Baking and Canning
 

I just finished putting up applesauce and setting my sourdough bread, I wondered how many other quilters also do canning and baking.
I have canned fruits and made jams for years and when the pandemic kept us inside, I started some sour dough and have kept it going for almost 2 years now . Bread and sweet rolls are made weekly.
Problem is , all this homemaking takes time away from my quilting! How about you?

I bake bread, rolls, and biscuits but don't can anymore. Several ladies I know make jams, relish, and pickles and sell at local farmer's market so I buy theirs. I save the canning jars and take them back each year. I think I make more pizza dough then breads. My grands love pizza after school and are always here hungry. LOL

I like to bake, cookies and such. I live alone so I share them with my neighbor, the PO lady, the guy at the recycling center. I used to make bread when my husband was alive. Never tried sourdough.

I also love to bake. I just dry canned 25 pounds of King Arthur flour for bread for the winter. I'm thinking about trying a few new recipes this winter, a dill bread to go with soups and stews, and focaccia bread. I did only a small batch of applesauce this year, 12 pints. My garden is all done, ready for snow, so everything is canned up, and ready to enjoy for the winter ahead. The only thing I have left to do is I like to freeze apple pie filling for the winter. It is so nice to pull one out in the middle of winter and bake a nice apple pie or crisp.

what is dry canning flour? With the price of flour going up and up, I too have bought it 25 pounds at a time .

I too, bake our bread & do jams. Many recipes are prepared, portioned & then frozen for meals & snacks. Have done this for years. Have a problem with freezer space sometimes if I do a 14" pie.
sewverybusy

I don't can anything but maple syrup when/if I get it in bulk, and only freeze blueberries that we pick either from our own bushes or a friend's. I don't have a lot of freezer space. I did make two batches of strawberry jam one of which had some sugar that didn't dissolve. So I won't be giving that away as gifts. I would like to make some spiced pear jam for gift giving. And I usually bake a loaf or two of bread every week in winter but not in summer. I have a bread machine which I use only for mixing and the first rise.

I freeze flour for a few days in the package. Then put the package in big canister with screw on lid. It will be good for a year. I have at six five lb bags of it in my pantry at all times. I can't find unbleached flour in the bigger size then 5lb.

I tend to make a number of soups in my 20qt stock pot, split it into 2 - 1/2gal containers and freeze them for later. This year I've started out with 14 1/2 gal containers of soup that I made earlier in the year using stock from the garden and just adding the meat to them. Since acquiring an Instant Pot both in the 3qt and 6qt size, I've been keeping up with making a sweet and tart yogurt just about every other week as it's just me. Plus of course to go with the yogurt, I make a granola to mix in with the sweet yogurt for breakfast. Seasoned crackers using oyster crackers for the soups. Those are also great in salads during the summer time.

Since getting the Instant Pots, also, I've been looking for various desserts I can make using it. I made my very 1st cheesecake in the Instant Pot and it came out great. Cooked up some raspberries from the garden to make a sauce to go over it.

Also, with a over abundance of tomatoes last year, I went to dehydrating them. The cherry and grape tomatoes weer cut in half beforehand and then once dried, placed in a quart canning jar and put into the cabinet for recipes calling for sun dried tomatoes. The larger tomatoes, grounded into a rough powder to add to any tomato sauces that were a little watery once heated up. Sucks up the extra juice right up. The green tomatoes, my sister figured out how to bread them like we do for eggplant parmasean, bake them and then freeze them for later. I'll pull a couple out, throw them into my air fryer for 4-5 minutes and then add some of my yogurt over top of it. I also do this with the eggplant slices but add my marinara sauce and some shredded cheese nuked over for a snack.

I also can and bake. I usually love it. I have a huge number of green tomatoes waiting make Chowchow. I just need to buy some other veggies to make it up. I have made lots of squash bread and banana bread for the freezer. I gift it during the holidays. I also make jams and jellies.
I am packing up a good portion of my house getting ready for new carpeting soon. The installers are supposed to call us today or tomorrow. I can't get to my canner. Oh dear...
I really hate this. My third cousin came to meet me and brought her three daughters for a few hours in the midst of all of this. It was fun, kind of hard to entertain with the house in disarray. They are here for only a short while; she is a doctor who travels.
Anyway, happy fall everyone. Enjoy your friends and family.

I do a lot of canning ( and freezing) thanks to a green-thumb husband, and while I love to bake, neither he nor I need the calories!

Onebyone, I also put my flour and any flour type product in my very cold fridge downstairs. After living in Florida and finding little very live bugs in my boxed mixes, flour, pasta, I turned to putting it in the freezer down there and then into the cabinet after a few days. I now live in the midwest so really don't have to do it any longer but it's become a habit. So I keep all my flour, pasta, nuts, sugar, baking chips and coconut in the fridge downstairs as I have room for it there. Old habits are hard to kill.

