Oh, yes, my brain fog is sooo much better
As retirees, my husband Jerry and I are somewhat new to the vegetable garden gig. This summer, we’ve tried various gardening gadgets and techniques. Winter sowing and cattle panels for climbing veggies have produced lots of tomatoes and cukes. But now in August, our dilemma has been what to do with them all.
“Pickles! Salsa!” my adept canner friends suggested.
I was game, but a little nervous. I still had visions of tomatoes on the ceiling from a pressure canner explosion when I was a kid.
I ordered a digital canner– surely, it was safer– and perused the unused canning books my kids gave me years ago when they worked for a Ball spinoff. With my recent issues of anemia and consequent brain fog, I was looking for an easy start to the summer bounty. One that wouldn’t interfere with my daily doze or be too complicated. Eventually, I found a likely novice project.
Carrots!
In late May, I planted a row of multi-colored cultivar seeds, thinking they’d be fun for our granddaughter to eat. We’ve watched the tops grow taller and greener all summer, even surviving the rabbits living under the deck. A webpage advised that crowning is an indicator of ripeness, so envisioning jars of colorful carrots, I pulled one whose top was visible.
It wasn’t a carrot: it was an alien. Several arms and wispy roots protruded from its three lousy inches of length. But I didn’t dare complain. After being shamed about the condition of our heirloom tomatoes by 815 people on my Gardening Zone 6b Facebook group, I conceded that they might not be as perfect as store-bought ones. But this wasn’t what I expected. Definitely not like the picture on the seed package!
I was willing to give the little guy a chance. After I scrubbed and peeled it, only about an inch and a half remained. I tasted it. Oooh. Bitter! Into the trash, it sailed.
Okay, my ten-foot carrot row was probably not going to yield the five pounds of carrots needed for the two easy recipes I’d chosen. But the dishes did look tasty: one would need herbs from my garden, and the other used honey and ginger. They both had to process for 25 minutes, so that was even better! I could make them both in one session! I just needed carrots.
I made an ingredient list and headed to the grocery to find that carrots were on sale. Perfect! My test idea was meant to be! And both recipes turned out beautifully! Even though I forgot to run the red stick through the jar to eliminate air bubbles. Was that brain fog or just part of the process? And I blew a breaker— but that wasn’t my fault. Silly builder who used the same breaker for all the kitchen outlets!
I proudly took a picture and posted my success online.
That night, feeling rather accomplished, my mind started whirling. All those tomatoes that were weighing down the vines by our fence! Romas, heirlooms, cherry, yellow. Then I decided. Tomato sauce! It would have so many uses! But I’d just learned the seeds have lectins and are bad for the gut. Removing them sounded intensive.
Wait a minute! Stashed in a cabinet somewhere was an attachment for my Kitchen Aid mixer, a cone-shaped device that removes the seeds and peels while juicing. Using it would be much easier than balancing my grandmother’s colander on its aluminum legs and rotating the wooden pestle a thousand times! That’s how I made persimmon pulp last fall. Yep, that’s it! I can’t wait!
We set up shop. Jerry figured out how the parts should attach, and we put the tomatoes on to boil them for a few minutes. I positioned several bowls under the machine to catch the juice, discarded peel and seeds, and the residual juice when we dumped the primary bowl. It was a regular production line!
Soon, I was simmering pasta sauce, and the house smelled like our favorite Italian restaurant. I beamed as I measured out my dried herbs and minced a few cloves from the one garlic bulb I harvested from my garden. After it simmered, I ladled the sauce into Ball jars. This time, I remembered to poke out air bubbles, measure the headspace, wipe the rim, place the lid, and finger-tighten the band— mostly in that order. Only one jar didn’t ping after the water bath. Pretty good for a beginner!
I started looking for pickle recipes.
With two canning sessions under my belt, I was getting cocky. After a day of rest, it was time to tackle the pickles I’d chosen.
In the morning, I wanted to be fully attentive to my work. I turned on the coffee maker and plugged in a fully caffeinated K Cup. The dog got my attention, and I walked away. I returned to see my hot coffee dripping all over the counter.
Oops. I’d forgotten to put the cup in place.
That should have been my second clue that my anemia brain fog hadn’t completely lifted. I mopped up the mess and sipped my half cup, as I reviewed the recipes on the docket.
That day’s session seemed a little more complicated. I’d chosen two recipes, a dill and a sweet. But they needed to be processed in different batches. Luckily, our eight-year-old granddaughter was visiting and could be pressed into service under the guise of water fun. And she liked pickles, so it was an easy initial sell.
After a squabble about how wearing Grammy’s mandated bandana made her look like a gnome, I set her up at the kitchen sink sorting and scrubbing cucumbers. Water splattered everywhere, but she was on the team and having a few minutes of fun.
