Barbara, That's a good point that they all did not survive. LOL I was reading about old tomato preservation methods from the late 1880s and it is scarey. Even the commercial food system is not immune to botulism, or for that matter the much more common salmonella. There a food salvage store in Fort Worth called Town Talk. When a semi truck wrecks, for example, the insurance company writes off the whole load of cargo and Town Talk buys it and resells it. Town Talk has been there a long time, is a family run business, and is very popular with, among others, caterers in Tarrant County, because of the amazing buys you find there. Several years ago, several people from Sanger, Texas, which is about 30 or 40 minutes south of us, contracted botulism from chili purchased from Town Talk. I don't think any of them died, although it was very, very bad and I think some were hospitalized for weeks and months. At first, no one knew if the chili in question had thawed out during the salvage process or if it was improperly cooked, improperly maintained temperature-wise at the church supper, or what. Town Talk blamed the customer and the customer blamed Town Talk, yada yada yada. A short time later, other people in North Texas became ill after eating a second kind of chili that also was purchased at Town Talk. I don't know if the FDA ever determined if the botulism was the fault of the manufacturer, the shipper, the ultimate retailer (Town Talk) or the food preparers/servers. I do remember lawsuits were filed, but I don't know if they were pursued, settled, etc. The chili was those frozen blocks. I love Town Talk and used to shop there when we lived in Fort Worth, and still shop there if we're down in Fort Worth, but the whole botulism thing made me very nervous. However, I always take a cooler and keep any frozen items I purchase cold on the way home, and I come straight home after leaving the store. All of this serves to remind us that even in the big commercial food production/distribution system, bad things can happen. I am overly cautious when I can. I only use approved recipes or, if I find one that is not approved, I make the changes necessary to correct the recipe for canning. I mostly do jams, jellies, pickles, relishes, salsas and tomatoes. I won't touch meat either or anything with fat. I won't even add the tiny amount of butter some jam/jelly/preserve recipes call for to reduce foaming. I just let it foam and then skim as best as I can. I freeze a whole lot more than I can, but mostly because I prefer the taste/texture of fresh frozen veggies to canned veggies. Well, and throw in the fact that I have a glass-topped (guess the proper term is ceramic but it looks like glass to me) stove, and pressure canning on it would void its warranty. I can pressure can using an old stove in the garage, or the side burner on our barbaque grill but I don't do a lot of it. I admire all the folks on the Harvest Forum for their knowledge, expertise, talent, etc. They can all sorts of stuff that I don't and they are very careful about safety issues. I really appreciate their strict adherence to the latest guidelines and I go to that forum to check and see 'what's happening' in the canning and food preservation world. It worries me that canning newbies might go to any recipe site on the internet and use unsafe recipes posted there. It is a truly terrifying prospect. I find myself dehydrating more and more too. So far, I haven't really gotten into fermenting stuff like sauerkraut, but I might try that with some of the fall cabbage crop. If I lived in an area of Oklahoma more prone to ice storms and prolonged power outages (and to me, that'd be most of the area north of the Arbuckle Mtns.), I'd either have to have a generator to keep the deep freezers running or I'd have to do less freezing and more canning/dehydrating. However, only once since we moved here in 1999 have we had a 'significant' power outage, and it might have lasted a little over 2 hours, so I don't consider the prospect of a prolonged power outage to be a big issue where I live. However, even just within our county, it depends on where you live. The electricity that comes specifically to our house comes up from the Thackerville area south of us and we seldom have outages. The folks who live in parts of Marietta proper, and as