Canning Tomatoes: at home, without a pressure canner.

As a child, I would help my dad in the kitchen and pretend to be on a cooking show.  I would even have him set up the camcorder to record me on my show.  My favorite recipe was homemade cookies, but no matter what was on the menu, I wanted to teach the world how to make it.  As I write these recipe blogs, I can't help but be reminded of that little 8-year-old redhead who always wanted to teach people out there to cook, even if no one was listening.

Some things never change.  I could have never imagined such a thing as the Internet back then, much less a blog, but 20 years later, I'm still doing my own little cooking show.

Today's lesson focuses on canning tomatoes at home.  My dad knows someone with a green thumb and he brought me about sixty tomatoes from that person's garden.  I didn't count, but it was enough to make 18 pints of tomato sauce. Since I could never use that many tomatoes before they spoiled, and since I refuse to let anything go to waste, I canned them and stuck them in my deep freezer for future use in sauces, stews, and other tomato-based recipes.

Enough with the digression.  Here's the how-to:

1.  Gather materials.  I didn't want to make a huge investment by buying a pressure canner and I made do with things that I have around my house in place of standard canning fare.  For this, I used: pint jars, a funnel, a large bowl, a pot for sterilizing, and a pot for cooking.

2.  Wash the tomatoes and then cut a shallow X on the bottom.

3.  Place the tomatoes a few at a time into boiling water and cook them just until the skins begin to split.  Remove them with a slotted spoon and place them into a bowl of ice water.

4.  Peel the tomatoes, core them, and dice them.  When canning a small amount of tomatoes, I just cut them up with a knife.  For a large amount, I use my food processor in the interest of time.

5.  Cook the tomatoes.  I season with some salt, sugar, and garlic.  My husband and kids have a limited appreciation for more varied ingredients.  I made sure mine got to a boil and then let it cook down a little before I canned it.



6.  When the sauce has finished cooking, place the pan in ice water to cool it down before canning.

7. Sterilize the jars in boiling water. Ideally, you pull them out and can them immediately.  Use tongs or a specially designed can holder for this.



(If my sauce hasn't cooled before I'm done sterilyzing, I will stick them in the boiling water again for a moment before I fill them, just to be sure.)

8.  Fill the jars using a funnel.  Leave 1/2" of headspace.

9.  Clean any tomato sauce from the rim of the jars and seal them.

10.  At this point, someone with a pressure canner would use that to seal the jars.  I simply leave them overnight upside down and in the morning, they are sealed.  Press the lid to make sure.  If it pops back up, the jars are not sealed.  They can then be stored in your cabinet, fridge, or freezer.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is CONSTITUTIONAL.

Nearly 24 hours ago, the Supreme Court upheld PPACA (or pejoratively, "Obamacare") in a 5-4 decision.  While I'm glad the Court swung this way, I was stunned and so was most of the country, I'm sure.  Initially, news networks reported that it was struck down because they were so eager to be the first to break the story that they failed to read Roberts' entire opinion.  To their defense, it was probably safe to assume that if Roberts was issuing the majority opinion, it must have been against ACA because he is a conservative Bush appointee.  After some initial confusion, we realized that the law was upheld.  It still made for some good photoshopping, like this "Dewey Defeats Truman" inspired photo below.

Anyway, throughout the day, constitutional scholars came out of the woodworks on Facebook.  It was actually kind of sad to see how little people actually understand about this law and just how government operates in general.  First of all, the enactment of this law went precisely how our Constitution intends.  A majority of members of Congress voted for it, the president signed it, and when it came before the highest tribunal, the justices interpreted it.  Majority won.

The suprise in its passage was not that in reality it is unconstitutional.  It was that everyone expected it to be a purely political vote by the Court, which by and large, it was.  Four liberal justices - Sotomayor, Kagan, Breyer, and Ginsburg - all voted to uphold the law on the commerce clause.  Four conservative justices - Alito, Kennedy, Thomas, and Scalia - all voted to overturn the law in its entirety (Thomas wrote the dissenting opinion).  The tie-breaking vote came from Chief Justice John Roberts, a Bush-appointee.  He even wrote the opinion!

