Just Another Day on the Ranch...

It was a busy day on the ranch with all kinds of food preps. I thawed out 10 pounds of ground chuck, 4 pounds of chicken breasts, 6 pounds of chicken thighs, and 5 pounds of diced red beets in the hopes of getting all of it processed, cooked and packaged in one day. 

I waited until evening to start the process of canning the beets. I wanted it to cool

off outside, so I could open the windows to keep the house cool inside while cooking the beets and the pickling brine, sterilizing the canning jars, lids and rings and heating the hot water to can the beets. 

The stove was quite busy until nearly 10 pm.

The finished product. 

I purchased the frozen diced organic beets from Azure Standard a little

over four months ago. My plan was to can them right away, but Shingles doesn't care!

It was also time to harvest the basil micro-greens. 

Quite tasty! 

I took the scissors to the greens and gave them a haircut. I rinsed and drained them while I was canning the beets. I plan on using the food processor to puree the greens. I will freeze the puree in ice cube trays, then I will store the cubes in a freezer bag in the freezer. This allows me to pull out just the amount I need for making pesto. 

Our little friends showed up last week.

Number One Husband started the charcoal for the grill.

I made 15 hamburger patties to grill, and I cooked, packaged and froze the rest of 

the ground chuck. I packaged and froze the extra grilled burgers. 

The chicken is still partially frozen in the refrigerator. My plan was to make chicken sausage out of the thighs and lunchmeat out of the breasts. My Kitchen Aid grinder has developed a crack in the plastic, so I will not be grinding the thighs. I may try using my food processor, but I think that it may just turn it into paste. I don't want that. My other option is to butterfly the thighs and season them with sausage seasoning and grill them with the chicken breasts.

 

Mrs. Smith

Preserving Celery...

I purchased a 2.5 pound bag of celery sticks the last time I went to the big city. It's cheap. Plus, they no longer carry the celery I used to buy that still had the bottom attached to the stalks. Celery in that form lasts a long time in my refrigerator. Celery sticks do not last very long at all. I was able to extend the life and crunch of the sticks by storing them in water. Here is how I did it...    

I got out my cutting board and a knife.

I prepared a bowl of filtered water to preserve and store the celery in in the fridge.

I put a large bowl in the sink and washed the stalks very well. They looked clean,

But they were all kinds of dirty...

I cut the ends off and any blemishes. I only used the very best ones.

I made a stock pile and a chicken pile.

Chicken pile.

I cut the stalks down to size to fit in my containers.

I added them to the filtered water.

Poured myself a cup of hot tea that turned cold before I drank it.

I topped off the water to make sure all the celery was submerged.

I put the lid on and put it in the fridge.

This is the jar that I used for storage. I did purchase 2.5 pounds. I wanted to show that you could easily store them in small and large quantities.

I packed the celery in and topped it off with filtered water.

These are the stalks that I had leftover. I used these to see which ones lasted the longest. The water processed ones lasted longer.

I had to use these up pretty fast.

This is how they were stored.

I have a regular head of celery in the fridge that I have done absolutely nothing to except put it in the crisper. It was purchased over a month ago. It is the best way that I have found to store celery. The celery sticks in the fridge are almost two weeks old and they are still crisp, but I will have to use them up or chop them and put them in the freezer in the next week or so. I have changed out the water once. I used quite a lot of them in a stir fry Yesterday. They were crunchy and the water smelled absolutely delicious. 

 

This is how much That I have left.

The true test was when I made chicken salad. The celery leaves on the left are from my window garden. Celery leaves really make chicken salad pop. It turned out wonderful. I test the preserved celery about every three days or so to determine when I need to use it up or freeze it to use in soups.

Enjoy,

Mrs. Smith