Ducks 4 in '24

[Zeedman]

When I read the title of this thread, all I could think of was:

You've got my vote, for... whatever!!!

 

[ducks4you]

 

[ducks4you]

Cleaned out most of my 7 cu ft porch freezer yesterday. Had to throw away all of the ice cream, bc it was gummy.
Also SOMEHOW 3 bags of frozen corn, vintage 2013, kept getting put back in this freezer.
Didn't want to eat it, so I put it out with coffee grounds in the garden to compost down, OR, end up being eaten by wild animals. I don't like to throw away food to fill a landfill if I don't have to.
Meanwhile, many would say that I should simply eat the other vegetables in the freezer.
Agreed, but I have never pressure canned low acid vegetables before and I wanted some experience.
I hot water bath canned 3 1/2 quarts of cherries, 1 pint of grape juice, then pressure canned 2 quarts of corn (from frozen,) 2 quarts of Brussels Sprouts (from frozen,) and 1 quart of broccoli (from frozen.)
I read that the Brussels Sprouts don't can well, so I have looked up recipes with bacon and maple syrup and I will be making those in the next 2 weeks.
I also heard that broccoli falls to pieces when pressure canned, so I will have that quart with eggs this weekend.
11 pounds pressure, 90 minutes for quarts
Starting frozen I didn't need to blanche.
I already volun-told DD's that they will be moving all of the boxes of premade frozen hamburgers from the big freezer to the porch freezer this evening.
Then, we can decide what meat to bring up from the basement (steak, roast and specialty meat) freezer.
We had decided to make hamburgers for Saturday nights for awhile, but changed the plans after I took an accounting of what beef is left from 2023, where we picked it up in April.
We have 38 steaks, SO, tonight we will eat steak.
Every cut ended up costing us $4/lb
Dunno what the cow will cost me this year, but I am thinking it won't be much more than that.
Eldest DD is FINALLY going shopping to replace their broken microwave and broken dishwasher, which haven't worked for a couple of years now.
She and sister are going to bit the bullet. Dishwashers today notoriously don't last long.
They put the wiring so that it can get attacked by moisture and short out.
They have a friend who secured a working old timey dishwasher with a knob, and hers is reliable.
**sigh**
It's all about time or money and both gadjets will give them extra time.

 

[heirloomgal]

So true re: dishwashers. We got an LG not long ago and for all the cute little indicator music it makes we keep having to manually blow it out with the compresser. Air locks, ugh. Bad design.

 

[Alasgun]

Cleaned out most of my 7 cu ft porch freezer yesterday. Had to throw away all of the ice cream, bc it was gummy.
Also SOMEHOW 3 bags of frozen corn, vintage 2013, kept getting put back in this freezer.
Didn't want to eat it, so I put it out with coffee grounds in the garden to compost down, OR, end up being eaten by wild animals. I don't like to throw away food to fill a landfill if I don't have to.
Meanwhile, many would say that I should simply eat the other vegetables in the freezer.
Agreed, but I have never pressure canned low acid vegetables before and I wanted some experience.
I hot water bath canned 3 1/2 quarts of cherries, 1 pint of grape juice, then pressure canned 2 quarts of corn (from frozen,) 2 quarts of Brussels Sprouts (from frozen,) and 1 quart of broccoli (from frozen.)
I read that the Brussels Sprouts don't can well, so I have looked up recipes with bacon and maple syrup and I will be making those in the next 2 weeks.
I also heard that broccoli falls to pieces when pressure canned, so I will have that quart with eggs this weekend.
11 pounds pressure, 90 minutes for quarts
Starting frozen I didn't need to blanche.
I already volun-told DD's that they will be moving all of the boxes of premade frozen hamburgers from the big freezer to the porch freezer this evening.
Then, we can decide what meat to bring up from the basement (steak, roast and specialty meat) freezer.
We had decided to make hamburgers for Saturday nights for awhile, but changed the plans after I took an accounting of what beef is left from 2023, where we picked it up in April.
We have 38 steaks, SO, tonight we will eat steak.
Every cut ended up costing us $4/lb
Dunno what the cow will cost me this year, but I am thinking it won't be much more than that.
Eldest DD is FINALLY going shopping to replace their broken microwave and broken dishwasher, which haven't worked for a couple of years now.
She and sister are going to bit the bullet. Dishwashers today notoriously don't last long.
They put the wiring so that it can get attacked by moisture and short out.
They have a friend who secured a working old timey dishwasher with a knob, and hers is reliable.
**sigh**
It's all about time or money and both gadjets will give them extra time.

