Fall means it’s time for pumpkin everything! I love eating pumpkin all year long, but in the fall the rest of the world (well, at least the country) joins me.

Do you know what makes pumpkin recipes even better?

Making your own pumpkin puree!

Seriously.  If you’ve never tried making homemade pumpkin puree, then make this year your time to give it a try!  You’ll be so glad you did.

Making  your own pumpkin puree is better for your body and your budget.  When you make homemade pumpkin puree, you don’t have to worry about any weird preservatives.  Plus, it’s waaay cheaper than buying the canned stuff.  And it’s easy!

The short video below will walk you through all the details OR just scroll down for a complete picture tutorial!

Originally published 11/11/2013

How we use homemade pumpkin puree

We use pumpkin puree instead of canned pumpkin for all things pumpkin, including:

• pumpkin bread and muffins
• pumpkin sheet cake
• pumpkin cookies
• pumpkin pancakes
• pumpkin pie
• pumpkin custard (pretty much just a deep pumpkin pie without the crust)
• pumpkin soup

2020 harvest of pumpkins and banana squash

2021 harvest of pumpkins and “bananakins” (our giant pumpkins crossed with banana squash to make a huge squash!)

How to make pumpkin puree step-by-step

Making your own pumpkin puree is really easy.  If you don’t have much freezer space, you can still puree a pumpkin and keep the puree in the fridge for a couple weeks while you try all the yummy pumpkin recipes you find on Pinterest.

Don’t be fooled into thinking you can only use pumpkins labeled as “pie pumpkins” for this.  Any pumpkins will work well and be healthy and delicious.  Actually any winter squash will work just fine (banana squash, butternut squash, etc).

Start by cleaning and cutting your pumpkin in half and cleaning out the guts.  Don’t be intimidated by the slime factor here.  I promise it’s way easier than trying to squeeze your arm down inside a pumpkin to clean it out to carve a jack-o-lantern.  Grab an ice cream scoop to scrape out all the stringy and seedy parts.  You can save the seeds to roast later.

Lay your pumpkin halves on a cookie sheet with the skin side up.  This keeps the meaty inside of the pumpkin nice and moist.  You don’t need to worry about covering your pan with anything.  The pumpkin juices wash off very easily.

Stick your pumpkins in the oven at 350 degrees.  It will probably take around 45 minutes, but it will vary depending on the thickness of the meat.  If you have large pumpkins (like I did), you may want to move your oven racks down lower (like I didn’t) to prevent scorching the skin (though it doesn’t affect the meat).  You will want to check on them after 30 minutes to see how they are doing, though they could take up to an hour.  When a knife goes into the meat effortlessly, you will know they are done.

The next part is my favorite.  The skin just peels away!  But before you get started, let the pumpkins cool for a while because they are hot!  When you can actually touch them, you can easily peel most of the skin off with your hands (and it’s fun!).  Sometimes you will need to use a knife on the edges.

As you peel off the skin, you can put the chunks of pumpkin meat into your food processor or blender.  When I’m doing lots of pumpkin (which I usually am), I use a food processor, but a blender works fine too.

Meet Gonzo.  I bet you can’t guess where he picked up that nickname!  Does your food processor have a name?  Gonzo has proven to be one of our most useful wedding gifts.  Unfortunately, they no longer make him any more, but it’s similar to this food processor.

I put all the pumpkin puree into several large containers and stick them in the fridge while I wait to use or freeze the pumpkin puree.

Freezing pumpkin puree

There are a couple of different methods for freezing pumpkin puree.  If you aren’t worried about specific measurements, you can just put the pumpkin puree directly into Ziploc freezer bags to freeze.  For soup or large batches of baked goods this is fine.

Another method of freezing pumpkin puree is to measure the pumpkin puree as you put it in bags.  Measuring the pumpkin puree makes it much easier when it comes time to use.  Lay the bags flat as you freeze them so they store nice and compact.

Personally, I like to freeze pumpkin in batches in plastic containers.  I love these Rubbermaid storage containers because the bottom of each container says how many cups it holds, so it is easy to thaw for recipes (they are also awesome containers for lunches, because they don’t ever leak).  I find this method much easier than continually scraping out a measuring cup into a Ziplock bag, but with the convenience of measuring.

After the pumpkin puree is frozen in the containers, I let it begin to thaw slightly (about 15 minutes on the counter).  After thawing for a few minutes it pops right out of the plastic containers.  I double wrap each block in plastic wrap.  Then, I fill each container up a again with more puree from the fridge and freeze another batch.

After each block is wrapped in plastic, I store them in the freezer in Ziplock freezer bags.   I usually use mine within a year or two (in the chest freezer) without any problems

Making my own pumpkin puree allows me to do much more baking of fall pumpkin treats than I would if I had to buy a canned pumpkin each time.  We just can’t get enough pumpkin!

This post has affiliate links to products that I know to be awesome and think you’ll love too!  If you make a purchase through one of my links, I will get a small percentage of the sale (at no extra cost to you) and be very grateful!

You’ll Also Enjoy

Pin for later!

The post How to make your own pumpkin puree (from ANY pumpkin) appeared first on Six Figures Under.

Our garden is not manicured beautifully for a magazine or social media, but it is functional and very productive! Growing our own fresh organic produce year round helps to supplement our grocery budget. Not only do we have fresh fruits and vegetables nearly all year round, we have plenty to can, freeze, dehydrate, and freeze dry.

We built the garden into a hillside on our property. We used our 2020 covid stimulus check to fund our big garden project. It was a great move! In addition to feeding our family, it is teaching our children (and us!) to work hard, work together, and reap what we sow.

Lots of you have asked about our how our garden is doing this year, so I’m giving you a little tour. You can get a walkthrough tour in the YouTube video embedded below or just read on and I’ll do my best to explain.

On the lowest terrace we have blackberries, boysenberries, raspberries, and blueberries. They are quite a jungle right now. We have been planning to put horizontal support wires on t-posts around each of the beds to hold the vines up, but we have not gotten to that project yet. This year our blackberries and boysenberries produced well, but picking them was tricky. Thankfully they are thornless, but they are just hard to access when they’re so overgrown. Our blueberries pretty much got buried by the blackberries.

The next terrace up has 4 beds of strawberries, a bed of cantaloupe, a bed of sweet potatoes, a bed of herbs, a bed of tomatoes, and a bed of peppers. There are some yard-long beans in there somewhere too. The problem (or blessing, depending on how you see it) is that loads of volunteer tomatoes grew up in the woodchips outside of the beds. We pulled out hundreds of them, but still we have volunteer tomato plants overtaking everything. While we could still rip them out, half of the family is in favor of keeping them so can sell cherry tomatoes (only we haven’t started selling them seriously). Every year we say that next year we will not allow any volunteers, but when we see the cute, strong plants growing up we don’t have the heart to pull the all out. Maybe next year!

The next terrace up is also riddled with volunteer cherry tomatoes, watermelon, and cucumbers all growing outside of our raised beds! We have intentionally planted watermelons (lots of them), sweet potatoes, zucchini, cucumbers (lemon, garden sweet, and Armenian), yellow squash, and many tomato varieties. It looks like a jungle, but produces lots of good things to eat!

Above that we have our greenhouse terrace. We took the cover of our greenhouse off for the summer. We don’t have any raised beds up here, but decided to plant straight into the ground. Our ground is very much rock (as you can see in the video and sides of the above photos), so the woodchips that we have covered every terrace with are what makes the ground fertile and plantable. We didn’t have a solid watering system on this terrace for the first part of the summer, so it was kind of neglected. Even so, we have will have a good harvest of spaghetti squash along with some pumpkins and banana squash.

