Housewifery extravaganza

I have thoroughly enjoyed today. Check out my days fruitage:

2 Loaves of Bread

1 Fabulous 23 litre Presto Pressure Canner (drooooooling) ready to go!
12 Jars of Baked beans in tomato sauce ready for blast off in the wonder canner

Whilst waiting for the canner to finish (90 mins at 15psi) a batch of shortbread

12 cans of Pasteurised baked beans ready to go in the cupboard

My MSG free pantry filled with baked beans and also a couple of jars of pasta sauce.

Was a really excellent day. I spent the majority cooking, but I was enjoying it. canning isn't something you need to do all the time. 12 cans of beans will last me a month and a half, so I will do it all again then. It was my canner's first run, and she held up really well. It was quite scary, but easy, and I only had 1 can that failed to seal, so I ate it! HA HA.

the shortbread is excellent. Its really not diet friendly, but soooooo easy and nice that it would be a shame not to mention it. 4oz butter, 2 oz icing sugar and 8 oz plain flour. Cream fat and sugar, then mix in the flour. squeeze and kneed it with your hands until it sticks together in a clump (at first you think that it will NEVER stick ever, but it does). Then roll out and cut with a shape and bake at 180 degrees C for 12 to 15 mins.

Today's food has been good. I had some baked bean sauce with a slice of fresh baked bread and butter (Mmmmmmmm) and then for dinner I had savory mince in gravy with peas, carrots and roast potato. I also had 1 can of my beans. Yum.

The mince I made was not particularly appetizing to look at because there was no OXO. I fried the mince, then drained off the fat, added an onion and 1/2pt of meat stock I had made a while ago and frozen. Then I cooked it for a while. I added salt, pepper, whole grain mustard and some peas and it tasted great. I added cornflour towards the end to thicken the sauce and it was scrumptious... it just looked a bit anemic. However, that was just what it looked like! It tasted delish! How very random. It was very filling too which was good. I dry roasted the potatoes (without fat) and they were crispy and nice too. Nothing like a bit of lard though is there!! Lard does potatoes like nothing else. I love 'em. I didn't have any lard today though and I hate potatoes roasted (or more boiled) in oil. Yuk. They are always greasy.

So off to bed now.