Canning day with my Momma!!

     So I had the most amazing day with my mom last weekend. We decided to have a "canning" day!! We made a few jams, jellies and 1 can of pickled beets. (We thought the garden had more beets than it actually did.) Since I've never had beets, let alone pickled beets I was excited to make that one can so I could try them. I've been canning pickles at home with my Nana's recipe. I can't wait to can with Nana. I want to can some salsa and other tomato stuff with her. So I'm looking forward to tons more canning with my mom and Nana this summer. Let me show you some of the stuff we canned over last weekend. 

   We used the water bath method for all of these recipes so I'm not going to go into all that jazz about sterilizing the jars etc. I will share cooking times though of course!!!

  We ended up making blackberry jam, cranberry sauce, one jar of pickled beets,  jalapeño jelly, watermelon jelly and our own concoction that we named Triple Berry Threat Jam. 

  My mom had found a recipe for the watermelon jelly and we just had to try it!

      Process up some watermelon until you have 3 cups of liquid. Add the liquid to the pan with 2 cups of sugar and 1/4 cups lemon juice. Let this simmer for about 10 mins but make sure you don't simmer it where is reduces a bunch. 

   After you simmer it add about 3.5 tablespoons of powdered pectin. Let simmer about 5 more minutes. Now just add to your jars with about 1/4 to 1/2 inch of headspace. 

   Water bath for about 10 mins then let cool. Ours sealed within about 10-15 minutes. (The jars sealing is probably one of the best sounds ever!!!!) :-) 

  Yes it's that easy!! This recipe made us four 1/2 pint jars. So here's my review on this: it's different. It definitely tastes like watermelon which is delicious! I'm just not use to that taste in a jelly. If you love (or even like) watermelon you should give this a try. Especially when your craving it mid winter it will be a nice little treat!! :)

  Alright let's move onto the jalapeño jelly. 

If you've never tried it because your scared it won't taste good then you have to at least give it a shot! Especially when you spread a little cream cheese on a cracker and top it with a little of the jelly. YUM! Try that with summer sausage too! (We have deer sausage around our house and that's just as yummy!) 

   We started off with about 18 jalapeños. They were all different sizes. Take out all the seeds and ribs. We ended up leaving about 3 of them whole. Next time I will leave about half of them whole because we love spicy and the jelly wasn't quite spicy enough for our taste. Now process them all up with a cup of apple cider vinegar. After they are all processed up into nice and tiny pieces them add them to your pan. Add another cup of apple cider vinegar, 4 cups of sugar, a little pat of butter and 2-3 drops of green food coloring. Bring to a boil for about 10 minutes. The butter is only added to keep the foam down. 

 

   After you have boiled for about 10 minutes you can add 2 packages of liquid pectin. Boil for another 5 minutes. 

Add to your jars and water bath for 10 minutes more. 

And done!!! See how easy canning is?? 

The jalapeño jelly was delicious!!! I could have used it a little more spicy but it still turned out wonderful!! 

I'm going to make a separate post for the Triple Berry Threat Jam because I would like to get into that a little more further. So stay tuned for that post sometime tonight or tomorrow. 

Watermelon Jelly:

3 cups puréed watermelon

2 cups sugar

3.5 tablespoons powdered pectin

1/4 cup lemon juice

Jalapeño Jelly:

15-18 jalapeños

2 cups apple cider vinegar

4 cups sugar

2 packages liquid pectin

2-3 drops green food coloring (optional)

A pat of butter (optional) 

Quick and Easy Glazed Salmon!

               So I threw together this quick and easy dinner tonight and we really liked it. Especially for it being so easy and budget friendly. So I'll jump right in. 

Maple Glazed Salmon!!

       Start out by preheating your oven to 450. Using a shallow pan spray it down with some non-stick spray and place salmon skin side down. (unless you don't have salmon with skin of course!) 

        Now mix together about 4 tablespoons of maple syrup ( I used 100% ), 2 tablespoons soy sauce, a pinch of cayenne and about 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder. (Make sure it's not garlic salt or else it will be to salty. The soy sauce will be enough.) 

        Now use about half of the sauce to brush on the filets. Bake at 450 for about 5 mins. Take out and brush on the rest of the sauce and broil on low until finished cooking. (Mine took about 6 minutes.) 

Cooking time will vary depending on the size of your filets. Just a heads up- Line your pan with some foil. I forgot to do this and the extra sauce on the pan burned and it was a pain to clean off!! 

With this dish I cooked up some yellow squash and zucchini fresh out of my garden. I sautéed them with a little pat of butter and a pinch of sea salt on a lower heat. I like them to be a tiny bit browned. 

         With that I mashed up some red potatoes with a little butter, cream, salt and pepper. 

           And your DONE!!! That's it. It's that easy!!!! I know it's a short and easy recipe but I had to share for that alone. I hope you guys enjoy!!! 

        Want to know what I was sipping on while I posted this blog???? 

Ever heard of a passion tea lemonade from Starbucks? Well I decided to make my own at home to save a little money. With a little help from Starbucks of course! 

I bought Starbucks passion iced tea bags and Minute Maid lemonade (15 calories!!).

You don't even need to sweeten it because the lemonade does that for you. Yum!!!