Speaking of pumpkins and banana squash we still have a couple hundred pounds in the garage from last year’s harvest! We need to get it pureed and frozen before we harvest this year’s fruits.

We have two higher terraces of fruit trees with additional fruit trees planted into the slope above that. A late frost as well as deer devastation  when someone left a gate open, dashed our hopes of fruit this year. Hopefully they will start producing next year.

We’re getting ready to start seedlings for our fall/winter garden. Last year we had several varieties of beautiful lettuce that grew all fall and winter. We actually had to pull out everything that was left so that we could plant in the spring. It’s too hot for lettuce in the summer here, so I’m really looking forward to fall. And as long as it doesn’t freeze, the tomatoes will keep ripening late into the year as well.

Do you have a garden? How is it growing this year?

The post Summer Garden Tour 2022 appeared first on Six Figures Under.

I was thrilled to find strawberries for $.98/lb this year and have it be at a time when I had room in my schedule for a couple of jam sessions. If you looked at my schedule you wouldn’t think I had room, but a recruited all of my helpers and made time. With prices rising on packaged and processed foods (like jam!), I wanted to take advantage of the awesome seasonal produce prices to process my own food (without any weird ingredients or high fructose corn syrup).

I’m a “go big or go home” kind of person when it comes to a lot of things, including making messes in the kitchen. I’m not going to get all of the canning and jam-making supplies out and just make a couple of jars of jam. Instead I wanted to make enough jam to last us six months to a year (hopefully a year, but it’s really good so I’m afraid it will go faster than that).

In two jam session I made 44 quarts and 5 pints of strawberry jam.

Are the strawberry prices great in your area right now or do you have strawberries stashed in your freezer? Let’s make some jam! I will walk you through the process of making and canning strawberry jam even if it’s your first time doing either!  You can do this!!

You will need:

Ingredients

For one batch (see yield below) you will need the following ingredients. I’ll talk more in detail about each further on in the tutorial.

• Strawberries– 5 cups crushed strawberries (about 2 lbs of strawberries)
• Sugar- 7 cups white sugar (about 3 lbs)
• Pectin– 1/3 cup or a1.75 oz box
• Butter (optional)- 1 Tablespoon to help cut down on the amount of foam

For this recipe, I use pectin purchased in bulk because it is waaay cheaper that the yellow box of SureJell pectin. I found the best price HERE where you can get as little as 1 pound ($6.99/lb) or get a 25 lb box ($4.99/lb). For price reference, the best price on bulk pectin on Amazon is this 6 lb bag at $8.33/lb.

For reference 1 pound of bulk pectin is equivalent to more than 9 boxes of SureJell (each box of SureJell pectin is 1.75 oz or about 1/3 cup). If you’ve bought pectin before, you can probably already tell that this is going to be a major money saver. I bought this 25-lb box of pectin and put it into quart jars so I always have it on hand when I’m ready to make jam.

Yield

You will get 8-9 cups of jam per batch.  We like to can jam in quart jars for our own use (because we go through it so fast), but I also use pint jars to give away.  Each batch will make 2 quarts or 4 pints, with a little extra to put in the fridge to use now.

Canning Supplies

• Canning jars and rings–  You can use quarts, pints, or smaller jam jars.  Any decent grocery store or big box store should have them.  As long as the rims aren’t chipped you can reuse the jars so you can always look on craigslist or ask your grandma!
• Flat lids— While canning jars and screw-on rings can be reused, flat lids must be new.  You can get them anywhere you can get canning jars.  The cheapest place I know of is at an Amish bulk foods store if you’re lucky enough to have one near.
• Canning Utensils–– You could probably make-do without them, but they are really handy.
• Water Bath Canner or Steam Canner— You can actually just use a heavy pot with a lid as long as you can have an inch of boiling water cover the jars.  You will want something in the bottom for the jars to sit on so they aren’t in direct contact with the bottom of the pan.  You could line the bottom of the pot with the metal rings for canning jars, for example.

Preparing Strawberries

Preparing your strawberries is pretty straight-forward.  Remove all stem and leaves and wash your berries.  Mash or puree berries, depending on how chunky you want your jam.

You can mash them with a potato masher or pastry cutter if you want more chunks in your jam, but chunks often float to the top in strawberry jam because they are less dense than the jam itself. That’s not a problem, just purely aesthetic. If berries are floating just stir your jam when you open it.

For a more homogenous jam you’ll want to use a blender.  A blender is also waaay faster if you’re doing lots of batches like we were. I gave them a few seconds in the Blendtec and they were ready to go.

You can use frozen berries as well.  I often wash, hull, and freeze strawberries when I find a good deal on them.  I set them out to thaw the morning that I plan to make jam.

Making Jam

I make jam in bulk, meaning I do several batches in one canning episode.  It’s important to do each batch separately though.  I often have two batches going simultaneously (but at different stages) in separate pans.

Measure Sugar

Measure (or weigh) out 7 cups (or 3 lb) of sugar into a bowl and set it aside.  When it’s time to add the sugar, you will need to add it quickly and won’t have time to measure it out a cup at a time.  Pus, you’ll need your other hand to stir in the sugar.  Make sure to use the correct amount.  Reducing the amount of sugar keeps the jam from setting properly.

Mix Berries with Pectin

Measure 5 cups of strawberry puree into a large sauce pan or pot. If you don’t quite have 5 cups of crushed berries you can top them off with a little water to bring the total to 5 cups of fruit puree. Stir in 1/3 cup bulk pectin (or one 1.75 oz box of pectin) making sure to smash any powder lumps.

Bring to Boil

Stir regularly as you bring the berry and pectin mixture to a full rolling boil.  If you can’t stir down the boil, then you’re there.

Add Sugar and Stir

Quickly add in sugar and stir well.  Continue stirring.

Bring to Rolling Boil

Bring the jam back to a rolling boil that can’t be stirred down easily.  When you reach a rolling boil, set a timer for 1 minute.  After 1 minute, turn off the heat and get ready to ladle the jam into hot jars!

Remove Foam

Homemade strawberry jam is notorious for producing lots of foam, which is essentially just jam with lots of air bubbles. There’s nothing wrong with it. It’s mostly just an aesthetic thing– it’s doesn’t look as pretty in jars as smooth, clear jam. Use a spatula or shallow ladle to skim off the foam once you have removed the jam from the heat. I like to put the foam in a separate bowl or jar and eat it on fresh bread or put it on ice cream.

Canning Jam

You will want to start some of these steps before or during the jam-making process so that you have hot, sterile jars ready when your jam is done.

Prepare Jars and Flat Lids

Clean your jars in the dishwasher or hot, soapy water even if they already look clean.  Turn warm (not cold) jars upside down in an inch or two of boiling water to sterilize the jar and make sure they’re as hot as boiling jam.  Adding boiling jam to a cold jar is bad news– trust me!

I either use the bottom of my steam canner (first picture) or just use a regular pan (second picture) to heat my jars.

Put your flat lids in the boiling water as well.  Heating them helps soften the rubber seal and sterilizes them.  The flat lids should be new, not re-used.  Glass canning jars and metal rings can be used for generations, but you should always use new flat lids.

