How To : Canning Pickle Relish

We start out with the full recipe on how to PUT TOGETHER your pickle relish and you can find that HERE. But now we move into the canning process! You can see the full video on the canning process HERE if you're more of a visual learner!

Required tools:

Hot water bath canner

Mason jars (however many or whatever size you want)

Lids and rings for all your jars

Ladle

Clean hand towel to clean jar rims

Jar funnel

Jar lifter

Magnetic lid wand

Non-metalic spatula

Dry cloth or mat to set finished jars on overnight

This recipe is adapted from one of my favorite recipes in the Ball Canning Cookbook and if you don't have that one yet I HIGHLY recommend it. You can find it here

Directions:

1. You start the whole process by filling your canner 1/2 to 3/4 full of hot water and get it on the stove to start to boil because this can take some time, put the lid on.

2. You have to clean, sanitize and warm your mason jars. You can do this by hand washing them and then filling them with boiling water and sitting them on the counter OR you can run them through the dishwasher on the heated dry setting and leave them in the dishwasher and pull a couple out at a time as you begin to fill them.

3. Clean and prep your mason jar lids and rims by putting in a pot of boiling water on the stove for 10 minutes, then you'll transfer that pot over to the counter to your prep station.

4. Once you pickling mixture is done on the stove you want to setup your canning area by moving a few jars, your mixture, your tools and everything to one place.You also want to make sure that at this time your canning pot has come to a boil or is very close.

5. You ladle your mixture into a prepared jar using a canning funnel (I didn't in this video because I couldn't find mine but it makes everything MUCH less messy), you fill it up to 1/2 head from the top of the jar. This is called leaving "head space" and the jar needs that space inside the can to properly can. If your jar is too full it could crack and bust from pressure in the canner. (Again, you can SEE this whole process in THIS VIDEO )

6. Once you have filled your jar use your non-metalic spatula to push down into the jar and around the edges, you're trying to push any air pockets out.

7. Then wipe the rime of your jar to make sure it is clean all around, I do the outside too just in case I made any messes.

8. Use your magnetic wand to pick up a lid that is still in your pot of hot water, place it on the jar and then pick up a rim and put it on the jar. You want to turn it "finger tip tight" and this means don't do it super tight, don't force it, you push until you feel resistance and then just a tiny bit passed that and you're good.

9. Use your jar lifter to put the (now) warm/hot filled jars directly into your hot water bath canner. Leave the lid off from now on until your canner is full, place each jar in it as soon as you have the mixture in that way the mixture and jars do not come down in temperature.

10. Once you hot water bath canner is full then drop them down in the water (if you're using a tray) and put your lid on it. Make sure that once your jars are down in the water that the lids are COVERED with water, so if they aren't just go ahead and add more water until they are. Then put the lid on to start bringing it up to a boil.

11. Now you will "process" (means cooking at a rolling boil constantly) for however long your elevation requires. You can google this and find exactly the amount of time you need; some places it's 10 minutes and others it's 20 so make sure to do what is required of YOUR area.

12. Once the timer goes off, I turn the stove off and remove the lid and let everything come down in temperature for just about 5 minutes.

13. Use the jar lifter to take jars out of canner and place on the towel you have laid out on the counter. This is where they will sit overnight. Some jars will "pop" right away or within 5-10 minutes and that is a good thing, that means the lid has sealed. Some may take longer, which is why it is safe to wait overnight to be safe. Also within this time the jars come down to room temperature and are easier, safer to store.

14. The next morning you move your cans of gloriously home canned goodies to a shelf for long tern storage, preferably out of direct sunlight or exposure to much heat, including general cooking heat (don't store in a cabinet over your stove). 

Yay! Now you've canned something!!! Congratulations!!!

xoxo,

Elizabeth

#canningrecipe #fulldetails #canningtips #howtocan #relishcanningrecipe

Sweet Pickle Relish Recipe

This recipe is tried and true for our family, we have used it for years. If you watch my video on this process HERE then you'll see that I adapt it and tweak a few things as needed depending on what I have on hand. But in general, this recipe is a great guideline and if you are going out and buying what you need to make it go ahead and get everything on the list. But if you do have the option to go with colored bell peppers, please do, you won't be disappointed!!

Ingredients:

8 cups      : finely chopped peeled cucumbers
8 cups      : finely chopped seeded green (or any color) bell peppers
2 cups      : finely chopped celery
1 cup        : finely chopped onion
1/2 cup     : canning or pickling salt
3 cups       : white vinegar
2 1/2 cups : white sugar
3 tbsp        : celery seeds
3 tbsp        : mustard seeds


This recipe is adapted from one of my favorite recipes in the Ball Canning Cookbook and if you don't have that one yet I HIGHLY recommend it. You can find it here


Directions:

1. In a large glass or stainless steel bowl, combine cucumbers, bell peppers, celery, onion and pickling salt. Cover and let stand in a cool place for 4+ hours (overnight is fine).

