Heavenly Homemakers

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Easy Homemade Dill Pickles

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The perfect formula for making homemade dill pickles…

Last summer I had two friends: one with too many cucumbers and one with too much dill. This worked out very well for my family, seeing as I had too many empty jars and too many hungry children to feed who really like pickles. (Not to worry. I also had more than two friends.)

So I took the cast-off cucumbers and dill, and I searched online for how to make pickles. Some recipes seemed complicated and some included weird ingredients – so in true Laura “can’t we just keep this simple” fashion, I played with a mixture of all the ideas I found to see if I could make the pickle process easy.

Not only is this easy…it is toooooo easy. We’re talking: wash cucumbers, slice cucumbers, stuff them into a jar with a few other ingredients, water bath for 5 minutes. That easy.

Homemade Dill Pickles

Easy as it was, I had to wonder: would the pickles taste good? Would they crunch like they were supposed to? It’s not like I had much money invested in them (thanks to my generous friends who supplied me with free cukes and dill), but I sure was hoping for a happy pickle experience. If successful, I knew this would be a wonderful food to be able to pull out of my pantry to quickly add to a meal.

Bingo! My family loves these. And they crunch like they are supposed to. No soggy pickles here.

Here’s the key to keeping the crunch in your pickle: Do not over water bath them. We’re not trying to kill the cukes. Just boil the jars long enough to get the lids to seal – about 5 minutes.

Now about the dill. Hey, what’s the big dill? (I’ve always wanted to say that. My life is now complete.) But about the dill. If you’re not sure what I’m referring to in the recipe when I say “1 Dill Flower” I’m talking about this:

So this is dill.

See how there are little tiny bunches of yellow plants all joined together into one giant – bigger than your hand – bunch of yellow plants? When I say “1 Dill Flower” I’m talking about the entire giant big huge bunch all attached to each other. I made this recipe up all by myself based on other recipes, so whose to say if I’m right? But my pickles turned out amazing, so I’m going to go with, “yep. I’m right.” Use an entire, big flower.

And now I want to read To Kill a Mockingbird for the 26th time. If you’ve read it, you know why. But seriously, who names their kid Dill? Or Scout for that matter. (Like for rill. What’s the dill? Okay now my life is complete.)

Easy Homemade Dill Pickles Yum

Easy Homemade Dill Pickles
 
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Author:
Serves: 6 pints
Ingredients
  • About 12 cucumbers
  • Per jar:
  • 1 Dill Flower (a full, big one)
  • ½ teaspoon garlic powder or 1 minced clove of fresh garlic
  • Liquid mixture for 6 pint jars:
  • 2¼ cups white vinegar
  • 2¼ cups water
  • 3 Tablespoons sea salt
Instructions
  1. Wash and sterilize 6 pint-sized jars.
  2. Place the following into the bottom of each prepared jar:
  3. Dill Flower (a full, big one) plus ½ teaspoon garlic powder or 1 minced clove of fresh garlic
  4. Wash 12-ish medium-sized cucumbers, then cut them into spears or slices. Pack them into each jar. (I averaged about 2 cucumbers per pint jar.)
  5. Stir the vinegar, water, and sea salt together on the stove over medium heat for 1-2 minutes or until the salt dissolves. (Do not boil the mixture.)
  6. Pour the hot liquids into each jar, immersing the cucumbers, allowing ½ inch of space at the top.
  7. Secure lids and rings, then place in boiling water bath for 5 minutes.
  8. Remove jars and be sure they seal properly.

Easy Homemade Dill Pickles

This is, by far, the easiest canning recipe I’ve ever tried. How about you? Have you tried making pickles? Are you a To Kill a Mockingbird fan?

P.S. Here’s my Sweet Pickle Relish recipe if you still have too many cucumbers. :)

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Putting up Green Beans for Winter

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This was originally posted in 2008. This is evident in the fact that Justus and Elias are only 8 and 6 in the picture below. They are now 14 and 12. Time flies – and little boys become teenagers. The green bean freezer method is still the same, however. Since we have been harvesting many the past few weeks, I thought it would be fun to re-post this tutorial. :)

How to Freeze Fresh Green Beans

After posting about how I put up corn for winter, many of you asked about green beans. I just happen to be in the middle of crazy green bean season. So…here you go!!