Fill Jars

Using the funnel from your canning tool kit and a regular ladle to pour the jam into your jars or if your pan has sturdy handles you can just pour the jam through the funnel.  Leave about 1/8 inch headspace (empty space at top of jar), which is nearly full.

Clean Rim, Put on Flat Lids and Rings

Make sure the rim of the jar is clean and free of chips or cracks.  Use a wet cloth to wipe off any jam from the rim.  Grab a flat lid from the boiling water with the handy magnetic lid lifter from your canning utensils (or try using a fork) and place it on a jar.

Screw a metal band on firmly, but not overly tight.  The jar will be too hot to touch, but there’s a tool for that in every kit (see red thingamajig in picture below).

Process

In a water bath canner or steam canner, process hot jam in pint jars (or smaller) according to the table below.

Side note: Can you can quarts of jam?

Well I mentioned earlier that I can jam in quart jars.  Nowadays, they never give a processing time for quarts of jam, but you can find times in older books.  My mother-in-law has always done jam in quart jars without a problem, so that’s what I’ve always done and I am perfectly fine with it.   I process quarts for about 5 minutes longer than listed above for pints.

To put it into perspective, when our grandmas canned jam, they didn’t even process it.  At all.  Just having the hot jam in the jar will make the lid seal, so that was that.  My grandma still just turns the jam jars upside down to make they seal. The USDA says that it is effective, there is just more room for error if the jam cools down too much before you get the lid screwed on, so to be safe you should process the jars.  For jam, the only real risk is mold, which is easy to detect and not nearly as scary as the potential for botulism if tomatoes or green beans are not processed properly.

If processing quarts makes you nervous, just do pints.  [end of side note]

I prefer using a steam canner since it takes less water and is not so big and bulky.  In a steam canner, you start timing once the steam coming out the hole is at least  the length of a quart jar.  New steam canners (like the one I linked to) actually have a temperature gauge on them so you know when to start timing. You can turn the heat down (so it doesn’t steam like crazy) as long as you still have a steady stream of steam (say that three times fast!).  When the time is up, turn the stove off.  Remove the lid by lifting it away from you so you don’t get a face full of steam.

In a water bath canner, water should cover jars by at least an inch.  Start timing when the water reaches a vigorous boil.  You can turn heat down slightly as long as at least a steady, gentle boil continues throughout the processing time.  Keep the canner covered the entire time.

Cool Jars, Remove Rings, Wash Jars

Using the jar lifter from your canning tools (or just a hot pad if you’re using a steam canner), move your jars to the counter.  I usually set them on a towel and let them cool overnight in a non-drafty area.

About 24 hours later, remove the rings, wash the jars and check the seal.  Pull up lightly on the flat lid with your finger to test the seal.  If it pulls off easily, the jar did not seal right.  Don’t fret because you can put the jar in the fridge to use now.

All the jars that sealed well can be stored for years in your pantry or any other relatively cool and dark location.  Label them with the year and contents so that you can keep your food storage rotated.

FAQ

Is it worth it?

You’re probably thinking that all sounds like a lot of work, especially if you’ve never canned anything or made homemade jam.  It is work and does have a larger clean-up time than your average kitchen project.  To make my jam-making (or canning in general) a more efficient process, I always do things in bulk.  You will have the same number of dirty dishes if you do 8 batches as you would doing a single batch.

Making your own jam can save money, especially if you grow your own berries or pick them for free.  Berries can be expensive to buy, so making your own jam isn’t always cheaper.  That being said, homemade jam is much more delicious than store-bought jam and making it yourself is pretty satisfying.  With all that sugar, it’s probably not on anyone’s list as nutritious, but compared with all the preservatives and high-fructose corn syrup that are in store-bought jam you might say that homemade is more nutritious.

What is pectin and do you have to use pectin for strawberry jam?

Pectin, which naturally occurs in fruit, is what causes the jam to set when mixed with sugar and acidity. Different fruits have different amounts of pectin. The powdered pectin that you can buy is a concentrated pectin made from apple pectin. While you can absolutely make strawberry jam without pectin (just like your great grandmother did), it requires a much longer cooking time and more sugar. Cooking longer means you you’re cooking away more of the flavor and nutrients of the fruit and you also don’t have time to make as many batches. Pectin is a completely natural ingredient that will speed up the jam-making process. When purchased in bulk (rather than in the box), it’s also very economical.

Why are my berries floating? Is that safe?

Floating berries in strawberry jam is actually pretty normal and completely safe. It just might not look as beautiful as nicely mixed jam. To prevent floating berries there are a few things you can do. First, puree your berries more finely by using a blender instead of mashing by hand. Next, before putting the jam in jars, let the it cool for about five minutes and then stir the fruit in well before pouring or ladling it. If the jam comes out of the canner with fruit floating you can turn the jars every hour or two while it cools. Or, the easiest solution, is just to let it be. When you open the jam to serve it, just give it a good stir.

You made strawberry jam!

You did it! That wasn’t too complicated, was it? After several batches, you can fill your shelves so you won’t need to buy any jam from the store.

I should also warn you that after enjoying delicious homemade strawberry jam, your family may refuse to eat any jam that comes from the store, because homemade is just that much better! So get busy and stock up!

Note:  This post contains affiliate links for products I love.  For more information, see my disclosure policy.

The post Homemade Strawberry Jam (and Buying Pectin in Bulk) appeared first on Six Figures Under.

Originally published November 22, 2013

The first time I canned tomatoes I was about 9 months pregnant.   I got tomatoes ridiculously cheap at an Amish produce auction when we lived in the Midwest.  I was eager to make quarts and quarts of spaghetti sauce because we use it all the time.

I ran the tomatoes through my  strainer-saucer-juicer (which becomes my best friend at applesauce time) and put all that tomato smush and juice in a huge pot on the stove.  I waited and waited.  Many hours later it was thick enough to count as sauce and I filled up a whole two quarts.

It was the biggest waste of time and energy!  I stuck to diced tomatoes after that.

That is, until I talked to my mother-in-law.  She had probably called for a baby update, but I gave her a tomato update instead.  I was worried that I wouldn’t get the 100+ pounds of tomatoes processed before the baby came.  I was surprised and thrilled when she told me that I could freeze the tomatoes and puree them later.  Really?  I had never read anything about that before.

She explained to me how she cans tomato puree and then makes the sauce later.  The processing time for tomatoes (time in the canner) is the same no matter what shape your tomatoes are in (whole, halves, diced, sauced, etc), so why not puree them now and make them into sauce later?  I love my mother-in-law’s spaghetti sauce and I love time-savers (which this definitely is), so I was all ears.

For those who aren’t experienced canners, don’t worry! I will go through all the steps. You can totally do this!

1– Gather, Wash and Core Tomatoes

This step is pretty self-explanatory.  Be sure to take out any bad spots or thick white areas around the core.  Even if some of the tomatoes are getting wrinkly skin they will work fine.  If you are going to freeze them, I recommend quartering them to make thawing and pureeing easier.  Depending on your blender or food processor, you might want to quarter them anyway.

(1.5– Freeze Tomatoes)

This step is not necessary, but it helps to consolidate your canning efforts.  I like to make one big canning mess in my kitchen and then clean it all up, as opposed to doing lots of small batches.  Since I have room in my freezer I have this luxury.  I freeze my tomatoes in gallon-sized freezer bags.

Let your tomatoes thaw overnight or at least for a couple hours before pureeing them.

