{"id":1653,"date":"2011-09-14T03:00:18","date_gmt":"2011-09-14T07:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/?p=1653"},"modified":"2011-09-14T03:00:18","modified_gmt":"2011-09-14T07:00:18","slug":"q-and-a-drying-towels-and-canning-ham-hocks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/2011\/09\/14\/q-and-a-drying-towels-and-canning-ham-hocks\/","title":{"rendered":"Q and A: Drying towels and Canning ham hocks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Drying towels<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>I read in the last issue (#130, July-Aug 2011) all about washing your clothes with a wringer machine and then hanging them out to dry in the fresh air. Great article but I have a serious problem which may make you laugh! How in the heck can you stand to use the towels that you have just dried..They are so tough and scratchy that sand paper feels better. No really &#8212; what the heck did I do wrong cause my towels actually stand up by themselves they&#8217;re so stiff. The whole house was laughing hysterically at my laundry! Seriously &#8212; is there some secret to this process I&#8217;ve missed-maybe the clothes need conditioner like my hair. <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Debbie Kilpatrick<\/em><br \/>\n<em>Phelan, California<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Did you hang your towels outdoors or inside? Clothes hung on an outside line, in a breeze, will end up nice and soft. Those hung when there is no wind, like when you hang them indoors, are often stiff. A simple remedy is to toss them in the dryer for a few minutes with no heat. Otherwise, if my clothes are a little too stiff, I give them a good snap when I pull them off of the line. This usually does the trick. You&#8217;d be surprised at how much more absorbent those stiff towels are! But if you want &#8217;em soft, hang your clothes on a nice sunny, breezy day. &#8212; Jackie<\/p>\n<p><strong>Canning ham hocks<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>I have some smoked ham hocks and want to know if they can be canned. I thought I would boil them some and then pressure can them to use in cooking vegetables later. Is this safe or will the curing solution (water, salt, Sodium, Erythorbate, sugar, and sodium nitrite) cause it to fail?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Shirley Pittman<\/em><br \/>\n<em>Leslie, Georgia<\/em><\/p>\n<p>What I would do is simmer your ham hocks, then remove the meat. Pack it into your jars, leaving 1 inch of headspace, then fill the jars to within 1 inch of the top with the cooking water. Process pints for 75 minutes and quarts for 90 minutes at 10 pounds pressure. (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.) No, the curing solution will not cause the seal to fail or the food to go bad. &#8212; Jackie<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Drying towels I read in the last issue (#130, July-Aug 2011) all about washing your clothes with a wringer machine and then hanging them out to dry in the fresh air. Great article but I have a serious problem which may make you laugh! How in the heck can you stand to use the towels [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1653"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1653"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1653\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}