I want to say, Merry Christmas Eve to all, and I hope that you are feeling loved, even if you are by your self. Show yourself some love during these tough times.
If all we have is our own little self, then we need love too.
If all we have is our own little family in the house, then love will just have to be enough to carry us through these days ahead. I am praying for all of you, constantly and I send you hugs and love.
I am a canner from way back there, I used to grow all my gardens of vegetables and fruit trees and pick wild blackberries like crazy. I even re-started many many mulberry trees from a tree that used to be in Watermelon Park that is near Lake City Florida.
This tree had a History, you see. All the farmers back in the day, before my time, would meet up under this giant mulberry tree and sell their wares. It was at an S&S Store at that spot, where I happened to work at.
They were tearing the tree down to pave the store lot as it was a dirt lot. I happened to be riding by, that day and when I saw that beautiful tree tore down, it ripped at my heart. So I got out of the car and collected many many little stick branches and took them home and stuck then in dirt pots and they grew and grew.
I had a giant tree myself from one of those sticks. And I gave out many many trees to a lot of people. So that special tree lives on.
On to the recipe now, sorry folks about reminiscing. But I blog because, of the old days, to try to teach the many that want to know. As I feel it is my purpose in this life, to try and take care of all of you, by sharing wisdom from the ways of our ancestors before us. This is how I learned a lot myself, from listening to their life stories.
There I go again. Sorry.
You will need a 110 oz can of hominy and about 6 or 7 pint jars with lids and rings.
Pressure Canner – a chopstick to de-bubble- tiny bowl of vinegar and napkins
A wide mouth funnel Jar lifting tongs (strong). Kitchen towel folded in half on counter near the stove to put boiling jars onto.
Ready now, here we go. As the hominy is already cooked, we just warm it and the juices in a pot to boiling. While this is starting out. Have 2 inches of water in your pressure canner also coming to a boil. Have a third big pot of water boiling to fill your jars with.
Next I take a soup ladle and ladel out some boiling water into 2 of the jars. As you fill each jar with hominy, then pour the water off into one of the cold jars that are without water. Keeps each upcoming jar hot until it gets filled.
As you fill a jar, add 1/8 tsp. of salt to it. Use the pan of boiling water to fill the jar up to within 1 inch head-space from the top ring on the jar. De-bubble with the chopstick. Wipe the top of the jar with a napkin dipped into vinegar. Put on the seal (this does not have to be hot). As it will get there in the canner. Put the ring on the jar , just finger tight! Put the jar into the canner. Repeat for each jar. ( I do have the canner metal ring in the bottom of the pot, before adding the jars.
If you do not have enough jars of food to fill up the canner, just put hot water into extra jars and set them around in the canner as place holders. I do not cap mine.
Time now to take the jiggle weight off the canner top and set it aside. Put the canner top on. Have the water already boiling hot in there! Have the dial on number 6. You do not want to bring this up too fast or you will lose liquid from your jars! When you see steam coming out of the jiggly vent then you put the jiggle weight on.
There are a lot of steps to canning, but I promise you that it will be worth learning to do it safely. Next you turn up the stove to #7 and wait for the number dial on the pot to get to #11 (Florida altitude). Google if you live higher up.
When it gets to #11, then you turn the temp down to #3 or #4 so that the dial will level out to around the #11 lbs of pressure for the whole processing time. Start timer now for 60 minutes! Most times for pint jars are for 75 minutes or 90 minutes for quarts. (But hominy is 60 minutes).
When timer goes off, just turn off the stove and WALK AWAY until all the pressure is released on its own and the dial is at ZERO. Only then can you open the pot. This is the top safety part of canning, if you open it under pressure it will explode!
When you open the lid there will be steam coming out so tilt the lid away from you. Use tong lifter in one hand and a pot holder in other hand for bottom of jar. Set the jar on th folded towel near the stove and walk away again. After about 4 hors I take the rings off the jars and if cooled down enough I wash each jar with warm soapy water and dry.
Use a marker and label food name and date on each jar seal and store away from sunlight. These will keep at least 3 years as long as you were clean and did all these steps during your food processing time. I hope that you will enjoy learning this and that it will provide for you family with lots of money savings on food.
If you have the time, stay a while and check out some recipes. I post on Thur-Sat and Tuesdays, so do come back if you wist to and share with friends. Thank you for your visit. Connie B. https://www.wisdomforpennies.com
