Pressure Canning Garbanzo Beans

Like I mentioned in my last post, I've had a lot of fun with my new pressure canner. I took the opportunity over New Years long weekend to try several projects. Canning a bunch of garbanzo beans for our pantry was something I've wanted to do for a long time. I use these for my batches of hummus, and for homemade indian food or soups & salads.



Doing a quick cook of the beans after a 24 hour soak.



My new favorite kitchen gadget.



Loading up the canner for an intense steaming session...LOL.



After pressure processing, I got 12 pints of garbanzo beans. Also soaking in the background is cannellini beans. Finish one project, and move on to the next project.



Another view.



Beauty in a jar.



This will make a great addition to our pantry. I'm pretty excited to try more projects this upcoming week. I want to make some sirloin chili, and some other on-hand ready to heat from scratch organic soups.

Pressure Canning Chicken Stock

I was pretty excited to get a pressure canner for Christmas. Granted it's a practical gift, and I'm a pretty practical person. Over new years weekend I had my first four pressure canning projects.



We had roast chicken for dinner one night. It was the perfect opportunity to boil the carcass down with vegetables and herbs and made a big batch of homemade chicken stock for our pantry.



It took a few moments to learn how to gauge the pressure in the canner, with the amount of gas I had burning underneath. Once regulated, the countdown begins on steam processing times.



The finished project. 7 pints of rich, dark, chicken stock chuck full of flavor. I love my new pressure canner. Simple pleasures. Nothing beats healthy, homemade food.

Merry Christmas 2011

This year was a different year for us. Usually we go to visit our family out of state, but this year since I would be 34 weeks on Christmas we decided it would be cutting it a bit too close to travel. So, instead we shopped and shipped our Christmas presents to family and had the great opportunity to have my sister Linda and her daughter Amanda spend Christmas with us.

We decked out house out for the season as usual. It always makes me smile to see all our decorations out, especially the nativity, which we added the wise men to this year. I love all our white cut out candle holders and the spider on our tree from Dan's mom.





We also had out our various tins and cookie jars, Williamsburg pineapples, and new this year a pomegranate from Greece.






Christmas Eve was a little hard for Dan and I this year. We both had a bit of a cry fest missing our families, listening to Christmas music and calling to talk to everyone made us feel a bit better :) Then Linda and Amanda arrived and we headed over to our friends house for a wonderful dinner and acting out of the Nativity story. I enjoyed being around friends, family, and even a few little kids. After dinner we went home and watched movies and put out our gifts to each other. Quite a haul!





Santa came and filled our stockings and left us a few things! Looks like we were good kids this year :)





We woke up and had breakfast, Dan made yummy pancakes, roasted potatoes and chicken sausage with fruit and juice. It was just what I needed.



We opened gifts, and were totally spoiled this year (as usual!). Here's my loot:





Dan's loot:




We both got ornaments from Santa. Mine was the elephant with a peanut on his nose, Dan's was a copper pan.



Santa also left us some Christmas books to add to our future advent collection. We hope to have 25 books to wrap and open with our son the month of December as a new family tradition. We're off to a good start in the collection.



New decorations put out, plus me posing with my FAVORITE gift of all, and 11 lb tub of Nutella :)




To top off a wonderful day we opened gifts from Dan's family and found the candy cane pillow case Dan had as a child, a fun blanket sewn from fabric found in Sherry's sewing room, a silver baby spoon, and a traditional tin that held homemade candy that Dan remembers from his childhood as well. We also got the story of the Elf on the Shelf, which apparently is pretty popular now, but the idea was from back in the 60's. The modern elf was removed from the box and replaced with a Sherry creation. She made a ton of little elves that hung in garland to decorate the home, and would sometimes see the elf hiding elsewhere in the home checking in on the kids to report back to Santa. These fun traditions and memories brought tears of joy to our eyes.




Finally we had so much food and candy that day it was crazy! I've eaten myself sick the past few weeks and wanted to see if I could still see my feet...I can, but just barely :)

Christmas Project

Last year for Christmas my sister-in-law gave all the siblings Christmas pillowcases. This is a tradition passed down from Dan's mom who gave the kids a new pillowcase (or got out last years if it wasn't worn out) the beginning of December to sleep on for the month. This was yet another way to make the holiday special and hype up the kids for the Christmas season :)

I thought it was such a great idea I decided right after Christmas to go out and buy fabric on sale (another Sherry tradition!) to make some for the next Christmas to give to my family. I had a lot of fun picking out fabric patterns and matching them together. It is really quite easy to do, but in my typical style I procrastinated for quite a while until I realized I need to crank these out if I was going to get them in the mail after Thanksgiving!



The original thought was to just give to my nieces, but I soon realized I had enough to give to my mom and siblings as well.





I even had enough fabric to make another set for Dan and I. I've been sleeping on mine ever since. It makes me smile every time I see it, I hope it does the same for my family.

2011 Annual Craven Candy Making

One of our favorite holiday traditions is making homemade candy, chocolates and confections for Christmas gift giving. It always reminds me of my childhood and the fun food traditions we had growing up, creating in the kitchen with my Mom. This year Holly & I had a fun time mixing it up and doing different types of fudges and caramels to share with our family, colleagues at work and various friends & neighbors.



Starting a big batch of caramel and adding chocolate to make a chocolate-espresso batch.



Cooking it down and letting it bubble, adding more chocolate a handful at a time.



Adding the espresso and cooking it to soft ball stage.



Almost to temperate and ready to pour in my prepped pan.



After the batch cooled, I cut it and prepped it for wrapping in glassine paper candy cups.



A complete batch of white chocolate, peppermint fudge.



The white chocolate peppermint fudge all cut, wrapped and cupped.



Finished batches ready for boxing. Chocolate-espresso caramel. White chocolate peppermint fudge. And a batch of cinnamon-anise golden caramel.



Boxed and ready for lids, and custom designed labels from Holly.



The finished goodies. Have been shipping to friends across the country, making local deliveries, shipping to family, and sharing with neighbors and colleagues. A very fun tradition indeed. Grateful to have learned from my Mom, and to be able to share the talent with my many friends.