The reason for this is we had a reader who had a couple questions in regards to these topics. OmaLinda wrote in and was wondering about canning brownies.

Her questions were as follows…

Have you tried canning brownies? They are my favorite dessert, but I’m not sure how long to bake them in jars, since normal testing techniques for cakes/breads do not work well with chewy brownies.
I would also like to can my own spaghetti sauce with meat in the oven. Do you have directions for this somewhere on your blog?

Our answer is simple enough…possibly. Now, on to something else…just kiddin OmaLinda!

Brownies, I consider like cakes in a way, only we have never “canned” a batch of brownies before. I would assume the cooking time would be very close to being the same whether you bake them in a pan, or, bake them in the mason jars, as “canned.”

I know this would work, but I just believe the finished product would be more along the lines of a cake, or sweetbread, versus what we consider a brownie. You know, the nice neat little squares that I picture as what brownies oughtta look like.

Although I have to admit the appearance to me means very little when weighed against the TASTE of the finished product. I hear people all the time speaking of “the presentation…” shoot, all I wanna know is…DOES IT TASTE GOOD?? LOL!

Food is just like people. Deb I ‘m very aware, didn’t marry me for my “looks, or presentation!” She couldn’t have, and that’s obvious.

BUT, she did marry me for another reason…my calm, easy going personality. What’s that Deb? Oh really, that’s not it, and I’m not calm and easy going? Well, I know she married me for a reason, it’s just that evidently I still don’t know what the reason was was!

But back to brownies, yes Ma’am OmaLinda, I believe you can, bake brownies in mason jars, seal them, and they’d be fine for a considerable amount of time. You’d do them just like you would cakes or sweet breads.

Use wide-mouth pint mason jars, fill them HALFWAY with your mix, and then bake them about the same length of time you would baking them any other way. Then insert a knife or toothpick in the center, and if it comes out clean, then your brownies are ready to come out of the oven.

Be sure and take your jars out one at a time. Doing this insures putting your bands and seals on a good hot jar. Taking them out all at once will enable the jars to cool, and possibly, too much.

Maybe some of our friends might have canned brownies in the past, if so, then they may send you a little info as well. What about it Mississippi? Sandy? Anybody??

Now, in regards to your homemade spaghetti sauce…

This, once again we’ve never canned, and while I’m saying this I’m wondering to myself…how come? Normally we freeze any leftover sauce. Actually, we Food Saver the spaghetti and the sauce into individual servings, then take them out, thaw them, warm them up, and there you go…a complete meal.

I tell you what we do can though, and I consider them both very close…chili. So, I’m thinking the way we can our chili would work just as well for your spaghetti sauce.

Here’s what we do, and it’s very, very simple.

We cook our chili just as we normally do. We make cook three to four batches in one big pot. After our chili is done we just keep simmering it. I for one feel that the longer you simmer chili, or even spaghetti sauce, the better they are. Also, the more you warm them up, the better the flavor. Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think so.

After our chili is done, we heat our mason jars, we use quarts either wide or regular mouth, until they’ve come to a boil. We also heat, but not boil, our rings and seals. We also have our pressure cooker filled with boiling water.

So, our chili, jars, seals, and water in our cooker are all hot. We fill our jars with chili, wipe the rims good,put on the bands and seals, and then put them in a hot water bath for 10-12 minutes. Our boiling water in the pot is about an inch over the top of the jars.

Once we take them out, we set them to the side and start hearing the lids ping, or seal. That’s it. We then date the jars, and off to the food storage room they go. We’ve eaten chili that we’d canned up to a year and a half old. Never a problem.

Chili is something we can every so often, because around our place, EVERYONE likes chili. You know we’re in the paving business, and because of this, our crew goes out of town from time to time on jobs and in up staying in motels… with cook stoves and fridges.

So, you wanna know what one of the first things they ask for when knowing they’ll be on the road for a week or two? “Ya got any chili canned up?” Those guys love it, and our son Red is probably the worst.

As a matter of fact, Deb made a pot of chili just last night. Not enough to can, just enough to eat during this little cool snap. Well, I walk in, and guess where Red was. Bent over, with his head up in my refrigerator, and his rearend hangin outside of it! WHY?? Deb mentioned she’d made some chili!

But anyway, OmaLinda, I don’t think you’ll have one minute’s worth of problem doing your homemade spaghetti sauce the exact same way we put up our chili! Matter of fact, I guarantee it.
Well, we hope this has helped you out in regards to your questions, and thank you for reading. Come back anytime.