In his opinion, he said the individual mandate was constitutional under Congress's taxing and spending power, not the commerce clause.  Republicans were (and still are) outraged that the bill was passed and has now been deemed constitutional thanks, in large part, to a conservative justice.  The strange part is, they don't like the part that requires people to purchase health insurance coverage (when I'm sure most people that I know who are complaining probably purchase it through their employer).  Republicans whine all the time about making people take care of themselves, don't depend on the government, be responsible, and when the government takes a step to do that, they get mad!  This mandate makes people responsible for their own health insurance but Republicans claim it infringes on their freedom by subjecting them to a penalty (tax...nuance) if they don't purchase it.  They also like most parts of the bill except for the mandate, which is the part that pays for the popular provisions! 

Hypocrisy abounds.



**I started this blog the day after PPACA was upheld.  I finished it three days later.  Hence the timing is off...

Home Improvement: Workshop.

When we first moved into our new abode, we hoped to making finishing the second floor our first task.  However, that proved too costly for our budget so we opted to hold off on that for fall.  Instead, we made a workshop for Joel outside that also serves as a storage building.  We didn't have anywhere to keep our things outside so it was pretty important to get this project going.  We also figured that it could serve as a laboratory for Joel to experiment in running electric wire since we have to do that upstairs as well.  This was a project that was a few months in the making.  First we had to find a storage building that satisfied our tastes.  We learned our lesson about building one ourselves from a previous nightmarish experience.  This time, we knew we wanted to pay to have it built and we wanted it wooden.

Here is our building, a spacious 12'x16' that was painted to match our house.

Here you can see that the inside was just framing and a subfloor.  After running electric wire from our house, under our driveway, and out to the shop, Joel set to work on wiring the building.  (Note:  running wire under the driveway is VERY labor intensive, but totally doable.)  He did remarkably well for his first time wiring something.  He didn't electrocute himself and everything worked!

After many grueling hours working inside that shop (and several hundred dollars in materials), we got the walls and ceiling up, insulated, and painted, we hung a light, we installed an air conditioner, and we installed flooring.  Joel also built this awesome work table that looked like professional craftsmanship.  He is supremely excited about having a place to fashion together his airplanes.  I'm also happy that he doesn't have to utilize my dining room table to accomplish this task.

Hopefully, once I get a few paychecks under my belt we can start working on our second floor.  It will add roughly 1000 sq. ft. of living space that we desperately need.  I'm thrilled about having it finished, but dreading doing the work!

Homemade Laundry Detergent

As matriarch to a family of five, I often find myself doing about half a dozen loads of laundry in any given week, sometimes more when I wash bed linens.  Since I have been out of [full-time] work for the past three years, I have tried cutting back on unnecessary expenditures.  Laundry detergent is relatively expensive and I never can find good deals on it.  I purchased it in bulk from Amazon a couple of times but that still wound up being pretty costly.  I decided after doing some researching that I would make my own and it winds up only costing pennies per load.  I've been using my homemade detergent for several months now (on an $11 investment) and I'm happy with it.  My clothes stay clean and I still have a lot of detergent left before I have to make another batch (for $1).  Anyway, here's how I did it...

1.  First, gather all the materials.

• Borax
• Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda
• Fels-Naptha Soap Bar
• 5 gallon bucket with lid
• Empty containers (enough to fill ten gallons)

I found the first three ingredients at Wal-Mart, all neatly merchandised together by the dryer sheets.  Apparently, I'm not the only person who makes her own laundry detergent.  They came to about $7 total.  The bucket and lid came from Home Depot for about $4.  I had saved up containers for awhile knowing that I would be needing them soon.  I still didn't have enough so I wound up over concentrating my detergent into fewer containers and I still had to leave some in the bucket and refill the containers when I had used the contents.  Everything is reusable except the Fels-Naptha bar.  That is the only thing that has to be repurchased for the next load.  The Borax and Super Washing Soda go a long way, and of course the containers and bucket last indefinitely.

