Author: Connie Brannen

Categories
Meats Pressure Cooker Canner

Meaty Chili

What a messy pot! And a blurry photo also! #meaty #chili

Hello everyone, I hope this day brings you joy! I will share my own self made chili recipe with you. Maybe that will bring you joy!

I am sorry for this messy pot, but I do like to fill it to the rim. And I had two of these pots going at the same time yesterday!

#cold #weather #recipes

All of these ingredients are used in one pot of chili. One big pot, that is. I over-use the hamburger meat and use 2 1/2 lbs per pot of chili. First I fry it up. But in all honesty, I had 10 lbs to cook so I used turkey roaster pans in the oven. As I would be canning this chili, once it was done, but that,s another blog day for you to research if you wish to!

I put 2 1/2 lbs of cooked meat in two large pots and cut up a whole, big onion in each and 4 garlic cloves in each pot. Saute about 10 minutes. Next open 2 can of tomatoes and 3 cans of pinto beans and add to the pot. Add in 1 can of 6 oz paste with 3 cans of water. One can of tomato sauce.

Use 1 pack of chili seasoning and 1 huge tbsp. of cumin. I use smoked paprika so I added 1 huge tbsp. Use 1 tbsp salt. I prefer pink salt so that is what I use in my house. I use 1 tsp. of accent.

Then I ground up some fresh peppercorns and used 1 tbsp of this.( This did make it spicy hot’ though). Next time I will do a tsp. I think this is everything. Just cook on low for 1 1/2 hour and then enjoy!

I decided to add to this post on the directions of how to can this chili so that you can have some stored up for power-less days.

First of all, you have hot chili so you want hot and clean quart jars and this has to be canned in a pressure cooker canner. So on my 23 quart, Presto canner. I fill it up to the water mark line inside the pot, down toward the bottom. Three inchs deep I believe. Go ahead and have this heating up on low heat, while you are preparing the filled jars of chili.

Have your chili on the stove and heated up also.

You will need a tiny dish of vinegar and some paper towels

A chili ladle and a jar lifter

Quart jars with boiling water about 3 inches deep in the jars

Rings and seals and a chopstick to de-bubble the filled jars with.

A folded kitchen towel near the canner on the counter to put the finished hot jars on.

The next step is t empty one- quart jar of the hot water and ladle fill it with the chili, up to 1-inch headspace from the top of the jar. Use the chopstick to de-bubble the jar. Use the vinegar on a paper towel to clean up the top rim of the jar. Put the seal on and the ring and then close up the jar, just finger tight and not cranking down extremley tightening the lid. Air needs to escape. Repeat this with every jar Put the silver canning pot bottom ring into the canner or a dish towel if you don’t have one. Put the jars into the canner.

Put the lid on the canner and turn the stove up to #5 or #6 heat. ( make sure that every time you wash your canning pot that you use a toothpick or pipe cleaner to clean all vents on the canner lid! This keeps you safe!

Let this heat up until you can see or feel steam coming out of the vent hole and then time it for ten minutes more. Now you are ready to put the jiggly weight on top of the lid. Watch the dial for the pressure to rise up to (Florida is #11 lbs pressure) check on the internet for your State altitude pressure for canning.

When it is at 11 lbs of pressure (for Florida) in the North part of the State for me) only then can you set the timer for 90 minutes. Turn down the heat setting to #3 seems to keep my pressure level at 11 lbs of pressure and not go under the 11 lbs of pressure or way over it.

Now you begin to babysit this pot and check on it every ten minutes to see that you are in range of 11 lbs of pressure. Adjust heat temp knob if need be. When the timer goes off (DO NOT OPEN THE POT).

Wait 30 to 45 minutes for the pressure to go down to zero. Then open with the lid facing away from your face as hot steam comes out.

Use the tongs to lift out the jars and set them on the folded towel that is near the pot on the counter. Walk away and listen to the sweet sounds of the pinging lids being sealed on each jar. This means it is safe and sealed for years. Leave alone overnight and then gently wash the outside of the jars with warm soapy water and let dry.

Label and date each jar and store it away from light. PS, I got the Lowes heavy-duty plastic canning shelves(5 tier) each, I got 2 and had ten shelves. So I made them 3 high for 2 shelving units in my bedroom and then the other 4 shelves made a unit for my tiny storage room, outside. That room gets hot so I stored empty jars and other stuff on that unit.

https://www.wisdomforpennies.com #CONNIEBRECIPESWISDOMFORPENNIES

Thank you for stopping by today. I will post again on Thur-Sat and Tuesday.

Categories
Breakfast September 2020

How to dehydrate eggs

#eggs #recipes

Hello everybody, I hope this day finds you well and happy. There is so much going on in our world at this time, that I know that there are so many that are blown away in their minds. If I did not have the peace of God that lives in my soul every waking moment, I couls easily let myself fall into the deep void of confusion and fear of what is to come.

