Meatballs in tomato sauce

We love your book Growing and Canning Your Own Food but I evidently lack the imagination to come up with a use for the meatballs in tomato sauce except for use on pasta. Surely I am missing something here. The meatballs in mushroom sauce are awesome! All the rest are really good also. I spent almost an entire month just canning your recipes and this is the only one that I can not really say I just love.

Joyce Baum
Pattonsburg, Missouri

I use the meatballs in tomato sauce as a meatloaf substitute, baking them in a casserole, sometimes topped with grated cheese. I also make an awesome meatball submarine sandwich with them, heating the meatballs in sauce, then ladling them on toasted garlic bread and topping with grated cheese. You can also make a pretty good stew with them, boiling up your veggies first, until tender, then draining and adding the meatballs and tomato sauce. Or bake a spaghetti squash, cut it in half, pick out any seeds, fluff up the “strings,” then pour on the quart of meatballs in tomato sauce. Add grated cheese and bake on a cookie sheet at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes or until the cheese is just starting to get golden on the edges. I hope this will give you a few ideas. I want you to love ALL the recipes! — Jackie

Limited garden space

Dear Lady Jackie Clay; Needing especially to maximize nutrition and quantity, this due to living in town and having very limited veg. garden space . . . along with our 4′x8′ cold frame and a 4′x8′ hot bed, please advice your thoughts as to how best to accomplish that sought goal , ASSUMING THAT IT IS ATTAINABLE/DO-ABLE. This area, about 30 miles NNE of Chattanooga, TN, is zone 9. Although we now are experiencing some freezing weather, the desire is to do now what can be done utilizing the ‘frame’ and ‘bed’. Disabled, in our mid 70s, I, taking it ‘slow’, can manage . . . but maximizing veg. quantity and quality is obviously our major need as we have only minimal income, the purchasing power of which seems to be decreasing weekly.

James and Frances Wyatt
Cleveland, Tennessee

Have you considered adding a few containers here and there in your yard? Friends have a small yard in town yet manage to grow a lot of food, using free or cheap 5-gallon buckets, available at local groceries with bakeries. By drilling a few holes in the bottom for drainage, you instantly have containers for pole beans, tomatoes, peppers, and much more. Our friends line their driveway with buckets of tomatoes, buckets of peppers on their patio, and have pole beans lining their back walk. Your best bet with your cold frame and raised bed is to raise several crops a year, starting with cold season crops such as kale, broccoli, spinach, early cabbage, onions, etc. Then follow with warm season crops, such as beans, tomatoes, okra, etc. Trellis all crops you can. They take up so much less room that way. You can even trellis cucumbers, melons, and vining tomatoes. In this way they’ll only take up inches of your bed instead of feet, enabling you to grow much more food in a bed than you would have otherwise. Think hard about where you might be able to grow extra food. Do you have a patio, porch, or walkway where you might set a container to grow food? It doesn’t take much to grow a bunch of spinach, a pot of okra, a bush squash. Everything you can manage to grow is a plus for you. I even grow patio and hanging basket tomatoes and peppers right in the house and hanging from our house eaves during the summer. You can add a few shepherd’s hooks and grow these hanging basket vegetables right in your lawn, in place of flowers. You can also add flowers to the veggie baskets to make them look even prettier! All the best luck in your endeavor to become more self-reliant in your table food! — Jackie

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Home-canned tuna

I love the idea of canning fresh tuna. But I want tuna for tuna salad. Would home canned tuna need to be heated to boiling for 15 minutes before eating. And wouldn’t that make a poor tuna salad?

Connie Moore
Clearlake, Washington

You do need to heat your tuna to boiling, but it doesn’t mean it’s yucky. What I do is pour the tuna in a covered baking dish, then heat it in my oven at 200 degrees for 30 minutes. (It takes a while for the tuna to heat up to the boiling point.) Then I drain and refrigerate it in a covered container. When it’s cool, I flake it and use as usual. It’s great this way. I do it with salmon and northern pike too! — Jackie

Market baskets

Please give us the history on the round basket you use so often in your garden and about the house. I love it. It speaks volumes about your thrifty ways. One of the many reasons I read your blogs and books. My way of living also! Love the life!