2– Puree Tomatoes

One of the benefits of pureeing, as opposed to using whole, diced, or halved tomatoes, is that you don’t have to remove the skin!  Ahh, life just became so much simpler.

I used to use my food processor.  I have also used an ordinary blender.  Now I exclusively use my Blendtec blender (I love that thing– it will even grind wheat!)   Puree the tomatoes completely.  This goes pretty quickly for fresh tomatoes, and takes more time for frozen tomatoes.  In fact, if your tomatoes are still icy, you will get what looks like a pink tomato sherbet (since they will get lots of air mixed in from blending for that long).

The first image is frozen tomato puree and the second is fresh tomato puree.  

3– Heat Tomato Puree

I always hot pack my tomato puree (hot liquid into hot jars).  Just heat the tomatoes to boiling.  Be careful that they don’t boil over!

4– Prepare Jars and Flat Lids

Jars should be cleaned in hot, soapy water, or in your dishwasher.  Turn warm (not cold) jars upside down in an inch or two of boiling water.  This step is to sterilize the jar and get it hot.  I love that I can use the bottom of my steam canner to heat my jars.  I used to just use a regular pan (see first picture), but the steamer holds seven jars at once (second picture)!

Put 7 flat lids in the boiling water as well.  Heating them sterilizes them and helps to soften the rubber seal.

5– Fill Jars

Start by adding either bottled lemon juice (2 Tablespoons per quart, 1 Tablespoon per pint) or citric acid (1/2 teaspoon per quart or 1/4 teaspoon per pint).  We use citric acid for homemade dishwasher soap, so I always have it on hand.  The need for this varies depending on the acidity of your tomato variety and when they are harvested, but you definitely want to be better safe than sorry!

Using a canning funnel (err… mine was in the dishwasher when I did this batch) and a regular soup ladle, fill each jar, leaving about 1/2″ head space.  If you used frozen tomatoes for your puree, you will notice there will be foam on top.  Do your best to spoon off the foam.  There is nothing wrong with foam and it will become normal liquid after canning it, but when all the bubbles from the foam disappear, the sealed jar will not be completely full.

6– Clean rims, put on flat lids and rings

The top rim of the jar needs to be clean and free from chips or cracks to get a good seal.  Use a wet cloth to clean the rim.  Using the handy magnetic lid lifter that comes in every canning tool kit (or with skilled hands you can use a fork), grab a flat lid out of the water and place it on a jar.  Screw a band on tight, not overly tight, just tight.

7– Process

In a water bath canner or steam canner, process tomatoes for 45 minutes.  My personal preference is the steam canner since it takes less water and is much less cumbersome to use, plus it works great for step sterilizing and heating the jars (step #4).

In a steam canner, you start timing once the steam coming out the hole is at least  the length of a quart jar.  You can turn the heat down (so it doesn’t steam like crazy) as long as you still have a steady stream of steam.  When the time is up, turn the stove off.  Remove the lid by lifting it away from you so you don’t get a face full of steam.

It’s normal for the puree to separate into liquid and pulp, so don’t fret.

8– Cool Jars, Remove Rings, Wash Jars

Using the jar lifter from your canning tools (or just a hot pad), move your jars to the counter.  I usually set them on a towel.  Let them cool overnight in a non-drafty area.

About 24 hours later, remove the rings, check the seal and wash the jars.  To check the seal, pull up lightly on the flat lid with your finger.  If it pulls off easily, the jar did not seal adequately.  Stick the jar in the fridge and use it in the next week or so.

All the jars that sealed well can be stored for years in your pantry or any other relatively cool and dark location.  Label them with the year and contents so that you can keep your food storage rotated.

Now you’re ready to make simple, quick and delicious spaghetti sauce using a jar of your own tomato puree. 

This post contains my referral link.  For more information, see my disclosure policy.  Thanks for supporting this site.

You’ll Also Love:

The post 🍅The Best Way to Can Tomatoes: Tomato Puree 🍅 appeared first on Six Figures Under.

It’s blackberry season where we live, which means free blackberries are available in every direction. The kids had been begging to go berry picking because we have been out of blackberry syrup for too long and we need to restock.  Sure we have other kinds of syrup, but nothing compares to homemade blackberry syrup.  It’s everyone’s favorite!

Everyone was thrilled that last week’s Family Night activity involved picking buckets of blackberries on the side of the road.  No one even complained about the thorns!

Homemade blackberry syrup really is as good as it gets!  You’ll be looking for pancakes, waffles, ice cream, cheesecake– whatever you can use as a vehicle to get this stuff into your mouth.  If you’re shameless, like me, you may just grab for a spoon! (You think I’m kidding?!)

If you want a video tutorial for making your own blackberry syrup, check out the video below, otherwise, keep scrolling down for the written directions with photos and a printable recipe at the bottom!

Ingredients

• 4 cups blackberry juice/pulp, de-seeded
• 1 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 Tablespoon bottled lemon juice
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 Tablespoons butter
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla

De-seeding Blackberries

If I’m not making blackberry syrup right away, I just put them straight into freezer bags.  I try to hold off making jams and syrups until the berries are done for the season.  By that time, I really want to take back my freezer space anyway.

Here’s my freezer stash of blackberries from a few years ago.  It filled a laundry basket.  I left them in the basket to thaw.

When I’m ready to de-seed the berries, I warm them up on the stove.  You get a lot more juice out of hot berries than cold ones.

Start by de-seeding your berries.  I used to use a strainer like the one in the picture below for years.  It works fine, but has a limited capacity.  Plus, it always seems like there is more juice left in the seedy part, but it’s very tedious to get it all out.

I have no idea why I didn’t buy a berry screen for my food strainer sooner.  It works like a dream!!  I love using a food strainer for making homemade applesauce.  The screen that comes with it is perfect for apples and tomatoes.  The berry screen has smaller holes than the apple/tomato screen so it keeps back all those annoying blackberry seeds.  It made the de-seeding process so simple!

My kids love to help with the de-seeding process (and the apple-saucing process).  Since the strainer is so easy to use, the kids can help and actually be really helpful!

Making Blackberry Syrup

Unlike making jam, you can double or triple this recipe without any trouble.  I make as much at a time as will fit in the pots I’m using, but I will share the recipe for one batch.

In a large saucepan, mix 4 cups of blackberry juice/pulp with sugar, lemon juice, and salt.

Over medium heat, bring the mixture to a boil while stirring constantly.  Boil for four minutes.

Remove from heat.  Stir in butter and vanilla until completely combined.  These are the secret ingredients for truly amazing blackberry syrup!

At this point you can use it fresh, freeze it or can it.  It will be fine in your fridge for a couple of weeks or in your freezer for much longer.

If you’re freezing it, you can use empty peanut butter jars or salad dressing, syrup bottles, or any other handy freezable container.

Canning Blackberry Syrup

Canning is only slightly more complicated, but if you’re familiar with the canning process, then it’s pretty simple.

I usually use quart jars for our family (we go through lots of this stuff!) and pint jars to give as gifts (that way I can give them to more people!).

You’ll start out by washing your jars in hot soapy water.  Sterilize the jars by turning them upside down in a pan of simmering water.  Put your flat lids in the simmering water as well.  Alternatively you could run the jars through a cycle in the dishwasher.

Ladle your hot syrup into hot jars.

Fill the jars leaving about 1/2 inch of space at the top.  Clean the rim of each jar before putting on the lid. Put on a hot flat lid and screw the ring on tight.