All I can say, is to keep God in your lives and you will come through anything, and with only the peace that He gives to you.

Even though I love God with all my heart and soul. I still believe that we should prepare for what may be coming. None of us know, what that will be. But we can watch and learn, always be learning.

Ok, here is my food prep tip of the day. First I made the biggest mess that you will hope to never see! I used raw eggs in the oven on trays that were lined with wax paper. I used a low temp of 170 degrees for 10 hours. DO NOT DO THIS!

Two dozen eggs at 10 hours later, will give you melted wax paper onto concrete hard eggs. And not to mention the concreted eggs that were stuck to 4 huge pans, hours of soaking and scrubbing. And those eggs went into the trash.

So I decided to go another route with dehydrating the next time. This is how I do them now. I used 30 eggs and put into a big bowl and whisked them up well, with nothing added to it.

I scrambled the eggs in a large pan and let cool off. hen I used parchment paper “Hey these are not gonna take 10 hours” so the paper won’t be a problem. Also I used my dehydrator this time.

The eggs will dry very hard, so you do not want huge pieces of egg, as it might break your little coffee grinder. So break them up small. You will be glad that you did this step.

I don’t remember how many hours, 6 to 8 hours. I have a powerful dehydrator. I think 6 hours. When they are unbreakably hard and dry.

When cooled off. If they are very very dry, then use your coffee grinder or what ever else you have to grind to a fine powder. Store in quart mason jar with an absorber in the jar. Date the jar and label. Keep in dark cool place. These should store for 5-10 tears unopened. Once open, store in refridgerator for 7-30 days.

To reconstitute, you use 1 tbsp of egg to 1 tbsp of warm water and whisk and sit for 5-10 minutes before cooking as scrambled eggs. Fine for baking also. 1 tbsp. of egg powder for each egg needed. Remember this, these will not be as good as a fresh egg. This is for WTSHF and you are grateful to have an egg to cook!

PS. These photos are both at the beginning and not the finished product as in dried.

Thank you for visiting my blog and please, do come back soon

Beegle Homestead on youtube is where I found this recipe. And we are not USDA so do this at your own risk! But I trust this lady and know how to smell and taste test everything that I have canned for all of my life. I really like this lady!.

https://www.wisdomforpennies.com

Categories
Spices

Garlic

#Garlic

I don’t know about you, but I love to use garlic cloves in a whole lot of my recipes. And I do not want to find that I do not have any in my house, when I am creating a recipe or making an old tried and true recipe from many years before.

This will be a little tip for always having garlic cloves on hand. I have been doing this for many years now. Just buy yourself a big bag of garlic and start breaking the garlic bulbs into single cloves. One bulb of garlic, makes many cloves.

Store this in a good freezer bag like glad or ziplock as they are heavy duty and will not let the garlic scent escape into everything in your freezer. When you need some, just get out the amount that you need and cut off the root end. Slice in half and peel the garlic paper shell off or use a large heavy knife and smash each one. They will peel easy. Just mince up tiny and use in your recipe.

Thank you for visiting and please do come back soon. I do pray for every one of you, everynight.

https://www.wisdomforpennies.com #garlic #recipes

Categories
Spices

Bay Leaves

Bay leaves repel bugs and ants.

This is an old time method, comes from way back in the older days of food preserving. When people stored food they would just drop a handful of bay leaves onto the top of the food in the container that they used for their food, that they needed to keep.

I used just take a walk in the woods and pick my own bay leaves, straight from the trees. You could find the trees around good little fishing holes (or a bay). The impassible bay on 441 North in North Florida, and on the way into Georgia, had such a sweet spot to fish in and while there I would gather me some bay leaves. I sure wish I had a photo. Just as you were about to drive over a wooden bridge, it was on your left side of the dirt road.

Or heck, just walk out into the yard and into the woods line, when I lived out in the country, which I had always spent my time, living in until now. City life is different. There are no long trails of thorny black-berry bushes to be picked. And to make the first blackberry cobbler of the year with.Also there is not a beautiful fig tree to pick from and enjoy the rich sweetness and awesome flavor.

Now I am reminiscing about the good old days! Let me get back to the bay leaves. You can find these in the spice isle in the grocery store. Just look for bay leaves on the package. I use these in my buckets of sugar-potatoes and rice, along with an absorber that I have titled, make your own absorber on this blog of mine.

Thank you for visiting and do please come back soon and stay a while. I am wishing for all of you to be safe and stay well. I do pray for all of you, every night,

https://www.wisdomforpennies.com

Categories
Preppers September 2020

Prepping Food Storage

Good morning everyone on the glorious Saturday morning. I hope you are doing well and that your spirit lives with joyful hope. I know that I do and pray for all of you.

