are interested)...
- 4 Pints of Black Beans. I canned these without salt (which was a mistake on my part), and am planning on using these to make home made refried beans (I prefer black beans to pinto beans in refried beans) later on.
- 5 Pints of Chili Con Carne. (I split this recipe in half as I didn't want 9 pints. I also added some other seasonings to the mix, like more chili powder, some Cayenne pepper and a few other seasonings to make it taste the way we like it. Overall, though, I"m happy with the results.
- 4 Pints baked beans with bacon. I also halved this recipe as, once again, I didn't want 9 pints of baked beans. I baked them in my bigger dutch oven in the oven for the recommended four hours before canning them up and had to add water a couple of times. They don't say what consistency to shoot for when you go to can them, so I aired on the "soupy" side of the equation. Worse comes to worse I'll cook them a bit on the stovetop when we go to eat them to thicken them up a bit, but I suspect they'll be fine.
Experienced canners might bring up the headspace on the above pictures to me and say my headspace was wrong, but the headspace was checked (and double checked honestly) as I am paranoid about those things. The headspace was fine when they came out of the canner as well, but the beans absorbed liquid as they cooled. So long as the liquid comes up at least 1/2 way in a jar the jars are safe to eat, in case inexperienced canners are wondering, so they are fine :).
Now I just need to find room for the jars I filled. Currently they are sitting in boxes on my kitchen floor until I can get the pantry rearranged a bit.
3. Once I had the freezer sufficiently reduced down, I transferred everything to my other two freezers, left the door open after I had cracked and removed the worst of the ice and just turned it off. I left it for 24 hours before refilling it. So far it is working fine after doing that and it has been over a week, so I'm hopeful I fixed the icing up problem for now.
I'll take a picture of the restocked freezer on a later post.
4. A side benefit of the canning and getting the freezer emptied out was that when I put everything back in, I realized that I had enough room in other freezers to completely empty the small block freezer in the kitchen. I emptied it, defrosted it and then, after talking to my husband, moved it outside onto the deck under the protection of the roof line and just left it out there, empty and unplugged. We'll keep it like that until we need it as a back up freezer/an overfill freezer and save some money off of the electricity bill. My husband wants to put a lock on the freezer for security's sake, but we'll wait until we need it for something to do that.
5. I took inventory and realized that I didn't need to make cranberry relish this year as I still had some left in the freezer from when I made it last, so I don't need to worry about tracking down fresh cranberries and paying current prices for produce to make it (which is expensive). So, yay for some pennies saved!
6. Special Olympics changed their requirements this year so a physical exam isn't necessary unless you are traveling to participate in the Nationals. I was thrilled as we were due to have a physical done on Alvah this year and those are always a lot of work to get him to sit still through it all. I filled out the athlete paperwork and got it in so it will be logged in before swimming starts up again next year.
7. I was able to do a virtual check up instead of having to use up gas and time to go in person.
8. I took the money I had budgeted for Christmas gifts this year and was able to carefully stick to that budget for my family (I started adding things to a "secret list" on Amazon and that way I could keep track of the amount of money I would need as time went on). I placed the order and am getting gifts in early so I don't have to worry about waiting in line at the post office around Christmas time (lines get ridiculous up here around Christmas with how many people order their gifts and the amount of people who send and receive gifts in the mail period). I am glad I was able to get shopping done without having to put it on credit card with how tight money has gotten since my husband's pay cut. Luckily, most of the money I had set aside I did so when we were making more money then we are now, so that helped a LOT. I start making Christmas lists for the kids and husband as soon as Christmas is over pretty much, so honestly I feel that helps as it gives you a lot of time to figure out what to do.
And, yeah, I think I will call it good there as I have to get stuff done around here. I hope your guys week went well. Enjoy!