Alexander - Homestead Cooking with Carol: Bountiful Make-ahead Meals

Homestead Cooking with Carol: Bountiful Make-ahead Meals

2014 by Carol J. Alexander

Cover by Melissa Jones

2014 by Melissa Jones

Headshot photo by Sarah Ann Layne

2013 by Sarah Ann Layne Photography

All rights reserved. This publication may not be shared, reproduced in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including information storage and retrieval systems, without prior written consent from the author. The purchaser of this book may print one copy of the text.

http://CarolJAlexander.com

ISBN: 9781483518954

From one homesteading homemaker to all of you who do the same, this book is for all those times when you just cannot seem to feed hungry bellies and get all of your chores done at the same time. I hope you enjoy it.

Introduction

As a homesteading homemaker, producing your own food is important to you. After all the energy spent in the production process (e.g. weeding, spreading manure, milking, butchering), I bet I know how you feel about coming in and cooking the evening meal. You are exhausted, right? When you have gallons of milk in the fridge, with more coming at the next milking, bushels of tomatoes and peppers sitting too long on the kitchen floor, and rows of green beans that must be picked and put up, just getting something simple on the table makes the local drive-through look inviting. But, I bet the drive-through would not even be on your radar if you had meals prepared in advance for those hectic days.

In the next few pages I will show you how, with a little extra effort now, to create a simple menu plan so that you can put up or preserve meals for an entire year. I will show you how you can have healthy staples for quick and easy breakfasts and lunches that kids and husbands can make themselveswith just a little forethought every few weeks.

Even though I have a few recipes here to give you ideas, this is not a recipe book. This book will show you how to take the meals you already know and love and prepare, or partially prepare, them in advance. Likewise, this is not a book to teach you how to can or freeze your food. If you do not already have a basic knowledge of food preservation, see the books Ive listed in the Resources section.

If you enjoy cooking, trying new recipes, or just hanging out in the kitchen baking, thats wonderful. What you will learn in here will be for those days when you do not have the time or luxury to spend hours in the kitchen. You do not have to be a foodie to love good food. Homesteading families enjoy tasty meals too. After you read, Homestead Cooking with Carol: Bountiful Make-ahead Meals, youll learn how to eat like foodies without exhausting all of your time, money, and energy each day.

I. To Can or to Freeze? That is the Question

Having meal plans in order before harvest and butchering time helps the homesteading homemaker make decisions on how to preserve her meat and produce. We will discuss creating those meal plans in Section X. First I want to show you how you will use those plans in the preservation process.

Some folks fear the pressure canner and prefer to throw everything into the freezer. But freezing doesnt produce the instant meals that I like to have on hand. Canning as much of our food as possible helps me avoid being stuck at 4 p.m. with nothing thawed for supper. However, for some items, freezing is the best choice.

Take stir-fry for example. You do not stir-fry canned meat and vegetables. So if your family likes stir-fried meals, freeze meat and vegetables for that purpose. Freeze the vegetables separately, as each one will require a different blanching time. When assembling the meal, you can just add a handful from each bag to your pan.

Another example is smoothies. No one makes smoothies out of canned fruit. So I freeze a good portion of peaches and berries with smoothies specifically in mind.

I also freeze meals that Ive already assembled, like casseroles, or the ingredients to pop into the crockpot. But these examples are the exception on our homestead.

In this section, I will show you how getting over the fear of the pressure canner can make your life easier throughout the year. However, if you prefer to freeze your produce, some of these techniques can be done by freezing. Just make sure you have a fail-safe for when the clock strikes four and catches you unprepared.

Vegetables in the Mix

Canned mixed vegetables are an Alexander homestead staple. What do you do when you pick more green beans than you need for a meal but not enough to fill the canner? What about when the tomatoes are over-running the kitchen counter but there are not enough to make sauce? Have a bunch of vegetables, but not a canner full of any one thing? Then mix them up! Its fun, easy, and makes for a wonderful soup in the middle of a winter day. I mix my vegetables haphazardly, but you can do it in a more orderly fashion. For instance, if your family always eats peas and carrots together, by all means can them together.

We can mixed vegetables in an assembly-line fashion. First wash your jars and set them up in a row. Then wash, peel, and chop all your vegetables. When you have everything prepared, start filling the jars in layers. Start with the heaviest items, like potatoes or green beans, and end with the lighter weight tomatoes or greens. First put a handful of beans in each jar, then a handful of zucchini, then tomatoes, and so forth.

Once the jars are full, add a teaspoon of salt to each one and cover the contents with boiling water; seal and process at 10 pounds of pressure. You need to process for the longest recommended time for the ingredients in the jar. For instance, if your jars contain corn, green beans, tomatoes, and zucchini; corn requires the longest processing time of 85 minutes, so thats how long you will process the jars. Again, if you are new to canning or have any questions about canning basics, refer to one of the canning resources in Appendix G.

Use mixed vegetables in:

Soups
Stews
Casseroles

From Dried Beans to Perfection

Soaking and cooking dried beans takes forethought and hours of your day. To have beans on hand when you want a quick meal, can them yourself. Since you probably buy your dried beans from the grocery store or food co-op, you do not have to can them at the height of harvest time, when everything you are growing is screaming for your attention. During the off-season, spend a day doing several canner loads of dried beans so you will have beans on hand for a few months. You can buy just about any bean dried. I can pinto beans for Mexican dishes and chili, black beans for Cuban beans and rice, and garbanzo beans for hummus or three-bean salad.

An alternative to canning your beans is to use the crockpot and freezing them in meal-sized portions. Either way, you are ahead of the game when you want to have beans for supper.

How to Can Dried Beans

Soak your beans overnight.

The next morning, drain, rinse, and fill jars 2/3 full. (The beans will continue to swell in the canning process.)

Cover the beans with boiling water, and cap.

Process under 10 pounds of pressure75 minutes for quarts and 55 minutes for pints.

If you are canning beans in the summer and have an abundance of sweet, red peppers, dice some up with a little onion and mix them with your black beans. Delicious.

How to Cook Dried Beans in the Crockpot

Put the beans, well-covered in water, on the stove.