Process

Pints (or smaller)

In a water bath canner or steam canner, process hot syrup in pint jars or smaller according to the table below which takes into account your elevation.

Quarts

I mentioned earlier that I can syrup (and jam) in quart jars.  Nowadays, they never give a processing time for quarts of jam, but you can find times in older books.  My mother-in-law has always done jam in quart jars without a problem, so that’s what I’ve always done and I am perfectly fine with it.   I process quarts for about 5 minutes longer than I do pints.

To put it into perspective, when our grandmas canned jam, they didn’t even process it.  At all.  Just having the hot jam in the jar will make the lid seal, so that was that.  My grandma still just turns the jam jars upside down to make them seal. The USDA says that it is effective, there is just more room for error if the jam cools down too much before you get the lid screwed on, so to be safe you should process the jars.  For jam, the only real risk is mold, which is easy to detect and not nearly as scary as the potential for botulism if tomatoes or green beans are not processed properly.

If processing quarts makes you nervous, just do pints.

I prefer using a steam canner which takes less water and is not so bulky.  In a steam canner, you start timing once the steam coming out the hole is at least  the length of a quart jar.  You can turn the heat down (so it doesn’t steam like crazy) as long as you still have a steady stream of steam.  When the time is up, turn the stove off.  Remove the lid by lifting it away from you so you don’t get a face full of steam.

In a water bath canner, water should cover jars by at least an inch.  Start timing when the water reaches a vigorous boil.  You can turn heat down slightly as long as at least a steady, gentle boil continues throughout the processing time.  Keep the canner covered the entire time.

Cool Jars, Remove Rings, Wash Jars

Using the jar lifter from your canning tools (or just a hot pad if you’re using a steam canner), move your jars to the counter.  I usually set them on a towel and let them cool overnight in a non-drafty area.

About 24 hours later, remove the rings, wash the jars and check the seal.  Pull up lightly on the flat lid with your finger to test the seal.  If it pulls off easily, the jar did not seal right.  Don’t fret because you can put the unsealed jar in the fridge to use first.

All the jars that sealed well can be stored for years in your pantry or any other relatively cool and dark location.  Label them with the year and contents so that you can keep your food storage rotated.

Serving Suggestions

Blackberry syrup is great on breakfasts or desserts.  We love it on:

• Pancakes
• Waffles
• French Toast
• Ice Cream
• Cheesecake
• Yogurt

You seriously can’t go wrong!  It also makes a lovely gift!

Print the Recipe

4.6 from 10 reviews

Best Blackberry Syrup

 

Print

Prep time

20 mins

Cook time

10 mins

Total time

30 mins

 

This is seriously the best blackberry syrup! It's perfect for pancakes, waffles, ice cream, cheesecake-- you can't go wrong!

Author: Stephanie @ SixFiguresUnder.com

Ingredients

• 4 cups blackberry juice/pulp, de-seeded
• 1½ cup sugar
• 1 Tablespoon bottled lemon juice
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 2 Tablespoons butter
• ½ teaspoon vanilla

Instructions

1. In a large saucepan, mix 4 cups of blackberry juice/pulp with sugar, lemon juice, and salt.
2. Over medium heat, bring the mixture to a boil while stirring constantly. Boil for four minutes.
3. Remove from heat. Stir in butter and vanilla until completely combined.
4. At this point you can use it fresh, freeze it or can it. It will be fine in your fridge for a couple of weeks or in your freezer for much longer.
5. If you're freezing it, you can use old salad dressing bottles or old peanut butter jars.
6. For detailed photo tutorial, de-seeding instructions, and canning instructions go to www.sixfiguresunder.com/best-blackberry-syrup

3.5.3208

You’ll Also Enjoy:

The post Best Blackberry Syrup Recipe (with canning tutorial) appeared first on Six Figures Under.

Do you have zucchini coming out your ears yet?  If you planted summer squash in your garden, chances are good that you have more than you can eat fresh.  Zucchini has a reputation for being ridiculously prolific.  It’s almost magical how quickly they grow.

It’s definitely the season to break out all of your favorite zucchini recipes and share squash with all of your neighbors.

But you don’t have to eat it all fresh.  If you’ve run out of ways to use your summer squash fresh and your freezer is full of it, there is yet another way to store your harvest– dehydrating!

Did you know that you can dehydrate zucchini and yellow squash?

I learned how to dehydrate zucchini and yellow squash from my mother-in-law.  I enjoyed using it throughout the winter.  Here is a step-by-step tutorial to show you how to dehydrate shredded summer squash, but first you might be wondering why you would want to dehydrate zucchini.

What do you do with dehydrated summer squash?

Before you learn how to dehydrate summer squash, you probably want to know what in the world you are going to do with it.  I wondered the same thing when I saw my mother-in-law dehydrating zucchini a few years ago.

It turns out that dehydrated summer squash is an excellent way to thicken soups and stews.  The squash flavor is mild enough that it can be added to just about any soup without changing the flavor.  It’s a great way to add extra nutrients to your meal.

You can even add dehydrated zucchini and yellow squash to homemade tomato sauce made from your own tomato puree.  Just follow this tomato sauce recipe and omit the flour and add a cup or two of dehydrated squash (depending on the thickness you want).

How to Dehydrate Summer Squash

1. Prepare your squash

The general rule for the ideal time to pick your zucchini and yellow squash when the flower on the end dies.

There are inevitably those zucchini that hide camouflaged among the leaves until they are enormous.  You can still use those zucchini, but you’ll want to scrape out the seeds before grating the zucchini.

Store your squash in the fridge until you have collected enough to fill your dehydrator.  Let it warm up to room temperature before grating it.  Wash your summer squash in cool water and cut off the stem and flower ends.

2. Grate your squash

You can grate your zucchini any way you like, but if you value your knuckles and fingertips, you’ll probably want to use a food processor of some sort.  It’s about a thousand times faster than grating your squash by hand, especially considering you’ll be grating a lot of squash.

3. Fill the dehydrator

We use an Excalibur food dehydrator and absolutely love it.  In addition to having lots of space (9 trays = 15 square feet), it’s really nice to have the variable temperature (as opposed to just on/off).  There are several versions, but I highly recommend the one in the link as it has a timer.  When you’re ready to go to bed, but what you’re drying needs another three hours, you’ll be glad that you can set the timer and the dehydrator will turn itself off.

For most fruits or veggies you will want to spread them evenly, being careful not to overlap so that they dry evenly, but we break that rule with shredded squash.

Fill every tray as full as you can, just so that it still fits between the other trays.  As you can see in the picture below, once all the moisture is removed from the squash it really decreases in volume.

Dehydrate at 125 degrees for about 12 hours. The time can vary greatly depending on your dehydrator and how thick you stack your shredded squash.  If you want to be technical, it should have 5% of the moisture remaining, but there’s not a good way to test that.

To test if it’s done, take a piece from the center of the tray and let it cool.  It’s done when it’s between leathery and brittle.

4. Remove dehydrated squash from trays

The flexible trays of the Excalibur make it easy to remove the squash.  Just bend the tray (like you’re going to fold it in half) and peel off the squash.  It will be kind of one whole piece.

5. Fill storage bags with dehydrated squash

Stuff as much dehydrated squash as you can into zip-top storage bags.  We use quart size.  You don’t need to worry about crushing or separating the parts that are stuck together.

6. Freeze bags and store

According to the dehydrating experts, you should stick bags of dehydrated food in the freezer for four days.  After that you can store the bags of dehydrated squash in your pantry or food storage.  As with any preserved food, a cool, dark place is best.