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After picking our beans, I usually get my boys on “bean snapping duty” right away. (They never complain about this job. I think it’s because they are given permission to “break things”….what do you think?)  They snap off the ends and put the green beans into a colander. As soon as the colander is full I wash the beans to try to get as much “garden” (my nice way of saying bugs and dirt) off.

It is my understanding that in order to maintain as much green bean nutrition as possible, it is best to only snap the ends off the bean…not to snap the bean into pieces. It makes sense that if you snap the green bean into three pieces, when you cook the bean, more of the nutrients will be washed away in the water. But if it’s a whole bean…more of the nutrients stay inside the bean. (And you can have “My green bean is longer than your green bean” competitions while you eat dinner.)

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After washing the green beans, I then put them into a pot of boiling water. This blanching process stops their aging process. (No, you can not blanche people in order to stop their aging process.)

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After about two minutes in the boiling water, the green beans are a brighter green…and they go back into the colander where they are given a cold, cold shower. This process stops the cooking process that the blanching part started.

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After the green beans are cooled from the cold water shower, I then spread them out onto a dry towel. I use another towel to pat over the top of them to help dry them off more. If your beans are too wet when you put them into a freezer bag, you’ll have ice form around your beans. (You don’t want ice to form around your beans.)

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And then, I put my beans into a gallon freezer bag and label it. And into the freezer it goes. I know some people prefer to can their green beans. I don’t can them for two reasons:

1. Freezing them maintains more of the green bean’s nutrition.
2. I’m incredibly afraid of my pressure cooker. (When I got my mom’s pressure cooker, it didn’t have a manual with it. I have no idea how to use it properly.)  I do not need to cause an explosion in my kitchen.

So there you go! As I begin to can and freeze my tomatoes and fruit for the winter, I’ll be sure to show you those processes too! (Yeah, because those don’t require a pressure cooker, just a hot water bath…and I’m not so afraid of those.)

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Confessions of an Applesauce Maker

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I’m not making any applesauce this year.  Not even a little bit. As much as I love making and preserving applesauce for my family, and as easy as it is to make applesauce with my Victorio – I am very happy to take the year off from this endeavor.

Why am I not making applesauce? Because I counted up jars I have leftover from the stash I made last year, and I found that I have plenty of applesauce to last us through the winter. I don’t need any, so I’m checking that task off my list. Yay!

applesauce_victorio

For those of you who don’t have a pantry full of applesauce, I did want to remind you of what I learned last year:  Making applesauce with a Victorio is by far the easiest method I’ve found.

So how about you? Are you making applesauce this year?

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I Should Become a Victorio Salesman

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I think I might just do it.

I love the Victorio Food Strainer so much that I may just go into business. I’ll pack a bunch of apples and tomatoes into my kids’ wagon, then I’ll go door to door, demonstrating to everyone I meet how wonderful the Victorio is for making applesauce and tomato sauce. I’ll show everyone how easy it is to set up, how much time it saves in making these great sauces, and how lovely the finished product is. Once they see it, they will hug me and thank me for sharing this invaluable kitchen tool. Then they will excitedly begin chopping some apples so that they too can easily make applesauce in their brand new Victorio.

It will be beautiful. Can’t you just picture it?

Sure, some will be skeptical. They will say to me, “Thanks anyway, but I already know how to make applesauce. It’s easy. You just have to core the apples, cook them, then run them through a blender.” And then I will tell them that as easy as that is, using the Victorio makes the process even easier and saves even more time! And I will add some exclamation marks to the end of my sentence because of how much time this will save them. !!!!!!!

Yes, it just might be my new career. But first, I’ve got to finish using my Victorio in my own kitchen to make my own tomato sauce and apple sauce…

This message was brought to you by the Heavenly Homemaker after quickly and excitedly finishing a delicious batch of tomato sauce.

