Canning with Aunt D - Day One

     I arrived in Flint, Michigan on the evening of Wednesday August 28th. I went to bed early after talking for a while with my Aunt D and Uncle John. We had a lot of work ahead of us the next day. We were on a mission to can some vegetables and various goods. I woke up Thursday morning and my aunt showed me her garden and some of the changes she has made. This garden has grown, evolved, matured, and changed over the last few years. Every year my aunt has expanded it and changed it. This last year she has done some major renovation that any fellow gardener would admire and appreciate. She has added beds, built a fence to keep the deer out, and is in the process on making part of her garden a greenhouse. This year she says she is experimenting with seed placement and plant relationships since some plants grow better together than others. She also had Uncle John make her a "garden ruler" to help her space her seeds better.

Her sunflowers tower above me.

 

She shows me her squash plants which she has already picked and pruned.  

She also shows me her rain barrel and her composter.

 

This is where she is going to build a green house. 

These are her tomato plants

 Additionally she had peas that grew around a trellis she has on one side of her garden. She also had cucumbers and an assortment of herbs.

As I walk out of the garden I have to take one more picture of the sunflowers which still astonish me.

After we walk through her vegetable and herb garden we head to the Flint Farmers Market. All the vendors here are amazing but I only captured a few photos. There was so much visual stimuli to capture and take in!

After we get some of the items that we need to begin our canning we head back to the house to start the process. One of the first things we can is our peaches. We can the peaches in the pressure canner since they are not acidic. It is better to can non-acidic fruits and vegetables in a pressure canner if you have it available. In addition to canning our peaches we also start preparing our soup mix. As we cleaned the vegetables for the soup blend we are canning, we saved the ends of the vegetables to put together to make a vegetable soup base that we would also be canning.

The canner on the left stove burner is a regular traditional canner and the one on the right is the pressure canner. The pressure canner must be watched at all times and everything you can has a particular pressure that it must reach once the jars are in the canner and they also all have individual cook times that they stay in the canner for once that pressure is reached.

These are the peaches we canned once we were done processing all of them. I think the jars always look so pretty!

 
 Above is a picture of the vegetable ends we collected to make our base. Below is a picture of the soup that we processed. We cooked it down first and then put it into the jars and processed them. The vegetables included onion, garlic, celery, beans, spinach, okra, tomatoes, corn, and carrots.

 Once we collected the vegetable ends we went and picked some calendula flowers from her garden. We also added this to the soup base.

Calendula flowers boost the immune system. They prevent inflammation and infection, including viral infections. They also ease cramping and hot flashes.

 

Once the broth has finished cooking down and boiling for quite some time we process it. Here is what the strained and processed final product looks like. 

In addition to processing our peaches, vegetable soup mix, and vegetable soup base we spent hours cleaning apples that my aunt received free of charge from her neighbors yard. We had several bushels of apples. When we finished for the day, after more than eight hours of work, we still had bushels to go....but that was for the next day.

 

Tasty Asian Soup featuring LEMONGRASS and YUMMINESS!!

Tonight I wanted to make an Asian soup that had the Thai components of Tom Kha soup, with its spicy clear broth and definite hints of  lemongrass, that I have tasted in many different recipes and restaurants. I have also been wanting to try this soup called Pho that I have seen at some new Vietnamese sandwich shops that have started to pop up all around town. The main thing I noticed about Pho is that it comes with an assorted side of condiments. The other day I noticed a gentleman eating this soup and his condiments included bean sprouts, cilantro, and jalapeno slices. I have seen others as well. Tonight I decided to focus on these because, well, it just sounded good to me! I have also seen mint, basil, and green onion.

You take these condiments and place them on top of the soup just before eating them so they are still basically raw.

So, my soup was a combination of these two. I started out by making some chicken broth. I cheated and basically heated some pre-made broth. I added fresh basil, straw mushrooms, and bok choy.

I also took some cheese cloth and used this to tie up my lemongrass once I had bruised the stalks and cut them into approximately one inch pieces.

I used two stalks of lemongrass for about 7-8 cups of soup. I let this boil for a while. During this time I prepared my condiments. I chopped some cilantro, jalapeno, and placed some bean sprouts in a bowl. I would have added green onions as well but I forgot when taking these pictures. Once the soup was at a good boil I placed some skinny vietnamese rice noodles into a pot to boil.

When the soup had sufficient time to boil I removed the cheesecloth with the lemongrass. I love lemongrass and I also loved the intensity of the flavor in the broth and did not want it to change by leaving the bag of lemongrass in there. I have done this before with soups where I added ginger and was disappointed to find out that the ginger eventually overpowered the soup. Now when working with ginger and even lemongrass, though it is more subtle, I remove it from the broth once I like where the intensity is at.

Let's talk about lemongrass while on the subject! Not only is it a lovely essential oil that is used to make citronella and repel bugs but it is also refreshing, anti-bacterial, anti-viral, etc. and generally cleansing. It just has a clean and crisp but pleasant smell. When working with the actual stalks the smell is less intense and more soothing.  

DO NOT use essential lemongrass oil when cooking. In fact, unless you are specifically using COOKING GRADE oils it is important that you NEVER ingest essential oils. They are too intense and will make you sick. 

Lemongrass is a stalk.