For the rest of you, I had a joke sent to me from Roger in Virginia…imagine that?? Keep it up Roger, I love seeing your stuff!

Anyway, with huntin season in, and if not in some places it will be shortly, I thought I’d share Roger’s picture with you guys today. Take a look…

The Shoe

This next joke comes from Gerry. Gerry is a good friend of ours and lives in Western Canada. Thanks for the joke Gerry!

A farmer got pulled over by a state trooper for speeding, and the trooper started to lecture the farmer about his speed and, in general, began to throw his weight around to try to make the farmer uncomfortable.

Finally, the trooper got around to writing out the ticket, and as he was doing that he kept swatting at some flies that were buzzing around his head.

The farmer said, “Having some problems with circle flies there, are ya?”

The trooper stopped writing the ticket and said—”Well yeah, if that’s what they are—I never heard of circle flies.”

So the farmer says, “Well, circle flies are common on farms. See, they’re called circle flies because they’re almost always found circling around the back end of a horse.”

The trooper says, “Oh,” and goes back to writing the ticket. Then after a minute he stops and says, “Hey… wait a minute, are you trying to call me a horse’s ass?”

The farmer says, “Oh no, Officer. I have too much respect for law enforcement and police officers to even think about calling you a horse’s ass.”

The trooper says, “Well, that’s a good thing,” and goes back to writing the ticket.

After a long pause, the farmer says, “Hard to fool them flies though.

You guys have a great day, and God Bless. Deb says, as always, keep a smile on your face, and one in your heart!

Dub and Deb

The ole garden has been good to us once more. Deb and I have been canning peas for the last couple weeks now and man, we’re putting some up. As of last night, we’ve canned over 120 quarts. Not bad for a couple amateurs!

We’ve also pickled 21 pints of okra.

The black –eyes did really well, shoot, they all have, but the black-eyes were the first ones to come in, and they were the first to go. As a matter of fact we just pulled up all the plants, stripped what few peas remained, (two 5-gallon buckets full), and fed the plants to the cows.

They’ve been eating good the last couple weeks. We feed them all the pea hulls after we shell them, and now they just finished up the black-eye bushes. They kinda like Deb and my garden too!
We tilled the area where the black-eyes were, and today we’ll be planting mustard greens, 3 rows I believe is what we’ll plant. Once more, greens, like peas, our whole family loves…all but Deb (greens). She won’t eat them cooked, but she does use them in her juice.

I went to Summerlin’s Feed Store yesterday to pick up the seed. I asked her if she had any mustard seed and she said that they did. I picked up 3 ounces, and then asked if they carried ketchup and A-1 seeds as well. She just kinda looked at me.

So, when Dale and Bob get in to work this morning, they’ll soon find out we’ll be planting in the garden again. They’ll love hearing that, huh? We MIGHT be just a little late with these, but we’re gonna give them a shot. They like cooler weather, just as long as it doesn’t get too cold. I believe though, they’ll be fine!

I called and asked Dad about planting them now, and he said this will be no problem, they’ll be fine. I then got to thinking about what a crazy guy I was when much younger, and some of the grief I caused him while growing up.

Thinking about this, I wouldn’t put it past him for “setting me up!” You know, have us do all this work, then our mustard freeze and don’t make, while he sits back and goes, “Dern Ruth…can you believe that boy of yours planted those mustards so LATE in the year?? What in the world was he thinking??” Payback comes in all forms, huh? LOL!

He wouldn’t do that to me…would he? Hmmmm…

Our purple hulls and cream 40’s have done well also. They’re really giving us a good crop, and good quality peas as well. Very, very little bug problem, and they have actually been pretty much care free.
We fertilized them once, and sprayed for bugs once, and other than that, they’ve pretty much just taken care of themselves. An easy crop to grow. This is why we plant them on the full moon in August. Less bugs, and by the time they start coming in, we’re having cooler days to an extent. This means less need for water too.

We’ll have another good picking of purple hulls today, and we’ll get a few more cream 40’s as they’ll be the next to go to the cows. They’ve about had it. The purple hulls are capable of having another picking after today, and maybe two.

Our crowders we’ve gotten one pretty decent picking , but those things aren’t really quite ready. They’ve been the longest pea to make, BUT, this has helped us in our canning by them simply holding off a little making, thus not completely overwhelming us with sheer volume of peas coming in at the same time.