Enjoy by adding dehydrated summer squash to soups and sauces to thicken.  You can also add it to this homemade spaghetti sauce.

How much does it make?

We can fit 18-20 lbs of squash into the Excalibur (9 trays).  The picture below is a half bushel box with just over 18 pounds of squash. After it’s dehydrated, it can all be stuffed into three quart-size freezer bags.

How about you?

• Have you ever thought about dehydrating zucchini or yellow squash?
• What’s you’re favorite way to use summer squash?

This post contains an affiliate link to products that we use and love!  That means that when you shop through these links you’re helping support this site at no extra cost to you.

You’ll Also Enjoy:

The post How to Dehydrate Zucchini and Yellow Squash appeared first on Six Figures Under.

Since buying our home, our Saturdays have been full of house projects.  Before we moved in we started painting.  We put painting on hold to move boxes and then unpack boxes.  Then we got our baby chicks situated and started mowing and weed eating (with 5 acres, that will be a never-ending task).

With everything on our list, I was afraid a garden was just not going to happen this year.  With our rocky soil abounding in gophers, we decided raised beds would be our best bet.  We just don’t have time to build them this year.

I got to thinking about all the great reasons to grow a garden.  For the past dozen years of marriage, we’ve had a garden though, so we’ve got to at least do something!

Nearly three years ago, I shared a my list of 10 great reasons to grow a garden.  I’m sharing it again today to remind myself and encourage you to grow something too!  Then I’ll tell you what we’re going to do this year!

In no particular order, here are….

10 great reasons to grow a garden:

Eat Healthier

My children’s pediatrician reminds us at every visit that vegetables should make up half of what we eat.  That is a lot of veggies!  Thankfully, we drink a lot of them.  We still don’t usually make the “half your plate of vegetables” rule, but we get much closer by having an array of vegetables so convenient.  Kids are more likely to eat veggies when they take part in growing them!

Chemical-Free Food

If you really ate half of each meal in conventionally grown vegetables, you could be  ingesting a dangerous amount of pesticides and other chemicals.  Don’t let that be an excuse to not eat enough veggies!  Instead, let it be a reason to grow your own!

Tastier Fruits and Veggies

You don’t have to be a tomato connoisseur to tell the difference between a tomato from the garden and a tomato from the store.   Fruits and vegetables that you grow yourself have more flavor because they go straight from the garden to your plate.  Produce at the store was picked weeks ago, before it was ripe and full of flavor.

Save Money

Growing your own food does cost money, especially if you live somewhere where you have to water your garden.  Still, when you compare your costs to the cost of buying the quality and quantity of what you can grow at home, you will often come out ahead.  If you’re just starting out, consider focusing on veggies that are the most cost-effective for you.

It’s Work

In our lazy society, this might not seem like an enticing reason, but work is good for us.  Work in the garden yields tangible results that are fulfilling and satisfying.  Hard work is a great way to improve self-esteem.

It’s Relaxing

Wait!  Can it really be work and relaxing?  Yes!  For most people, working in their garden is a different kind of work than their day job.  Working in the garden is a great way to relax, unwind, and have some quiet time after a stress-filled day.

Spend Time Outdoors

Working in your garden forces you to “unplug” and spend time outside.  Sunshine, fresh air and bird song are wonderful medicine for many of the medical and psychological problems we face.  There’s something calming and rejuvenating about sticking your hands in the dirt and feeling the sun on your back.

Exercise

Working in a garden provides low-impact exercise.  Digging, weeding, planting and harvesting require strength, stretching, and repeated movements.  Working in the garden will keep you limber and flexible, all while accomplishing a task.

Teach Your Children

Children learn so much from taking part in growing a garden.  They’ll feel the satisfaction that comes from hard work.  They’ll learn to be diligent and responsible.  They will witness the miracle of one tiny seed turning into a plant that provides an entire family with food (which still amazes me!).

Increase Self-Sufficiency

From natural disaster to political upheaval to job-loss, there are plenty of reasons we should be prepared and increasing our self-sufficiency.  Having your own source of good food is a crucial part of self-sufficiency.  Between your fresh harvest and what you can, freeze, and dehydrate, a garden will help you provide for your family even when facing the unexpected.

What we’re doing this year

I started by enlisting the kiddos to help me weed part of the back patio.  A previous owner had landscaped the area, but it was pretty overgrown and needed some love.

I planted strawberries from my mother-in-law there.  Some of them area already flowering!  I left some room for the strawberries to send out runners in the future, but for the time being I planted spinach in between the strawberry plants to make good use of the space.

We also cleared a spot for lettuce and green onions.  We started some squash and tomatoes seeds, too, although I haven’t decided exactly where they will go.  Maybe I’ll put them in containers or maybe we’ll give the rock soil a try!  I’ll keep you updated.

You can do this!

Don’t be intimidated by the thought of starting a dream garden this year.

It’s not too late to start growing something this year!  If you don’t have time to get an entire garden spot ready, you can at least grow something.

Start with a tomato plant in a pot or some lettuce on your patio.  Surely there’s something you can plant.  With just a couple containers on your porch, you can start a garden.

If you’re new to gardening, start simple!  Your success this year will motivate you to expand in the future.

How about you?

• Are you growing something this year?
• What are your top reasons for growing a garden?

The post 10 Great Reasons To Grow a Garden (or at least grow something!) appeared first on Six Figures Under.

If you want to take advantage of seasonal turkey prices or you have a lot of thanksgiving leftovers, you’ll be glad to know that turkey can be canned!  Bottling turkey meat is a great way to preserve meat for your food storage because it doesn’t require a freezer.

There isn’t a more seasonal food item than turkey.  Whole turkeys are virtually ignored January through October, but come Thanksgiving and Christmas, the supply and demand of turkey goes through the roof

Turkey can be tricky to stock up on since it either requires a deep freezer or a willingness to go through the effort of bottling up your cooked turkey.  Since freezing turkey doesn’t require any special steps (just space) and I already showed you how to cook it and use it all, this time I’m going to focus on canning your turkey.

Canning fruits and veggies, jams and sauces, is pretty normal, but canning meat gets people a little frightened.  If you take reasonable precautions and follow guidelines carefully, you can bottle meat safely at home.  I know, I was scared too!  I’m just a little squeamish around meat in general though.

My mother-in-law is not squeamish, so she’s going to show us how it’s done.  While I get my wisdom from her, she gets hers from her food preserving bible, Stocking Up: How to Preserve the Foods You Grow, Naturally.  She has a copy of the vintage edition, which is well-loved.  You can get used copies of the vintage edition for pennies, plus shipping– a worthwhile addition if you’re going to really get into canning.

Oh, and before I get started, I should let you know that this tutorial applies to chicken as well!

Equipment

Pressure Canner— No exceptions here.  A water bath canner will not work!  You must have a pressure canner with a working gauge.  You should have your gauge tested each year.  Your county probably has an extension center that will test it for  you.

Canning Jars— You can use pint or quart jars.  Pint jars hold about 2.75 to 3 pounds of de-boned turkey or chicken and quart jars hold about 5.5 to 6.25 pounds.  If you are reusing mason jars, check to be sure there are no cracks and that the rim of each jar is free from chips in the glass, which could prevent proper sealing.

Flat lids and Rings— Rings can be used over and over again (jars are stored without the rings on them).  Flat lids must be new and unused.  If you buy new jars, they will come with flat lids and rings, so there’s no need to buy them separately.

