Jay's Jammin'

I thought I was going to have another slow snow clearing season. But no, this came along and we are expecting more tonight.

Easier than pushing snow, but messier

If the wind is right my face collects most of the snow.

I will have to check on full face shield or cab

While I was at it, I cleared an area for Brandy to do her thing  She is so small that her belly was 2″ down in the snow. I also cleared a path so Momma could fill the bird feeders. The lumpy thing on the right is our truck.

The feeders are in the tree

Momma baked us a treat, tomato soup spice cake ,while I was snowblowing.

Next time I’ll let her plow while I cook!

Home cooked breakfast

I said cooked, not totally prepared. We have Spartan canned buttery biscuits, Alton Brown’sSawmill Gravy recipe ,

fresh Folgers coffee.

Momma had requested a roast for dinner tonight, One without any extra spices or herbs. Yeah, right!! OK, just a little salt, pepper, garlic powder, and a small bottle of Merlot.

Starting the roast in my favorite Dutch Oven

Finished product

By cutting my dosage of leg cramp meds I recovered some energu, let’s see if we can drop some high BP meds, w/Dr’s OK.

No canning projects in queue, what can we do? I know, that dehydrator that Momma got for me. Set it up, slice 240z of button mushrooms and 16oz of Criminis to look like this.

Eight hours later they’ve turned into 2oz dried.

Using frozen dough from Schwan’s home delivery I baked a loaf of bread and the ugliest cinnamon rolls I have ever seen to welcome the new site.  And here I sit with 40lb of bread flour in my back room, and a Kitchen Aid mixer, and a bread machine, and a computer with14,987,546 recipes for no-knead bread.  Time to learn other baking methods if I want anything good to use my jam on.  Approximately 386 jars in the storage room!

  This is the first vitrectomy on the left eye after having the glaucoma drain tubes implanted. This morning Dr Ross said things are looking good
  This afternoon I discovered I can still bake a cake using one eye, and a mixer, spatula, bowls, flour , sugar, salt, vanilla, butter, brown sugar, cinnamon. applesauce, baking powder, baking soda, ground ginder and cloves. Recipe

  We go to McDaniel’s farm market a lot this time of year. They have a good selection of what we want, muskmelon, apples, onions, summer and winter squash.

  Not to forget pumpkins and gourds. And potatoes & tomatoes, you get the idea.

  Momma and me enjoying a day in the fresh(cold)air, picking up more apples on Monday. Why does that guy always have his mouth open, anyway?

  Another 1/2 bushel of Early Gold Delicious turned into 12 & 1/2 pints of Apple Pie Filling and 20 jars of Apple Rhubarb Chutney.

  Now I have to rearrange the stock on the shelving in the basement and label them so I can find them among about 40 varieties!!

  Saturday started our first tussle with the apple harvest. We picked up a 1/2 bushel of Yellow Delicious and some Wine saps for applesauce at Parker’s Orchard in Millington, Then we went over to McDaniel’s Farm Market for some Fujis and Galas for jams. I’m running down more often, by the time I awoke from a “nap” it was 9pm.

  Sunday was better, woke up, fixed breakfast for Momma and myself. Then we got started around 11am.

  By 10:30pm we had 9 pints of Momma’s applesauce with Cognac, 6 pints of Jay’s applesauce with cinnamon, 11 jars of Apple Pie Jam, and 18 jars of Dutch Apple Pie Jam. I guess we deserve a nice rest.  Later.

  We got off the jam wagon for a while this week. We bought a bushel of tomatoes on Monday and made SOUP. Tomato Bisque and and Tomato & Basil. 18 and 14 pints respectively. It gave me a chance to get the pressure canner out, the whole 14 pints of tomato basil fit into 1 load. Not 1oz of sugar in the whole project!
  Now back to the real thing, Apples!

  Funny subject, but that’s what occurred this week.

  This was the 50th anniversary of Utica, Michigan class of 1959. I never managed to go to any others. There were 73 of a class of 224 that made it.

  Nice fruit table to start. Open bar, but not many could indulge, health and other problems. Personally, I fnd tbl tawking on the intrwbs. OK, sober up.

  Looks like we three should have stuck to the fruit table. I didn’t know 50 years could add that much girth. All three of us would not have been over 160 lbs back then. .good party, anyway.From the left, Reuben Thonerfelt, Richard Schmitt(Park) and myself Albert Axsom.

  Today as I went off to dialysis, Mary tackled the 80lbs of beets we picked up yesterday. She was going to clean, peel and cut them up. I got home, had lunch and took a nap. When I woke up and came out to the kitchen…

this greeted me, almost all 49 pints finished. I only got to help on about 5 jars plus make the lables.

Saturday, at the request of my financial adviser to be a “fly on the wall”, we welcomed Tim into the dome for a session of jelly making. He wanted to learn how to make a seedless red raspberry jelly. We had gotten the fruit earlier so as to have it ready for Saturday. Do you know how long it take for raspberry juice to drain through a jelly bag? Two hours, that’s what. Tim very patiently stood there all that time, slowly stirring and scraping down the inside of the jelly bag, until we had the needed 4 cups of juice. After a break for lunch we proceeded with the regular steps in jelly making, heat juice and Sure-Jell to boil, add sugar, bring to boil again, put in jars with lids and rings, water bath for 10 minutes. WATER BATH, OMG, I forgot to turn gas on under canning kettle!
  Got water hot and processed jars for 10 minutes. Total output,14 4oz jars and 1 more recruit to the canning forces.

  Cinnamon pears next, and cider jelly.