{"id":2965,"date":"2013-01-31T03:00:17","date_gmt":"2013-01-31T08:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/?p=2965"},"modified":"2013-01-31T03:00:17","modified_gmt":"2013-01-31T08:00:17","slug":"q-and-a-livestock-crops-scorched-stew-and-pressure-canning-meat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/2013\/01\/31\/q-and-a-livestock-crops-scorched-stew-and-pressure-canning-meat\/","title":{"rendered":"Q and A: livestock crops, scorched stew, and pressure canning meat"},"content":{"rendered":"

Livestock crops<\/strong><\/p>\n

John and I want to plant as many crops for the animals as we can this year. What do you recommend for fresh eating and storage foods?<\/em>
\n\u00a0<\/em>
\nMia<\/em>
\nFrazier Park, California<\/em><\/p>\n

It depends chiefly on how much tillable\/irrigated land you have available. Traditional livestock crops like field or silage corn are high producing but need quite a bit of acreage. (We don’t have it so we don’t grow field corn or silage corn which you can also manually harvest to feed green on the stalk.)\u00a0 So we grow plenty of extra pumpkins, squash, and rutabagas. All take relatively little land and give us lots of both people and animal feed. Other useful crops are comfrey, which we harvest all summer and fall as a cut-and-come-again crop for the cattle, goats, pigs, and chickens. It is rampant and perennial, requiring little care and having no pests.\u00a0 It is also invasive so be careful where you put it if you decide to grow it! We planted ours behind our training ring, way down by the new barn so it can’t get into our garden. It’s also handy there to cut. We also cut our sweet corn stalks while they are still green to feed the critters after we harvest the ears on the stalks to eat or can.\u00a0 Every little bit helps. — Jackie<\/p>\n

Scorched stew<\/strong><\/p>\n

I made a 10 qt. pot of Brunswick stew and it scorched. What can I do to get rid of the smell and taste?<\/em>
\n\u00a0<\/em>
\nShirley Kendrick<\/em>
\nHampstead, North Carolina<\/em><\/p>\n

Sometimes you can get rid of scorched smell and taste by gently removing all the stew and NOT disturbing the burned-on bottom layer, and then pouring it into another clean pot. Then peel a large potato and add to it along with 1 Tbsp. vinegar. Slowly simmer the soup for about 45 minutes, stirring so it doesn’t scorch again. Remove the potato, take a sniff, and taste.\u00a0 Sometimes this works; sometimes it is too badly scorched for the taste to be removed. Stuff happens sometimes. I sure hate for this to happen to me but it has. — Jackie<\/p>\n

Pressure canning meat<\/strong><\/p>\n

Recently I have begun pressure canning our own meat. I did ground beef for the first time (cooked it, drained off the fat, packed in hot jars, covered it with stock, 1 inch headspace, processed pints for 55 minutes at 15 pounds per the canner’s manual) and now I’m not sure if the meat is good. The seals pinged, but most of the liquid is not in the jars any longer and the jars themselves were greasy feeling when they came out of the canner. The meat looks fine, but looks can be deceiving. So is the meat safe to eat?<\/em><\/p>\n

Brooke<\/em>
\nBound Brook, New Jersey<\/em><\/p>\n

Your canner said to process at 15 pounds for 55 minutes?\u00a0 The normal recommended processing pressure is 10 pounds unless you live at an altitude over 1,000 feet and the time is 75 minutes for pints of meat. The liquid may have blown out of the jars because of the higher pressure. This, in itself, is not usually anything to be worried about, but I would be concerned about only processing the jars for 55 minutes which is 20 minutes less than the recommended time. Personally, I’d refrigerate the jars and use them as soon as it is convenient. And I’d pick up a canning book (you could pick up mine by clicking right here on the blog) for future use. Just wash the jars off with hot, soapy water to remove the grease on the outsides of the jars. — Jackie<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Livestock crops John and I want to plant as many crops for the animals as we can this year. What do you recommend for fresh eating and storage foods? \u00a0 Mia Frazier Park, California It depends chiefly on how much tillable\/irrigated land you have available. Traditional livestock crops like field or silage corn are high […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,11,13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2965"}],"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=2965"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2965\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}