Katie Daffin
Evans, Louisiana

My favorite baskets of all are the Vietnamese market baskets you’ve noticed. I bought my first (which I’m still using), years and years ago when our family sponsored a Vietnamese boat family. Xuyen, the wife, quickly introduced me to these baskets when I couldn’t speak Vietnamese and she couldn’t speak English. But we both spoke gardening!! We bought these baskets at a Vietnamese market down in Minneapolis. They are so handy, as they hold a lot of produce, are very sturdy, and you can wash dirty vegetables right in the basket as it drains out so well. I love them because of my bad back; I quickly learned why many women in “third world” countries carry loads on their heads. It relieves pressure on your back. So now I usually come from the garden with my market basket balanced on my head. The bottom of the basket is fairly soft and conforms to your head so nicely and comfortably! I pick up these baskets any time I see one at a yard sale or thrift store. — Jackie

Lima beans

I am planning my 2012 garden. In previous years my green beans produced like crazy and the same with my peas. However, my lima beans are just the opposite. We are lucky if we get a hand full. Last year I used triple 16 fertilizer, the beans were small and still only a hand full. My soil is very good and I water every day in the hot summer. I am very confused about this? Any ideas? What can I do to improve my yield?

Maida Gaddis
Myrtle Creek, Oregon

Try waiting longer to plant your limas. They like warmer weather and don’t get off to a good start if you plant them the same time you plant your other beans. We have a very hard time growing limas here, as they are such a long-season bean and like warm weather. They don’t like cool, extended periods of rainy spring! You also might try mulching your rows of limas with black plastic to warm up the soil around the roots. — Jackie

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Planting raspberries

Can black raspberries and red raspberries be planted close and not cross? I want to plant Black berries and black and red raspberries in my north pasture this spring but want to have all three berries stay what I planted.

Nancy Foster
Dallas City, Illinois

Yes, these berries can definitely be planted closely and will not cross. Crosses between brambles is usually from seed-grown plants that have been manually pollinated on purpose. You’re good to go! — Jackie

Corn seeds

In your column of the Nov/Dec 2011 (#132) issue you mention that you grow True Gold open pollinated yellow corn. Where do you purchase your seeds? Have looked in all my seed catalogs and can’t find this corn.

Brad Barrie
Strong, Maine

I’ve grown and saved seeds from True Gold sweet corn since we lived in New Mexico. You can still find it in Seeds of Change’s catalog (www.seedsofchange.com). Good growing! — Jackie

Potato soup recipe

Do you have a good potato soup recipe?

Vickie Shelby
Logan, Ohio

Sure do, Vickie. (It’s found on page 60 of Jackie Clay’s Pantry Cookbook.) Here it is:

6 Tbsp. butter or margarine
1 onion, chopped
6 Tbsp. flour
1½ cups milk
1 tsp. salt
½ tsp. pepper
4 cups cooked, diced potatoes
1 cup cooked, diced carrots
1 cup cooked, sliced or diced celery
Grated cheese (optional)

In a large saucepan, saute onions in butter, then add flour, stirring well. Slowly add milk, salt, and pepper to make a medium sauce. Gently stir in vegetables. Add more milk, if needed, to make the soup the desired consistency. You may also add grated cheese.

This is our favorite, hearty potato soup and goes great with a slice or two of warm homemade bread! — Jackie

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Chickens in the garden

I planted a fall crop of spinach and lettuce. We have free range chickens who roam about the garden, etc. Should I wash/soak the spinach and lettuce in vinegar before eating. I didn’t think about fencing it in. I hate for it to go to waste, but want to be sure it will be safe to eat. I don’t see any visible signs that the chickens have been in those patches, but they do have access and love to forage in the garden.

Bea Ward
St. Paris, Ohio

Personally, I would just rinse these crops extra well before eating. Unless you see signs of chicken poop on and around these leafy greens, you should be just fine. — Jackie

Water blowing out of jars during canning process

I just emptied my batch of carrots. 16 pints, I stacked them with a tray in between. I noticed that the water in the canner is orange. Did I do something wrong to make the jars leak? Are they okay?

Erica Kardelis
Helper, Utah

Probably you either did not all quite enough headspace in your jars or the pressure fluctuated (over the pounds pressure needed for canning, then you noticed it climbing and turned down the heat?) during processing. This causes some of the water in the jars to blow out during processing, resulting in your orange water. As long as the jars sealed and were processed correctly, they’ll be fine. — Jackie

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Low-care gardening

I just picked up some land this past summer in St. Louis County, Minnesota, which I think is your area. I can’t make it up there very often, but my goal is to try to make it up there once a month. I want to have some food plots growing and I’m looking for things that can grow on their own without a lot of help. I’m thinking potatoes, carrots, and onions. Can you recommend foods that I could plant that wouldn’t need much help?

