Saturday, November 1, 2008

Slow Cooker Saturday


Sunday is a great day for a slow-cooker meal, especially a coooolllld one. This soup looked gooood to me, so I thought I'd share this yummy recipe.

Hearty Ham and Bean Soup

3 cup parsnips, peeled and diced
2 cup carrots, peeled and diced
1 cup onion, chopped
1 1/2 cup dried Great Northern Beans
5 cups of water
1 1/2 lbs of smoked ham hocks (I always think of Paula Deen when I see ham hocks!)
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon hot pepper sauce

Place parsnips, carrots and onion in a slow cooker; top with beans. Add remaining ingredients. Cook on high setting for 6-7 hours, or until beans are tender. Remove ham hocks; cut meat into bite-size pieces and discard bones. Return meat to slow cooker; heat through.

Friday, October 31, 2008

Christmas Tree Shop

November 1st starts my official countdown to CHRISTMAS! I ALMOST exclusively listen to Christmas music (NSYNC's Christmas album is THE best :)
So to start my countdown, Briggy and I are heading to The Christmas Tree Shop tomorrow morning!! I hope to buy discounted Halloween decorations for next year...but I'll be able to scope out all the Christmas goodies!! I searched online to see if they had any printable coupons I could use....and they do have some, but you cant use them until November 10-16. Click HERE for the page to print them off!
I also found out that they are going to be filming Christmas Tree Shop's commerical tomorrow, so you never know--you might see Brigham and me on TV!!!

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Cute Halloween Kitty Cats


My sister-in-law, Amy made the sweetest kitty cat treats for her baby yoga class. What a cute Halloween treat! She has this posted on her blog, but I thought I'd post the recipe here as well. Auntie Amy is the best!



INGREDIENTS
1 cup butter (no substitutes), softened
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
3 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup baking cocoa
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
24 wooden craft sticks
48 pieces candy corn
24 red-hot candies or mini M&M's


DIRECTIONS
In a mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Combine the flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt; gradually add to the creamed mixture. Roll dough into 1-1/2-in. balls. Place 3 in. apart on lightly greased baking sheets.
Insert a wooden stick into each cookie. Flatten with a glass dipped in sugar. Pinch top of cookie to form ears. For whiskers, press a fork twice into each cookie. Bake at 350 degrees F for 10-12 minutes or until cookies are set. Remove from the oven; immediately press on candy corn for eyes and red-hots for noses. Remove to wire racks to cool.

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Canned Butter FAQ

I suppose I should have put a disclaimer before my post. Canning butter is not officially recommended by the National Center for Home Preservation. You do have to be immensely careful when canning, and using a pressure cooker would also alleviate error....so looking more into it online, I found information from both sides of the story--you be the judge. My sister made the comment that the Amish have been doing it forever...and they're still around...although because this blog is mainly for my own learning experience...I would not attempt this alone (without an experienced canner) because I have never done this before.
As for the comment about texture, this is what one man wrote:
I have made butter this way quite a few times. My wife and 2 kids cannot tell the difference, it does still taste like butter. We have also used it for cooking without any problems just like regular butter. We keep jars in the RV as they do not need refrigeration, one less thing to load and unload and keeps the fridge room open.

Canned butter does not "melt" again when opened, so it does not need to be refrigerated upon opening, provided it is used within a reasonable length of time.


Yes you can 'can' butter but it is much much better and easier and so much tastier of you order it from Australia. The butter and cheese for that matter will last about 20 years on the shelf.

Here's another view of canning butter:
We canned butter and though after 1 year it was not 'bad' it looked gross. So yes you can but there is a better way. I will have to get the company and it is shipped out of California. It is the best both the cheese and the butter. Commercially canned it safer, esp. with working with butter.

This is from the National Center for Home Preservation:
http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/questions/FAQ_canning.html#33
there are some directions for 'canning' butter in circulation on the Internet. Most of what we have seen are not really canning, as they do not have Boiling Water or Pressure Canning processes applied to the filled jar. Jars are preheated, the butter is melted down and poured into the jars, and the lids are put on the jars. Some directions say to put the jars in the refrigerator as they re-harden, but to keep shaking them at regular intervals to keep the separating butter better mixed as it hardens. This is merely storing butter in canning jars, not ‘canning’. True home canning is when the food is heated enough to destroy or sufficiently acid enough to prevent growth of all spores of Clostridium botulinum (that causes botulism) and other pathogens during room temperature storage on the shelf.