For the Salmon:

4 salmon filets

4 tablespoons 100% maple syrup

2 tablespoons soy sauce

A pinch of cayenne pepper (optional)

1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

For Veggies:

Squash and zucchini 

Teaspoon butter 

Sea salt

For the potatoes: 

Red potatoes

Sea salt and pepper

Cream (I used half and half) 

A couple tablespoons butter

 

Ham and Cheese Stuffed Chicken Breasts with Gravy and Mashed Potatoes!!!

               So in this post I started playing around with my lighting and used two different cameras to try and make the pictures look better for you guys. I am by no means a photographer and I'm still messing around with everything. Trial and error I suppose. So bare with me until I figure out how to make everything look great for you guys. Suggestions are also welcome. :-)

              Alright so I almost made a pasta dish and was looking back on my posts and realized most of them are pasta. Oops! So I decided to make a dish my Nana introduced to me. Now she has probably sent me the recipe to it countless times and I always forget to save it so I "wing" it 90% of the time. 

Good thing I'm not afraid of straying from original recipes. Plus straying helps you become more creative and thats how you come up with your own recipes. Anyway I can't quite call this one my own because I'm pretty sure it's very close to the original. I'm going to jump right in and will post the shopping list at the end of the post. Happy Cooking!!! 

So you are going to start out with as many chicken breasts as your family needs. This is a good recipe to make if you only have to cook for one or if you have six. I used three large chicken breasts for two of us so we could split the third one for lunch the next day. 

You want a larger chicken breast because you are going to butterfly them open. 

Place your hand on top of the breast to hold it still and slowly run your knife toward you. (well that doesn't sound very safe does it?) I just find this method easy for me. Try it any way you would like. Just don't saw through the chicken. Use single strokes then open the chicken up and make sure your cut is going where you want it to. In one of the pictures you will see I had to re-direct my cut. 

Now I'm almost positive the original recipe calls for procuttio but I let my husband decide what he's in the mood for. Usually he picks out procuttio but this time he decided on some thick cut ham. It was very good too!!! So be creative. I've even used Canadian bacon.

Also the recipe calls for mozzarella and most of the time I buy the fresh ball but for a more budget friendly trip to the grocery store I bought mozzarella slices. Still delicious!!!! 

Now place your desired amount of meat, cheese and spinach onto one side of the chicken breast. Sometimes I don't use spinach, sometimes I do it just depends on my mood. Close your chicken breast like a book and season with salt and pepper. I have never used a toothpick to secure the chicken shut because once you start to brown it the chicken will stiffen up.  I pull all of the meats and cheeses out of the packaging before I touch the chicken so I don't have to reach into the bag with raw chicken on my hands. Just make yourself a little assembly line before you start. 

Add some extra virgin olive oil into your pan on medium to medium high heat. This is a good time to preheat your oven to 350 degrees as well.

Now lightly flour the outside of your chicken and brown it on both sides. Your not trying to cook the chicken all the way through in the pan. We will finish cooking it in the oven. While your browning your chicken chop up your potatoes and start them on the stove. 

Now place them in an oven safe pan and cook them all the way through. It will depend on the size of your chicken, mine took about 16 minutes. 

While your chicken is cooking and potatoes are boiling you can make your gravy. In the same pan you cooked your chicken in your are going to make a roux. A roux is a thickening agent. Melt a few pats of butter in the pan over medium heat. Once the butter is melted add a few spoonfuls of flour and whisk together. Let that cook out for about a minute then add 1 1/2 to 2 cups of chicken stock and whisk until combined and thickened up. It can take a minute or two to thicken. Now that it's thickened add a couple splashes of cream and whisk to combine. Don't forget to season with salt and pepper. The gravy is very easy to over season so add your salt carefully. 

When your potatoes are soft drain them and return to the pot. Add a few pats of butter, salt and pepper and cream and mash up. I used a handheld potato masher but an electric one works just fine!!

( I always use red potatoes since we prefer them over russet. And you don't have to peel them because their skin is so thin!) 

Once your chicken is done pull it out of the oven and let it rest. You can probably have them resting while you mash your potatoes up. 

Right before I was about to serve I melted some shredded mozzarella into the sauce. (I decided to do this last minute.)

Now plate up and spoon gravy onto potatoes and chicken. I also steamed some sugar snap peas to serve with it with just a little pinch of sea salt. :-)

                                                               Shopping List:

For the stuffed chicken:

One chicken breast per person (medium to large)

Procuttio or ham

Mozzarella

Spinach

Flour for dredging

Salt and pepper

Extra virgin olive oil

For the gravy:

A few pats of butter

A few spoonfuls of flour

1 1/2 to 2 cups chicken stock

A couple large dashes of cream (preferably heavy whipping cream but half and half works good as well)

Salt and pepper

Shredded mozzarella for melting in at the end (optional)

For the potatoes: 

Potatoes

A few large pats of butter

Cream

Salt and pepper

I don't have an exact measurement for everything because it all depends on how many people you are feeding. I was feeding two but cooked enough for three. With this recipe it's very easy to convert everything to your needs. In my recipe I made enough gravy for four servings since we love gravy!! :-)

I hope you guys enjoy!!!!!!! 

Thanks for stopping by!