We’ve not seen $4.00 beef for 15 years! This year the Yak was $6.50 per and the Beef was $7.00 per! And, that’s for hanging sides; i do all my own cutting and wrapping!

 

[Hornad]

I was thinking that it might be titled “ducks for more in 2024”

 

[ducks4you]

Yep, averaged $4/lb.
Dunno what "Snowflake" will cost me...yet.
Still, when I am in the grocery store I DO look at the price of beef.
@Alasgun, good, bad or indifferent rural Illinois is corn AND beef country. If it takes 1 acre/horse in a non drought year to feed them, it takes 1/2 acre to feed a cow.
When we had a terrible drought about a decade ago here, I saw a lot of fields of corn that couldn't be harvested made into round bales to feed liivestock during the winter. THIS year I saw 2 fields when they made round bales After they harvested the corn.
Cattle ranchers here don't have to be as careful with dryness of hay for their cattle.
It's a crying shame that the Alaskan Island populated by cattle cannot allow them to be harvested!
Just like a clock that is right 2x/day, Illinois takes care of their deer population Better than the surrounding states.
You have to buy a license, and cut the ear of the buck for the state to analyze to be sure that their are not diseased animals. Hunting here keeps the populations lower and there is less deer death from starvation.
And, of course, hunters can only take bucks, and they have limits.

 

[ducks4you]

@Hornad, I should have asked YOU before I started the thread!

 

[ducks4you]

Yesterday I cooked 1 of 2 whole turkeys still left in our freezers. DD's forgot to bring back my big aluminum turkey roaster, BUT, I have 2 electric turkey roasters in my basement. I brought up the largest. The 15 lb turkey was a little lost in it.
I will ALWAYS make a turkey this way from now on.
My turkeys taste great, but they fall apart. I decided first to cut off the wings and drumsticks and remove them to a plate with large tongs. I took the knife to one of the breasts. When it came off easily, I did the same to the other one. I didn't have to transfer a drippy bird to a platter, so lots less mess.
I had planned to cook down MORE turkey broth and I decided that I didn't want to strip a carcass and I decided that nobody really wants to eat the rest of the bird, except the dog, so I left the rest in the roaster, which I will transfer today to 2 crockpots and probably pressure can tomorrow.
I have pressure canned 11 quarts of turkey broth in the last week bc I had frozen bones and extras to remove from the freezer. There was enough meat to feed Eva 3 meals, the first when it cooled after pouring the crockpot contents through a sieve. That was Saturday.
Yesterday, Eva had the 2nd meal, today she will have the 3rd.
Tomorrow's canning will have just as much "dog meat".

 

[ducks4you]

I also made a mess with frozen cherries. I reserved 1 bag that was frozen and living in the porch freezer, I saved it in a drawer in the fridge. It defrosted and LEAKED!!!
Mess!! I still have to clean that up, but that can wait until the storm is upon us tomorrow.
I brought up a another jar of cherries so that I would have enough juice and proceeded to pit them for a pie.
After struggling with the crummy 6-cherries-at-a-time gizmo, I went looking for the better one in the basement.
I shouldn't have found it bc I had just dropped it on the counter downstairs (where I have a portion of what was at one time part of the upstairs kitchen counter and sink.)
I was just as frustrated with THIS one until I figured out it would work if I pushed through one cherry at a time.
I think the pie ended up with about a dozen pits, but I can live with that.