Knowing What's In Your Food

I've been doing a lot of canning lately.  Last week I did a batch of ginger peach jam, this week I did a huge batch of salsa, and once the pears come in a couple of weeks from now, I'll be canning those, too.  I love to can.  I've talked about it before on my blog, and how empowered it makes me feel, how independent and self sufficient it can be. 

There's other reasons I love canning, though.  One is that it ties me to my roots; every time I can, I'm reminded of the great canning parties the ladies in my family would have, and the stories my mom would tell me of when her 11 brothers and sisters would help grandma put up food for the winter.  Another reason I love it is because it's pretty darn frugal.  My jams, even though they're almost all fruit with very little sweetener, cost roughly $1 for an 8 oz jar.  The salsa I made today cost around $1.35 for a 16 oz jar.  The pears I'll be canning?  They're completely free, because I'll be picking the pears from Chad's mom's yard as well as our elderly neighbor's yard.

But the reason I most love canning is because I know exactly what's going into my food.  I know my strawberry jam is made with organically grown berries from my own back yard, lemon juice, pectin, and some sweetener.  There's no funky ingredients with names so long and complicated that you can't pronounce them.  I know the pears I'll be canning are pesticide free.  That the peppers and onions I used in my salsa are locally grown.  And that there's love in every single jar.

Chad and I started out this low carb journey over a year ago, and it kind of surprises me when I think back to those times and how much we've changed since then.  We were still eating store bought condiments and salad dressing, eating vegetarian meats (like soy burgers and seitan), using soy flour to make low carb baked goods, using vegetable oils, eating canned soups, and using chemical laden seasoning packets.

It took us a while, but we gradually, little by little, converted our way of eating from a low-carb version of  the SAD diet to a more primal lifestyle.  And over that time, knowing exactly what's in my food has become more and more important.  That's probably why I have a personal goal this year to fill up a metal cabinet where I keep my canned goods.

This is without the salsa, which is cooling on the counter :)

As you can see, I still have a ways to go!  But with the salsa and pears, as well as some applesauce, taco sauce, and pickles I plan on making yet, I think I should be able to reach my goal.

If you're interested in canning salsa, the recipe I used was from this PDF (page 10, the recipe titled "Tomato/Tomato Paste Salsa II") from the University of Wisconsin Cooperative Extension.  I chose that one because it looked easy, it made a goodly quantity (I got 11 pints), and coming from a university, I knew it was a tested recipe.  Also, I liked that in an earlier part of the PDF, it tells you that you can use any kind of pepper as long as you use the exact amount called for.  So I substituted bell peppers for the hot peppers, being totally anti-spicy foods.  It came out delicious, too, so I'll continue using this recipe!

Condiments

I love condiments.  Don't you?  They make the world seem a little happier, and your food seem a little brighter.  Creamy mayo, tangy ketchup, smokey barbeque sauce....  What would life be like without condiments?

Well, most of us who are low carb, paleo, primal, and generally whole foods know exactly what it's like.  The only store bought condiment in my refrigerator is mustard, and I was never really a mustard fan to begin with.  But everything else in the store is loaded with crap; vegetable or seed oils, HFCS, sugar, artificial flavors, preservatives you can't pronounce.  And don't get me started on salad dressing. 

Chad and I went without condiments (except mustard) for quite a while, and salads were out of the question.  Which is sad, because I love salad.  After a couple of months of this, I finally said to myself THAT'S IT!  I'm going to make my OWN condiments!  And I did!

Today I make my own mayonnaise.  I use this recipe for regular mayo, except I use Linda's method from Linda's Low Carb for mayo, which is to put the all the ingredients except the oil into a quart mason jar, stir, pour the oil in, and then blend with an immersion blender.  Works every time! 

And when I'm feeling frugal/decadent, I use a modified version of this recipe for BACONNAISE.  Yes, baconnaise, a delicious mayonnaise created with saved bacon fat.  It's a great way to save money since the bacon grease is practically free.  But I only make baconnaise once in a while, because it's quite bacony, and you don't want to overdo that. 

Fresh hot bacon grease.

Now ketchup can be tricky.  There's such a subtle balance of sweet, tang, and spices that need to be just right.  My attempts to make it in the past have been pretty ugly, but then I came across Linda's recipe for Better "Heinz" Ketchup.  This is a winner!  You don't have to use Splenda.  I have used stevia and also xylitol.  Personally, I like it with xylitol better.  I bet honey would work well, too, if you allow that in your diet.

I've tried a few times to make barbeque sauce, but that's eluded me so far.  My next attempt is going to be Linda's Favorite BBQ Sauce recipe.  It looks like it should be very good.  I just don't know what to do about the liquid smoke; I'm not sure I want to use it.  I DO have a ton of applewood smoked sea salt I could use instead of regular salt, though, and maybe get some smoked paprika. 

What about salad dressings?  Those I make, too.  Mostly they're vinaigrettes, using whatever kind of spices or seasonings sound good when I'm making it.  We sometimes buy the Good Seasons Italian dressing mix in the store.  Even though it does have sugar in the ingredients, most of the rest of the ingredients are surprisingly not terrible.  But lately, I've been having fun making creamy dressing.  I've tried this recipe for ranch dressing, using my own olive oil mayo, and the other day, I just whipped together a Thousand Island dressing from the top of my head.  I knew it was basically mayo, ketchup, and relish.  Since I already had homemade mayo, and homemade ketchup, and I even had homemade pickles made from my own home grown beans, I thought what the heck!  And it came out so delicious!

I even used home grown lettuce for the salad.

I try not to think of my way of eating as restricting.  It's not, really.  I CHOOSE not to eat the yucky seed oils, or the HFCS, or the sugar, or nasty preservatives and colors and flavors that are in store bought condiments.  And because that's a choice I make, I get to go experiment in the kitchen.  How cool is that?