Look at it from this standpoint. Our pressure cooker holds 7 quarts at a time. To heat your water, get your peas jarred up and starting the pressure canning process takes, I’m guessing, 30 minutes or so. The cook time once the proper pressure is reached takes 40 minutes.

Then once you take your canner off the burner, and sit it somewhere to cool, this takes another 40 minutes or so. With this the case, for every 7 quarts canned to put up, you have approximately 2 hours in every 7 quarts canned.

The picking, shelling and washing is not included. So, there is some work involved, BUT, Deb and I both enjoy doing it, plus the benefits of doing so are numerous. Good quality vegetables, knowing exactly what you’re eating and where it came from, much fresher and better tasting by far than store bought, plus the convenience of having these stored to eat any time of the year. You always have them available.

Plus, once you purchase your pressure cooker, and the jars to can your vegetables in, the cost factor is pretty light from there on out. Your jars can be used over and over again. One other big point with the canning process…no electricity is needed. Only a dark, cool spot….

Deb and I will grab a pan, kick back in the recliner, shell peas, and watch TV. While doing this, we keep a pressure cooker pan full and cooking. It works out well, and once more, we both enjoy doing it. The benefits far outweigh the negative in our opinion. A good fresh mess of peas on a cold January evening sure has a tendency to…”hit the spot!”

I mentioned we’d pickled 21 pints of okra, and we did. BUT, the okra is JUST NOW starting to come in, and unless something happens, we’ll produce a bunch of this too. Deb and I absolutely love it fried, but we can’t have it fried now. So, we’re pickling the fire out of it!

We did “cheat” the other night and had one mess fried up. We just had to do it, and good gracious…it was so good! We satisfied our craving, and are good to go without eating any more fried for a while. Deb SURE better not take a little 4-5 day trip in the near future, cause if she does…I’ll be having me some MORE fried okra!! LOL!

In regards to our mustard seed we’ll be planting today, I’ve already “goofed up” in one regard…the moon. We always try to plant all our above ground vegetables a day or two PRIOR to the full moon. This is a rule of thumb we use, and it works well for us. The below ground producing vegetables we plant on the declining moon.

My granddaddy always told me to use the moon, because if you don’t, you may have beautiful vines or bushes, but little to no produce on them, so we just always try to keep this in mind.
In planting our mustards though, I just missed the full moon…I think it was the 13th. We’re going to try it anyway, though I don’t normally do this.

I’m figuring that the greens aren’t like most above ground vegetables in that they don’t produce pods of vegetables. You eat the leaves. With this being the case I’m hoping the moon will not deter our mustards to badly. We shall soon see! I am kinda curious about how well they do.

Anyway, we’ll share a couple photos of the peas and okra we’ve put up from the fall garden so far. We have three piece of cases of peas still in the house, that we’ll fill as we continue on with the peas.

You guys have a great day, and God bless! Deb says once more to keep a smile on your face and one in your heart!

Dub and Deb

A couple of people have asked if I had a pea sheller, and I replied that yes, we do. They then asked what type, and I told them it’s an older model. Well, you know how people are, and they wanted to know all about it…
So, I’ll take the opportunity now to fill everyone in about our sheller, okay?

Unlike many of the newer models, this sheller will do ANY type of pea or bean, no matter. One of the main reasons we like ours so well is the fact that it mashes NO peas or beans. Not the first one…zero! This in itself is really pretty unusual, and I looked at quite a few prior to deciding on this model.

It cost a little more in the end, but as time has passed by, I felt I made a pretty dern good decision. Looking back now, I can’t say the same in regards to many of the decisions I have made in my life, but this is one I can take a little credit for.

Some other things I looked at that impressed me with ours, are its appearance, it’s lightweight, no electricity needed, and the toughness it has shown throughout the years. Just a good, well-built sheller. Anything with all these plusses today are either hard to find, or non-existent!

It’s actually 54 years old, but again, you’d never know it. Its shelling capacity today is just as good, and might even be better than the first day it came home with me. It needs no oiling, and has never broken down, or “throwed” a belt, and the best thing of all…it’s made in the USA! In my opinion, it can’t be beat!

I guess the only negative about this particular model is that from time to time…it gets a little “lippy!” I’ve learned through the years though, that I can put it outside for a night or two, and once it comes back inside, it works even better, and the only thing you hear out of it then is simply…peas hittin the bottom of the pan! I just love mine!

The model name…DEB. With these first few paragraphs this morning, I may have just lost the “best pea sheller” I ever had! LOL!!

