New Pretty...Free!

Free is not always free. That is a golden rule of shopping. Sometimes though, things are actually free sometimes.

I have been looking off and on for a 1950's vintage (or even retro which is a new version of an old style) table and chairs set. I wanted it to have the chrome and ideally be red. I have seen them for sale and have seriously considered getting one, but I was either too late for the really inexpensive ones, or they turned out to be in bad condition.

Imagine my surprise when I was looking at Craigslist for my area in the "free" section on a lark and there, two entries down was a free genuine 1950's table. I called immediately and indeed it had just been posted and still available. It was about 20 minutes away (not highway), so there was the cost of gas, but that is it. I didn't even need a truck.

Even better, it was the color I wanted. My husband and I went right out and picked it up. At first I was a little disappointed because the chairs appeared to have a marble like texture.

This is what they looked like, except even worse. We had done some scrubbing before I thought to take the picture. When they were home, my husband started washing them and discovered immediately that this was all filth from many, many years of use. Still, the chrome is beautiful and there is nothing that a little elbow grease will not fix, so we went to work.

We did spend some money on cleaners. With antiques or vintage things, you have to be careful of how you restore them or they lose significant value. After a week of scrubbing and quite a lot of armor all, they are finished. I am incredibly pleased with the result!

I still have a lot of work to do in the kitchen (including repainting the walls), but this set makes me happy every time I look at it. There are four chairs, but for the sake of a decent picture I left one out.

The value? Well to me it is priceless. This is an almost mint condition vintage piece. Used and dirty they easily go for 400 or more dollars, and the chrome is not always in very good shape. A new retro set costs upwards of 1500 dollars!

So, if you have your heart set on something, go to the places that list freebies in your area. I look at Freecycle or Craigslist for the best finds. Just remember to figure in the cost of fixing or cleaning and how much it will take to get it home. For about 20 dollars I brought home a very desirable piece of furniture that is going to look great when I finally finish the kitchen in the style I like. It will take a while to get the things I need as I look for bargains, but it will be well worth it.

If you have found a great bargain like this and want to post it, please feel free! Happy freebie hunting!

Cheap Cleaners

Homemade window cleaner:

You think I am going to say "vinegar" don't you? While it is a cheap cleaner and if you really work at it, doesn't leave streaks, I am here to say that you do not need a subscription to the newspaper so that you can wad it up and wash windows.

Vinegar was my go to for a while. It is cheap, especially at Costco, and doesn't hurt my skin. Thing is, it smells. I noticed it when I went to another person's house who using vinegar for everything. They had cleaned in the morning and by the afternoon I could still smell it and it did not smell clean to me.  Yes, it still has plenty of uses, there is no denying that, but for windows and general cleaning I use this mix, which is also cheap:

Window/All-Purpose Cleaner

2 2/3c. water
2/3 c rubbing alcohol
1 tsp dish detergent (or a little less like I do)
1 tsp ammonia

Mix it all in a clean spray bottle clearly marked for this cleaner and go to town. I use it on everything I would normally use a cleaner on. I find that my mirrors and windows are very streak free with little effort. Don't wash windows in the direct sunlight though, that will streak no matter what you are using.

For copper pans (or copper bottomed like a couple of mine) are taken care of with a mix of vinegar and some salt and baking soda to make a paste. Keep it in a container near the sink for easy access.

Burnt on gunk on the bottom of your pan? Throw some baking soda in there and simmer for a while. Check in here and there to see if it has loosened. The gunk will not just float away, but it will be considerable easier to remove.

Okay, off to the dentist with the child.

Farm Seconds

Here I am again talking about canning. With El Nino making an appearance in the Pacific we are having some crop failures in the basics across the United States and there is some concern about parts of Central and South America. That means that all corn, wheat and barely are expected to rise in price. Since we are pretty dependent on corn in this country, this is something that should be taken into consideration. That of course, brings us back to my canning adventures.

I realize that this blog tries to stay away from the rally cry of "stock up while on sale", but sometimes it is a terrific idea if at all possible. Hopefully these ideas will help make it a little more possible. Since the point to canning is to save money, buying things that are expensive makes no sense generally. I did splurge on some freshly squeezed lemon juice for a batch of Strawberry Lemonade Concentrate, although if you take into account the cost of lemons it wasn't really too out of reach if I would have made it anyway. Let me tell you, it is delicious and will be a lovely thing come winter when strawberries are imported and, let's face it, tasteless and pricey.

For this recipe I came across some farm stand seconds inside of the store. I picked up two quarts of local berries for two dollars less a quart than sold normally. You may be wondering about the quality of the goods. Normally seconds are simply those things that are not "fit to sell".  That means that they may have surface anomalies or possible a little more ripe than is usually sold.  These berries were a little ripe, but no where near overripe.

