Food – Page 4 – Beautiful Chaos

I bought a pressure canner from America

The first thing I tried to can is chicken and of course as second the chicken broth

I have been watching a number of American people on YouTube using a pressure canner and gotten interested in this way of preserving. Putting everything in the freezer is convenient, but often I forget to thaw things on time. A freezer also uses power all the time while canned goods just need a frost free storage. Another thing is that it is difficult to take a freeze with us while traveling as on the other hand canned goods can be packed easily.

After we bought the cow to get butchered I told my husband I wanted to buy a pressure canner and so we did. I found it very exciding, since it was the first time I bought something from America. We can not buy a pressure canner in Europe, since it has not been approved here. It took about two weeks for the pressure canner to arrive and I was impressed by the quality of the product.

A little afraid to use it I first read the instructions a few times and had to wait until my husband had finished reorganizing and cleaning the barn. This needed to be done because he wanted to park our caravan in there for the 2 weeks we plan to go onto a holiday. Also the space and a somewhat clean barn were needed to process the butchered cow. After that we set up our camping gas stove in the barn. In preparation I had thawed 4 chickens and my husband cut of the filets and the legs. We grilled the chicken legs for lunch. They where very good with a peanut butter sauce.

I wanted to pressure can the filets. I put the pressure canner on the stove with the needed amount of water and turned the heat on middle. I put 5 pcs of ½ Liter glasses in the pressure canner to warm up with the water. I collected everything needed on the table and cut all of the filets in usable pieces. By the time I finished cutting the filets the water had warmed enough and I packed the meat in the glasses. The amount of meat was exactly right for the 5 glasses and I returned the glasses to the pressure canner and closed the canner. I left the heat on middle and waited for the steam. After 10 minutes of steaming I put the weight on and kept an eye on the pressure gauge. We are on a low altitude, so I need to pressure can with 11 psi. It took a little for the canner to reach that pressure, but since I did not put the burner to high it was relatively easy to adjust the heat and keep the pressure above the 11 psi. After the canning time was done I turned off the burner and waited for the pressure to naturally release. After that I carefully opened the canner and took out the glasses. It was interesting to see how the moisture in the glasses was still bubbling.

I took the glasses inside to cool down gently, because in our barn we only have about 12-15°C. As I understand the glasses shut not cool too quickly.

Once the meat was finished I took the canner of the stove and put my stockpot with the 4 carcasses on there to cook for the broth. I had only the chicken carcasses and water in the stockpot and had this simmer for about 5 hours, strained it and let the broth cool over night. (I had been making broth often before, but it did not smell so good and the kid’s did not want to eat things I made with it. Recently I have found out by searching in the internet that for broth, simmering for a longer period of time, you should not add vegetables, because the broth can turn bitter.) The next morning I separated the fat from the broth and heated the broth again. At the same time I heated the pressure canner with water and ¾ Liter glasses. Once the broth came to a boil I took the glasses out of the pressure canner and filled these with the broth. The amount of broth was exactly right for the glasses and the pressure canning process started again.

While canning the broth I used a glass of meat for an easy meal. I made Tai curry chicken with Quinoa. The meat was great. It did not become so dry as chicken meat usually does. We found it a success.

I have lost my “fear” for the pressure canner and want to pressure can some beef and soups as well. I am going to look for some recipe books about pressure canning to see for variations and what can all be canned this way. I think I have found a new hobby.

We bought a cow for meat

And had it butchered right where it lived

I try to buy good clean and basic food for my family. This can be ratter expensive, especially with meat. I had found a source for grass fed, grass finished beef, but this meat is very expensive. While going out to press hay and straw bales for farmers my husband came across a farmer that has cows and happened to have a cow that would not get bread. He wanted to sell the cow, but for him it was difficult to get only this one single 1 ½ year old cow sold. This was a change for us. We bought the cow and agreed that the cow would get butchered right there where she lives. We called around to find a butcher that butchers at home and where lucky to find one that still hat time this fall.

The butcher did a good job. The cow did not suffer and was gutted hanging from the frond end loader of a tractor.

The farmer had a cold room where the cow could hang before further processing. A week later my husband picked up the cow and the butcher came to us to process the cow.

The kid’s where so excited helping with packing and sealing all of the meat, seeing how the meat gets cut, what is discarded, how a part of the meat gets ground, etc. Especially we where all excited to try the meat. This was not a grass fed cow, but for us the next best thing. This was a hay fed cow, no grains, kept outside. It was a young and ratter small cow, but that is fine with us. I cooked some bratwurst and hamburger for lunch and it tastes amazing. We got about 135 kg of meat from this cow, to that comes the bones from which I will be making broth and the discard meat and guts we fed to the dogs. After our calculations this comes to a price/kg below the price I was paying for ground beef. Obviously for that same money we have all of the good parts of the beef as well. Tenderloins, steaks, roast meat, etc. For us this was worth it. We will do this again as soon as we go through most of this meat. We estimate that we will have most of the meat used by spring, we will see if we can already get another cow from this farmer again by that time.

What I forgot to mention is that we had to buy another freezer in order to do this, but even with these cost added the meat is still very cheap and these cost will divide over many years of using this freezer again and again.

A few ideas what you can make with zucchini

The zucchini was so abundantly that it was hard to keep up

There are many things you can make with zucchini and we tried a few. Our favourite is backed over with cheese from the oven. Some times a bigger one got filled with browned ground beef, or smaller once just got some bacon and cheese on top.

Pickling chopped zucchini is also very good and helps to preserve. We enjoy these all year.

I had put chopped zucchini in a lasagne. My husband and I loved it, but the kids even refused to try it.

Zucchini in a hash brown is also very good.

The zucchini was also very good in a Thai curry put on spaghetti in stead of rice. I have to admit that I used a store bought Thai curry mix to make the sauce.