Last Week in Photos and Alliteration

A Week of Canning, Compost, Coffee Grounds, Containers, & Community.


CANNING IN SMALL BATCHES


I do not have either of the small batch canning and preserving books but I do work with small quantities occasionally. The biggest pot on the right above is my waterbath canner, which I picked up at the hardware store (by bike). The other two enamelware pots came from thrift stores, along with the little rack in front of them.

At some point, I realized there was no difference between the waterbath canner and the other pots except size. Quoting from the National Center for Home Food Preservation: "The canner must be deep enough so that at least 1 inch of briskly boiling water will be over the tops of jars during processing." This meant there was really no reason that I always had to use the huge pot for my canning.


When I place the rack upside down inside the medium-sized pot, I can fit four 8 oz jars in it with plenty of room for a couple of inches of boiling water over the top of the jars. This is handy when a canning recipe makes more than what the large waterbath canner can hold (7 jars). This past week, I had a few Asian pears that I turned into pear butter (recipe in the latest edition of the Ball Food Preservation book). It did not make sense to use the energy to heat the huge waterbath canner for just one 8 oz jar and one 4 oz jar, so I used the medium pot to process them instead. The rack also fits inside the small pot and will hold four 4 oz jars.


COMPOST

After turning my compost this past week, I noticed I needed more browns for it. There is still a large bag of goat manure left from the last trip to the goat ranch and I have the chunky bits left from sifting the finished compost. I dropped by the local feed store and asked whether they gave away or sold their broken hay bales. Turns out they save their empty feed bags and let people fill them with hay for a pittance. I took the offered bag and snow shovel, and filled the bag to the brim.

This is great as a cover material in the compost pile. Each time I toss in kitchen scraps, I add hay, the chunky leftover compost from the other pile, or goat manure. Since the hay is alfalfa, it is also another good source of nitrogen in the pile. The only downside is my nose itches after I handle it.


COFFEE GROUNDS

When I passed a Starbucks while doing errands last week, I dropped in to see if they had any "Ground for your Garden" bagged up. They didn't, but were willing to bag up a bunch of grounds for me while I waited. At another stop, I snagged a couple of prepared bags. I had planned to add these to the compost but my sweetie was excited when he saw them. Turns out coffee grounds are great for worms and he's got plans to start a little worm bin this coming week.

Actually, he planned to start it last week but the local tackle shop didn't have any worms ready. Due to the summer heat, they have to let them rest for a bit. The owner was pretty sure they would be available this week, however, so I'll be picking up a bucket o' worms for my sweetie pie.


CONTAINERS

I want to share some of my homemade vinegar with friends. A few trips to thrift stores yielded lovely little oil and vinegar containers, perfect to give as gifts. Most were missing their original stoppers but the local brewing store sells corks in a variety of sizes. I took in a container to make sure I got the right size and bought plenty. He was a little surprised that vinegar could be made so easily without having to start with a "mother". Frankly, I've also been surprised how easy it is to make....which is how I ended up with so much!


I also found some nice bottles at the thrift stores that will work to store homemade liqueurs. The gaskets are usually missing or rotted, but the brewing store again saved the day. They sell the gasket that fits all sizes of this style of bottle. As you can see, some of the bottles can be quite pretty. Cleaning can sometimes be a challenge, but I've found that hot water and Oxyclean will remove most stains that are hard to get to inside the big bottles.


COMMUNITY

We used our Xtracycles to haul quite a bit of stuff to the Really, Really Free Market on Saturday. I decided to donate my old VHS movies rather than hold on to them for a yard sale and we ended up with almost two cases of bananas instead of just one. As you can see in this photo, other folks brought quite a few things as well.


There was a wide variety of goods at the market. There was a table of kids' toys and several sheets on the ground covered with clothing. People came and went, although the turn-out was lower than I expected. There wasn't too much left at the end, and, on my advice, the organizers donated the leftovers to Goodwill. (My experience from yard sales has shown that saving the "good stuff" for the next sale is never worth the hassle.)


Like many of the others that dropped items off, we came home with a few things.


Unfortunately, it also included about 3/4 case of bananas. I begged and pleaded with folks to take as many bananas as they wanted and could fit in their freezers for banana bread. There were still many left over. By the time they'd sat out in the heat for three hours and ridden four miles bouncing around on the bike trailer, they weren't in very good shape. Still, I sorted through them and pulled out three bunches to foist off on another friend for bread, and froze 5 bags for smoothies and banana bread. The rest were chopped up and added to the compost bin.

Once we have our own place, we plan to buy an energy-efficient chest freezer. If I had that now, I would have filled it with overripe bananas. I hate to see food waste! In the big picture, though, my waste was minuscule compared to the regular waste from the stores. Multiply the two cases of bananas I saved by hundreds of convenience stores that want to offer fresh bananas but throw the excess out twice a week when their new ones come in. The waste of food and resources is phenomenal. Unfortunately, this is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to food waste in the U.S. (For more on food waste, see Jonathan's blog.)


All in all, it was a busy and productive week. I hoped you've enjoyed this update and perhaps been inspired to try a few new things or check out some resources in your own community.