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Putting Up Green Beans From Our Garden

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Our green bean plants are beautiful this year. Matt and the boys have been picking beans like crazy. I guarantee that when they bring a bucket of green beans in to me, I display a much more excited reaction than if they were to bring me a bouquet of flowers. Garden produce makes my heart flutter. :)

Here was our counter-full of beans last week once we picked, snapped, and blanched them for the freezer. (Don’t you worry. We ate a bunch of them too.)  :)

You can learn more about how we prepare green beans from the garden here. Even if you don’t grow your own beans, I’d recommend looking into purchasing fresh beans from your local farmer’s market or another resource near you. They are soooooo good!

If you have any fun homemaking tips, we’d love for you to share them in the comments section or link them up here today. Feel free to share kitchen tips, cleaning solutions, recipe ideas, cooking short-cuts, household money-saving suggestions, decorating ideas, gardening tips, or anything else you feel fits this category. (No product reviews or giveaways – thanks!) As always, when linking your blog post, please post a link back to this blog so that your readers will know where to find more Homemaking Hints.

 

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Oven Roasted Tomato Sauce – easy!

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When you make tomato sauce on the stove-top, it takes several hours, plus you have to stir the sauce quite often to keep it from scalding on the bottom. No biggie – I’ve done it this way forever and it hasn’t killed me yet. But guess what? My friend Anne just figured out a way to make tomato sauce in the oven and it’s even easier!!!! (Maybe some of you  have been doing it this way all along and it’s only new to Anne and me?)

If you’ve read my stove-top tomato sauce directions, you already know that I do not peel my tomatoes nor do I take the seeds out. I just blend up the tomatoes and call it good. Some might call this lazy. Shucks, I call this lazy. But this is one instance where being lazy works fine. You are very welcome to take off the skins and take out the seeds if you prefer.

I never measure or weigh my tomatoes, but in doing a little searching on the internet, I find that it takes 35-45 pounds of tomatoes to make 7 quarts of sauce. How many tomatoes equals one pound? It totally depends on the tomato. What kind of tomatoes can you use to make sauce? Whatever kind you want. We always plant a variety of tomatoes and throw them all together into our sauce.

Because tomatoes are very acidic (especially heirloom tomatoes), I’m not terribly concerned about adding lemon juice to my sauce. However, if you feel more comfortable adding lemon juice for safety, you’ll want to use about 2 Tablespoons in each quart jar.

Now, how to make Oven Roasted Tomato Sauce:

First wash your tomatoes (unless you enjoy the grit of soil from your garden…mmm).

Next, cut up your tomatoes and throw them into a roasting pan or any large baking dish. I usually cut my larger tomatoes into fourths and my smaller tomatoes in half.

Place the container of tomatoes (uncovered) into a 350° oven for about 1 1/2 hours or until the tomatoes are all shrivelled up and are floating in their own juices.

Run them through a strainer so that all you have left is the shrivelled tomatoes.

Place the tomatoes in a blender until smooth. Or better yet!! Run them through a Victorio!!!

Can them in a water bath (you can read more about this process here) for 25-30 minutes.

Are you a canner? Have you ever tried making tomato sauce this way?

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Tattler Lids and Flying Knives

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If you recall, I was sent some reusable Tattler canning lids to review several weeks ago. I wrote the review based on positive feedback I’d heard from my friends about Tattler, but I’ve been waiting for my tomatoes to finally turn red so I could actually can something myself and use my new lids!! Finally, last weekend I was able to play with my new “toys”.

I’m very excited to share, in response to many of you asking about Tattler lids, “Do they really work?” YES! They really work!

Because I was so giddy with excitement over my first canning experience of this season, and because based on this happy jar sealing experience, Tattler and I are going to become extremely close friends, I got a little bit camera happy.

Here we have my Tattler lids sealed on tomato sauce jars with okra, peppers and cucumbers in the background:

Here we have an extreme close up of the Tattler lids sealed on the tomato sauce jars. I think their smiles look so nice in this one, if in fact Tattler lids can smile (and I think we would all agree that they can, indeed, smile):


Here they are again, sitting next to their box with my water glass to the right, and my bouquet of last week’s birthday flowers in the background:

And here is a picture of three of my boys painting last Tuesday. While I love my Tattler lids, I love my children more. Sometimes I’m guilty of snapping pictures of weird things like butter splattered on pineapple and taking umpteen pictures of canning jars at a variety of angles, and I fail to take pictures of my children painting dots with q-tips.