Ok, today I want to discuss with you, how easy it is do do a little prepping with storing food or purchasing food that can last for 30 years, if need be.

I am not USDA or anyone highly trained. I just study a lot of things, in this life. I always have, that is the very reason for this blog of mine. I enjoy learning, even at a young 61. So that I can hopefully teach others to take care of themselves and their family also.

This is a very cheap food to prep for storing and it will fill up the tummy, if you happen to be really hungry, sometime in the future. You never know what is coming next in these days and times! If some of us pass through it, there will be many sad stories for our future generations.

#prepping #food #storage

Well, this post went haywire and now I am repairing it! These 3 boxes of instant potato flakes will fill up a 2 -gallon food storage bucket. Then you add about 8 bay leaves on the top of the flakes.

Last of all you put your moisture absorber on the top and close up the bucket. Make sure to write the item and the date on the bucket. You can buy your absorbers or make your own, either way. I use the cat litter (CLEAN) mini crystal unscented. I just put some in a coffee filter and staple it shut or 1/2 of an envelope and staple it shut. This will keep moisture out of your food. But do not add this to salt or sugar as they will harden like a rock. Just put bay leaves only on top of those in the bucket or jar, etc. This is just the way I do it, and I am no USDA professional. I just love to study many things about life. Thanks for visiting and please do come back. While you are already here please feel free to look towards the bottom of my page for more posts, or the archives so that my little blog can grow. I post on Tue-Wed and Saturdays.

https://www.wisdomforpennies.com

Categories
September 2020 Vegetable

Ham Hocks with Zipper Peas.

This is a great old recipe that I cooked in an old steel pot. I cook a whole lot of things in that pot.

I have been wanting peas for quite a long time now. I used to go to the fields and pick all types of them and bring back home to sit on the porch and shell. Those were the day’s. But as they is only myself now, I have not wanted to make them for just me for quite a few years now.

I decided what the heck, I want some peas. So I bought the hamhocks and peas at the store and came home and put this pot of peas together. I am glad that I did. They lasted me for many days.

#peas #recipes

The recipe is: A frozen bag of peas–zipper-white acre-pink eye etc. etc.

A package of ham hocks.

Cover the ham hocks with water after you wash them off. Boil on high heat for one hour. Then add in the peas and cook on medium for one hour. Make sure the water covers the ham hocks. About thirty minutes before done add in four tablespoons of bacon grease and maybe a teaspoon of salt or less. Enjoy over rice.

This is the old country ways of cooking and eating. Add this to meat and bread and you have a fine meal. I only cook in small amounts so I am sorry that the whole dinner is not there.

I hope you come back again as I post on Thur-Sat and Tuesdays.

https://www.wisdomforpennies.com #countryrecipes

Categories
September 2020

Heal a blood blister.

Good morning everybody! Hope you are all doing well on this rainy looking day, here in north Florida. I happen to find rainy days calming to my soul, so to me it is a beautiful day.

I was starting out on a cool idea the other day, but I had to stop and put a hold on it for a few days. I was really excited to get this recipe started out as it takes six months to be completed.

The recipe is for a very strong coconut extract that does take it,s time to absorb the flavor of real coconut. I can only imagine a coconut pie, with some of this extract, poured into that pie!

Later when the time comes and it is done, I will post about it and show you a photo, if you are still with me, at that time. I do hope you are!

On to the reason that this recipe is on hold, now. This recipe calls for un-sweet coconut so of course I purchased a real coconut in the shell at the grocery store.

Well this is how the story goes. I needed to crack open the coconut to get the coconut meat out, along with the juice also. And then I needed to peel the dark brown skin off of it.

The coconut was scored with a slight line around the middle of it. So I took my little charlie brown hammer outside, along with said coconut, onto the porch concrete floor. And everytime I hit that coconut, it would bounce off the floor. It was bouncing about half a foot high. so I had to really hold it down with one hand and crack it with that charlie brown little hammer, with the other hand.

Well this is what that coconut did to me! It cracked apart just about an inch, just enough to grab the skin on my pointing finger. And it closed back up with my finger in it, Hurt!! Yeah it hurt!

I had to pry it back open with both hands to get my finger out! It was finally opened up now. There,s where the blood blister comes in. It was half the width of my finger and throbbing with plenty of pain.

So I put an ice cube on my finger and repeated this again, so the pain would stop. I do knot know why, but the blood blister went away and I did not have to deal with pain or infection with it for days, until it healed up. So that is the story on how to heal a blood blister. It worked for me.