2.  Next, use a cheese grater to grate the entire soap bar.  (I'll be frank here, it was too hard for my delicate fingers to grate so I had my husband do it for me.)

3.  Put the shredded soap into a pot and add four cups of hot water, place it over medium heat, and stir until it has completely melted.

4.   Fill the 5 gallon bucket halfway with hot water.

5.  Add the melted soap mixture. 

6. Then add 1 cup of Super Washing Soda and 1/2 cup of Borax.

7.  Stir with something that is long enough to reach the bottom of the bucket, like a wooden paint stirrer or if you have one that attaches to a drill, that is ideal for this application.

8.  Continue stirring while filling the bucket the remainder of the way with hot water.

9.  Place the lid on the bucket and allow the mixture to sit for a full 24 hours.

When it is ready, it will have gelled slightly.  Stir again.

10.  Finally, funnel the detergent into the bottles.  Simply fill the bottles halfway and fill the remainder with water.  Shake well.  Also shake before each use.

These are some of the jars I filled.  I still had just under half of my bucket left when I ran out of containers.  I came up with some more containers and refilled some of these before I finally ran out.  This batch will last me about six months, maybe a little longer, as I do A LOT of laundry and I over concentrated the detergent in the containers.  I use this detergent in a GE front-loading HE machine and have not had any problems.  About 1/4 cup will wash a regular load of clothes.  In a regular machine, probably 1/2 cup.  You can add essential oil drops for fragrance but I found the detergent to have a nice clean smell.  The clothes don't come out with much of a smell, but they are plenty clean.  I use this detergent with a homemade fabric softener and then a regular Bounce sheet in the dryer.

Here's where the magic happens...

** I have also used this detergent on my son's cloth diapers without any ill effects.

Boy Pants.

I've never been one to try and "train" Brayden to do anything.  I have kind of let him do things naturally.  I never pressured him to use the toilet, I just continued to patiently wash his cloth diapers until he was ready to wear underwear.  Well, a couple weeks ago, he finally decided he was ready to shed the diaper and transition to what he calls "boy pants."  I had already set the wheels in motion, buying him a potty and underwear several months ago. 

This is the potty we bought him.  I like it because it looks like a whimsical version of a real toilet and it is easy to dispose of the um, gifts, he leaves behind.  You can also take the seat off and it fits nicely into the adult toilet.  Very convenient.  It is kind of cute because it sings when the child potties, as a reward for using the bathroom.  Then it gets annoying when it randomly sings in the middle of the night even when it isn't in use.  That's my one complaint.

He never seemed interested until just recently.  It didn't require rewards or punishments.  He just decided he didn't want to wear diapers anymore.  My baby is growing up!  I really won't miss washing the diapers.   I can't say it will save me a lot of money because we don't use disposables.  I did go and buy some more "boy pants" with his favorite Cars characters on them.  His favorites have "Queen" and "Chesco Nuli" (Francesco Bernouli).  How cute does he look in these?

I also bought him some boxers, which he refers to as "Bubba pants" since Jacob wears boxers so prominently.  Check this out:

Way too cute.  He refuses to wear diapers, even when its time for bed.  I have to sneak a diaper on him after he falls asleep.  He has had some accidents along the way, especially in the beginning, but those have decreased as he had gotten used to not wearing diapers.  He also likes to pee off my front porch which we are discouraging.  My neighbors probably think we are so redneck, not that they ever step foot outside their house.

Anyway, I said all that to say this - Be Patient!  Kids will potty train when they are ready.

The Hunger Games. YES.

Since I'm spending the summer doing a lot of nothing (when in actuality, I should be planning for the many classes I'm teaching this fall), I have decided to put some hours on my Kindle.  We know from an earlier blog post that 50 Shades of Grey just didn't do it for me, so I opted for something that had caused mass hysteria at the movies - The Hunger Games.  Let me reiterate, I'm usually not one to follow the crowd, but if I ever expect to win Jeopardy I need to delve into pop culture a bit.  Anyway, I borrowed the first one with the monthly lending allowance on Kindle, and figured I'd take my time with it and borrow another one in the next month.  Well, 24 hours later I had knocked that one back and was ready for another.

