What are you canning now?

[erinszoo]

I skin them too because I don't like bits of skin in my soups or stews. But if you don't mind them, skip that step.

 

[WYNot]

Not really canning but...

After much success with and many batches of the homemade vanilla, vanilla liqueur, and fake Disaranno amaretto I'm going to be making a big batch of Kahlua coffee liqueur this weekend.

Ingredients
6 liters water
1 kilo sugar
1 50 gram jar instant coffee (the brand you would drink)
1 700ml vodka
1 700ml dark rum
1 200ml brandy
supply of vanilla beans

Directions
In a large pot, make a BIG cup of coffee with the first 3 ingredients.

Allow to cool. Add the liquor and stir well. In STERILE jars add a Vanilla Bean to each. Bottle and store at LEAST 10 days rotating daily. (The bottle, NOT you, ...unless you've been sampling).

This is a "Drinking Kahlua". If you want a thicker Liqueur, (for, say, ice cream, HALVE the water and DOUBLE the sugar).

Not sure if I'm going to make the drinking version or go for the thicker, liqueur version. Either way, I'll be adding a few vanilla beans and aging it in a large jar. Once it is aged, probably for about a month, I'll pour through a coffee filter into small bail top bottles and add a vanilla bean to each.

 

[3goodeggs]

Mmmmmm.
That sounds yummy.
Especially when I read the bit about putting it over ice cream.
I am moving this to my recipe file.

 

[Urban Flock]

I name all those who earn a name, either by being a distinct breed or color or by displaying distinct traits. I don't like eating food without a name if I can help it. Makes one appreciate their food so much more if you know their name and their story. I want to see their faces and remember them, I want to remember every little bit of their lives from the beginning to the end. I like having a personal relationship with the food I consume and I want to know what happened to them from start to finish. I want to make sure their story was a good one and the end of the story good as well. I'd never trust that to anyone else....their lives are too important to me.

Well said. Thanks

 

[Urban Flock]

Being a great mom and wife isn't easy, and it isn't for everybody.

Can open, worms everywhere.

It all comes to personal choice. I couldn't stand to have my child raised by someone else. There is time for me now and time for me when he leaves the nest. For the record, I have advanced scientific degrees, and have been crazy happy married for 22 years. I am also a rockin' cook, mom, and homemaker, and I homeschool (due to location and poor local school systems) a high school age child, who made Eagle Scout at age 13, all on top of moving every two years for my husband's job.

Sadly, our society doesn't see mothering as a valuable contributor to society. For the most part, they are stereotyped as do nothing, shopping, wine drinking, bon-bon eating, lazy noncontributing people. A short sighted stereotype to be sure. Why is staying home and running a home seen as a do nothing job? I assure you (the royal 'you'), it is not. Lol!

I have friends who work outside the home, are miserable, complain constantly about home and family, their marriage suffers, and their entire paycheck goes towards putting their child in a care system while they are at work. It makes no sense to me what-so-ever.

I have much younger cousins, in their mid 30s, who have decided to put their careers before family or children. They and their husbands have grown apart as each go their own ways, expanding their power careers. Now, they decide they want to add children to the mix and are finding that their ages are hindering the process. One that managed to have a geriatric pregnancy, over the age of 29, gave up the stay-at-home mom idea after 6 months. She has gone back to work, the child is in daycare, (her money along with it, and she is now pregnant with number 2. The other has no children, they aren't even home the same hours, don't eat together, sleep the same hours, nothing. I am not sure how that's even a marriage. Two other cousins are in their late 20s and have no inclination of marriage, which is fine.

I was raised by an amazing 'could-do-anything' stay at home mom. My sister and I are the same way: cooking, sewing, knitting, roofing, plumbing, building, electrical, carpentry, pour concrete, garden, canning, and if we don't know how to do what needs done, we'll learn and do it.

I'm certainly not saying one way is right or wrong, but when a chosen path is only destructive to home and family, what is the point?

We had a new family move to the next homestead over. When I asked what she did to keep herself busy, she hung her head and practically whispered that she was a stay at home mom. I replied, 'OUTSTANDING! Welcome to the neighborhood!' She perked right up.

Sure there are days when I see my counterparts, male and female, getting a paycheck or recognition, and it hits like a blow to the spirit, but then I start to wonder what they gave up to get there. That decision would not make me happy. If it makes them happy, well, ok then.


