Thursday's Kitchen Cupboard ... Enchilada Sauce

Here is a before and after picture of my home canned enchilada sauce...

You can find the recipe and directions for the sauce here on the Canning Homemade web site. I did add one of my home grown cayenne peppers for a little heat ... it tastes great! I had a can of "Old El Paso" sauce in the cupboard ... the ingredients include MSG, soy protein, yeast extract and soybean oil ... I'm not going to miss any of those in my home canned version. Thanks for the recipe, Cindy!

I am adding this to Thursday's Kitchen Cupboard. Join Robin to find out what others are cooking up from their garden produce.

 Enjoy!

Thursday's Kitchen Cupboard ... Do Ahead Pulled Pork

I have another recipe for you in my series of freezer/do ahead meals.  Thriftway Market in Olympia had a great sale on pork butt roasts last week; $1.99 a pound!  I bought three of them, put one in the freezer whole and turned the other two into pulled pork.

First I cut the pork roasts in to large chunks (you do want to use a butt/shoulder roast, not a loin roast; loin won't pull into big shreds), seasoned them with some garlic powder and pepper, browned them on all sides in a big heavy skillet and then popped them into a crockpot.

I sliced up an onion and cooked it in the same pan I used for browning the meat until it was softened a bit, added 4 cloves of minced garlic and cooked for another minute or two and then added that to the crockpot along with a couple of bay leaves.  I had some poblano peppers in the freezer that I roasted and seeded last summer so I decided to chop up a couple of them and add them to the pot for a little extra flavor.

I added four cups of water, put the top on the pot and let it cook for about 6 hours on high, until the pork was "fall apart" tender.  I shredded the meat with two forks ...

After the meat cooled I portioned it out into freezer bags and popped them into the freezer ...

Hmmm ... what else is in there?  Chicken adobo, short ribs in balsamic vinegar, chicken cacciatore, arroz con pollo and some of the stuffed shells I made a while back.  I'll be adding recipes for all of the rest of these soon :)

So ... what will I do with the pulled pork?  How about tacos, enchiladas, burritos ... and the ever popular pulled pork sandwich ...

And one more thing ... all those plastic bags ... remember that unless they have had raw or partially cooked meat in them you can wash and reuse ... here's my handy dandy FitzGyver'd plastic bag dryer in action :)

I am adding this to Thursday's Kitchen Cupboard. Join Robin to find out what others are cooking up from their garden produce.

Enjoy!

Thursday's Kitchen Cupboard ... Butternut Squash Soup

 Today is Kitchen Cupboard Day on the Gardener of Eden blog; so make sure you head over to Robin’s blog and check out what is going on in her kitchen as well as other kitchens from around the globe.  This week saw me canning up some of the butternut squash that I've been storing in the Hobbit Hole.  The weather has been nasty and I wanted to have some soup bases ready to go for quick dinners.

I found the instructions for making the soup base on the SB Canning Web Site.  It's pretty much straight forward; peel, cut up and blanch the squash, fill hot jars with the hot squash and some hot chicken stock and can in a pressure canner.  The full instructions can be found here.

To make the soup I cooked a half cup each of chopped celery, onions and carrots in a little butter until they were soft.  I added the jar of squash and stock, freshly ground pepper and some dried thyme (my fresh is still suffering the after effects of last weeks ice storm).  I let that simmer for about 15 minutes and then pureed it with my immersion blender.  I stirred in about a half a cup of half and half , let that warm up for a few minutes and then served the soup garnished with a little freshly ground nutmeg and a big chunk of crusty bread.  Mike took one taste and said "This is a keeper!".  I agree with him; it's great!

I'm going to try the same process for canning up the great big Hubbard squash I still have in storage and then I'm going to try making a mushroom soup base and a base for clam chowder.  I'll keep you posted how those turn out.

Enjoy!

Thursday's Kitchen Cupboard ... January 12, 2012

I'm looking at the date on my last post and I can't believe it!  Has it really been over a month since I posted here?  Where did December go?  It really did seem to pass in a blur of activity with friends and family.  I cooked a lot, laughed a lot and discovered that I can make a bigger mess in my kitchen making soap than I did making strawberry jam!  I'll blog about the soap making adventures soon, but today is Kitchen Cupboard Day on the Gardener of Eden blog; so make sure you head over to Robin’s blog and check out what is going on in her kitchen as well as other kitchens from around the globe.

I have been making a lot of use of the produce I put by last summer.  Last night's pasta ...

... used a jar of my Oven Roasted Tomato Sauce  and some Chanterelle Blobs for the sauce and some Mixed Herb blobs in the meatballs.

I've still been doing more canning.  I made another big stock pot full of chicken broth on Tuesday and put up six pint jars.  The rest is in the process of being turned into pea soup which I will be canning later today.  I really love having my own chicken broth ready to use for soups, stews and gravies.  It is so much tastier than what comes in a can or box and no salt added.  I want to make up a batch of vegetable broth next; does anyone have a good recipe?

Enjoy!