Making and canning pasta sauce

Well it is certainly tomato season down here in NC! We have been picking, eating, canning and saucing our way through our garden GREAT bounty! This year we have made 2 batches (so far) of pasta sauce and we wanted to share our recipe and process with you all!

 

Supplies -

-Pressure Canner

-pot

-sieve

-blender

-jars with lids and rings

 

Ingredients:

-30lbs of tomatoes (we use mostly Roma)

-1-2 onions

-1 head of garlic

-1 cup of chopped celery or green peppers (we used peppers)

-4.5 tsp salt

-2 tbsp oregano

-4 tbsp. parsley

-2 tbsp. pepper

-red pepper flakes (optional, to taste)

-1/4c brown sugar

-vegetable oil

 

This recipe yields 7-9 quart jars depending on how thick you like the sauce.

 

The first step is to prep the tomatoes, there are two ways to do this. The method we use is, wash tomatoes then place in blender. Pour tomato goo into sieve and strain out skins and seeds. The second method is dip tomatoes in boiling water for 30-60 seconds or until the skins split. Then dip in iced cold water and slip skins off Remove the core and quarter the meat of the tomato.

 

One you have processed your tomatoes the way you would like, follow these directions to turn that goo into sauce!

 

-Sauté the vegetables in the vegetable oil until tender.

-Once tender, add tomato goo, spices and sugar.

-Bring to a boil.

-Simmer uncovered, until think enough for serving. Be sure to stir occasionally to prevent burning. This usually takes ALL day and then I like to let the sauce rest overnight (typically the sauce will have reduced by about half of the original volume). In the morning I then turn the sauce back on to prepare for canning.

-To can your sauce be sure it is heated through, you want to hot pack the jars. Fill the jars with the hot sauce, leaving about 1 inch of headspace. Wipe down rims and secure lids.

 

To process the jars:

-use your dial pressure canner to process jars at 11 pounds of pressure for, 20 minutes for pints and 25 minutes for quart jars. - or-

-use your weighted gauge pressure canner to process jars at 10 pounds of pressure for, 20 minutes for pints and 25 minutes for quart jars

 

Making and canning stock or broth

There is lots of cooking and preserving that I do in order to use up as much of our wonderful fresh meat and vegetables and fruit as possible. We are working to keep a large majority of a food local, so that means that sometime you get a TON of something and need to figure out how to use it and/or save it for future uses. I decided that I should start sharing some of these ideas/recipes in case you decide to try the same!

 

The past two weekends have been very busy as I have been making and canning fresh pork stock so that I could get the bones out of the freezer to make way for our 252 pounds of fresh beef that we ordered from a local farmer (can you say YUUUMMM! We have used this farmer for the last five years or so and his meat is certainly a nice treat and well worth the investment!) If you are interested in more information about the fresh beef, please send me an email. I would be happy to share, sales@dragonfly-farm.org

 

Okay, well onto making and canning broth/stock. This recipe works with any kind of meat. I use the same method for pork, beef and chicken, and the result is always the same - DELICIOUS, flavorful stock that can be used in a variety of fashions!

 

Tools:

-Pressure Canner (I used a dial gauge canner)

-Mason jars with lids

-Colander

-Cheese Cloth

-Large Pot

 

Ingredients:

-5lbs of bones/animal parts (you can use the parts of the animal that you might not prefer to eat, but are edible, for example, when doing chicken broth, I use the cleaned feet, heart, liver etc. they add to the richness of the stock and it means that those parts do not go to waste!)

-6 qts of water

-4 carrots

-4 celery stocks

-1 or 2 onions

-3 or 4 cloves of garlic

-salt

-peppercorns

-parsley or other herbs

 

Directions On Making the Stock:

-place all ingredients into the pressure cooker (leave out the bottom shelf)

-turn burner on high and bring to a boil and place lid with the weight off

-once steam is venting from the lid, place weight on and allow it to reach 15 pounds of pressure.

-cook at 15lbs of pressure for 20 minutes

-once done cooking, turn off heat and allow to depressurize on its own

-once depressurized and cool enough to work with the pot, scoop out the large bones and vegetables.

-once most of the bones and vegetables are scooped out, strain the remaining liquid through the colander that is lined with a cheese cloth and is over the other large pot, so that it catches all of the smaller particles from the broth.

-From here, you can take the larger vegetables and stock and make a GREAT soup or stew by adding some additional ingredients. If you would prefer to skip that and just can your stock, please see the next set of directions.

 

Directors On Canning The Stock

-start placing the strained broth into your mason jars, I do a mixture of quart and pint jars.

*For a double batch of stock I usually get 9 quarts and 5-7 pints.

-When packing leave about 1" head space in the jars

-be sure to wipe the rims and seal the jars up tight.

-place the bottom shelf in your pressure canner and add about 2" of water and then place the jars inside. For a double batch I have to do this process twice since all of the jars will not fit in one processing.

-Place the lid on the canner with the weight off and allow the canner to boil.

-Once steam is steadily streaming from the lid, place the weight on and allow the pressure to build to 10 pounds.

-Process quart jars at 10 pounds for 25 minutes and pint jars at 10 pounds for 20 minutes (if there is a mixture of both sizes, just go with the longer time)

-once done cooking, turn off heat and allow to depressurize on its own

-once cool enough to work with, remove jars from canner and place out to cool. Be sure to remove the ring from the lid to prevent rust from forming.

