Pressure Canning Adventures and Frugal Accomplishments

Today, I'm joining in with Brandy's Frugal Accomplishments.  I cooked sweet potatoes, okra & tomato rice loaf with our tomatoes, onions & garlic.  We've had more ice and snow this past week, so I made pots of warm apple juice simmered with a bit of cinnamon stick and cloves to sip on through the day.  I bought more mandarins and started a new batch of cleaning vinegar with the peels.

While canning crowder peas that we had grown, I had my first pressure canner incident.  A mix of metal lids and Tattler lids were used, same as a day earlier.  But, on this day, when I removed a jar with a Tattler lid and put my hand on it to tighten the ring, the lid blew off, spewing peas and hot liquid far and wide.  If you're not familiar with the reusable Tattler lids, you use them a bit differently than the traditional metal lids.  Before canning, you tighten the rings, then back off 1/4 turn.  When you remove them from the canner, you immediately fully tighten the rings.  It's possible I backed the ring off a little too much, but being it was so much looser than the others, I wonder if it didn't rock itself loose in the canning process.  I'm giving serious consideration to only using the Tattler lids with water bath canning from here on out.

I dried rose petals from my valentines bouquet, made suet for the birds, made yogurt and kefir.  I cashed in Swagbucks for two $5 Amazon gift cards, and made my daily goal several days.

I've been lighting the table with candlelight most evenings the past few weeks, for cheer and to add some light.  Shopped at the discount grocery, and got bits of this and that... olives, organic tomato paste, organic honey, organic raisins, unsulphured molasses, catfood.  Found a bag of Nutrish dogfood with only a slight amount missing for about 1/2 price on the discount rack in the grocery store.

rufous sided towhee

Made pizza with homemade crust, our garlic and herbs, and some of the recently canned olives.  Also used some of the olives in a salad.  I finished the last of the mending- another pillowcase & cashmere sweater. I turned a pair of pants with a hole in the knee into shorts.

Made cinnamon apple bread with tired apples in the root cellar, our eggs, and whole wheat flour I ground.  I'm still working on using up what's in the freezer, and made a batch of Split Pea & Barley soup, using split peas and celery that were in the freezer, our carrots, garlic, thyme, homemade broth.  I had not made this soup in a few years, and when I found the recipe, I saw it was in my Mom's writing.  The barley was some I had gotten from her pantry, so her love & energy was in this soup in a couple of ways.  I made crescent rolls to go with it, using the last of the wheat flour I had ground and one egg.  I cooked up one of our winter squashes & made Walnut Raisin "Pumpkin" bread using our eggs and homemade vanilla.

the stained glass looks different with snow behind them

I've been thinking that because of what I share here, you might think I am always very frugal, but that's not the case.  I share those things joining in with the Frugal Accomplishments posts, but I have my share of less than frugal moments too.  I'm thinking of a post soon to tell you of some of my recent not exactly frugal accomplishments.