2. Transfer mixture to a colander placed over a sink and drain. Rinse with cool water and drain thoroughly. Using your hands, squeeze out excess liquid. Set aside.

3. In a large stainless steel saucepan, combine vinegar, sugar, celery seeds and mustard seeds. Stair well and ring to a boil. Add drained cucumber mixture to the pot and return to a boil, stirring frequently. Reduce heat and boil gently, stirring frequently, until vegetables are heated through, about 10 minutes.

Then you will begin the canning process which you can find HERE...
I also put together a VIDEO on canning this recipe and you can find it HERE!

xoxo,
Elizabeth

#canningrecipe #recipe #relishrecipe #picklerelish

Moms, it's OKAY that your house isn't spotless!

As Mom's I feel like some of us pressure ourselves to keep the house clean, try to be the best Mom to our children, the best wife to our husband's, make a good dinner and likely manage countless other things throughout each and every day. I just want to tell you that it's okay to not be perfect. It's okay to not be YOUR vision of perfect. It's okay to not be someone else's vision of perfect.

One thing I think we should all consider is that a lot of times the pressure we feel is self-inflicted. We have these expectations of ourselves and it is this unnecessary weight that we're adding to our lives. Yes, things need to be taken care of, yes there are countless things to clean all the time. Yes, I wake up some mornings and look at my fan and am disappointed in myself that I haven't dusted it yet since I first noticed it needed it. And along with that, many other things could use my attention.

This morning this was weighing heavy on my heart as I woke up feeling the pressure of "the world" on my shoulders with all the things I've told myself I need to get done. For me personally, I always give myself way too much to do for a period of time. I set very high, unrealistic expectations and then I end up disappointed when I can't achieve these super human accomplishments. It is this vicious cycle and I've tried for years to get myself under control, to set more attainable goals. Because you see, I am a goal setter and a "go-getter", I have to have goals to focus on or if I don't I get stagnant and if I get stagnant then I can easily slip into a depression. I figured this out in my early 20's and so my coping mechanism has been...being a busy body. And it works! But if I could just wrap my head around setting realistic goals then I would feel like I'm really winning at life!

So I'm writing this for you as well as for me. I have much to learn still and I hope that through my trials I could possibly be an example to others. And most I want to let you know that you aren't alone. The chores will always be there, you aren't a failure because you didn't get it all done today, it's okay that you didn't do your hair today. What really matters is did you love your babies enough today? Did you feed them SOMETHING (even if it wasn't some glorious meal you slaved over for 2 hours)? Did you hug them and tell you loved them before they were off to school? These are the things that are really most important in life and I think we need to really try to focus on those more. and in the meantime, I'm going to be over here trying to wrap my head around setting more realistic goals for myself on a daily and long-term basis!

XoXo,Elizabeth

P.S. Love yourself today! Give yourself a break! Most anything can be done tomorrow...

#littlefarmbigdreams #momprobs #momproblems #housecleaning #goals #perfectisntrealistic #dontbesohardonyourself #lifetip

May 2018 we bought a historic home in the city!!!

We sure did not ever expect to buy a house built in 1910 in the city of Pocahontas, with a population of 6000! Lol! Our dreams of moving to Arkansas were to be in the middle of nowhere and live off grid or almost off grid and have a very simple life. But when you put a mother in a desperate situation she has a STRONG desire to provide a home for our family! So I found this house for sale by owner, seller financing and it was big enough for our family of 8!!!

The woman was willing to work with us on down payment, which was necessary since we had just recently closed on our land and paid a down payment there and not only was Chad's painting business still very much in the early stages but I had actually lost my real estate job in March, right after we closed on our land!

In this video I explain the whole process of house hunting, how we found the house and how everything went down

We are so grateful to have found a home that works for us and honestly I've been an old house lover MY WHOLE LIFE so I loved every inch of this place from the moment I saw it! It is 3 stories, built into a hill, with a walk out basement, a huge attic, real hardwood floors, central heat and air, a 2 car carport and a TINY backyard!!! Lord a mercy, I will get to the yard issues in another post but for now let me show you...

Here is an empty house tour from before we moved in!

Because even though we had bought it and actually closed on it...we still couldn't afford to move. It took every dime we had to be able to pay our down payment and it was 2 hours away from my Mom's so any time we came over to clean up, do yard work or anything it was a 4 hour round trip commute for us and in my 2010 Excursion we have (that is a major gas hog) that meant every trip over cost us $50+!!!

From the back of the house it looks so huge!

I love all the window casings and tall baseboards!

The kitchen is mostly original, or close to it and very small! There isn't much counter space to work with but we can make it work!

The main floor hall bathroom has a transom over the door and I absolutely love it! It allows light into the small, dark hallway!

The built-in cabinet in the dining room speaks to the age of the house and I absolutely love it!

This is a HUGE 600 square foot attic that is usable space! It has carpet, wall coverings and an AC window unit so the boys want this to be their room! We can easily fit 4 boys up there!