I hope I didn't derail the thread further, or turn over anyone's apple cart, or put to much vinegar in the pickle jar.

To bring us back on topic, nothing is going into the jars right now, just out.

I did cook a pancake in a large cake pan yesterday and will not make individual pancakes again! It was like discovering electricity! Lol!

Great post. Thanks for helping us keep our heads up high.

 

[Urban Flock]

Well can't say I got a whipping if I didn't eat what was on my plate. My mom would make us stay at the table until our plate was cleaned. Several nights I would sit there until it was bedtime. Then....for breakfast.....yup there it was again. I don't know why it took me soooooo long to get it. Had many a dinner for breakfast.

 

[Beekissed]

Being a great mom and wife isn't easy, and it isn't for everybody.

Can open, worms everywhere.

It all comes to personal choice. I couldn't stand to have my child raised by someone else. There is time for me now and time for me when he leaves the nest. For the record, I have advanced scientific degrees, and have been crazy happy married for 22 years. I am also a rockin' cook, mom, and homemaker, and I homeschool (due to location and poor local school systems) a high school age child, who made Eagle Scout at age 13, all on top of moving every two years for my husband's job.

Sadly, our society doesn't see mothering as a valuable contributor to society. For the most part, they are stereotyped as do nothing, shopping, wine drinking, bon-bon eating, lazy noncontributing people. A short sighted stereotype to be sure. Why is staying home and running a home seen as a do nothing job? I assure you (the royal 'you'), it is not. Lol!

I have friends who work outside the home, are miserable, complain constantly about home and family, their marriage suffers, and their entire paycheck goes towards putting their child in a care system while they are at work. It makes no sense to me what-so-ever.

I have much younger cousins, in their mid 30s, who have decided to put their careers before family or children. They and their husbands have grown apart as each go their own ways, expanding their power careers. Now, they decide they want to add children to the mix and are finding that their ages are hindering the process. One that managed to have a geriatric pregnancy, over the age of 29, gave up the stay-at-home mom idea after 6 months. She has gone back to work, the child is in daycare, (her money along with it, and she is now pregnant with number 2. The other has no children, they aren't even home the same hours, don't eat together, sleep the same hours, nothing. I am not sure how that's even a marriage. Two other cousins are in their late 20s and have no inclination of marriage, which is fine.

I was raised by an amazing 'could-do-anything' stay at home mom. My sister and I are the same way: cooking, sewing, knitting, roofing, plumbing, building, electrical, carpentry, pour concrete, garden, canning, and if we don't know how to do what needs done, we'll learn and do it.

I'm certainly not saying one way is right or wrong, but when a chosen path is only destructive to home and family, what is the point?

We had a new family move to the next homestead over. When I asked what she did to keep herself busy, she hung her head and practically whispered that she was a stay at home mom. I replied, 'OUTSTANDING! Welcome to the neighborhood!' She perked right up.

Sure there are days when I see my counterparts, male and female, getting a paycheck or recognition, and it hits like a blow to the spirit, but then I start to wonder what they gave up to get there. That decision would not make me happy. If it makes them happy, well, ok then.


I hope I didn't derail the thread further, or turn over anyone's apple cart, or put to much vinegar in the pickle jar.

To bring us back on topic, nothing is going into the jars right now, just out.

I did cook a pancake in a large cake pan yesterday and will not make individual pancakes again! It was like discovering electricity! Lol!

Amen and amen! I didn't get to stay home with my kids and every day was wishing that I could...but, single mom and deadbeat dad, so you know the story. The Lord blessed me with a great mother who watched my boys for me while I worked and she was just what you described....the do everything and anything Mom, much like myself but WAY better.

She raised nine kids and when she was in her 40s they moved back further in the boonies, built log cabins with minimal tools and no money and started homesteading off-grid. How many women that age and still having children in grade school have the energy to do all that? She did and more and she still is that active at 80...she still lives in a log cabin structure on a part of that original homestead.

There is no harder more exacting job than being a good wife and mother and if a person is bored at it, they aren't doing it right. There are so many facets to that job that one could never be bored. It takes hard work, 24/7 on duty, never a true day off kind of hard work. It takes a strong mind, a soft heart and busy hands to do it right.

It's the job I always wanted and never had the privilege to have, though I got to do it part time and on the weekends and it didn't include husband care. That's a whole other ball game when you add a husband to it...more work, more patience, more compromise, more everything.