close as a mile north of us, get their power from different transmission lines (same electrical co-op though) and they have much more frequent outages than we do, so I guess we're lucky our power comes from lines running north out of Thackerville instead of lines running south out of Marietta. It sure makes you appreciate what they went through in the old days trying to keep milk, butter, cream, etc. cool enough in spring houses, with ice blocks in non-electrical refrigerators, etc. I am also glad we don't have to salt meat terribly heavily like they used to in order to preserve it. We are just so spoiled and our lives, in terms of obtaining food and maintaining it safely, are so easy compared to 'the good old days'! Dawn

Well, my green beans are done. I don't know if frost got them or if they just plum wore themselves out. They're the ones I planted in the spring that didn't do anything then because of the weird weather, and then when fall came they gave me several wonderful harvests, some of which we ate, most of which are nestled down in the freezer. I did not go out and pick last night, even though there was a frost warning, and looks like my tomatoes might be OK again. Mesonet said we only got to 35 but I went grocery shopping this morning and haven't yet walked around out in the garden for the day. The other day I made tortillas with half of the AP flour replaced with freshly ground whole wheat flour. Rolled out thin, browned slightly on a hot griddle, then made taco meat, which I dressed up with a pint jar of salsa and cooked that down. Went out and picked some swiss chard and a few small leaves of romaine. Had a few tomatoes that turned red on the counter, and some grated sharp cheddar. Oh, my, that was quite a healthy treat. I'll put my tortilla recipe on if anyone wants it. It's lower in fat than most of the recipes I've seen. It's a little work to make them but home made is SOOOOO much better than what you can buy in the store. I'm watching my sugar intake too, and have been for months, so most of these cakes I bake, I don't each much or any of. DH and DGS take care of that. I find if I don't have something like that for them to snack on, they're in there eating the meat left over from the previous meal, as a snack! What IS it about these men and MEAT, anyway? It would be great if they liked veggies as well as George does, but that is not the case. I have to hide fried chicken so that we can have the leftovers for another meal. Can't tell you how many times I've gone to the fridge at lunch time, prepared to heat up a few leftovers, and the side dishes are all there but the meat's gone! I've lost 30 pounds since the beginning of May, fell "off the wagon" with --what else-- cake, and didn't lose any weight for a month or maybe closer to two. But I'm back into it now, hope for another 10 off by Thanksgiving and a goal of a total of 50 pounds lost by Christmas. Sorta my Christmas gift to myself. That first 30 pounds was the easiest weight I ever lost, and it was just by eating right, watching portion sizes, and not eating sugar. I was never hungry, never felt deprived, or even like I was "on a diet". Everything I ate was something I enjoyed. I'm hoping that I will be able to change my eating habits for the rest of my life and never have to lose these pounds again. I have been up and down all my life and I'm just getting too old to do this. I've seen the recipes for green tomato salsa, and I read somewhere that actually you can replace half the red tomatoes for green in stews and casseroles. I love tomato preserves and I wonder what green tomato preserves would taste like. I bet it would be really pretty in the jar. Of course, making this would be a waste of time, probably, because I'm the only one here that likes tomato preserves and I'm not eating sugar, and I got a lot of quizical looks from people when I gave jars of red tomato preserves for Christmas presents. Only one man was obviously happy, saying he hadn't had any of that since his grandmother died. Guess it must be one of those "acquired tastes". sooooooo...... Some people love those tomato preserves that you make with raspberry jello and I think THAT is positively nasty! But maybe for people with THAT "acquired taste", they could substitute peach or apricot or lemon jello for green-tomato preserves.

