I brought Mom home from rehab at the nursing home Friday. And we look on it as a major miracle. When she was in the hospital with a severe bladder infection, we were almost sure she wouldn’t be alive in a week; her kidneys started to fail and she slept nearly all the time. When she was awake, she barely knew us and was unable to speak a sentence. Luckily, with a good doctor and antibiotics I.V., she pulled through. And at 93, going on 94, that was something. Then she went to rehab, as she was still VERY weak and not eating well. But day by day, she improved!

Now she is back to the same old Mom, looking at her flower catalogs, planning on buying new plants for spring, and taking cuttings from her houseplants.

So NEVER give up! Even when the days look very dark ahead. Miracles DO happen from time to time.

Readers’ Questions:

Canning cheese sauce

Cheese in a can, for nacho etc. I can’t seem to find any smaller than a gallon in our area. Once opened it sours quickly even in refrigerator. Freezing doesn’t work well either, plus takes up a lot of space. Is there a way to “can” the excess in glass jars? I don’t have an adjustable pressure cooker. But I do have a pressure cooker, anyway to do canning even without a pressure cooker? I’m a 6000 feet plus.

Steve Launer
Cheyenne, Wyoming

Although canning cheese is still an “experimental” recipe (there are no “approved” methods by government experts), folks have been canning and re-canning #10 cans of cheese sauce successfully for years, me included. I open a #10 can of cheese sauce, then put it in my oven at the lowest setting until the cheese is hot (not cooked). Then I quickly fill hot jars, leaving 1/2″ of headspace, wipe the rims, place hot, previously simmered lids on the jars and screw down the ring firmly tight. I process pints and half pints in a boiling water bath canner for 60 minutes. For higher than 6,000 feet (6,000-8,000 feet) altitudes, you will be increasing your processing to 75 minutes.  I use this cheese sauce a lot and we sure love its versatility. — Jackie

Gardening and preserving while working full time

I am particularly interested in canning some of the meal in jar ideas and ground meat and poultry…
Currently, our circumstances seem to mean that I may be taking on a full time job soon — including a long drive. If I’m hired I’ll be gone 5 days a week for about 11 hours a day. I still want to do my garden and do more canning — I’m just sure that having things like taco meat mix ready in a jar will make working so much easier on me. I guess that means canning will be relegated to days off, and I’ll need to get Hubby’s help.

My question is — if you had just a few days a month you could spare to do food preserving– how much do you think you could accomplish? Have you ever been in that situation? Do you think its nuts to try to do that AND work away full time?

Mary Thompson
Catawba, South Carolina

No I don’t think you’re nuts! You can accomplish a whole lot in your “spare” time. I have never been in that exact situation; I’ve worked outside of the home in my younger years and gardened and canned successfully, too. The great thing is that gardening and canning are very relaxing and pretty undemanding, as well. You can do other things while canning: the laundry, washing dishes, making supper, reading a book, or whatever. JUST BE SURE YOU ARE RIGHT THERE when the pressure canner is up to pressure and processing. Sneaking away then is foolhardy and can cause bad things to happen: over-processed food, a blown safety valve, or even (when the safety valve is plugged) a blown canner lid!

Start out relatively simple — smaller garden, less canning — then increase as your confidence increases so you enjoy your food growing and canning instead of becoming stressed out by it. By doing a little here and a little there, you’ll be pleasantly surprised at how quickly your pantry will fill up.

It makes things much easier when you have help canning some of the more labor intensive foods. If your husband is willing, the two of you can accomplish much and enjoy it while you do! — Jackie

Organ meats

My husband and son just brought home elk. My son and his wife do not eat liver so I have a lot of liver and a couple of hearts in the fridge. We love liver and onions, but maybe not that much liver and onions. Do you do anything different with yours? How about the heart, got any good recipes for that?

Shirley Wikstrom
Stevenson, Washington

I’d can up some of that liver and onions! Just slice the liver into pieces about an inch thick, in pieces that will fit into a wide mouth jar. Pre-cook a bit to lightly brown the liver, then add your sliced onions. Pack into jars, leaving an inch of headspace. Make a broth out of your pan drippings and pour that boiling, over your liver, leaving 1″ of headspace. Process at 10 pounds pressure for 75 minutes (pints) or 90 minutes (quarts). If you live at an altitude over 1,000 feet, consult your canning book for directions on increasing your pressure to suit your altitude, if necessary.

I’m not a big heart fan; I usually just peel and grind the heart with my other venison and make burger from it. — Jackie

Wrapping trees with screen

You indicated that you cut screens to put around young trees. Do you put the screens tight around the trees or do you leave a little space and how do you secure the screening?

