Did you miss me?!? Well, I didn’t die…

Hello faithful followers,

I have neglected you. After July 26, 2014, I just vanished.  If you follow me on any other social media sites, you probably have somewhat of an idea about what my life has been like the past three months.  It has been this incredible blur of doctors, hospitals, dietary changes, therapy appointments, new medications, excrement and emesis, and a taste of normalcy thrown in here and there.  I took a quick look at my calendar and, literally, the day following my last post is when the ‘S’ hit the fan. If you could see my calendar, you might actually cry. But the good news is: we survived!

Of Course I Can! Blog Hop: Failure.

This is my most recent installment of the Of Course I Can! Blog Hop. Next month I will publish a post reviewing whatever it is that I end up canning first.  That is the post that I want everyone to link up to.  Can up something fantastic (or otherwise), take some photos, write a post, and link back to my post.  Let’s get this canning season rolling!

Of Course I Can! Blog Hop

I’m getting excited! This should be my last post before I post about my first canning of the season! I have already put up some zucchini and cauliflower, but that I froze so its not really as interesting.

OK, onward and upward!

Failure.  That is a scary word, but I want you to get ready to embrace it.  In the cooking world (and in most instances, really), failure is not wholly bad.  Every time I fail in the kitchen, although it damages my pride a tad, I always come away with a lesson learned.  Even when it is simply a lesson in humility.  Lately, my baking prowess has been challenged by the adversary of gluten-free bread.  However, that is another topic for another day.

Wonderful Team Membership Award

For those of you who follow me regularly, you remember that between August and September last year (2013) we had this crazy award season.  I was busy growing and birthing a baby so I got rather behind in my acceptance and passing on of the various awards. I know, shame on me!  But today, I am ready to accept and pass on!

SSS – Six Sentiments Saturday

 

This is a native Columbine. They are beautiful surprises every late spring.

I started this fun little blogging exercise and then skipped the second week 🙂 I’m back on track now, but I think it is safe to say I won’t be very regular.  Can I count on the rest of you to fill in the gaps?

Here we go for this week’s sentiments:

Of Course I Can! Blog Hop: Blackberries!

Disclaimer: I am not an expert nor a professional in the field of food preservation.  My expertise comes from personal experience that has been passed down generationally.  Always refer to published, up-to-date guides for cooking times.  If you need help finding a resource for your area, please let me know.  My favorite book on all things food preservation: Putting Food By.

 

Seriously. Turn your back for a MINUTE.

Living here in the PNW, blackberries are a fact of life. People that aren’t from here have this overly romanticized idea of the blackberry and that it is the quintessential Oregonian foodstuff.  I even have one set of distant cousins that have gone so far as to try to get them to grow in Iowa. All I can do is shake my head and wonder why they would want to inflict such pain on the rest of their unsuspecting state.  I love the taste blackberries, but if any plant can be accused of being sent straight from Hell, this is the one.  My family has been battling blackberries since the original homestead and it is never ending. If you turn your back for a minute, you’ve lost your house underneath a mountain of thick, sinister, sticker bushes. We Oregonians are a crafty bunch, so we fight, but we also learn to find the silver lining, so-to-speak. Making food with the fruit of this evil is like flipping the bird to the Devil.

SSS-Six Sentiments Saturday

 

Borrowed from http://sandrajo.wordpress.com

I just want to apologize in advance if someone already came up with this (please let me know if that is the case), but I had a little brain-child today and want to share it with you all!

Everyone is always doing Ten Thoughts Tuesday or Thursday, whatever the case may be, and I decided that I want to participate, but those aren’t really the best days for me to be blogging.  Saturday is MUCH better.  I did a quick Bing search to see if anything existed, and found nothing so I decided to come up with my own…what are these things even called? Blogging exercises? Brain dumps? Anyway… I obviously needed a word that would alliterate appropriately with Saturday, so ‘sentiment’ sounded fun.  Then I picked the number six because it is even and my favorite number is three.  So there your have it, “Six Sentiments Saturday.”

Of Course I Can! Blog Hop: What do I need?

Of Course I Can! Blog Hop

If you have never done any canning before, you might be wondering what you need, other than food and a canner. Well, I am here to help!  I thought for this post I might just give you a little run-down, list style.  Here we go!

Of Course I Can! Bog Hop: Pressure or Boiling-Water Bath?

As promised, here is an installment for the Of Course I Can! Blog Hop.  Please note that I am not an expert nor a professional in the field of food preservation.  My expertise comes from personal experience that has been passed down generationally.  Always refer to published, up-to-date guides for cooking times.  If you need help finding a resource for your area, please let me know.  Also, this is meant to pique the interest of the novice and assuage fears and insecurities.  I won’t be going into much of the science behind food preservation methods.

Now that we have taken care of the disclaimer, let’s get down to the question of the day: pressure canning or boiling-water bath canning?  I say: both!  There are many people out there, possibly you, who are deathly afraid of meth lab-like explosions happening in their kitchen thanks to those intimidating-looking pressure canners, but let me assure you, this is very nearly impossible.  Do you feel better?  I hope so.  In all seriousness, the pressure canner is essential.  If you don’t have one you can kiss your dreams of home-canned green beans and tuna fish goodbye.  Why you say? Because you would have to boil quarts of green beans for 4 hours, that’s why.  My maternal grandmother was one such anti-pressure canner and she, in all actuality, boiled batches of green bean for 4 hours at a time.  No thanks.

Canning in 2012: How the heck did I do that?!?

Here is another recycled post from my old business blog.  It was originally posted on October 15, 2012 so please don’t get the impression that this happened recently!  With having a baby and two kiddos with medical problems, last canning season was a little dismal.  We did beets, banana peppers, green beans, sauerkraut, and frozen corn.  Not too bad, considering, but not really up to my standards.  We are hoping for a better year and our family is getting excited about the growing season! I hope to also post a practical skills/information post this month as we move toward our Of Course I Can! Blog Hop.

Canning.  A topic that is near and dear to my heart.  I am so very close to being done with this season’s round of canning: just 400 pounds of tuna and a few more pints of tomatoes to go. 

Food: Our Sacred Duty

If you haven’t seen it yet, I am planning to host a blog hop this coming August.  The idea is to encourage more home canning!  I am not going to pretend to be an expert, but I do come from a long line of home canning enthusiasts and think this is such an important skill to cultivate.  Each month leading up to the blog hop, I intend to share a post to help the novice embark on this new adventure.  I will start that in March.  Right now, I have a couple posts from my old nutrition coaching site that I want to share to help provide inspiration before we get down to the nuts and bolts of the thing.  I have re-worked a few parts of this post, but if you want the original, un-edited version, please see the original post.

Borrowed from flikeflu.com

Back when I was pregnant with Teddy Bear and didn’t know it, I received the most incredible gift: my great-grandmother’s canning book from 1942.  I knew that my aunt would be sending it to me and I was so excited to forge a relationship with the great-grandmother I never knew by following the same recipes that she had used so many years ago.  What is even more wonderful about this gift is that each generation since the original purchase has followed this book.  I have a direct line to the women who came before me through this book.  For me, that is powerful.