Hip Chick Digs

Food preservation is a lot of work at the time - you won’t find much disagreement with that statement. There are a few things you can do to lighten the mood, like canning with friends or enjoying a beer while you make your own homebrew. Due to my hard work this fall, my winter cupboards [...]

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The pear cider we started brewing in late September has been finished! We took our time throughout the brewing process. The initial fermentation was planned to be only two weeks, but ended up being more like a month due to vacation schedules. We racked the cider and let it ferment a second time, which also [...]

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Winter waits for no one as I make a mad dash to fill these remaining canning jars. Sure there is school work, freelance work, writing projects, travel plans, Halloween costumes… But the canning season comes to an abrupt halt and I can’t bear to see those jars sit there empty all winter.

I’m busy canning some [...]

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The pear cider has been quietly fermenting under my kitchen table for about four weeks now. Typically cider would undergo that first round of fermentation for about two weeks, but because of travel plans we decided to let it sit longer. It was time to rack the cider into new carboys.
Racking means you siphon out [...]

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It doesn’t feel like Fall today, and yet today it officially begins. The temperature is suppose to climb to the 90’s this afternoon and yet I get an unexplainable itch every year at this time to stock my cupboards and prepare for old man winter.
To date, my cupboards are stocked with the following:

10 quarts marinara [...]

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