I went to Goodwill the other day and I scored this pasta machine (without it’s handle) for only $5! Woo-hoo! I’ve been wanting one for a long time but they are very expensive. I just need to find a handle to crank it with and I’m set.

I also found a waffle iron for $10. I’ve been looking for one for a while, because Dave loves frozen waffles for breakfast, and I thought I could make better waffles at home.

Although it is a low end Proctor Silex Waffle Iron, it really works great! It has no settings, just a light on the lid that lights up when it’s ready to cook, and goes off when the waffle is done. I was highly skeptical it would work, and in fact on Good Eats when he talked about which waffle iron to buy he specifically held one of these up (with the name removed, of course) and said not to buy it. It works great! It actually makes them just a bit underdone, I might like them better just a bit more crispy, but they are perfect to freeze, because they get crisped up in the toaster when you reheat them.

I made regular buttermilk waffles, and then I made chocolate chip waffles (both Good Eats recipes). The chocolate ones are particularly nice after a long day – pop a couple in the toaster and it’s like getting a warm, fresh, chocolate cookie 🙂

I hit two home runs for dinner tonight! Irish Stew and No-Knead Dinner Rolls 🙂 The Irish Stew was a very simple crockpot recipe in my old Betty Crocker cookbook. I bought two pounds of local lamb stew meat last week, and I browned it (I used a little bacon fat to get it going, but after that it rendered quite a bit of fat out of the lamb). I browned it in the skillet, because my only dutch oven is a campfire oven, so it has legs, which makes it difficult to use on the stovetop. As I finished browing each batch I moved them to the dutch oven. While the next batch browned I chopped onions, carrots and potatoes and layered those on top of the meat. Repeat for three batches. Sprinkle some of my freshly dried thyme on top, deglaze the browning skillet with canned beef broth and pour all those lovely browned bits into the dutch oven, lid on, and parked it in a 300 degree oven for two hours. Then we turned it down to warm and left it for another three hours. At the very end I made a quick roux on the stovetop and stirred it in to thicken it up. Dave said it was a winner. The meat was just falling apart, and the veg was still in big chunks, but quite soft. Delicious!

The No-Knead Dinner Rolls was a recipe a friend recommended. It took about an hour and a half of rising time, but it was worth it. Delicious, fluffy rolls, a perfect companion to sop up the Irish Stew from the bottom of the bowl.

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Peaches are my very favorite fruit, and good peaches are available for such short time each year, I used to eat a lot of canned peaches from the store. Unfortunately they were a sad substitute for the fresh stuff. I liked a particular type from the store, but it was expensive, and one day I noticed on the label that the peaches were from Israel! Now, I have nothing against Israel, but I don’t want my food to be that well traveled! So after finishing the Food Preservation classes this spring, I was really looking forward to canning my own local peaches.

Last week I went to Kunze Farms in Vancouver and bought a 20# box of peaches. They were very nice there, and gave me samples to try so I could get just what I wanted. The local peaches weren’t great because of the weird weather we’ve had this year, but they had some peaches from Yakima (the dry side of the state), and they were juicy and delicious! So even though I wanted ‘local’ peaches, I decided local to my state was better than nothing.

 The ladies said to give them a few days to ripen, and that when they were soft around the stem end, they’d be perfect. So all week I’ve been checking them and eating peaches that were getting overripe 🙂 YUM! Finally I decided they were all ready to can.

So, first step in canning peaches is to peel the fuzzy little guys. I got a tip on how to do this from the How To Cook Like Your Grandmother blog – which is an awesome blog if you love good food! You cut an x on the bottom of them and drop them in boiling water for a minute.

Then you put them in cold water.

And the skin peels right off. The hardest part of this whole process was cutting the peach in half and prying the halves apart without crushing them. I’m afraid quite a few got mangled in the process. Then I remove the pit and throw them all in a big pot, which contains white grape juice and some ‘Fruit Fresh’ to help them keep their color. Pits go in the compost heap, skins and scraps go in a bowl for the chickens.

When I had enough I brought the pot to a boil and then filled my first six jars, sealed them, and put them in the water bath canner. While they boiled for 20 minutes, I skinned and cut up the rest of the peaches.

Then I was able to do the next six jars. I’m using pints here because quarts just seem too big for just the two of us. So the second batch goes in the canner.

Oh my gosh, there’s still a bunch left. Enough for two freezer containers full…

And a peach cobbler…YUM!

What a great day! 🙂

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I went to the farmers market Saturday and picked up a flat of local Currants. I was interested as soon as I saw them, because Grandma used to go on and on about how great Currant jelly was, and how hard it was to find. The lady selling them had brought some of her own jelly along to give samples from, and it tasted great. So I took the plunge and bought a whole flat of them.