Rhona and Brad Barrie
Strong, Maine

I try to put the screen fairly tight around the trees, wrapping it so there are a few layers. I secure it with used hay twine; I wouldn’t use wire as it could possibly damage the trunk of young trees. Protecting the trunks of young trees, even those with a diameter of 1-3″, with wire is totally necessary as voles, mice, and rabbits WILL eventually girdle and kill your beautiful trees without it. Mom thought her 2″ trunk on her favorite crabapple was plenty big enough to resist the critters. Wrong. In the spring, it was girdled white three inches high and dead. That’s such a sad discovery! — Jackie

Canning soup

I made some beef vegetable soup with barley which was very good and would like to make more to can. I am using 1 cup barley in 8 quarts of soup. How long should I cook it before canning it? Also, how tightly do you pack your meat in jars? Would you mind showing a picture? I am starting to can more meat as I only have to pay for the electricity once and don’t have to wait for it to thaw.

Julia Crow
Gardnerville, Nevada

I would just make your soup and can it after the barley is barely tender; it doesn’t get mushy. I pack meats differently, depending on what they are. For instance, lightly browned ground meat is gently settled with a wood spoon; you don’t want it all mushed together or it will get like meatloaf. Diced meat can be more firmly packed, as are larger chunks. Just be sure to leave 1″ of headspace. Check out the picture on the blog of my canned smoked pork shoulder. Bear in mind that it shrank on processing, as the fat cooked out of it. To start with, it filled all but about half an inch all around it in the jars. (It was pre-roasted and hot broth was poured over it in the jars.) I LOVE my canned meats! — Jackie

Bitter bell pepper

I live in deep south Louisiana. Still have bell peppers growing in the garden and on the last picking they are bitter. What causes this?

Anne Martin
DeQuincy, Louisiana

The most common cause of bitter bell peppers is not enough watering. Try watering more, if this is the case, and you’ll quickly see an improvement in the taste. — Jackie

Deterring critters from the garden

I just read where you said to put wire fencing on the ground to deter critters from eating your garden. I was wondering if it might not work as well to just border your garden with it since the animals are apparently afraid to walk on it. Also, do you think it might deter fox and coyotes from going after my chickens if I border a large area with it where they range?

Lori
Southwest Ohio

No, I didn’t say to put wire fencing on the ground; that has never worked for me. My wire fencing is on 8′ posts, 6′ high, around my garden, orchard, and berry patch. I’ve had deer walk on wire, crawl under my deck, find open narrow gates, and, of course, hop over 5′ fencing to get in. I wouldn’t count on wire laying on the ground from getting your chickens, either. After all, they will dig under it, and even chew through light wire so walking on it wouldn’t be much of a challenge. Critters are a lot smarter than some people think! — Jackie

Making jerky, bologna, and how to prepare rhubarb for the winter

I know you are terribly busy, and may not have time to answer any or all of my questions. Do you have a recipe for deer jerky and deer bologna? Also I have first year rhubarb, what needs done to it before winter sets in here? We have had one hard freeze, hopefully it is OK. Take care, hope everyone is feeling better, my family had it too. Pretty bad stuff. Enjoy all your articles, only wish I had one-half of your knowledge.

Mary Ann Nelson
Franklin, West Virginia

Here are the recipes you wanted. With the jerky, you can substitute any spices and seasonings you wish, to suit your family’s taste. I make a dozen different jerkys and we like ‘em all!

BASIC JERKY

3 lbs lean venison or beef
3/4 cup soy sauce
1/8 cup Worcestershire sauce
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tsp. onion powder
1 tsp. garlic powder
1/2 tsp. black pepper
1/4 tsp. liquid smoke

Remove all fat from meat and cut it into 1/2″ strips or rounds (I do this when I jerk backstrap or tenderloin). For more tender jerky, cut across the grain of the meat; for traditional jerky, cut with the grain for more chewy jerky. (For us old folks, I grind the meat without fat and make strips of that for even easier chewing; I use a “jerky shooter”…kind of a cookie press for meat available at most stores that carry canning/hunting supplies.

In a large crock or glass dish, combine the ingredients, except for meat, stirring well. Add meat, cover, and refrigerate. It helps to “slosh” the marinade over the meat a time or two during marinating time. In the morning, drain the meat and lay in your dehydrator, set at 145-150 degrees. Dehydrate until quite hard but still a bit pliable. Pliable jerky will NOT keep at room temperature for lengthy periods of time. Old-fashioned jerky was dried stick hard and would keep indefinitely. Store your jerky in airtight containers in the fridge or freezer if you plan on keeping it for a lengthy period of time. Ours never lasts more than a week!