My husband pulled another unused appliance out of the cabinet: this beast could slice the cukes evenly– if they fit into the chute. We girls got the slicing factory going. Soon we had a huge stainless steel bowl filled with pickle wannabes. In the meantime, my husband began slashing the larger cukes into spears.
Then it was time to add onions to the giant bowl and get the whole mess brining for two hours. “Where are the onions I bought?” I moaned as I surveyed the kitchen
“I saw them somewhere,” my helper husband replied.
I glanced around the kitchen counter buried in veggies and bags. Nope. I looked at the table with piles of tomatoes waiting to be consumed. Nope. I went to the dining room where cases of quart-sized jars bought on sale were stacked on the table. Nope.
“I know I bought onions!” I shouted. At least I think I did.
“Do you need me to go get more?” helpful hubby asked, eager to ditch his post before I recruited him for another task.
“I know they’re here somewhere,” I whined, trying hard not to stamp my foot.
“Did you look on the counter?” asked a small voice.
“Yes,” I retorted, getting irritated. (That’s also an anemia thing, remember?) I poked around between bowls and jars and spices and lids in exasperation. “Oh … here they are. If they’d been a snake …,” I trailed off.
“I knew I’d seen them somewhere,” hubby remarked. “Wanna go to the playground?” he asked Little Helper, wisely assessing the rising temperature of the room.
“Yes!”
They disappeared, and I reread the dill spears recipe for the twentieth time.
“Wait a minute! It calls for pickling spice! I didn’t buy pickling spice.” I shouted to no one. “But isn’t that the same thing as the dill and mustard seed?”
I read it again more closely.
Apparently not.
I put the jars in the canner to warm, pushed some buttons, and headed to the store. This is probably not a wise thing to do, I thought, once I was on the road. Potential electrical hazard and all.
Oh well, I leave a crock pot plugged in all day. Same thing.
Just for good measure, I bought two jars of picking spice AND a jar of pickle crisp. My friend, the consummate 80 quarts of green beans canner, recommended it. I tossed in a couple of other items for good measure, too.
Ha! They won’t catch me without the proper ingredients again!
Back in action, I peeled the garlic cloves, one per jar and carefully lined them up at the packing station. Then I set out the specific herb jars I would need: dill seed, mustard seed, pickle crisp and … bay leaves.
Bay leaves! Each jar needs a bay leaf? How did I miss that?
Oh well, no problem. I had a small jar in the cupboard. I rooted through the spice cabinet. No bay leaves. How could that be?
“But I just used it for something fairly recently. It was in a small green Ball herb jar.”
No one answers.
Was that at Christmas? Maybe I put it in my garden cupboard. I started pulling random-shaped jars and containers out and precariously stacking them on the overfilled counter. Nope. No bay leaf.
Well, maybe I don’t really need a bay leaf. I’ve never seen a bay leaf floating in a jar of pickles anyway. Just get on with the recipe, I advised myself.
I found a corresponding measuring spoon for each ingredient, so I could correctly follow the recipe in my new assembly line. I readied my tongs and red bubble stick– or whatever the correct term is for that thing– and wetted a paper towel. I opened the tape measure and locked it at two inches to measure head space.
What you really need is a ruler, not a metal tape measure. That’s an oversight in the canning kit!
Finally, I was ready to pack the spears into the wide-mouth jars.
I opened the canner, proudly remembering to carefully tilt the lid away from myself for safety’s sake, and then I stacked it on another pot. I began shoving Jerry’s cuke sticks into the jars, one by one. I plopped a garlic clove onto the top and added a half teaspoon of mustard seed and a teaspoon of dill seed. I measured and sprinkled the fine white sandy pickle crisp into the jars and ladled in the cider vinegar juice to the requisite half-inch mark, as determined by the tape measure.
It was getting a little pungent, but I didn’t care. I had a system! I poked the red bubble stick into the jar and stuck in the tape measure. Then I wiped the jar rim. Ever so delicately, I centered the golden lid on the top and gently tightened the ring– just “fingertip tight.” One by one, the five jars were filled, and I hadn’t missed a wipe or a bubble!
I’m getting pretty good at this.
Jar by jar, I filled up the canner and then locked the lid. Just to be on the safe side, I consulted my Quick Guide.
Oops. Forgot a step.
I had to properly raise the water level before closing the hatch. This time, I moved to the other side of the crowded kitchen to plug in the electric tea pot. The kettle hissed and then stopped. It was the breaker again.
I ran out to the garage and flipped the switch. I’ll admit I was a little flustered, but I was proud that I didn’t toss in the dish towel until the others got home.
Back inside, I tried to refocus, checking the laminated guide.
Wait a minute! What does this mean? Venting? I didn’t vent the canner!