Joe
Edina, Minnesota

We are in St. Louis County, but it’s one of the largest counties in the state, running from Duluth all the way to Canada! Big place — from city to total wilderness. Northern St. Louis County is like a whole other county. The first thing to consider when you are wanting to establish some garden areas is fencing. I guarantee that without it, the deer will clear it out for you. We fence with a 6-foot fence and that keeps them out. Yes, potatoes, carrots, and onions can grow with little help, ONCE they’re weed-free — especially slow-growing carrots and onions that quickly can get overwhelmed by weeds. I’d say that the best way to go is to try to put in some potatoes in one area, then keep the rest tilled all summer to keep any possible weeds killed off before they get started. The next year, you should be able to get the rest of the garden planted, with little competition from weeds. Watering will be a challenge, however. All garden crops need weekly watering if the summer is dry. So going up once a month could be a problem if you have a dry summer. Squash is a crop that is quite forgiving both of lack of watering and weed competition, so you might plant some and see how that does, along with your first crop of potatoes. All gardening does take a little, frequent, care. It’s not hard work, but watering and weeding do need to be done fairly regularly. Let us know how you are progressing with your new land! — Jackie

Grinding flour and using oat groats

In the past year we have grown our own vegetables, made jams and even started to grind out our flour. This brings me to my question. I now use a Kitchen Aid attachment for grinding flour and want to upgrade. I am looking at either a Wondermill or a Nutrimill. I’ve done some research but there are as many opinions as people giving them. Are there any pros & cons that I should look for? Could you tell me which one you would prefer? I want to be sure before spend that amount of money.

Also I can’t seem to find any recipes using oat groats. Can they be used just like wheat berries?

Phil
Hampton, New Hampshire

Personally, I like the Nutrimill best. It has low temperature grinding and a covered hopper, plus a lifetime warranty, where the WonderMill has an open hopper and a limited lifetime warranty. I would like one, too, to use as long as we have power (generator gas, solar or wind!) but always want a hand-operated one on hand to use if there is no power available.

Most folks use oat groats either ground coarsely to add to breads or use as cereal or to roll, making rolled oats. — Jackie

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Gallon storage jars

I finally have a copy of “Recession Proof Your Pantry” and am now looking for a reliable source for sealable gallon-size glass storage jars. Do you have any recommendations? The jars in the big box stores have cardboard inserts to seal the lids and those don’t wash well or seem reliable.

T. Becker
Monroe, Wisconsin

You bet. Uline, on 12575 Uline Dr, Pleasant Prairie, WI, 53158 has all sorts of storage containers as well as mailing supplies and all sorts of useful stuff. Their phone number is 1-800-295-5510 and they are real nice to talk to. No minimum order, but they do sell in case lots (jars). There are 6 jars in a case, so that isn’t much of a problem. They have glass jars with plastic and food grade metal lids. Here is the internet address: www.uline.com/Grp_287/Jars-Jugs — Jackie

Pressure canning pumpkins

Can I use a pressure canner to can my pumpkins into quart or pint jars?

James Bosch
Edgerton, Missouri

Definitely. Just dice them up into 1-inch cubes, after peeling them, then boil for 2 minutes to heat them thoroughly. Pack into jars, leaving 1 inch of headspace. Add 1/2 tsp. salt to pints and 1 tsp. to quarts if you wish. Ladle boiling cooking liquid over pieces, leaving 1 inch of headspace. Process at 10 pounds pressure; pints for 55 minutes and quarts for 90 minutes. If you live at an altitude above 1,000 feet, consult your canning book for directions on increasing your pressure to suit your altitude if necessary. Check out my book, Growing and Canning Your Own Food for this and much, much more! — Jackie

Rocky dirt

My wife and I just bought 14 acres for the start of our homestead. We were up there yesterday and were talking to a neighbor who was very nice and informed us that a lot of the dirt is rocky. What is the best way to fix that? Didn’t you and Will have that problem as well?