When you think about what is entrusted to the hands of a mother, it's mind boggling to think of how important that job truly is....she is shaping everyone's future in her hands and has a huge impact on how the world will be in that future. No one else has that much impact on the populace. It is really true that the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.

Those that would look down on that job and the responsibility it entails are those who are uninformed in this life. That job is the single most important job on Earth, IMO. Moms~and Dads at times~ are shaping kings and rulers, engineers and politicians, scientists and doctors, men and women of industry and important discoveries....all those who will be, first pass through the hands of a mother and what she does during her time with them will determine many important things on this Earth. It's no small thing to be a mother that stays at home and shapes the world.

 

[3goodeggs]

I am running around in circles flinging flowers and chocolate kisses to both of you!!
Good jobs.

We all do the best we can when we remember how important childhood is, and how those early years are the foundations that our children build their lives on.
Cement it with love and kindness, respect for their persons... and they will be great people whether you are stay at home, or working.

 

[ducksanddoxies]

Being a great mom and wife isn't easy, and it isn't for everybody.

Can open, worms everywhere.

It all comes to personal choice. I couldn't stand to have my child raised by someone else. There is time for me now and time for me when he leaves the nest. For the record, I have advanced scientific degrees, and have been crazy happy married for 22 years.  I am also a rockin' cook, mom, and homemaker, and I homeschool (due to location and poor local school systems) a high school age child, who made Eagle Scout at age 13, all on top of moving every two years for my husband's job.

Sadly, our society doesn't see mothering  as a valuable contributor to society. For the most part, they are stereotyped as do nothing, shopping, wine drinking, bon-bon eating, lazy noncontributing people. A short sighted stereotype to be sure. Why is staying home and running a home seen as a do nothing job?  I assure you (the royal 'you'), it is not. Lol!

I have friends who work outside the home, are miserable, complain constantly about home and family, their marriage suffers, and their entire paycheck goes towards putting their child in a care system while they are at work. It makes no sense to me what-so-ever.

I have much younger cousins, in their mid 30s, who have decided to put their careers before family or children.  They and their husbands have grown apart as each go their own ways, expanding their power careers.  Now, they decide they want to add children to the mix and are finding that their ages are hindering the process.  One that managed to have a geriatric pregnancy, over the age of 29, gave up the stay-at-home mom idea after 6 months. She has gone back to work, the child is in daycare, (her money along with it, and she is now pregnant with number 2. The other has no children, they aren't even home the same hours, don't eat together, sleep the same hours, nothing. I am not sure how that's even a marriage. Two other cousins are in their late 20s and have no inclination of marriage, which is fine. 

I was raised by an amazing 'could-do-anything' stay at home mom. My sister and I are the same way: cooking, sewing, knitting, roofing, plumbing, building, electrical, carpentry, pour concrete, garden, canning, and if we don't know how to do what needs done, we'll learn and do it.

I'm certainly not saying one way is right or wrong, but when a chosen path is only destructive to home and family, what is the point?

We had a new family move to the next homestead over. When I asked what she did to keep herself busy, she hung her head and practically whispered that she was a stay at home mom.  I replied, 'OUTSTANDING! Welcome to the neighborhood!'  She perked right up.

Sure there are days when I see my counterparts, male and female, getting a paycheck or recognition, and it hits like a blow to the spirit, but then I start to wonder what they gave up to get there.  That decision would not make me happy. If it makes them happy, well, ok then.


I hope I didn't derail the thread further, or turn over anyone's apple cart, or put to much vinegar in the pickle jar.

To bring us back on topic, nothing is going into the jars right now, just out.

I did cook a pancake in a large cake pan yesterday and will not make individual pancakes again!  It was like discovering electricity! Lol!

I agree, mothering is a very important job. I coached girls basketball until my first son was born. Then it was too hard being out until 11 and getting up at 5 to do it all again.

Thankfully, I work in the same school system my kids are in. That is a huge blessing.

I feel that it is an honor to raise strong Godly men and I take my job seriously.

 

[rancher hicks]

For the diced tomatoes, do I have to peel them? My canning book doesn`t have diced tomatoes. Only 50# of tomatoes, but food bank is getting majority ofthe rest. So I am ok with that, going to share 25# with another fellow canner who helped me when I needed it.

Just a reminder. You can freeze the tomatoes whole and then when they thaw the skins will come right off. Same with peaches.