This is what was left after making the Strawberry Lemonade Concentrate. I didn't think to take a picture before, partially because I wanted to use them before my appointment yesterday. As you can see, they are really pretty, and this is from yesterday. They are much sweeter than you will find in a regular grocery store and are perfect for jam, if I had enough. Since the season for strawberries is definitely over, there won't be more this year, but next year I will be armed. I am going to call up the farm, Wilson Farm, and see if they offer other things than the berries and tomatoes.

Today I am making peach jam, as local peaches and sugar were on sale at the regular grocery market. Zucchini from the farm was .99 cents a pound, which is a little high for this time of year, but still .50 cents a pound cheaper for the very marred up squash at the grocery store. With those I will be making bread and butter pickles as well as zucchini bread for the freezer.

Keep an eye out for sales on staples and stock up the best you can when they are on sale. To avoid weevils, put things in the freezer in a sealed container or freezer bags. I found sugar on sale, but it wasn't the best sale so I just got two bags this time. Usually these things go on super sale over the holidays. I am not certain that this will happen this year due to drought, but if you can, do it. You do have a chest freezer, right?

A decent chest freezer can be found for free on Craig's List or Freecycle for your area. If not, try the items for sale as you can often get a good price. Just be careful as the older models use so much electricity it may not be worth it, so decide based on that.

I am also planning salsa today. I was hoping to get tomatillos yesterday, but alas, they had very little stock left.  Today I simply have to pick up ice, jalapenos and possible a dried chili pepper or two. Since we tend to eat a lot of salsa, and the jars are quite pricey for what they are, this is a very good investment. Here is a picture of the plum tomato seconds that I got for over a dollar less a pound:

Pretty huh? 

So, the lesson is to buy seconds from your local farmer if possible and can things that you use a lot or that you know you would use a lot if you could afford it. It is not hard, and if you are canning acidic foods (tomatoes need a little extra to be canned this way), all it takes is a large, deep pot with a cake rake on the bottom and some canning jars. Below is the recipe for the Lemonade I made. 

Strawberry Lemonade Concentrate (From the Ball Book of Preserving)

2 cups cleaned, hulled and mashed (this is a quart of fresh strawberries and maybe a little more for a full six quarts)

6 cups sugar

4 cups lemonade, fresh (if you can't find fresh or lemons are too expensive don't bother it won't taste very good due to there being very little, if any, actual lemons in the other stuff)

Put everything in a deep, stainless steel pot and cook over medium high heat until sugar is dissolved and the temperature is 190 degrees F. (88 degrees Celsius). Do NOT boil. Really.

Ladle hot mixture into prepared jars leaving 1/4 inch headspace. I will post how to prepare jars below. Slide a none metallic spatula (or a long bamboo chops stick) around the edges to remove air bubbles. If necessary, add more mixture to top off. Wipe the edges of the jars, this is very important and easy to forget. Top with heated lids and screw bands on. Just twist until you feel it take hold and then just a little more. Finger tip tight.

Place in canner (the water should already be very hot/boiling). Bring back to a boil and time for 15 minutes for pint jars. Quart jars should go for 15 minutes also, although some sources say 20. I used the National Center for Home Food Preservation guidelines. I had to use general citrus guidelines (I used Grapefruit) because this is a pretty acidic product. 

Remove from canner with a jar lifter. This will save you much pain, buy this piece of equipment. You will thank me. Place on a baking rack that is covered with a kitchen towel. If the counter is slippery, put a towel or something grippy under the rack, like that rubbery shelf liner.

To prepare jars for canning: There are a couple schools of thought on this. Some people feel that you should boil the jars for 10 minutes before using to fully sterilize them. There are others who feel that they should just simmer and the wait in the water to be used is fine. I go with the boiling for safety sake. Leave the jars in the hot water on a simmer until ready to be filled, regardless.

Simmer the brand new lids. Do not reuse. The bands don't require anything but being clean and in good repair. Do not boil the lids as it will mess with the seal. While not necessary, a lid wand is of great use. The one I use is a magnet on one end for lifting the lids and a flat end for removing air bubbles.

Canning, is it worth it?

Canning was something that my family did when I was a child. It was a necessity for us. For about three years we lived in a place that had no utilities whatsoever and no one working for money. There were barter jobs which got us some basics sometimes that we couldn't grow in the sandy, rocky soil, as well as supplies for building and such. Because of this, we had a small refrigerator that was run on bottled gas. This was terrific, but not stable enough nor large enough for any kind of major storage. This is where canning came it great.

All of my life we have had large gardens no matter where we lived. Here it was even bigger with fields of potatoes to get us through the winter without having to buy other starches as often, like rice or flour products. We also had a "green" garden, with everything one would expect from a North East garden. Tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, broccoli, cabbage and more were grown there. We canned all sorts of things, experimenting with sauerkraut and other  foods that did not require a pressure canner as my mother had a great fear of them due to the older ones occasionally blowing up. Given the unreliability of our heat source, this was a pretty legitimate concern.

