Weekend RoundUP July 21 and My Ball Blue Book

Last summer my friend Sue convinced me that I shouldn’t go through another canning season without a Victorio Food Strainer. At first I didn’t even understand what she was talking about. I don’t have a technical mind and in no way could even fathom how this works,  let alone design something like this. But my hands, that is another story — they love this Victorio!  I don’t have a food allergy to tomatoes but my hands really break out when I cut them up and process them.  With the Victorio my handling of fruits and vegetables is much less.  Washed fruit or veggies literally go into the hopper and the juice and pulp come out one direction and the skin, seeds and debris comes out into another bowl.  Very fast, very amazing.  I have included a link for the Victorio on Amazon so that you can check out this amazing machine.  Thanks again Sue, as usual – you are right, I needed this 🙂
 
The tomatoes for this batch of salsa were processed in less than an hour with my sous-chef mom and I working side by side.  A five gallon bucket of peaches were cleaned and ran through the Victorio in about 1 1/2 hours with two of us working on them.  Such a time saver!  I am not an expert canner but I absolutely love to do it.  There is a feeling of accomplishment when I walk past my full pantry shelves and think, we did that! I use three sources when I am getting ready to can, (1) Ball Blue Book, a guide to home canning, freezing & dehydration,
(2) Pick Your Own.Org, an excellent website for recipes and information, and
(3) our Aunt Mattie Lou! 🙂   Mattie Lou lives about 5 miles down the road and is always ready to help with advice and occasionally helping hands!  Between she and my mom they have 186 years of wisdom and information!  Aren’t I lucky? 🙂

The newest copy of the Ball Blue Book happens to have a yellow and green cover.  My Ball Blue Book is actually blue, but it is quite old.  I will put a link on my home page so you can look at this book via Amazon.  Because it is out-of-print the cost is much higher than getting a newer copy of the Blue Book, with the yellow and green cover.  I have put a link up for that one as well.  I plan to share some canning and freezing recipes with you over the next month, but for the actual technique I will direct you to the experts at pickyourown.org or the Ball Blue Book — or maybe your aunt, mom, great-aunt, or grandmother 🙂
Several times I have blogged about Baked Oatmeal.  This picture is from July 4th when we had a Red, White and Blue version with strawberries, blueberries and blackberries!  I love this stuff and tend to tell everybody I know about it 🙂 One such person is my friend, Rayleen.  Rayleen cooks for her 92 year-old mother and her husband who has a heart condition. She carefully crafts their meals to meet each one’s dietary needs.  What a trooper she is!  When I told her about baked oatmeal she took the basic recipe and started adding heart-healthy ingredients like flax seed, pecans, and dried apricots.  But the cool thing is once she served the baked oatmeal for breakfast a time or two, she cranked it up a notch by using the remaining oatmeal for topping on a fresh peach cobbler!  I just love this idea.

Rayleen suggests that you use your favorite peach cobbler recipe and instead of making the crumbly topping, just crumble the baked oatmeal and bake as directed!  She even served this cobble to company.   Great idea!  Thank you, Rayleen, for sharing.

It seems I could just go on and on this morning but it really is time to wrap up this week’s blogging.  If you missed any of these recipes this week,  be sure and take a look!
Multigrain Pancakes with Peach Compote
Tuesdays With Dorie: Semolina Bread & my own Italian Herb Bread
A Perfectly Dressed Tomato and Cucumber Salad, perfect for summer barbecues!

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“I have chosen the way of faithfulness; I have set my heart on your laws.” Psalm 119:30 NIV

~Blessings, Catherine