Hi, Thank you Lisa for recommending sialis.org. They have a LOT of great suet recipes. This is what they say about lard vs. vegetable shortening: "(Beef or Sheep) Suet vs. (Pig) Lard vs. Vegetable Shortening (Crisco, etc.): All work in suet recipes, as long as you adjust the dry ingredients (e.g., flour) to keep the texture crumbly. Vegetable shortening has a longer shelf life. Suet in its raw form should be avoided. Beef suet may turn rancid when temperatures exceed 70 degrees. When melted and clarified, beef suet is called "tallow." Tallow is less likely to go rancid over time; however it is not easily digested by birds because it is high in saturated fats. Some birders are concerned about the health impact of using vegetable shortening. * A nutritionist at the San Diego Zoo indicated that there is no health risk associated specifically with vegetable oil. * Dr. Sean Pampreen, an avian vet in Marlborough, CT, indicated he did not think that vegetable shortening used as a binder in suet (which is only a supplemental food for wild birds) would cause digestive problems, especially since sunflower, millet and peanut are about 45-56% oil. * Bill Whittaker of Four Nature's Keepers says saturated fats (such as in suet) are more difficult/require more energy for birds to digest than unsaturated fats (such as in vegetable shortening). They also found in field tests that after a familiarization period, birds prefer vegetable shortening. * Dr. Kirk Klasing, Professor of Avian Nutrition at UC Davis, said that very high amounts of fatty acids are difficult to emulsify by the bile, lowering digestibility. Adding a source of unsaturated fats, such as vegetable oil or lard, improves digestibility (e.g., 80% tallow, 20% vegetable oil or lard is a good combination - you can adjust the proportions to give the melting point desired). Peanut butter also works to increase digestibility of tallow because it is high in unsaturated fats. He was not aware of any evidence for a laxative effect of vegetable oil. Like tallow, vegetable shortening is solid at room temperatures. However, the hydrogenation used to make shortening results in lots of trans fatty acids. Though we don't know for sure, it is likely that the trans fatty acids are less healthy than "natural" cis fatty acids (unhydrogenated oils). In chickens, high levels of trans fatty acids deplete antioxidants in the tissues. It would be best to avoid high levels of vegetable shortening. * Crisco does make a zero-trans-fat shortening (in a green container.) * Another alternative is soybean shortening without additives, at as low a melting temperature (less saturation) as you can use to make an acceptable food. In terms of protein content, suet has about 0.4 grams of protein/oz. in it; lard and vegetable shortening have none. Both suet and vegetable shortening have about the same amount of calories and fat content. Beef suet has more saturated fat which may be harder to digest. JL Peterson found bluebirds preferred recipes made with suet. A friend reported bluebirds in her area preferred Crisco-based suets. Crisco does offer a zero-trans fat product. If you're concerned about using either of these ingredients, you can replace them with extra peanut butter until the mixture reaches the desired consistency." So, I will definitely be using vegetable shortening, I'm going to see if they have an organic version at the health food store. It just doesn't feel right to me to help out some animals by feeding them other animals. I'm also going to use raw peanuts and seeds instead of commercial peanut butter, like the birds would naturally eat. Cooking food kills all the enzymes which are so necessary for cells to be able to use the nutrients in the food. Here's the page where I got this info: http://www.sialis.org/suet.htm#crisco Best wishes, fellow bird lovers! April Here is a link that might be useful: Sialis info on crisco/vegetarian suet

Um, well, I have 8 cows. And a horse, and 21 chickens, 2 dogs and 2 cats. I do like my animals. (grin) Plus 200 asparagus crowns that needed the ferns trimmed today because it's going to be raining tomorrow and then highs in the 20s after that. People have been coming to cut Christmas trees, we have the "cut your own" thing but someone always needs change or a saw or help. We'll set hay tomorrow because I'm going out of town for three days (but driving home every evening) for some "Ag" classes, but I'll have to come home early on Wednesday evening because I'm secretary of our Township Planning Commission and we have a 7 pm meeting. The farrier is coming Tuesday and Elery is on his own for the first time for that. I need to bake cake for 100 by Sunday for Madi's birthday and an anniversary cake for Saturday for an elderly friend and his wife, 66 years of marriage. Then next week we start on Christmas baking because Elery's family Christmas is the 16th and we're taking ham, beef, lasagna, apple stack cake using his Mother's recipe, plus cookies and fudge. I need to bake a birthday treat for Elery's grandson Jack, he's 10, and we'll give him his birthday present at the Christmas party, but he's 10, he needs a cake or something so his birthday doesn't get lost in the Christmas shuffle. Oh, and I need to make fudge to send to California for Elery's oldest son and their family. Fortunately for me, I can sliced apples and freeze fruit already sliced or peeled or whatever, so I really can make a 10 minute pie if I have to. It's not as much fun and it's sure not fancy, but it's pie and it'll do in a pinch. Today, though, I made date filled cookies for no reason other than Elery likes them. They aren't the prettiest cookie on a plate, but they sure taste good! Annie