Additionally, when you consider the economics of the process (energy costs involved with heating, cost of jars and lids, etc.), even if the butter is bought on sale, it may not be economically viable to prepare butter to store for years in this manner. Good quality butter is readily available at all times, if butter is needed for fresh use. If the concern is about emergency food supplies, there are dry forms of butter that can be purchased and stored, oils that can be used in an emergency, or commercially canned butter in tins (although we have only seen this for sale from other countries). Melted and re-hardened butter may not function the same as original butter in many types of baking anyway.

There are a few issues with the common directions circulating on the Internet at this time:

1. Physical safety and food quality: In the provided directions, the jars are preheated in an oven (dry-heat), which is not recommended for canning jars. Manufacturers of canning jars do not recommend baking or oven canning in the jars. It is very risky with regard to causing jar breakage. There is no guarantee that the jars heated in this dry manner are sufficiently heated to sterilize them, as we do not have data on sterilizing jar surfaces by this dry-heating method.
2. The butter is not really being 'canned'; it is simply being melted and put in canning jars, and covered with lids. Due to some heat present from the hot melted butters and preheated jars, some degree of vacuum is pulled on the lids to develop a seal. It rarely is as strong a vacuum as you obtain in jars sealed through heat processing. The practice in these 'canned' butter directions is referred to as 'open-kettle' canning in our terminology, which is really no canning at all, since the jar (with product in it) is not being heat processed before storage.
3. Although mostly fat, butter is a low-acid food. Meat, vegetables, butter, cream, etc. are low-acid products that will support the outgrowth of C. botulinum and toxin formation in a sealed jar at room temperature. Low-acid products have to be pressure-canned by tested processes to be kept in a sealed jar at room temperature. It is not clear what the botulism risk is from such a high-fat product, but to store a low-acid moist food in a sealed jar at room temperature requires processing to destroy spores. A normal salted butter has about 16-17% water, some salt, protein, vitamins and minerals. Some butter-like spreads have varying amounts of water in them. We have no kind of database in the home canning/food processing arena to know what the microbiological concerns would be in a butter stored at room temperature in a sealed jar. In the absence of that, given that it is low-acid and that fats can protect spores from heat if they are in the product during a canning process, we cannot recommend storing butter produced by these methods under vacuum sealed conditions at room temperature.
4. Some other directions do call for 'canning' the filled jars of butter in a dry oven. This also is not 'canning'. There is not sufficient, research-based documentation to support that 'canning' any food in a dry oven as described on this web page or any page that proposes oven canning is even sufficient heating to destroy bacteria of concern, let alone enough to produce a proper seal with today's home canning lids.
In conclusion, with no testing having been conducted to validate these methods, we would NOT recommend or endorse them as a safe home-canning process, let alone for storing butter at room temperature for an extended period. We do know that the methods given for preheating empty jars, or even filled jars, in a dry oven are not recommended by the jar manufacturers or by us for any food. Aside from the physical safety and quality issues, and the fact that it is not canning at all, if there happened to be spores of certain bacteria in there, these procedures will not destroy those spores for safe room temperature storage.

So there you have it. I think the point that my sister made to her enrichment class, as well as mine in this post, was to showcase a not-so-common canning commodity that would be used in times of emergency. I wouldn't recommend just canning it for everyday use...also, when you go to open the jar...youre going to know if something's wrong with it by look, texture and smell. If it looks questionable, toss it!
I did look into ghee (clarified butter) which is also a pretty interesting process....and I think more "accepted" as far as canning goes.

Sunday, October 26, 2008

Elder Wirthlin Magnets

Those of you who were able to attend Sister Vasicek's Relief Society lesson today were in for a real treat! Not only was the message extremely moving--(I have been thinking about that talk for the past few weeks) But the magnets I made corresponded with a great quotation from Elder Wirthlin:

"The Lord did not people the earth with a vibrant orchestra of personalities only to value the piccolos of the world. Every instrument is precious and adds to the complex beauty of the symphony."


I thought this portion of his talk in particular fit in so well with the lesson outline, as well as the musical aspect relating to the Vasicek family! I hope everyone enjoys the magnet!
I sincerely apologize to the sisters that didn't receive one. We estimated about 25...but it looks like we needed closer to 35-40. I will have plenty of next lesson's treat prepared!
Hope everyone has a great week!