When I bake, it is from scratch. I have churned butter, made buttermilk, and biscuits on many occasions. Dog food is from ingredients that I source in bulk from a Restaurant Supply Store, and I have multiple recipes from a maintenance diet to a diet for my own elderly dog.
I buy Beans and Rice in 25 pound bags.
My counter, when installed in the house after a remodeling, we thought was a "landing strip". Now it's cluttered with random ingredients.
Yes, I need to put away the flour. It is in bags, and I think I have 12 pounds of the stuff laying around.
I stock the kitchen with these Meta Ingredients because I enjoy baking. I should since I am an extremely active person. I measure workouts in multiples of "marathons" in two sports.
All of this baking and cooking requires a lot of storage space. My own massive "American Style" refrigerator freezer is too small for the task. It may be as tall as I am, but it is literally crammed with homemade goods that are waiting to me enjoyed as well as ingredients for the future.
I even have 8 cups of Mango Chunks harvested from the backyard tree that are waiting to be turned into Jelly.
Home canning can be an time consuming proposition. You need all the tools to boil, sterilize, and store the food. Boil your jars, lids, and tools for 30 minutes, fill with the food, then boil for 30 minutes more to make sure you don't end up with nasties that will explode your jars. Botulism is not a joke.
That is only a rule of thumb. There are of course little wrinkles here and there.
I have been known to tailor my shopping to this. If you were to follow me into a supermarket, I have a tool.
A Lid from a Jar of Peanut Butter.
Seems a little random, doesn't it?
Yes, I buy my jarred food based on whether the peanut butter lid will fit it.
Why? Even now, there are plenty of food stuffs that are sold in glass jars. There was a time where Plastic was something you only heard about in a movie like The Graduate and it wasn't in the home in wide varieties. Even baby shampoo came in a glass bottle. Not the best idea, your toddler or cat would knock that glass bottle on the floor, and now you had shards of glass where you might be in bare feet.
But the wrinkle is two fold. If the peanut butter lid was the same size as your random glass jar full of Pickles or Broth, then the jar should be able to be reused to can more Jelly in.
I did say Mango Jelly, but I can get bags the size of my laptop full of various fruits out of season to make all sorts of things.
Large jars. I run them through the dishwasher and hopefully the label will release from the side so I can reuse them. Anyone want 32 ounces of Jelly in a reused jar of Bone Broth?
But the comical wrinkle of this is the label. They don't always release.
All those bumper stickers you see stuck to the tail end of the car in front of you in traffic, as well as the back of street signs, and laptop lids can be removed.
If they are stuck to a plastic thing, you may be stuck with them forever.
In Automotive Detailing, the rule of thumb is to try to peel the sticker off, gently. If it doesn't come off, use a heat gun to loosen the adhesive but only on something that will take the heat. Plastic bumper guards won't take to this treatment at all.
This is where I got the bright idea to try it on my jar of Bone Broth. It's a fine size. It is a quart, or a liter if you must. I was thinking that over the holidays season, I can fill it with some homemade something and send it off to family and friends. Last year my Jelly was not very good as I was struggling with consistency issues. The answer was to send off some of my own recipe mixes in jars with the recipe written on the side. Having extra jars will help.
I was standing in the kitchen just this very morning under the stove hood. I did not know if I was going to start a fire. The heat gun says it produces 1000 degrees of heat directed at the target. Paper burns at Fahrenheit 451 - hence the title of that book!
Loaded for bear! I turned the stove hood on to vent fumes outdoors, pointed the heat gun at the label on the jar and started to melt the glue behind the label.
It was a success but in the process, that peanut butter jar lid I mentioned? Well... it's in the trash, melted. I should have removed it first!
Oops. It was early, and I was having a Senior Moment!
Get that label good and hot. If it starts to char, turn off the gun and try to peel. Then turn off the gun and set it down somewhere safe. I used a serrated steak knife to peel off most of the label, then use it to remove most of the remaining goo. When through, full strength dish soap and an abrasive stainless steel scrubby finished the job.
All nice and sparkly and waiting for whatever comes next.
Perfect size for a mix or to make iced tea until then.
Anyone up for some rather strong iced tea? It's cooling in the bottom shelf of the fridge.
Let's go to the kitchen and have a glass!
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