Currants have tiny little seeds, and are very tart. I cleaned them and pulled off the bad ones, and put them all in a pot with a cup of water and set it to simmer.

Soon it all fell apart and the berries burst and let out their juice. I mashed it a bit with a potato masher.

Stems and all! Then I packed it into a jelly bag, and hung it over a bowl to drip out all the juice. Before going to bed I put what had drained out into a container in the fridge, and left it hanging overnight.

Half a flat of berries reduced to one jelly bag. I got about 2 cups of juice, and I need 4-5. So more tomorrow.

Update: I didn’t get any pictures of the actual jelly making. I ended up with 5 1/2 cups of very thick juice, and the instructions said I needed 6 1/2 and I could add 1/2 c of water to get there -so I went ahead and added a whole cup. I followed the instructions on the pectin packet, but this stuff was so thick, I’m not sure it needed pectin at all. It was setting up before I got it out of the pan! I made 8 half-pints. Processed them in my electric turkey fryer/water bath canner. That canner makes the whole process so much easier. I’m spoiled now!

This is the first time I’ve made jelly, I’ve always made Jam before. This stuff is pretty 🙂 Tastes good too – sweet/tart!

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Last year when I made Jam, I hade to make Freezer Jam, because I didn’t know how to can things. But now I have taken the Master Food Preserver classes through the extension service, and I am practically an expert (in book-learning), with all the USDA approved food safety information at my fingertips! I need practice though, so I bought a flat of Strawberries and spent the day making Jam!

This is also a chance to use my new toy!

This is a MasterBuilt Indoor Electric Turkey Fryer. I spotted it on craigslist and snapped it up after doing a little research and confirming my suspicions that it looks like a perfectly serviceable electric water bath canner. It has an element inside, and a metal basket sits on top of that. It has an adjustable thermostat, and a glass lid so I can keep tabs on what’s going on in there. It cost $75, and was like new, even in the original box and well taken care of. Electric water bath canners cost about $300, and I knew I could never justify buying one of those – this is right in my price range!

So I cleaned and mashed up my berries, and did my first batch with a regular pectin, full sugar recipe. Seems like I had to boil it forever to get it to thicken up. I finally tested some in the fridge and decided it passed the test, but it still might be pretty thin.

Into the pot. It holds 11 half-pint jars. Lid on, I cranked up the heat, and after a few minutes it worked it’s way up to a rolling boil. Ten minutes of processing later…

First batch was cooling on the counter. Well, actually it cooled in the pot for five minutes first, then it was ready to cool on the counter.

For the second batch, I did a low-sugar recipe, and instead of pectin I used a modified food starch called Clear Jel. That thickened up very nicely. Processed it for ten minutes, and then it was ready to cool on the counter.

Yum, we’ll be eating Jam until next strawberry season! And this year it won’t be taking up our freezer space – last year half my freezer was filled with freezer jam!

Tonight I made a spectacular roast. I did a bit or research before I bought a nice round roast at the market, hoping to make a good dinner and have leftovers for sandwiches. I found this very simple recipe

All American Roast Beef

I put the roast in my iron skillet and roasted it in that. That way when it was done I could put the roast on a plate to rest while I made the gravy in the skillet. It came out perfect! So delicious, smooth gravy, tender and juicy roast, and plenty leftover for lunches this week. Yum! I’ve never been very happy with pot roasts, but this roast came out just right 🙂

My other favorite recipe I have been using lately is Baked Chicken.

Simple Baked Chicken

Again, this recipe is SO SIMPLE anyone could do it, and it has come out absolutely perfect every time I’ve done it. Dave is nuts for it! And again, I bake the chicken in the iron skillet, let it rest while I make the gravy in the skillet, and it’s just a perfect dinner. Hardly any cleanup either.

Who would have thought such excellent results could come from recipes that are so doggone simple!?!

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I got a yen for a smoked salmon ravioli I get when we go to this brilliant little restaurant in Ashland, which we haven’t been able to go to for a couple years. Thought I’d just go ahead and make it myself – except I like tortellini even better than ravioli, and I’ve made those before so I already know how. Found this recipe:

http://everythingfromscratch.blogspot.com/2006/09/good-use-for-smoked-salmon.html

And got to work:

Easy peazy, if you don’t mind standing at the counter for a couple hours folding pasta. Luckily I don’t. Thought it was kind of fun, actually, folding tortellinis and watching TV. They all go right in the freezer so I can cook them as I need them. Can’t wait to try them.

Apple cobbler, from scratch, thanks to this recipe

Fruit Cobbler on AllRecipes.Com

Yum! I made a half-recipe of this a couple weeks ago and it was great. I’m using a different type of apple this time, had a few extra apples to use up, hope it’s just as good. At least I know the recipe is good.

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