Hollis
Wilmington, Delaware

We STILL have that problem, although every year it’s better and better. We picked a lot of rock and added rotted compost to cover some of the rocks, but every year, we still have to pick more rocks. Less each year, of course, but some. The good part of that is that our rocky, gravelly hill has plenty of drainage so no plants ever get waterlogged. Congratulations on your new homestead! Wow! Remember that no homestead is perfect; we all have things to work around and fix. It’s part of “improving” your homestead. Enjoy it! — Jackie

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No winter, yet, so we’re keeping right at it. Yesterday, we got the rest of the pig pen and pig house finished, except for the flap on the door. To make it nice and cozy, we stuffed the pallets with straw, packing it down with a piece of scrap lumber. Soon, we’ll trailer the pigs down to their new home. I know they’ll like that!

Meanwhile, I’ve been tying screen around our fruit trees in the orchard to prevent damage to the trunks from voles. Voles tunnel under the snow and eat all the bark around the trunks, which kills the trees. You don’t know about it until spring, when the snow goes away and all your beautiful baby trees are dead, dead, dead. We sure don’t want that to happen! It also protects them from chewing rabbits. Even though our orchard and garden are totally fenced by 2×4-inch welded wire fencing, I’ve seen cottontails go right through it! Sorry bunnies, we need our trees. I’ll give you some scrap apples when the trees get big.

Will is taking a few hours a day to work on the bridge over the creek. It is now in place, and he’s hauled big boulders down there for rip-rap, to prevent the creek from washing the bridge out when spring break-up comes or we get hit with a big rain. Slowly, it’s becoming a real bridge; he’s got a few temporary planks on it now so he can run the four wheeler and wheelbarrow over it to dump rock on the other side. Big projects like this and the barn take quite awhile to finish but if you don’t give up and keep on working, it gets done. — Jackie

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Blossom end rot

Not a question, but a comment and suggestion for the man with a not very productive garden and blossom end rot on his tomatoes. I’ve learned that blossom end rot is worsened by a lack of calcium. Calcium can be fed easily to your plants by crushing a few egg shells and putting them in the bottom of the hole when planting the tomatoes. I have my own chickens and buy crushed oyster shell for them, so I add about a tablespoon of the oyster shell to the bottom of the hole instead of egg shell. I hope he has better luck with his garden in the future! A successful year will probably convince his wife.

Karen King
Menomonie, Wisconsin

Good comment, Karen. Indeed, a lack of calcium often contributes to blossom end rot. I’ve found that the calcium is usually a secondary contributor, however, and that steady, adequate watering nearly always takes care of the problem. Mom used to crush egg shells in her tomato holes, too. And she always had great tomatoes. I, too, sincerely hope his wife is encouraging to his endeavors. — Jackie

Old laying hens

What do you do with your old laying hens? Mine were about 3½ years old and their laying had really fallen off this summer. We butchered them last weekend. We took the breast meat and ground it up, we added about ¼ pound pork sausage to ¾ pound chicken. This made a dry, but tasty sausage. After 5 days I boiled the legs and thighs for 45 minutes. This meat is still so tough it was hard to get it off of the bone. I was planning on canning the meat but now I don’t think that its texture would improve with canning. I ground it up with the large blade that came with my Kitchen Aid meat grinder and am thinking about making chicken salad sandwiches out of it. Can you think of any other uses for this meat? What do you normally do with those old laying hens?

Shirley
Stevenson, Washington

We use our old hens for soup and stews. Boiling the meat for 45 minutes is definitely not enough to get them tender. I don’t grind the meat, except sometimes for chicken salad sandwiches, which comes from the meat I have canned. Pressure canning your old hens definitely tenderizes the meat. To stew your old hens, cut the carcass up, then put it in a large kettle with plenty of water to cover it, then add seasonings as you wish. Bring to a boil, cover, and gently simmer for several hours. I often stew a hen on our woodstove until the meat is fall-off-the-bone tender. Then remove the bones and make your gravy or soup from the broth and meat. I’ve never had a real tough hen, yet. Most of our old hens get canned up after pre-stewing so I have ready-tender meat to use at any time. Other uses for your ground meat? How about chicken enchiladas or fajitas or mixing it with an egg and cracker meal and frying chicken patties, mixing it with your ground pork, an egg, and cracker crumbs and make chicken loaf, similar to meat loaf? — Jackie

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