But it had just shut off in the middle of a cycle when the breaker blew.
How does that work? I need to get it back to the Fill Stage.
I checked the instructions again. Years of teaching poetry kicked in, and I instinctively read the title at the top in my confusion.
Ohhhhh. I was reading the pressure canning directions, not the boiling water ones. Uhhh, how long have I been reading the wrong side of the instructions?
I flipped over the sheet and quickly ran through the steps, pressing plus signs and arrows until the device reached Step Four: it was ready to can.
I locked the canner, pressed the arrow, and proudly began to tidy up the filling station.
I sighed. No nap for me today.
Now it was time to deal with the huge bowl of pickles and onions that had been brining for far longer than two hours. I rinsed them in a colander and began to line up the herbs needed for this batch: mustard seeds, turmeric, and celery seeds.
Celery seeds? Were they on my shopping list? Weren’t they in the cupboard, too?
My brain finally registered that it wasn’t registering.
Once again, I unloaded the cupboard: lemon peel, bottles of hard candy flavorings, nutmeg, whole and ground cinnamon. And fourteen kinds of Cajun seasoning blends. But no celery seed.
I must’ve thrown it out. Jerry hates celery seed in slaw.
At that moment, he walked in the door. “How’s it going?”
“Well, I’m stuck. I didn’t get the celery seed,” I barked.
“Celery seed.” He grabbed Little Helper’s hand and turned around.
They were home by the time the first batch was out and the half-pint jars were heating for my second batch. The onions and cucumber slices were on the boil and turning yellow from the turmeric that WAS in the cupboard. I put the jar of celery seed with the mustard seed and pickle crisp at the packing station. Once again, each jar had its own measuring spoon. I didn’t want to forget anything.
My team had slipped out of sight, but I didn’t mind. I had what I needed to charge onward.
After packing a few jars with a spoon, I realized that the serrated edge of the bubble stick actually helped stuff the product under the shoulder of the jar. That’s handy! Too bad I don’t have a ruler, though.
I filled eight half-pint jars, managing to stack them alternately in the canner, and I started the processing, all without blowing a fuse.
Look at that! Maybe my little oversights weren’t brain fog at all.
Then I began the grand tidy-up.
It seemed that keeping all the canning herbs in one container could improve my future efficiency, so I started to clear the cabinet and load a box. The herbs went in. The pickling salt, too. Then I found a wadded-up WalMart bag with an extra bottle of lemon juice.
What’s this? Oops.
A small jar of celery seeds was hiding inside the WalMart Bag. I furtively slipped it into the box under another herb jar.
Well, I did remember to buy it.
Before Jerry did.
I continued the countertop tidy-up. “Now what’s this?” I mused, reaching for a brand-new container behind the box.
I read it aloud: “Xtra Crunch.”
Huh?
Right beside it was another jar that looked exactly the same. Unopened.
I went back to the packing station and picked up the product I’d carefully measured out into every single jar of pickles we’d made that day.
“Citric acid!”
What? Why did I even have citric acid? And how did I mistake it for Pickle Crisp?
I stared at the two jars in my hands. Well, they’re both plastic jars. And that was the extent of their similarity.
I couldn’t ignore it any longer. I was losing my mind.
I left the kitchen a mess. It was time to sit down.
My husband wandered back in and saw me sitting on the couch shaking my head.
“Finished?”
“I can’t believe it. I put citric acid in every single pickle jar. “
“Oh yeah?”
“Instead of Pickle Crisp!”
“Oh. How’d you do that?”
My withering look emptied the room.
All I could do was shake my head. And listen to the boiling water from the digital canner doing its job on the kitchen counter. And wait for the pings of the jars that had already come out.
There was some satisfaction in that.
Is there anything positive out of this fiasco, I wondered, trying to salvage at least a lesson, if not jars of edible pickles.
It took a minute. But I took a stab.
Well, I learned that canning is intensive work with lots of steps and details. I doubly admire my canner friends’ ability to juggle all the steps and problem-solve along the way. I can’t even imagine what canning was like back in the day.
I confirmed that my kitchen is far too small for canning efficiency no matter how many hands are working. My budding notion of having a canning kitchen in the garage could be a huge boon to the whole process.
I also realized that sometimes things aren’t mine to do solo. I may need some extra hands. And for me, that may not be until my red blood cells are closer to normal. It may really take a year. ~sigh~
***
Now, three days later, I’m still learning. There is a ruler on the red bubble stick, so I can retire Jerry’s retractable metal tape measure from the canning supplies box.
But I still haven’t tasted the pickles.
I expect them to be flimsy and flaccid. And overly tangy. In other words, gross.
But hey, maybe they won’t turn brown thanks to their citric acid content.
Do pickles even do that?