I have to make almost everything i eat myself for health reasons. That includes ketchup, mayonnaise, salsa, sauces. So I spend WAY too much time in the kitchen as it is. If I started baking and canning, I'd have no time to quilt.:shock:

This was my first year of making peach jam. Our one tree made enough peaches for 7 jars and then I peeled and froze a big batch for smoothies. I do like to bake but we just can't eat all those baked goods, so do that rarely. Fresh bread is my downfall, so rarely make it, otherwise I'd eat the entire loaf!! I make most of our meals at home, mostly unprocessed foods, so there is some time in the kitchen, but that is my choice and I enjoy it.

I SO wish I enjoyed kitchen time more. For me it's just a chore. My limited choices for eating make it a pain also.

I make blackberry jelly every year with the blackberries from our plants. I give it out to the neighbors and also include it in Christmas baskets. I am going to try to start doing meals prepping in the new year, with just 2 of us it seems to make sense to have some stuff in the fridge for lunches.

I just made a batch of the that "porridge bread" somebody posted a while back. Very simple recipe using plain yogurt (I use greek) plain old fashed oats, a bit of oil and baking soda. I also added some soaked raisins to it for a bit of sweet flavor. I am enjoying it for a quick breakfast or lunch as I figure it has a fair amount of protein and complex carbs in it.

I freeze more than can. It's easier and doesn't make the house so hot. Even if I roast tomatoes before freezing, having the oven on doesn't compare to boiling water baths. Ugh. Love freezer jams, they taste so much fresher, although they are a softer set. There are only 2 of us here now, so I don't bake as much. I, too, make sourdough breads. I took a class in 2019 or so, didn't keep up with it, but started again when I stumbled upon an online teacher that made things more understandable. I thought I didn't like sourdough, but now realize I don't like packaged sourdough that has enhancers in it. When I bake it, I usually do enough for a month and freeze it. It doesn't take much longer than making one loaf, and then it's done for awhile.

I can pickles and salsa--something both DH and I enjoy eating. This year my 5 tomato plants gave us enough for 10 pints of sauce besides the salsa, but I don't usually make tomato sauce because of the time involved. I make wholewheat buns for myself. One batch gives me enough for 3 weeks. DH does his own Keto baking, which I am very thankful for. I don't do much other baking because I'd rather have salty than sweet. But at Christmas, there are a couple of traditional cookie recipes that I make to share with the family.

Because of stomach issues, our dog gets a heaping tablespoon of pumpkin every day. Since canned pumpkin has nearly doubled in price in the last year, I took advantage of Halloween and chopped up, microwaved, mashed and froze the equivalent of 5 cans ($30 worth) for $1.97 and a bit of work! Joe hasn't noticed any difference. That was definitely a win/win!

True story- growing up I never heard of canning. My husband's grandmother was canning tomatoes one day and I couldn't figure out how she would be able to put them in "cans" and seal them up like in the store HAHAHAHA

Reminds me of new neighbors I had some years ago. The little boy was about 8 years old and came to my house one day to bring the mail to me. He said that is a lot of cookies, I had set out to cool. I said yeah I made a big batch and was taking a pan of them out of the oven. His eye got big and he said You can make cookies at home? I never knew this before. I got to tell my mom!

Lol! That so made me laugh, Susie

I remember back in the 50’s when the farm women in our family got their giant chest freezers. How convenient for them.
I keep cookies in freezer to send home with grandchildren. I save oatmeal containers or buy containers at garage sales because they think Grandma has an unending supply of containers.
I’ve canned 50-60 quarts of tomato juice every year but this year I roasted halves with peppers, onion, cumin, even small zucchini. Run through food processor then freeze. (My upright freezer is so packed right now)
My friend gives me jalapeños, squash & sweet corn so it’s frozen too.
I canned a few jars of dill pickles. (Using Mrs. Wages mix)
Also canned 6 jars beet pickles (half for us & half for our son in law’s birthday)
I love Rhodes Texas size frozen buns. I can defrost amount I need and bake them. Works better than making my own.
Yesterday we pulled out a block of frozen soup for lunch. So handy.
Grocery store had Gala apples on a 2 day sale so I froze enough for several apple crisps.
Pail of potatoes (from friend’s garden) in the pantry too.
Thanksgiving dinner will be from above plus 18 lb turkey that’s waiting in my neighbor’s freezer.