Seriously, Deb and I are fixing to be busy as bees getting these peas picked, shelled, washed up good, and canned. Our pressure cooker holds seven pints so when you can up 100-150 quarts, it is a little time consuming.
We use a Presto pressure cooker, and as I just said it has a seven quart capacity. This model seems to hold up very well, and hasn’t caused us one minute’s worth of problems. It works well, and although this is our third season canning with it, it has canned A LOT of different things. In other words, we’ve put it “through the mill!”
With this being said, our next purchase, if and when, will also be a Presto model.

When shelling, we use two pans that hold almost “to a tee,” two cooking’s per pan. With that being the case, this will give us about 28 quarts put up per these two pans. So…we shell two pans full, then shell again during each cook.

We’ll pick and shell today too, so I hope in the Wed. column we’re able to put up a video or two showing us canning some peas for the ones who haven’t canned before. I know when we first started canning, I wish I’d have looked around more for some canning videos. To me, if I can see something being done first hand, I seem to grasp a hold of it better.
We picked our purple hulls first, and got a bucket and a half off them, and we started the black-eyes next. We also picked about a bucket and a half from them to, before it started getting too dark to see. We have 5 more rows of them to pick today, and we’ll start shelling again.
Our crowders aren’t ready yet, possibly another week, and our cream 40’s will be ready in the next couple of days for a first pick. Deb loves those little peas but they’re harder to shell than the other types, BUT they are really good tasting peas. We ain’t looking forward to shelling those guys, but we ARE looking forward to eating them!
Our okra is coming on now, but I’m concerned with the fact we MAY have planted it a little late, so our yield overall may not be as good as if we’d have planted it a little earlier in the year. The last couple of nights have been in the fifties here, but we still have plenty of good hot days ahead unless we have an unusual fall and winter.
These cooler nights also mean our pasture grass won’t grow as well either, so supplementing the cows with hay isn’t too far off in itself. We keep mineral out for them year round, but watch it much more closely as the days become colder.
The days becoming colder means little to no nutrients in the grass, so they have to get it from other ways. These are through range mineral, mineral blocks, and molasses blocks too.
After the first frost or two, the cows begin foraging, and this means they aren’t too choosy in regards to what goes “down the hatch” at this point! Palmetto’s, oak leaves, cabbage palm fronds, or just about anything that makes a belly feel full becomes part of their diet.
This kinda sounds like me, cause if I’m hungry, I’m GONNA find something to eat, and this means just about whatever looks filling to me!
Winter coming will soon have an effect on our bees too. We checked the hive Saturday, and it looks as if they’ll have enough honey, to keep them over the winter. With little to no blooms appearing during the winter months, these gals need to store enough honey to get them by.
Once spring hits, we’re hoping to be able to make a split, and increase our hive, plus start getting some honey for our use. We kinda got a late start hive-wise, on account of our first queen that hatched not coming back to the hive, but the second queen did, and she’s doing a really good job. The hive is plentiful, and is in good shape.
So, winter is just around the corner, even for us here in Central Florida, and this means no fresh vegetables again until spring, once our okra and peas are done that are in the garden now. But, through our canning, and what freezing we do, Deb and I will still be enjoying our garden’s bounty, even though there happens to be no garden again until spring!
For those out there who don’t grow a garden, we’ll throw out there once more that it would be a good idea to start gardening. Fresh vegetables, better tasting vegetables, and more importantly, better quality vegetables are grown in your own backyard garden than you could possibly hope to get from the grocery store!
Once starting your garden, then you’ll be able to see firsthand the pleasure derived from simply working it, and then the fulfillment of seeing it grow, and then start bearing its harvest. These are some things we feel you guys will be able to grasp once you take that first step, and put some seeds in the ground!
Not only just the benefits of fresh, nutritious, and good tasting produce, but also you’ll be able to reap the benefits of good, quality family time. Gardening does “soothe the soul!”
Speaking of gardening, I’m gonna have to get up and get started this morning. As I said, the weather has turned a little cooler, and with this being the case, every once in a while my pea sheller has a hard time getting started up.
So, let me go on and get going already because sometimes I literally have to “kick start it” on mornings like this. If you purchase the same model as mine be very careful kick starting them, because mine has a tendency to “kick back” from time to time! LOL!
We hope you all have a wonderful day, and God Bess you! Deb says to keep a smile on your face, and one in your heart!
Dub and Deb