HOMEMADE BOLOGNA

25 lbs. of ground venison burger (mixed with beef fat for the fat content in the burger)
3/4 lb. Tender Quick
1 qt. warm water

Mix and let stand, covered, overnight in refrigerator

The next morning, add:

1 Tbsp. black pepper
1/2 cup seasoned salt
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp. garlic
1 tsp. liquid smoke
1 qt. warm water

Mix very well and pack into hot, wide mouth jars, leaving 1″ of headspace. Wipe the rims of the jars clean and place jars in a large roasting pan with warm water coming up to the shoulders of the jars. Insert a meat thermometer in the center of the meat in the center jar and turn on the oven to 200 degrees. Heat jars of meat until temperature in the center of the center jar reaches 170 degrees. Immediately place on hot, previously simmered lids and screw down rings firmly tight. Process at 10 pounds pressure for 75 minutes (pints) or 90 minutes (quarts). If you live at an altitude above 1,000 feet, consult your canning book for directions on adjusting your pressure to suit your altitude, if necessary. DO NOT USE THIS METHOD AND SKIP THE PRE-HEATING OF YOUR MEAT; IT IS NOT SAFE BECAUSE THE MEAT IS SO DENSE.

Your rhubarb will be just fine. It won’t hurt to cover the plants with a nice mulch, just to be sure. But rhubarb is a very, very tough plant! That’s one reason I love it so much. — Jackie

It’s deer hunting season here in northern Minnesota, so I’m quickly canning up some great smoked pork shoulder that my friends, Pam and Joan, brought up to me awhile ago. They got a great deal on it and shared with me. I had taken it, frozen, to my friend, Jeri’s house. They’re on grid and had a nearly empty freezer. So I brought a case at a time home to thaw and can. And I just finished yesterday, and have washed and dried the jars tonight so they can go down in the pantry. How pretty they look! And pretty tasty, too. I love the variety of meat and poultry in my pantry. It makes for a wide choice of meals, which I love.

My oldest son, Bill, called last night and told me he had an “extra” deer for me. David and I have been hunting, but so far all we’ve seen have been does and fawns. Call me a fool, but I won’t shoot a mom with babies; they need her if the winter is bad, in order to survive. They haven’t learned the ropes yet. We’ll get a dry doe or a young buck. We aren’t trophy hunters and I prefer a tender, large deer to huge antlers any day. I love the hunt, especially this year, where the days have been above freezing and beautiful. I love the canning and eating. But I DO hate the killing. (Remember that I can’t cut the head off a chicken?)

But between hunts, I’m helping get ready for winter. I cleaned out the chicken coop and put the shavings on the flower beds, am pulling tomato cages and hoses from the big garden, and am splitting cedar kindling for the stoves. Will has been working on logs for the second part of our new hayloft, putting the bulldozer back together, and working out details for the stairway to the new loft. It’ll be much better than a ladder for us “older” folk! We not only plan for today but for ten or twenty years down the line.

Readers’ Questions:

Canning peach pie filling

I canned peach pie filling using a recipe I got off of Canning USA. It called for cornstarch. I heated the peach filling thoroughly and then water bathed them for 30 minutes. They seem to be OK. What do you think?

Can you give us your version of a good, safe canned recipe for peach pie filling?

G. Koskinen
Celina, Texas

We canned peach and other fruit pie filling for years, using cornstarch. Now there’s Clear Jel, a refined cornstarch product that is recommended instead. Plain cornstarch seems to thicken more and there is concern that the center of the jars might not heat thoroughly enough for safe processing. Personally, I wouldn’t toss my pie filling. But I would use Clear Jel in the future…just to be safest. Here is a recipe using Clear Jel, which is available in many health food stores and markets in Amish and Mennonite communities, or sometimes at your local extension office:

6 quarts, sliced, peeled peaches
7 cups sugar
2 cups + 3 Tbsp. Clear Jel
5 1/4 cups cold water
1 3/4 cups bottled lemon juice

For fresh peaches, place 6 cups at a time in a gallon of boiling water and boil for 1 minute to heat thoroughly. Drain and place in covered container to keep warm. Do remaining batches. Combine recipe water, sugar, Clear Jel in large kettle. Bring to a boil and stir until it thickens. Add lemon juice and boil 1 minute more, stirring to prevent scorching. Add peaches gently and stir well. Continue to simmer for 3 minutes, stirring constantly. Pack immediately into jars, leaving 1″ of headspace. Process for 30 minutes in a boiling water bath canner. If you live at an altitude over 1,000 feet consult your canning book for directions on increasing your processing time, if necessary. — Jackie