What this taught me was the value of having food put up. Because of the lack of pressure cooking, it also taught me that there are only so many pickles and relish one can eat before not finding it "cute" anymore. Now I have a greater appreciation for variety and try not to keep all of my harvests (from garden or farm stand) in vinegar solution. I do have dill pickles, and sweet pickle relish, but I also have Victorian BBQ sauce and Lemon Green Beans and plan on an old fashioned corn relish from the bushel I got from the farm stand for 20 dollars.

It is probably far too late for anyone to start a garden this year, so I am going to write up about my getting the corn. Corn is going up in price generally, probably due to climate changes and possibly from too many "mono-crops". A mono-crop is planting all of the same variety of a plant. This is what happened in Ireland during the potato famine. No, I am not hugely worried about our foods being wiped out, but I am concerned about rising costs. Less yield means higher prices. With this in mind I researched the price of corn and found that my local farm stand had their own corn in season and 20 dollars a bushel which isn't bad for table corn. CNN on 2012 Corn explains this a bit, though of course it has the mandatory "don't panic" at the bottom. I am certainly not suggesting we panic, that would be silly. The trend is not great though and I feel better with knowing I have a winters worth of corn in my freezer and cupboard.

My family and I husked the bushel while my husband and I took turns blanching it. Blanching is throwing food in boiling water for a few minutes. We found that with this incredibly fresh and sweet corn we would bring a large pot of water to a boil, throw in six ears of corn, put the lid on and let it sit for six minutes. Usually recipes and instructions will say to bring it back to a boil then cook, but I did not find this necessary. I wouldn't recommend putting more corn in as it will cool the water more and change the cooking time.

After each batch of blanching we would bring the lightly salted water back to a boil and start cutting the corn off of the cob. It takes a little practice to reduce waste,but we were not making creamed corn, so no scraping of the cob. After cutting off the kernels, I would break them up as much as I could and spread them out on a cookie sheet to cool. Once pretty cooled I packed them in 3 cups increments in quart freezer bags, lying them flat and removing as much air as possible. I have tried the sealer bags for freezing but have had no luck and I do not have the money to try to do it again right now. Freezer bags work, but you do have to watch for freezer burn after a point.

Once bagged, they were labelled with the quantity and what it is for storage. I also set aside on large bag with 8 cups and another with 12 for a couple of canning recipes that I want to try. It is very satisfying to see all that corn lined up in my freezer. We all nibbled as we cut and it is amazingly sweet and tasty. Blanching helps to keep it that way in the freezer. You can do this without freezing, but it will lose some of its flavor.

Important to keep in mind:

Blanching is very good, but not necessary. Better to lose a little quality than the whole inventory. A little planning will make this trade off unnecessary, barring emergencies (like me having a mini-stroke in the middle of making blueberry jam)

Corn quickly loses sweetness once cut. This is why I went to my farm stand where they grow it. We couldn't process it that day, but because it was so fresh letting it sit one day wasn't too bad. The same day would have been better still though.

Should your corn not be as sweet as desired, you can add sugar to the water with the salt. It isn't perfect, but it does add a little freshness to the corn. Processing it right away is much better.

Make sure you have enough bags/containers before starting. It is discouraging to think you have enough and find as you are beginning that you don't. I used quart sized freezer bags and a couple of gallon ones for the canning recipes. (Well, that and I didn't check first so ran out of quart bags)

Pick all of the silk from the ears. Be very careful here. It is a bit tedious, but very much worth it. I used a soft touch with a vegetable brush to dislodge any silks that were caught in there, as well as some wayward husks.

Make sure that you have a stable place on which to cut the corn. There are many things you can do. I am pretty good at this, so I was cool without using anything, but I have heard folks use a bundt pan (place the ear in the middle and the kernels fall into the bowl) or squishing a paper bowl in a larger bowl for stability. Corn cutters are not necessary unless you are afraid of injury. Corn comes in all sizes though, so you will not get very uniform results with this.

This can be a family affair! Pull up some seats, turn on the telly and pass around paper bags. Fun for everyone! Seriously, it was fun it an odd way. Plus I could tell "when I was a kid" stories.

I will come back with some recipes as I do them. The blueberry jam needs work though as I found it far too sweet. I will have to research that more. Look around your yard, I found a large rhubarb plant growing wild, so that is why I have Victorian BBQ sauce. That recipe will be included later. Also, pictures soon too.
Pack in quantities you use. Three cups are good for our household. My oldest child is not around much so it is mostly three of us, so this amount is more than enough for a side or recipe.