When cooking with it you should bruise or pound on the stalk to release the flavor and aroma from the stalk. It doesn't soften very much so you want to remove most of it before consuming the food you are making it with. This is why I wrapped it in the cheesecloth. Rather than fish out the individual pieces, I simply remove the cheesecloth.

I placed the remaining pieces that I did not use (the upper third of the two stalks) into my tea pot and let it steep awhile so I could sip on some soothing tea.

Lemongrass, in addition to being soothing, is also mildly sedating. It fights cancer cells. It detoxifies your kidneys, and lowers cholesterol. It contains a wide array of beneficial vitamins and minerals. Vitamins include C, A, and B including folate which is B9. Minerals include manganese, calcium, magnesium, and phosphorous.

Lemongrass fights digestive issues, infection, and last but not least it helps to improve symptoms of the common cold.

Now back to the soup!

Once the both was done cooking and the rice noodles had softened (a matter of minutes), I placed the noodles in a bowl. I did not combine the noodles with the soup because sometimes rice noodles dissolve and lose their consistency and I did not want to chance this happening in my broth.

I added the broth atop the noodles and then last but not least I poured my condiments on the top.

The result was beautiful to gaze upon, yummy in my mouth, and soothing on my tummy.

The tea was a lovely addition.

P.S. for dessert I ate some fresh figs which were equally as divine.

Quick re-cap on the recipe:

Noodles: rice noodles or whatever you want
Broth: Chicken broth (or whatever you like), a meat of your choice if you like, two chopped stalks of lemongrass tied in cheesecloth, basil, mushrooms, and bok choy.
Let this boil for 30 minutes or so. Add salt to taste and remove the lemongrass once you are happy with the flavor it adds to the soup.
Condiments: You can top this with whatever you like. I personally enjoy jalapeno, cilantro, bean sprouts, and green onion.

Voila!! Bon appetit!

Superfood Smoothie

Watch the latest blog post/video about my new super food smoothie. I learned about this at a nutrition class I took last week.

It combines kale and blueberries with coconut water like the other smoothie recipe I showed you. However, this one has some almond butter, bee pollen, raw cocoa, and split pea protein powder (optional along with chia seeds).

I added some ice and you can add honey or agave nectar to add to the sweetness although I like it just the way it is.

Enjoy!

P.S. If you try it please post your comments, thoughts, and/or suggestions!!

Bee Pollen - Superfood

Bee pollen, sometimes referred to as nature's perfect food, is a combination of flower pollen, nectar and the digestive juices of worker bees. Human consumption of bee pollen has been praised throughout history. The Chinese emperor Shen Nung compiled an extensive medical collection which discusses the merits of beehive products as far back as 2735 B.C. Egyptian papyri refers to Bee Pollen as life giving dust and frequently outlines how to use it as a sacred offering to the gods. There are written accounts of Roman legions who carried dried cakes of Bee Pollen for sustenance. Bee Pollen is even praised in the Bible, the Talmud, the Torah, the Koran, and in the Code of Islam for its beneficial healing and nutritional properties. 

Research studies document the therapeutic efficacy and safety of bee pollen. Clinical tests show that orally ingested bee pollen particles are rapidly and easily absorbed - they pass directly from the stomach into the blood stream. Within two hours after ingestion, bee pollen is found in the blood, in cerebral spinal fluids and in the urine. By providing the human body with all the nutritional elements it needs, and in just the right proportions, honey bee pollen allows the body's own healing and rejuvenation mechanisms to perform their normal functions of building, restoring, maintaining and protecting every cell.

According to a bee expert Royden Brown, bee pollen contains differing quantities of a natural antibiotic which fights E. Coli and Proteus organisms which can cause serious diseases. Salmonella and other strains of colibacillus were found to be effected by the natural antibiotic action in bee pollen as well. This may well explain why the health benefits of bee pollen have long included boosting of the immune system.

Scientists recently found that bee pollen showed a strong anti-estrogenic effect. Furthermore, it caused no estrogenic activity or chromosome damage in cells whatsoever. Research also found that bee pollen showed a significant ability to protect cells from the genotoxic effects of three common anti-cancer drugs - mytomicin C, Bleommycin, and Vincristine. What that means is that these cancer drugs cause damage to our DNA when we take them. Not only do they damage and kill cancer cells, but they also damage our healthy cells. Reducing this damage is very valuable and can potentially lead to a healthier and more vibrant life after cancer treatment. The details of this study can be found in the European Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, 2010 June 9.

With the addition of roughage and water, the human body can survive on honey bee pollen alone. This is because it is the only food which contains over 96 nutrients including all known vitamins from A to K, 28 minerals, 14 fatty acids, and all 8 essential amino acids, several hormone-like compounds and all 22 known essential nutritional elements, which humans require to achieve and maintain optimum vitality. Bee pollen contains 40% protein in a highly bio-available form of free amino acids which get directly assimilated by the body. Best of all, everything that can be derived from bee pollen is broken down as it is going to be, meaning that the body doesn't need to break the nutrients down any further.

Bee pollen can help the body build a resistance to allergies by lowering the body's sensitivity to pollen. This is similar to the way vaccinations prevent disease. By consuming it in small quantities it can help the body gradually build up a resistance.

Enjoy your bee pollen! You can find it in local health food stores.