Canning utensils—  A set of canning utensils is very convenient to have.  Most sets include a jar lifter (to lift jars out of super hot water, a magnetic lid lifter, a tightening wrench, and a funnel.

Instructions

When you’re canning anything, it’s important to make sure your equipment is fully cleaned and sanitized.  When you’re canning meat in particular, you want to be even more conscious about making sure everything (knives, cutting board, jars, etc) are washed and sterilized.

While it is possible to raw pack meat, I’m going to focus on the hot pack method.  That means that the turkey will be fully cooked and still hot when we put it into bottles.

You’ll start by fully cooking your turkey or chicken.  You can find full instructions on that here.  You’ll also want to use the bones to make broth (you’ll find the instructions in that same post).

You can leave your bones in if you like, but for the sake of space and the ease of future use, I recommend taking the meat off the bones.  Cut your meat into jar-sized pieces.  Pack hot meat into hot jars.  Do not pack too tightly.

Ladle boiling broth (or water) into the jars.  Leave 1- inch of empty headspace in each jar– this is important!

Double check that the jar rim is still clean. (The pic below is before putting broth in.)

Boil your flat lids in a sauce pan on the stove to sterilize them and help soften the rubber gasket.

Screw on your rings tightly.

Be sure you have the rack in the bottom of your canner.  This holds the jars off the bottom of the pan, which is important in preventing breakage.

Tip: To reduce the chance of breakage even more, put a couple of canning rings under your rack to hold it just a little higher from the bottom of the canner.

Fill the bottom of your pressure canner with about 3 inches of hot water.  It doesn’t need to be boiling, but it shouldn’t be cold.  Jars break when they change temperature too quickly, so the temperature of the water shouldn’t be a shock to your jars that are filled with broth that was recently boiling.

Fasten the lid on the canner and slowly bring it up to pressure.  This will take some time.  The amount of pressure necessary is 10 pounds, plus an additional 1 pound for every 2,000 feet above sea level.  For us, that means 11 pounds.

When the canner reaches pressure, you can begin timing.  Don’t go too far away, because you will need to monitor the pressure gauge.  Adjust the heat as necessary to maintain the correct pressure.  You don’t want it to drop below the right pressure, but you also don’t want it rising too high.  Fluctuating pressure is another cause of breakage.

Process Pints for 75 minutes

Process Quarts for 90 Minutes

When the time has elapsed, immediately remove the canner from the heat, but don’t try to open it or mess with anything.  Let the pressure release on its own.  Wait a few minutes after the gauge reads zero before opening the canner.  This will take 30 minutes or so.  After the pressure has released, slowly open the valve or remove the weighted gauge.  Remove the lid, cautiously and always open it away from you or you may get a face full of hot steam.

Using the jar lifter, transfer the jars to a towel on your counter.  Let them cool.

After jars have cooled completely, check the seal on each jar.  The center of the lid should be down.  You shouldn’t be able to press it in.  Remove rings and wash jars.  Dry them, then label and date the jars.

If some of the jars have lost liquid, that is okay.  The meat might darken, but it won’t cause spoilage.

Using Canned Meat

Store canned meat (and other canned items) in a cool, dry, dark place, like on shelves in your basement, or even under your bed.

When you are ready to use your canned meat, check to make sure the jar is still sealed.  To be cautious, boil your home-canned meat for 20 minutes.  This is a great way to test for spoilage because the heat will intensify the odor if the meat is spoiled. If you are adding the meat to a soup or stew, that will easily take care of this step for you.

Signs of spoilage include bulging lids, gas bubbles, spurting liquid when you open it, a bad odor, or discoloration.  If you suspect spoilage of meat, don’t test it by tasting it!

Home-canned meat is great in soups, stews, casseroles, or any way that you would normally use meat.  It’s versatile and makes a great addition to your home storage without requiring the electricity you would need for a freezer!

Note: This post contains affiliate links to products that I recommend on Amazon.  For more information, see my disclosure page.

You’ll Also Enjoy:

The post Canning Turkey or Chicken– Complete Photo Tutorial appeared first on Six Figures Under.

Sales on turkeys abound every November.  Stores use turkey as their loss leader to get people into their store to buy all their other Thanksgiving fixin’s.  As someone who likes to stock up, you won’t be surprised that we stock up on turkey too!  We don’t go crazy, but we buy several turkeys when they are at rock bottom prices.

Depending on how much freezer space we have available (and how ambitious we’re feeling) we either cook our turkeys right away and freeze the cooked meat and broth, or we’ll just stick the turkey straight into the freezer and cook it several months down the road.  I love having pre-cooked meat in the freezer and often use turkey in place of chicken in recipes.

This works out really well for us, except for that one time (but we don’t need to talk about that now).

Is the savings of cooking and freezing (or freezing and cooking) turkey worth the effort?  I’ll address the big “Is it worth it?” question along with a cost analysis at the end of the post.

First, I’ll show you the simple way to cook a turkey.

Simple Way to Cook a Turkey

I took the long trip upstairs to my in-laws’ house to give you the play-by-play of how my mother-in-law cooks her turkeys.  She has quite a bit of personal experience cooking turkeys and she is the queen of practical, so you are about to learn from the best.  I think she is on her fifth one this week (she bottles the meat– I’ll show you how to do that, too).

When you’re cooking a turkey for Thanksgiving dinner, you might season it in a certain way or fill it with stuffing.  When you’re cooking a turkey to freeze or can the meat for future meals, it’s a little simpler.

When we shop for turkeys we go for the biggest ones.  It takes as much effort to cook a small turkey as a big turkey, so you may as well go big and have more leftovers!  Plus, bigger turkeys have a better meat-to-bone ratio.  This bird here is just under 24 lbs.

Make sure the turkey is thoroughly thawed in the refrigerator (or another safe method).  Pull off any excess fat (like that big chunk in the foreground).  Remove the neck, giblets, gravy packets, and any other treasures (and by that I mean “ewww”) from the cavity.  Wash the turkey inside and out.  Pat dry.

Put a couple tablespoons of flour and a bit of onion into an oven bag and shake it around.  If you haven’t used oven bags before, you’re going to thank me.  They are wonderful.  Not only do they make clean-up a breeze, but the turkey will cook faster, be more moist, and require no basting.

Sprinkle seasoned salt generously over the turkey, inside and out.

Close the turkey up using the plastic leg-closing contraption that is included.

Admire your bird.  I’m going to take this opportunity to admit that raw meat grosses me out, so I always make my husband do this part.  Always.  If he isn’t around, then I recruit my mother-in-law.  I am a certified wimp in the raw meat department.

Put the bird in the bag with the breast down.  I know this is contrary to what every other recipe and tutorial will tell you, but just do it.  The white breast meat is typically the drier meat, so putting the breast down helps keep it moist without having to baste it.

You might want to have a helper hold the bag open.  When I’m not holding the camera, I am the big helper who holds the bag open.  As long as the turkey doesn’t actually touch me, that’s a job I can manage.

Cut five or six small slits in the bag.

Because my mother-in-law has been cooking turkeys all week, she’s been letting them cook through the night.  With the temperature set at 250 degrees (that’s a two, not a three), this 24 pound turkey was done in about 10 hours.  For the last hour or so, you can turn the temperature up to 325 degrees.

Of course, you could cook your turkey in much less time if you want.  Refer to your package for the cooking time for the weight of your particular turkey.