I would bake every day if there was a purpose for me to do so. I love to make bread, pies, candies, cookies and casseroles. Problem here is that I am a singleton and unless I am going to a potluck or taking a meal to someone, I don't bake because I just can't and shouldn't eat that much. Holiday times are my favorite because there are so many potluck meals or dish to pass events. I am off to make apple pie later this morning for an event tomorrow, then potato soup and homemade bread later this week for a pre-theatre supper with friends. Yummy week for me! Oops, making jelly later this month for gift giving.

Love baking and canning, but now that it's just DH and I, I don't do much anymore. Quilting has replaced baking as my main hobby now. I tell people I switched from baking to quilting, because it's better for my weight as I'm not tempted to eat my mistakes.

Baked fruit cake end of october and in november made Christmas chutney and relish.
December will be baking some small mince pies and mini pastries.

Made a batch of "Spiced Christmas Jam" this week and gave it as favors at a Christmas Tea last evening. I think this year my neighbors will be getting jam and scones as Christmas gifts. It felt so good to make jam again that I just need to make more using the blueberries I stored away in the freezer. Still making holiday sweet breads and pies when ever I need "a dish to pass." I find it fulfilling and joyful to share food with others. Too many folks have set aside making their own foods. I can remind them of what homemade food tastes like. And like the little boy in a previous post, they can discover cookies, and other foods, can be made at home.. Who knew! Tee-Hee-Hee!

My husband's "love language" is cooking for people. He gets so much joy out of it. It's not unlike how I love making things in my sewing room for people.
We have a woman clean our house every two weeks. He sends her home with food, every single time. She's so exhausted at the end of the day that she doesn't cook much at all. This is a special treat for her and it makes him very happy to know she's getting a good meal. He's even sent repairmen home with food!!! :)

Everyone in my family canned food when I was growing up. I have a pressure canner and a water-bath canner. At the beginning of the pandemic, I was canning apple pie filling. I mention the pandemic, because there was a shortage of canning supplies at the time, so we purchased canning jars that had one piece lids instead of the standard lids with bands. While I was removing the jars from the pressure canner, unbeknownst to me the lid had started to come unscrewed during the canning process, and when I started to lift a jar out of the water, it exploded in my face. If it weren't for my glasses, I'm sure the very hot liquid would have hit my eyes. It burned me pretty badly but I was afraid to go to the hospital at the time. I had big blisters on my face, chest, and hands. I usually keep an Aloe Vera plant in my kitchen for burns, so I broke of a piece and rubbed the gel on my burns. Surprisingly I did not have even one scar from my burns. I have always wondered if it was because of the Aloe Vera. As someone who has been through nursing school,I also knew that a wound needs a moist environment to approximate and heal, minimizing scarring. So I learned a valuable lesson that day. Do not lean your face over a canner when removing lids. Now I hold the lid in front of me like I am a Viking Shield Maiden.

Also, I purchased a lot of flour during the pandemic. I used my vacuum sealer with a canning lid attachment and stored my flour in large jars to preserve it. I put a coffee filter in the top to prevent the flour from spraying back and breaking the lid seal. It worked like a charm. I couldn't find bread flour during that time, so I purchased a bag of Vital Wheat Gluten so that I could make my own. My bread seems to have a better texture now. I don't know if it is related to me making my own bread flour. I have been making bread for most of my life. I used to make it in the oven, but then I bought a bread maker and I have used that for decades now.

That is too funny that anyone would not know that you can can or make cookies!

Wow, SewingSew, that must have been pretty scary! So glad you healed well. Canning lids were hard to find where I live as well (in the Finger Lakes). The Mennonite stores started selling ones they would buy in bulk and repackage to 10 or 20. No brand, but they worked.

When we lived in Syracuse, I had a friend who was shocked that we could easily make things. She'd just never been exposed to anything not packaged from the store... She truly had no idea that you could make something like strawberry jam. For me, a country girl who was in 4H for over 10 years, I was shocked that anyone didn't know, lol

Sewingpup- what kind of flour do you use

I have always loved to cook, can and freeze. Don’t do that much anymore since I am alone, so now I have turned to quilting.

If anyone has an interest in has an interest in making their own bread flour, Amazon sells wheat gluten. You add it to all purpose flour. I usually buy Pillsbury Best. The ratio is something like a teaspoon wheat gluten to a cup of flour. The stuff adds elasticity to your dough. It is also great if you make your own pasta, which I do periodically.

PeaceandJoy, it scared the living daylights out if me. It didn't scare me so much that I stopped canning, but it taught me to pay more attention to safety. That year I canned 36 quarts of tomatoes, applesauce, 2 varieties of chow chow, 36 pints of green beans, pickles, concord grape jam, Apple pie filling, and more, so you'd think I would know better than to get my face too close to the pot. Natural consequences is always the best teacher.