Q&A: Buckwheat yeast pancake recipe, Canning potatoes with onions, and Weeds

Buckwheat yeast pancake recipe

Hi Jackie,

I am looking for a good yeast based buckwheat pancake recipe. My father use to make a good buckwheat pancake when I was a child about 60 years ago but he is now passed on and the recipe had went with him. He would never let anyone know what his recipe was. I know it tasted Oh so good as a child with 9 brothers and sisters for him to try to feed. This was our daily breakfast and I would love to taste them or something like they again before it is my time to go. Sure hope you can help. Thank you very much.

Wendell Jones

Here’s your buckwheat yeast pancake recipe:

Dissolve 1 tsp dry yeast in just enough warm water to make a thin paste. Add 1 tsp sugar and 4 c warm water. Add 1/2 tsp salt and enough buckwheat flour to make a medium thin batter. Cover and let stand in a warm place over night.

In the morning, add 2 Tbsp molasses and stir down the risen batter. Spoon onto a hot, lightly greased griddle and bake. Gently turn when the bottom is golden brown. Bake on the other side and enjoy!!

–Jackie

Canning potatoes with onions

I was wondering about canning potatoes with onions. I’ve canned vegetable soup (which includes potatoes and onions) in a pressure canner and it gave me the idea of canning only potatoes and onions the same way, wondering if it would be an easy way to open the bottle, drain them, and fry them up. Most recipes about potatoes talk about boiling the potatoes first before canning them. (I haven’t been able to find anything about adding onions to them). With my vegetable soup I just add all the vegetables, barley, and spices in a bottle and fill it up with boiling water and pressure can it for 45 minutes (without prior cooking). It turns into a quick delicious nutritious meal. Hopefully potatoes with onions can be processed the same way.

Also, I was wondering if you have ever tried canning a double-decker pint bottles in a big canner with a rack in between, so you can get twice as many bottle done. Is this effective and safe?

Thank you,

Julie Ann Gale
Oregon

Yes, you may can potatoes and onions together. I raw pack potatoes and chunks of onions, add a teaspoonful of salt to the jar, then pour boiling water to cover the vegetables to within half an inch of the top of the jar. If you precook the potatoes, they will get mushy on processing.

Dice or thickly slice the potatoes and onion slices or chunks and add the salt and boiling water. Seal the jars. Process at 10 pounds (unless you live at an altitude above 1,000 feet; consult your canning manual for instructions for adjusting your pressure to your altitude if necessary) for 45 minutes for pints or 55 minutes for quarts.

Yes, I double-decker can jars all the time. It is definitely effective and safe. I have a wire rack that used to be a round grill rack (Dollar Store), which I lay on top of the rings of the bottom layer. The top layer of jars are placed for maximum steam circulation among the jars, with a top jar resting over two part-jars below. It makes super short work of a day’s canning!

–Jackie

Weeds

We plant a vegetable garden. We have a weed that has spread in our garden and is now in our pasture. It is covered with stickers. The plant is green with green leaves. Even the young tiny plants have stickers. Very painful when trying to pick lettuce, or weed by hand. Any idea what this weed is and a way to control it? It comes back every year. My husband plows the garden each spring.

lawschapel

You know, in New Mexico, we had a weed that I’ll bet is the same as your little devil. (For the life of me, I can’t remember its name though!). Yes, you can get rid of it. I did.

Have your husband plow or till the garden as shallowly as possible; deep plowing exposes many more weed seeds to the sun and facilitates germination. Then, as soon as you’re garden is planted, walk it each and every day, searching out these wicked spike babies.

I watered in the evening and picked weeds in the morning when the soil was still moist and the weeds pulled easily. (They DO have a strong tap root.) I used leather gloves, as even little, they were wicked to bare hands. The larger plants I had missed, I pulled with a wide pair of pliers, grasping the stem down at soil level. You can also help boost a plant out of the ground with a strong bladed knife.

If you religiously weed in this way for two years, you should only have to keep an eagle eye out for any stray newcomers.

–Jackie