She needs some work and some much needed love but we'll be able to get her in shape and add some sweat equity!

She is a beauty but she sure does need a lot of work! And I can't wait to put all that time and energy into her!

xoxo,

Elizabeth

#newoldhouse #oldhouse #bigprojects #moving #newfamilyadventures

We bought land in the Arkansas Ozarks in March 2018!

We enjoyed November 2017 through January 2018 looking for land in Arkansas! During that time I was still working from home 40-60 hours as a Realtor/Transaction Coordinator for a team in Arizona and Chad wasn't able to find local work so he was unemployed most of that time. Thankfully in February we were able to find him some painting work with a friend of mine and after a month of that that lead into us starting our own painting business, #bigbuckspainting and that was good for us! We didn't make a ton of money at it but projects came often enough to keep Chad busy and bring in an income which was a huge relief we needed at the time.

We were fortunate enough to find out 5 acres outside of Pocahontas, Arkansas for sale where the seller was willing to do seller financing and so we didn't have to qualify for a traditional loan. If we would have to do that then we wouldn't have been able to do it so it was a huge blessing for us!

Here is the video where I talk about the excitement and worry of writing an offer on the land,

In this video we take our subscribers out to the land for a full walk thru for the first time since getting our offer accepted. We are IN ESCROW!!!

The day we closed on our land! It was an awesome experience! Now we have land, but no home!

Being land owners was a huge goal and accomplishment for us but it still didn't solve any problems for putting a roof over our kids heads or allowing us to not feel homeless. Granted we had an awesome safe home over at my Mom's but we were eager to get to our own place and settle in, 5 months after moving to Arkansas!

The process of relocating across the country when you don't make a ton of money or have a ton of money saved up...is hard and it takes some time. We sold almost everything we owned to move to Arkansas cheaply and that was not only to save money but also because we were 100% on board with living in a camper for a year. But as time drug on we realized that wasn't going to work.

We toyed with the idea of buying a shed to convert to a tiny home/cabin on our land and you can see the video tour here where we toured a 14x60 shed but in the end we realized that wouldn't work for us either because it was going to cost us at least $5,000 to get that onto our land and the utilities we needed put in but that huge cost was primarily due to the water costing us $2000 to bring it in from the city, when a well would have cost us $10,000.  And that would be an empty shell of a cabin delivered to the land, not livable. So again we went down a rabbit hole and did more research to try to find a way to be on or near our land, before the boys started school again in the fall so we had about 4 months to figure something out.

In our next blog post I'll update you on what we figured out!

xoxo,
Elizabeth

#newland #newhomestead #arkansasland #arkansas #arkansasbackwoods #homestead

November 2017 we moved to Arkansas!

Hey everybody! I haven't written for this blog in a very long time but I want to try to make that a new normal thing again and so I thought I would start out by catching you up with a few of the major highlights! Throughout this time we did continue to record YouTube videos and share those on our channel, which you can find here;

Our YouTube Channel; LittleFarmBigDreams

In June 2017 I started making plans and publicly sharing on our videos my desire/plan to move back home to Arkansas! It took awhile and we went through many ideas between camper living, living off grid and whether to buy a new or used RV and all these different grand plans!

Here are some of our YouTube videos of the actual move itself!

This was our last day in Arizona packing up and getting ready to hit the road!

After a brief stop in New Mexico to see Chad's 4 kids we hit the road for the final leg to Arkansas!


When Chad, the boys and I left Arizona we were fully intending on moving to my dad's 100 acre farm within a month or two, after we found a camper locally! Our home base to prepare all of that was going to be my Mom's home in Blytheville where she had JUST enough room for us but not enough room for us to all get too comfortable.

After our first visit to my Dad's land and then the unexpected loss of my grandfather (my dad's father) our plans to move to his farm were put drastically on hold, if not permanently. Many people didn't love the idea of our plan although my Dad was good with it but we didn't want to make waves in the family after just moving back to Arkansas so we chose to consider other alternatives first.

It was fun checking out other properties for sale, although we weren't sure how we were going to pay for one but we began searching nonetheless, utilizing a local realtor who knew the area very well!

Below are the only two land options where we filmed and shared videos of the properties, these were our favorite two.

21 Acres with an off grid tiny hunting cabin but over an hour away from all of our family

AND...

5 acres of raw land, mostly wooded with no utilities or structure

In the process of hunting for land we were looking for campers and that wasn't going well. Any we could find that were affordable needed too much way to buy outright and put all this money into if we were also going to be building a cabin so why spend money building 2 homes when we just needed one?!? And then in order to find one big enough for all 8 of us (when Chad's 4 kids visit) and that didn't need any work, even if it was older, was ranging from $8-15k even in Arkansas. Even though that is cheaper than in Arizona, we just didn't have that much money saved up AND we needed to buy some place to put it!

In our next blog post I'll share what route we ended up choosing!

xoxo,
Elizabeth

#bigmove #leftarizona #movedtoarkansas #arkansas #familyof8 #blendedfamily