I did what any good resourceful person does when faced with a challenge like this, took to Facebook to beg for a lender.  I immediately found someone (three people actually) who was willing to digitally lend me the last two books in the series and I went to work on them.  The first book was definitely the best, and they sort of petered out from there, but altogether, they were exciting enough.  The author did excellent descriptive work, I could really picture the Capitol and the 12 (13) districts, the characters, the reaping, and the arena in the Hunger Games.  The character development was thorough and the plot was filled with exciting developments that led to a good story overall. 

Some of it was predictable, but that is okay.  The whole love story was weak.  However, the way Katniss tells the man she chooses that she loves him was kind of cute there at the end.  I guess since these books were for young adults they couldn't get too raunchy.  Stealing kisses and glances here and there was about all we got.  The whole dynamic of the post-apocalyptic United States and a powerful Capitol who makes slaves out of the people of the districts was really quite clever.  It seemed plausible but totally ridiculous all at the same time.  I liked it.  It mixed the days of the Glaldiator fights in the Roman Coliseum with the technology and advancements of the future. 

I was sad to see this series end.  My cousin graciously send me almost 700 books for my Kindle so I have enough free books to keep me entertained all summer and then some.  I'm currently reading a murder mystery by James Patterson.  The story is good enough but the typos on the digital version are driving me insane.

Unrelated:  only a month left until I start work.  I'm getting antsy because I feel like I should be doing something, yet I'm so overwhelmed that I don't even know where to start.  Sometimes between now and then, probably around my birthday, we are taking a family trip to the beach with my in-laws.  I'm really excited to be spending a few days with my kids on the beach.  The big ones love it and hopefully Brayden will enjoy it as well.  I'm actually supposed to be looking for a place to stay now, so I better get back on that.  Until next time.

June: A month for Joel

June is pretty hectic for us, in the way of celebrations.  First, we have our anniversary, then comes Father's Day, and finally Joel's birthday.  He gets very excited during the month of June for his presents, as most men in their thirties do.  On June 7, we celebrated our fourth year of marriage. 

Here we are on our wedding day - 06.07.08.  I love this image because my little cousin is in the background shielding his eyes from our public display of affection.  These have been a great four years of marriage.  I've managed to get a Master's degree, we had ourselves a baby, we bought a new house, we became landlords, and we both got full-time jobs.  I don't know how I got so lucky to land such a supportive and loving husband, but I'm hanging on to him!

For Father's Day and Joel's birthday (which is actually tomorrow), we had a little party at our house.  Joel's parents came over and brought his two little cousins and my dad came.  I made fajitas and a cake (which Bailey devoured in its entirety later that night, so Joel never even got a piece) and we gave all the Dad's their presents.  To say Joel got spoiled would be an understatement.  Here are some pictures captured that day.

(Above)  Jacob and Joel.  You would never know they aren't biologically related.  They work out famously as father and son.  None of that typical strained step stuff.  I love it.

(Above.) My spoiled husband.  This is one of the planes he got for his birthday.  You can see his sheer excitement.  I think it is cute, but somewhat annoying.  All this man wants is airplane stuff.  Could be worse, I guess.

(Above.)  Joel has contained his excitement upon the realization that I am snapping photos of him.  This is the plane that I bought him after he mentioned it 278 times over the past couple months.  He was supremely overjoyed, even if his expression doesn't show it.

And finally, a picture of me and the birthday/Father's Day boy.  We rarely take pictures together, which is unfortunate because I love to look at them as the years go by. 

Joel's 32nd birthday is tomorrow.  It is hard to believe when I met him he had just turned 24, and I thought that was old!  I know we already had a party for him, but I can't let the day go by without trying to make him feel special.  Food is my forte so I plan to cook him something nice and bake him a cake from scratch.  I'm new to this whole homemade pastry set so we'll see how that goes.  So far, my homemade chocolate chip cookies are a hit with everyone.

Brayden beckons.  This blogging thing takes awhile but I'm going to try and do it more until I go back to work next month.  I don't have much else to do (other than planning for four different classes).  Until next time...