We have been studying Australia, and came across a special painting style the Aborigines use:  Warlpiri. We decided to try it. Unfortunately, all of our paint colors except red and yellow were dried out and crusty. Therefore, my kids got to paint Warlpiri art using only red, yellow and orange for color choices. All of our paintings looked kind of like an Australian sunset, but it sure was fun.

How does the picture of my boys relate to Tattler and canning tomato sauce? It doesn’t. Although, if you look real close at my pantry doors right behind Elias, you can see a plastic knife stuck through the door handles. I first noticed that Malachi had parked his “weapon of the day” between the pantry door handles while my arms were full of freshly canned tomato sauce jars, which made it impossible to open the doors with my foot, which had been my original plan. After setting all of the tomato jars back down, I may or may not have yanked the knife out with a grimace and flung it into the living room so that I could resume my task.

I bet you didn’t know that sometimes finding my boys’ toys in precarious places all over the house causes me to fling knives into the living room.

Although now that I see a picture of it here, I find the knife through the pantry door handles rather endearing.

Remind me of this cuteness tomorrow after I’ve just tripped over a lightsaber.

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Gratituesday: Hard Work Tastes Good

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Remember all the abundance of produce that I was tripping over last fall and trying very hard to appreciate? All the canning and preserving we do during August and September (in the midst of soccer season) is overwhelming at times. We know we’re doing it for our family’s health and to save money…but it really is a lot of hard work!

But now that it’s (almost) February? Now THIS is why we work so hard in the fall!!

Everytime we run out of applesauce, we go to the pantry. Each time I decide to make spaghetti or pizza? We get out a jar of sauce. We’ve enjoyed many a grilled cheese sandwich with homemade tomato soup. We’ve got a great supply of salsa left. We have canned peaches to eat in cottage cheese for a quick and easy snack. Our supply of frozen green beans and corn is holding up just fine, and we haven’t been holding back.

Healthy food doesn’t get much easier than this.

All that hard work back in the fall? It was SO worth it.

Remind me of this post in September when I’m again overwhelmed and tripping over boxes of apples and tomatoes.

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Apple Pie Filling

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Malachi_apple_pie_1

Yum

What started out as seven grocery bags full of apples to trip over in our kitchen is now down to only three grocery bags full of apples to trip over. We’ve shared some (meaning we’ve begged people to take some off of our hands), made applesauce, dried apple rings and now apple pie filling.

Oh yeah, and we’ve eaten a bunch.

This was my first time to try canning apple pie filling and I am pleased with the results. It’s a little time consuming to make, but it isn’t hard. Will the hard work be worth it in February when I make a quick Whole Wheat Pie Crust, pour out the contents of the jar and bake a pie? Oh yes, I think so.

To make Apple Pie Filling you will need:

About 25 medium sized apples
1 1/2 cups sucanat or brown sugar
3 Tablespoons cinnamon
3 Tablespoons cornstarch, arrowroot powder or flour
1 cup water
1/4 cup lemon juice

(This amount makes 3 quart sized jars – enough for three nice sized pies.)

Peel, core and slice your apples.

Add remaining ingredients.

Stir and cook over medium heat for about 30 minutes until
a nice little syrup has formed and your apples are slightly tender.

Scoop apple pie filling into sterilized canning jars.
Hot water bath the pie filling for 25 minutes.

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To make pie:

Prepare this Whole Wheat Pie Crust and place it in a pie pan. Dump contents of Apple Pie Filling jar into the crust. Use bits of leftover crust to put little cut-outs onto the pie, or make a crumb topping. Bake at 350° for one hour.

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And now a little Q&A…

What kind of apples should I use for this apple pie filling?

I would suggest using the kind you get for free. Those taste best in a pie. Otherwise, granny smith makes a really good apple pie. Some of you want to share your favorite apples for pie making?

Can I freeze my pie filling?

You can certainly freeze this apple pie filling if you’d rather not can it, or if you don’t have canning equipment. I chose to can it because all of my freezers are pretty well full of meat, green beans, corn, strawberries, peaches… Wow God is good!

Can I use this apple pie filling to make an apple crisp?

Oh look – here’s a recipe for a Healthy Fruit Crisp. :)

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