I'm Alana and welcome to my little corner of the country. My husband (James), my daughter (Isabel) and I live on 2 acres in rural Ontario, Canada (growing zone 5b) where we are passionate about raising our own food and living the simple life.
Our patch of land may be small but it is bursting with goodness which includes several vegetable & flower gardens, laying hens, meat chickens, ducks, honeybees and sometimes pigs. What we don't grow or raise, we try to buy local and forage from our country surroundings.
I also have a great passion for down home cooking, baking, and pretty much anything old fashioned! Whether you are seeking out a slower pace in life, are an old soul, or a city dweller looking to pull up a chair and sit a spell, you have come to the right place...welcome and I hope you enjoy our videos!
Hi Alana excellent video again thanks. It's quite a intensive process canning tomatoes 🍅 but I bet the end result is yummy. I cannot grow tomatoes in my garden they always get blight Sue and I are hoping to get a greenhouse and hopefully ill have more luck. Thanks again take care and stay well 😊.
I agree that the Berkley never hit all the note but give chocolate stripe instead Italian heirloom is similar to your favorite I grow on the southshore of Lake Superior outside.enjoy your garden time
Hi Alana, I was so excited to see you posting! I always love your videos. I hope all is well and I will definitely be making your recipe it looks delicious ❤
Hi there! Thank you very much for watching! I am doing well...very glad to be posting again! I really missed it! Take care and I hope you have a great day!
Hi Alana thanks for sharing another video with us, hope you are all well?.Great how you share your knowledge and tips with us, must say the finished article looks yummy 😋. Great to see back i have missed your cooking and gardening tips. Take care and be safe 😊.
HI Kelvin! Thank you so much...you are always very supportive and kind! I'm glad you enjoyed the video...take care and I hope you have a wonderful day!
Hey Billy! Thank you very much for watching! This is my first video in a long time and I am very glad to be back! Take care my friend and I hope you have a wonderful day! 🙂
Hey long time no see where you been hon I miss seeing you how did your garden do this year or did you plant one ….i hope everything is well with you and your family and there is nothing any tastier and more yummy than banana bread thanks for sharing hope your back more steady now hon I don’t know if you remember me or not I’m David from Nova Scotia but live in Alberta now hope to see you again 😊😊😊
Hi David...of course I remember you! This is my first video in a long time...I sat down to edit the video and could barely remember how! Lol! I have taken a long time off from filming due to family health reasons, which made me need time off too. I am so glad to be back and plan to be on here quite consistently as I did miss it a lot. Our garden was pretty good this year, although our tomatoes, potatoes and some peppers got the late blight! We were able to harvest some but the worst hit was the tomatoes! Thank you, as always, for watching and being so kind! Take care and have a wonderful day!
I think maybe the length of time in the freezer matters. I'm guessing (and only guessing) that if you'd frozen them for 5 months rather than 5 days, the benefits of blanching would become apparent. Worth testing, in any event.
@WthIsThisRightHere hi there! Yes, the video should have shown a longer time in the freezer, but I decided to do the video when I was over run with beans. The beans did hold up for many months in the freezer and we used them all up that winter. I suppose I could do a follow up video as well. Thank you very much for watching! Take care and have a great day 🌻
@@alanacawker-therusticwife Yeah, I'm somewhere between total moron and fairly proficient as a gardener, but those beans are failproof! relentless production even in a bad year 😀BTW, I just froze two little batches, one blanched and one not. will be interesting to see what each are like in a few months.
@WthIsThisRightHere haha! I am too...sometimes everything works out and other times we get crop failures! Yes, we love this variety of green bean! They are so tasty and I love how straight they grow too! Perfect for pickling! Let me know how your experiment goes!
Thank you for helping me to not feel guilty about not blanching my green beans, I just found your channel and so far I absolutely love it ❤️!!!! Bless you so much ❤😊!!!!
Wow! That process is pretty simple! Thank you so much Alana! Your video here is super helpful. I borrowed an extractor from a friend and needed to know how to juice our many bags of blackberries that my husband picked on our farm for jelly. Love that you added so many tips about using it. Thank you.
My observation: Blanching is supposed to slow down the enzyme action that causes nutrient loss. Your experiment didn't cover that, so I would say to use the unblanched beans first. Regardless of taste without the nutrients, You might as well eat cardboard.
@brendaestep1334 Hi there...thank you for watching! When you cook your beans there is nutrient loss anyway, so if I have loads of things to preserve from the garden at once, and I can save a step and get food in my freezer, that works for me! Thanks again for watching and have a great day!
Hi there! I wonder if the plastic clips at the side of the spool head are broken? The plastic pieces that fit into the slots to lock it in...have a look at those. Also, maybe you need to put a bit more pressure when fitting the spool head on to the spring to lock it into place? I hope those suggestions help...good luck! Thank you for watching and I hope you have a great evening!
@@alanacawker-therusticwife thanks for responding clips seem to be ok Ive tried adding force it won't secure the clips just sits in place and when I press down it won't lock and the center piece doesn't come all the way up to lock 🤦🏾♂️
Thank you so much for this! I was gifted some wonderful green beans from a friend's garden and need to freeze them since I won't eat them quickly enough. I was fretting about the whole blanching thing as I do not have a kitchen; just a tiny food prep area and an induction cooker. This video was a gift from heaven for me!!! Bless you ❤❤
It is good to let the water in the canner cool down for 20 minutes before removing from the Canner, or Water Bath. This prevents them bubbling inside the jar and the pressure having so much fluxuation. Just safer to let it cool inside the Water Bath or Canner either one for 10 - 20 minutes. Take the lid off too while the Water Bath or Canner is cooling down. This helps it speed the cooling process some as well.
If you add only 5% Vinegar to the brine, you may need to use all vinegar and not add any water because water will dilute your brine to under 5% and your food will spoil. Be aware of this. 4% will not keep the food healthily.
Hello! Thanks for helping me trying pickles for the 2nd time. How long do I store them in the pantry before I should try them? I’m assuming no fridge needed till open?
I just made 3 quarts of pickles tonight, and one of the jars broke just as you described. Pickles everywhere in the canner, and yes, it was a Benardin jar.😢
@Carmen-EnergyInMotion Hi there! We haven't tried them stored in sand as we cure our potatoes, then put them in our root cellar in a single layer in wooden boxes made from pine skids. I have read that you can store them in sand but haven't tried it ourselves. We have tried storing beets and turnips this way, and they did last a long time, so I'm sure potatoes would be the same. I hope that helps...thank you for watching and have a great night! 😊
@atinacatskill6430 hi there! I have found that if I leave the stems on, you can taste them in the juice, that's why I like to remove them. I hope that helps..take care and have a great day!
I was just about to prepare green beans for the freezer and after watching your video I opted not to blanch. Thank you for the time saver. First time reviewer. New subscriber.
@bernadetteellway5707 hi there! I fill the top pan as full as I can and then periodically check it and add more until my fruit is all juiced....or, you can do it in smaller batches and clean the pulp away in between each batch but that seems like a lot of extra steps to me lol!
So nice to find another homesteading RU-vidr from Ontario! We are in the southwestern part. I found your video looking for ways to keep carrots long term after our first good year of growing carrots. We are in clay so never had luck before, but raised beds have made all the difference. Thanks for sharing this helpful info. Subbed to your channel to follow along. 😊 ~ Cindy