Making a living in a new community

My husband and I are planning on purchasing land and moving to another part of the state where there seems to be a nice self-reliant community. Organic farms, dairies, herb farms, and naturopathic doctors abound. I’m trying to think of a way that I can contribute to that kind of community and hopefully bring in a little extra income. I’ve been thinking about what I’ll do for the past few weeks, and finally I asked myself, what would Jackie Clay do? I know this isn’t exactly your area of expertise, but I wondered, for a self-sufficient woman such as yourself, is there ever a service you wish existed that you would gladly pay for just to make life on your homestead a little easier? Perhaps not now since you’ve got your routines more or less down, but maybe when you first started? Or something that you wish you had time to learn that would save you time and or money on your homestead but you just keep putting off because you’re too busy with all of your responsibilities? I find you to be an extremely reliable and delightful source for information on many things I am up to lately, I thought it couldn’t hurt to see what you had to say about this.

Erika Fey
Milwaukie, Oregon

The one thing I can think of right off the bat is a nice, cheerful, dependable person to help with “grunt work” on the homestead, whether it be fencing, gardening, painting buildings, carpentry, barn cleaning, helping with elder care, etc. Wow, what a bonus. Especially if it was at a reasonable rate. For instance, I had to have help with Mom after she got out of the nursing home after a bout with pneumonia weakened her. We were paying $30 an hour for someone to bathe, dress, and help care for her! (I was kind of “force fed” that service by helpful social workers.) Luckily she got strong enough that the help was no longer needed.

While now I have a helping partner, Will, on the homestead to help with “grunt work” around the place, it would have been nice to have someone come a couple of days a week to help out while things were hectic.

You’ll have to search your talents and likes for things you could offer. Everyone has them and it just takes a little creativity to get going. — Jackie

Making candles

I don’t know if you would think that this falls under the self reliance category or not, but I have a question on candles. Every time I go to make candles in a glass container the middle always sinks in. At first I thought that it was because I was cooling it off too quickly so I tried to cool it down slowly, but still does the same thing. Any advise on this?

Alissa Ray
Morganfield, Kentucky

I used to make candles to sell at art and craft fairs. This dip is called a well and as your candle cools and the well forms, simply reheat wax from the same batch and fill in the well. With less wax that is hot, it will make a nice flat surface. — Jackie

Canning olives

How do you re-can olives? We got a real good deal on some gallon cans, and want to put them in 1/2 pint jars.

Daryl Kaufman
Seymour, Missouri

I got a bunch of #10 cans of sliced black olives given to me by dear friends and I searched for two days to find canning directions! I finally did from the University of California. I canned up a can of them and they turned out great with no softening at all. I drained the olives and brought the brine up to a boil, then packed the olives into hot half pint jars, poured the boiling brine over them and processed them for 90 minutes at 11 pounds pressure. This is for pints or half pints. If you live at an altitude of 1,000 feet or lower, you can use the standard 10 pounds, as I live at 1,500 feet and need to boost my pressure up a bit to compensate for a little higher altitude. — Jackie

Corn relish

I just got the special on your new book with the older Recession-Proof Your Pantry book, and figured I’d start with the older one first. There’s a recipe in there for a corn relish that I can’t wait to try, but our fresh corn is all gone for the season, so I plan to try it with frozen whole kernels from the store. Think it’ll work?

Howard Tuckey
Lisle, New York

Yes, you can certainly make corn relish from frozen corn from the store, but of course it won’t be as good as when you use fresh corn from your garden! Enjoy it. — Jackie

Canning ground meat

I was watching a video on line where a guy canned ground beef/venison. He did a raw pack and processed it for 75 minutes at 10 lb pressure. I decided to try it his way with my venison. I opened a can and it was still reddish on the inside, like it was raw. Is it safe to use or do I have extra dog food?

Thomas Boyd
Mountain City, Tennessee

Canning ground meat this way is not recommended, especially if it is not heated first in open canning jars placed in a roasting pan containing the jars of meat and water to evenly distribute the heat. The meat needs to reach 170 degrees in the center of the jars BEFORE the lids are put on and the jars placed in the pressure canner. While your meat MAY be okay, I, personally, would be leery of it. If you have just canned it, I would open the jars and freeze the meat. (If you freeze it in the jars, the expansion of the jars with only 1″ of headroom, may crack the jars.) The same if you use it for dog food, which would be a shame. Next time, why don’t you lightly brown your meat or make meatballs out of it, then can it in broth. You’ll be much safer and have a nicer end product. — Jackie