Hope you come back again, as I post on Tue-Thur and Saturdays. Until next time we meet. Stay safe and well. https://www.wisdomforpennies.com #heal #extract #recipe

Categories
Homemade

Butter

Hi there. Hope you are having a glorious day on this beautiful and rainy Saturday. As for me, I love the rainy days. Ok now on to this Saturday post for my blog.

I have a treasure of my heart that was passed down to me from a woman with the most loving heart and soul. She gave love and care to everyone she came in contact with for her entire life. She touched so many in this world and taught me how to love others also.

Anyway, the treasure that she handed down to me, is an old glass butter-churn with wooden paddles in the jar. She was my Mother-in-law and this had been passed down to her through her mom and her mom’s mom. You know, way down the line to me. I treasure this with my life!

All the generations of women in the family made butter in this churn. As I was in the family when my kids were small and all my nieces and nephews (aka all the kids). We had every one of them make butter in this churn. Now they are all grown. But this craft was passed through the generations as I adore doing.

Here she is! #butterchurn #generations #dairy

She is a Daze and probably only worth $50.00 but she has a million dollars in memories to me.

#homemade #prepper #blog

The recipe: Heavy whipping cream.

Clean the jar.

Spin the paddle for quite a while until you have a big lump of butter appear. When finished then your pour it through a sieve(strainer) that is lined with cheese-cloth to get the buttermilk out of it. Make biscuits with this buttermilk!

Next, you continue to keep rinsing the butter in the sieve with (cold) water only, until the water runs clear. If you don’t do this washing then your butter will not keep it will go sour.

Wrap in syran wrap or put in covered bowl and keep in fridge.

https://www.wisdomforpennies.com #recipes #cooking #how to

Categories
November 2020

Back Heaven

This little recipe is not editable. It is a soothing and calming lotion for your aching back, neck, shoulders, etc. Most of your body parts but not all. It is not for your under carriage. If you know what I mean.

Let me say as always, that I am not a Dr. and am not prescribing anything for anyone. I just know that I made this up around 20 years ago and to this very day, I still use this.

This is very close to Ben Gay and that is the exact reason, that I named it Back Heaven.

This is it. #back heaven #homemade #ben gay like #rub
#back heaven #ben gay like #remedies #home made #connie b

The oils that you have to buy can be found at Health Stores or Drug Stores. It is a little expensive, like possibly $13.00 a bottle. But this stuff last for 10 years or even more for me.

Purchase wintergreen oil and cinnamon oil. If there is not an eyedropper in the bottle, get yourself one, at the store. Also a bottle of body lotion. I just use a cheap lotion named Suave.

The Recipe is: 1/2 cup of lotion

4 drops of cinnamon oil and 4 drops of wintergreen oil

Put this into a cup and stir together and then keep it in a little covered container in the medicine cabinet. Do not let a child get into this! It is hot stuff for your back and not for kids at all.

Mine lasts me forever and when it does run out, I just make up some more. Again this is my homemade recipe that has worked for over 20 years, but I am no Dr. I am just a Southern Woman that is forever learning. Please use only a small amount of rub on your fingertip as this is powerful and hot.

Thank you for visiting my blog and please share it and do come back for more stuff. And again if I have helped you in any small way, then please consider helping me out, with a small donation. I would appreciate it so very much.

I post on Thur- Sat -Tue with new stuff so please do visit again. Thank you. https://www.wisdomforpennies.com

#muscle-rub #homemade #lben-gay

Categories
Homemade

Crock Sauerkraut

I wanted to see how this worked so I did it and I love it! It is crunchy and salty, nothing like the sour stuff in a can that has a tinny taste to me.

Sauerkraut fermenting.
A large jar of jelly is sitting on top of a large lid, acting as a weight. It worked rather well.

I used two large heads of cabbage and rinsed them well. You can shred these by many different ways, but I used a large knife. After cutting the cabbages thinly. I put them into a large bowl.

Then I added three tbsp. of kosher salt ( sea salt or canning salt) would also work. I mixed well with my hands and then I used a potato masher to bruise the cabbage by mashing down pretty hard for a while. This starts the juices flowing.

Next I put this in my crock and made my weight with the lid and jelly jar on top of it. Then I covered it with a clean dish towel and put a rubber band on it. For three days I let this sit out on my counter and mashed it down for three times each day. If the juice does not cover the top of the cabbage, then just add some water with a tbsp of salt in it and pour over the top. Just to cover it.

You would think that this would stink to high heaven, but it does not. I was amazed.

The finished product.

I used the water bath canning method with the cabbage at room temperature and the water in the canning pot also at room temperature. I processed this for 20 minutes.

If you need canning instructions, just find the water bath canning page on my blog. Thank you for visiting my blog and please do come back soon. I post on Tue-Thur-Sat.

https://www.wisdomforpennies.com