-once the jars have cooled off and dry, replace the rings and label the lid with a sharpie with the contents and the month/year of creation.

 

 

The last of the babies

Our kidding season has come to a close! We certainly had a great year for babies, lots of beautiful colors and great personalities! We have even decided to retain Coco's girl,Minnie. She is her moms twin and by the time we retire Coco, Minnie will be ready to take her place as a breeding member of our herd.

So, now, we wanted to introduce you to the last of our babies for the year!

This is Elliot, he is Ava's single boy.

This is Sable's daughter, she is chocolate brown with waddles. She does not yet have a name. Her best friend on the farm is hoofs down, handsome mister Elliott! We welcome some great name suggestions!

 

 

Don't forget to check out our facebook page for updates and even more cuteness!



Lots of Babies Around Here!

We have certainly been busy the last few weeks! We have been busy working on the barn, Chris' father has been coming out and helping on weekends which has been a HUGE help! We might actually be able to use the barn in the near future! It will certainly be a huge help, especially if we continue to have a large number of babies! I will see if I can get some good pictures of the barn progress after this weekends work. 

So I know you are all waiting for the reveal of the babies!

So here we go!

Dottie had babies on June 10. She had a very colorful boy and girl. The boy is the one with the floppy ear. It is working on straightening out. The boys name is Flash and girl is Roxy. Very vibrant names for such colorful babies!

Melanie had her tiny babies on May 22. She had two teeny tiny baby girls. The tan one is Hazel and the Grey one is Maya. 

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Finally last up on our baby run .... for now! Is Annika. She had a baby boy and girl on June 12. These babies have not yet been named. 

All babies and moms are doing well. We have two more moms to go. Sable should be due any day now and then Ava will be giving birth next month. 

Stella's Baby

I was up all night the other night because I heard Stella on the baby monitor. She was talking away. I kept expecting her to go into full-fledged labor any time so it was a long sleepless night on the couch. She never progressed any. In the morning she was still doing the same, I was hoping she would do alright during the day. She did better then expected and when I got home I found a handsome new baby boy. Stella did a great job on her own. 

This little guy is very handsome, he has great markings and waddles, just like his mom and grandmom!

to top it off! He has a mustache! 

Also, just as an updated on Coco, she is doing well! Her babies are doing well! There is a possibility that we will be retaining the chocolate doe. Coco is getting older and since she is one of our special goats, I would really love to keep her mini me! 

Coco's Easter babies!

I came home from work yesterday and these cute bouncing babies were waiting for me! We have been on baby watch all week and have been anxiously listening to the baby monitor through the night. We were happy to see that mom and the babies made it through the delivery okay! This is Coco's fifth set of kids and she certainly is an expert! By the time I got there, the babies were clean, dry, fed and shakily walking around. So, now we need some names! 

This is the boy, he looks JUST like his daddy Reginald (Reggie)!

This is the girl, she looks JUST like Coco!

Please feel free to send over your name suggestions!

Next up to kid is Stella, her current due date is April 24! We will be anxiously listening to the baby monitor again soon!

Spring Has Sprung

The snow and ice have ceased for this year and spring has moved in! The hundreds of daffodils are in bloom, the ground is covered in this beautiful purple flower and the red buds are showing their appreciation for the sun. Spring has certainly sprung! With the beautiful weather and budding plants also comes babies on the farm. 

While Chris and I were on vacation the first weekend in April, my mom was watching the farm and when we came home we had a brood of 7 (out of 8, not bad!) chicks hatch from coop 3. There are 2 yellows, 4 blacks and 1 turken in that batch. This group of peeps also has, two hens over it. They did not incubate together, one of the hens sat on these babies ever so carefully, when they hatched the second hen must of had that motherly feeling and decided to help her out. Not a bad idea, since there are 7 of them and they all seem to go in different directions!

my mom holding the turken peep

This weekend we also had the eggs in coop 2 start hatching. We started with six eggs, but are down to five. So far one BIG black turken/cochin cross has hatched and we are anxiously awaiting the other 4 eggs to come and join us. I will be candling them tonight if they do not pip by this evening. 

the black turken/cochin peep

The goats are finding the grass is greener on the other side of the fence, so they have taken to jumping through and over to see what trouble they can cause while out. Here is Sable, being a bad little goat!

Not everyone is causing trouble this spring! Here Daisy May just needed a nice relaxing belly rub from dad as she laid down and enjoyed the beautiful spring sunshine!

With nicer weather means we are out more working on projects. We are still working on the new girls barn, progress has been made and there were over 300 bales of hay stored there this winter, pictures to come soon! Here is a smaller project that we did, we got a new goat hay feeder since the wooden one in the picture has finally rotted out! This new metal bunk feeder is great, much less waste (at the moment). I also constructed a PVC hay shelter to keep the hay (and goats) dry. Don't worry, the posts are set with 5' rebar in hopes that it will not blow away!

Naturally it is kidding time again, in case you forgot, last Easter weekend we had a CRAZY amount of goat births! Currently we are expecting two! Coco first and then Stella. Coco is not due until April 21, but is already showing signs of being ready now, and with her, typically giving birth a week early, the timing would be perfect! I will keep you posted!

Have a great spring day!