Doesn’t that look like an easy clean-up job!?  Also, the meat is falling right off the bone, which makes the deboning process much easier.

All the turkey juices can easily be poured into a container.  As it cools, the fat will rise to the top and solidify.  When it does, scrape it off and toss it.  The remaining gel is concentrated turkey broth.  Freeze it for use in soups, stews and anywhere else you use broth.

Pull the meat off the bones.  Actually, if you cooked it long enough, it will probably fall right off the bones.  You can freeze it and use it in recipes just like you would use chicken.  You can also bottle it so it doesn’t require any freezing or refrigeration.  I’ll have a tutorial for canning turkey up next week.

Save the bones and skin from the turkey carcass.  Stick them in a pressure cooker and smash them down as much as you can.  Fill with just enough water to cover the bones.  Let them pressure cook for about an hour and a half.  Alternatively you can use a slow cooker, it just takes longer.

All the goodness is transferred from the bones to the water to create broth.

Pour off the broth and stick it in the fridge.  As it cools, the fat will rise to the top and form a thick layer on top.  Scrape it off and the gel remaining is your turkey broth.  It will be good in the fridge for a week or so, or keep much longer in the freezer.  The bones will be brittle and ready to toss.

To freeze your broth easily without a container, just wrap chunks of the broth gel up in plastic wrap.  Be sure to seal the edges.   Be sure the gel is cool.  When you heat it the gel will liquefy.

Wrap the broth in twice in plastic wrap, turning the packet 90 degrees before the second wrapping.  Label and store in a freezer bag until you need it.

Cost Analysis

Weight of whole turkey= 23.9 lb

Cost of turkey= $15.42 (the tag price is double that, but with the promo it was half off)

Yield:

• Meat ~8.75 lb
• Broth (concentrated) ~10 cups
• bones, skin, gristle ~5.5 lbs
• Broth (from pressure cooking bones) ~8 cups
• fat and grease ~1.75 lb
• giblets ~1 lb
• gravy packet ~.5 lb

If you want to assess the cost just of the meat, we paid $15.42 for 8.75 lb of meat which is $1.76 per pound.  As a comparison, that’s a little less than what I usually pay for frozen boneless, skinless chicken breasts.

If you plan to use the broth, then you’ll want to figure in its value.  If you normally buy broth in cans, then 144 oz of broth (18 cups free from the turkey) would have cost $9 (using the sale price of $2 for 32 oz, which is what it is here).

You can divide the cost however you like between the useful turkey products.  I look at it as paying $1.76/lb for the meat and getting $9 of broth free.

Is it Worth It?

If you are new to cooking from scratch, you might be wondering if it is worth going through all that work to save money on the price of turkey.

That depends.

If you aren’t interested in saving and using the broth, then you might be better off buying something boneless rather than messing with the whole turkey (for anything besides the obligatory Thanksgiving turkey, of course).

If you normally buy cans or boxes of broth, then getting over a gallon of broth for free is a pretty nice perk.  Plus, this broth is much more flavorful than what you get out of a can.

It’s no secret that cooking and deboning a turkey is more work than buying a frozen turkey breast and some cans of broth.  If you’re willing to do the work though, you will save money and you’ll probably end up with a more delicious final product.

How about you?

• Do you save the turkey broth from your Thanksgiving turkey?
• Do you use the bones to make more broth?
• Do you “stock up” when turkey is in season and on sale?

You’ll Also Enjoy:

The post Easy Way to Cook a Turkey for Meat and Broth– plus cost analysis! appeared first on Six Figures Under.

Last year at this time I shared my gratitude for our bounteous harvest.  I made a pretty thorough list of what we planted, how it fared, and what we did with it.  Looking back, I’m quite impressed.

In other posts throughout the year, I shared 10 reasons to grow a garden and our our favorite cost effective vegetables to grow.  Canning, freezing, dehydrating, and eating fresh produce from our garden is one of the ways we keep a low grocery budget.

If last year’s garden is summed up with the word “gratitude,” this year’s garden can be summed up with the word “guilt.”

I’ve been dreading this post because I was feeling like a failure.  Like a fraud.  That might sound like a ridiculous worry.  We tell you the details of our finances, so why am I fretting about telling you about the sad state of our garden?  Well, for the sake of keeping it real at Six Figures Under, here’s our 2014 report.

We had good intentions when we planted in the spring.  I bought seeds, including a few varieties we had never tried before.  Seeing the amazing transformation of a tiny seed to a thriving plant is motivating and inspiring.  We planned on making great use of our soon-to-be productive garden.

As the summer wore on, we got busy (and lazy when it came to working out in the sweltering heat).  The only time Mr. SixFiguresUnder is around to help in the garden is on Saturday and sometimes Saturdays fill up quickly.

I was generally faithful about watering, so the garden still grew, weeds and all.  Where we have been huge slackers lately is harvesting.  That’s supposed to be the “fun” part where you reap what you sow, right?  Instead, the fruits of our labors are rotting on the vine!

I have been sick for the past few months, so just keeping everyone fed and in clean clothes has been a major chore.  I am ashamed at how much food is going to waste in our garden. (We were a little over-zealous in planting tomatoes.)  We know that when we bring food in, we have to do something with it, so we don’t harvest until we’re ready to undertake that task.

Even though I feel guilty for not using it all, I am still grateful for what we have been able to use.

• We have eaten or frozen all of our cantaloupe and watermelon.
• We have harvested over a year’s-worth of garlic.
• We used our first planting of carrots in soups (the second planting is going to seed in the ground).
• We canned 40 quarts of tomato puree, used fresh tomato puree, and ate fresh tomatoes.
• We harvested, diced and froze around 30 large onions.
• We froze some green beans and foot-long beans (though most were wasted on the vine).
• We made cheesy squash a number of times and added zucchini and yellow squash to lots of other dishes.
• The gophers decided to share our potato harvest, but everything they didn’t eat, we did.  I love home-grown potatoes!
• Mr. SixFiguresUnder loves Armenian cucumbers, so he enjoyed lots of them in his lunches until the tomato jungle made them somewhat inaccessible.
• We froze lots of blackberries and raspberries.  I’ve made several razzleberry pies and canned about 7 quarts of razzleberry jam.
• We are just starting to harvest our sweet potatoes.  This was our first year giving them a try, but it looks like a healthy crop.  Sweet potatoes keep well and are very versatile.
• Our pumpkins were rather puny this year.  Some of the vines were scorched during a hot spell when I wasn’t diligent at watering.
• My in-laws have several fruit trees that were productive this year.  We helped thin apples in the summer and the kids have helped pick the fruit.  We’ve had apples, peaches, plums and cherries that they’ve generously shared.

Okay… I’m feeling more gratitude than guilt now.

When I sat down to write about the garden, my mental focus was on the tomatoes and green beans that were rotting on the vine and all the wasted chard and carrots, but after doing a full analysis, I see that the garden has given us (and we’ve been able to use) more than I realized.

I guess that’s why we should regularly count our blessings.  It’s so easy to get bogged down with our failures and focus on guilt.  Taking an inventory of our successes and our blessings can really lighten our burdens and lift our spirits.

How about you?

• How did your garden do this year? Successes?  Failures?  Experiments?
• Have you felt your gratitude increase by “counting” your blessings? (If not you should try it!)

Linked to One Project at a Time, Thrifty Thursday

The post 2014 Garden Report– The Year of Guilt and Gratitude appeared first on Six Figures Under.