Preserving Corn: canning corn and red peppers with basil or pickle Relish with peppers and corn

It's corn's harvest season!

That used to mean it's moonshine season! Neighbors would help a corn farmer shuck corn all day. lots of times a farmer would set a gallon jug of good ol'corn liquor right in the middle; then see who could shuck the fastest - and that person got to enjoy the jug first.

They say, you'd maybe go to maybe a dozen corn shuckin's in one fall. Older people will tell you, it was liquor back in those days. If you had a gallon like they did back then, you could make any kind of medicine you wanted to now.

There is a critical importance of Agriculture to human health, ongoing life, and cultural ritual. The farms and gardens of Appalachia’s people were vital to family survival, and people spent hours and hours around and about their crops and animals. Like in the photo below of my grandparents and their family and friends in the 1970s, the relationships humans have with their animals and food dictate the meaning of community and the quality of life itself.

How about the bad quality of our products today - but we still carry tried and true practical items like the best Black Walnut Cracker available. 

the recipes - 

Procure:
15 pounds of corn on the cob
1 pound of red peppers (about three medium)
Basil

Cut corn on the cob. We think this corncutter made of wood makes the process easy. Cut red peppers into strips. Pack corn loosely into hot jars, leaving 1-inch headspace. Add 3 to 4 strips of red pepper and 1/2 tablespoon basil to each jar. Ladle boiling water over corn, leaving 1-inch head space. Remove air bubbles. Adjust two-piece caps. Process 55 minutes at 10 pounds pressure.

Makes about 5 pints.

This is a picture of pickle corn relish - here is the basic recipe -

Soak the chopped vegetables in a large bowl, combine -
3 quarts chopped cucumbers
3 cups each of chopped sweet green and red peppers
1 cup chopped onions)
3/4 cup canning or pickling salt
2 cups ice
4 cups water
and let stand for 4 hours. Use more of each water and ice , if needed to cover the veggies
Drain - Just drain and discard the salt water.
Cover the vegetables with fresh ice water for another hour.
Cover the chopped veggies with the same amount of water and ice (use more of each , if needed to cover) and let it stand for 1 hour more. Drain again and discard the water again.

Mix spices and vinegar
Combine 4 teaspoons each of mustard seed, turmeric, whole allspice, and whole cloves in a spice or cheesecloth bag. Add spices to 2 cups sugar and 6 cups white vinegar. Heat to the vinegar and spice mix to a boil. Pour the spice/vinegar over the chopped vegetables and then cover and refrigerate for 24 hours, (up to 36 hours).

Heat the relish and jars - process the same as above. Remember to leave about 1/4" - 1/2" of head space in your jar.

Keeps for 12 - 18 months!

Salsa from Red Hill's tomatoes, green peppers and hot peppers

19 pints of tomato salsa were canned last week by Michelle, our manager. She sent this photo and following recipe using foods from Red Hill General Store hoping to help share the art of old-fashioned home-preservation.

I asked her if that's why she made it in the first place. "No," she replied laughing, "I make it because my family loves it and I love them."

Michelle's Recipe - 

1/2 bushel tomatoes scaled, peeled and diced
6-8 large green peppers, diced
6-8 habanera peppers, diced
5 large onions, diced
3 garlic cloves, minced
3 Tbsp. Cilantro
1/2 cup white vinegar
2 tsp. salt
2 cans tomato paste

Mix all ingredients in large sauce pan, heat until warm. Ladle salsa into jars and process in an open kettle for 20 minutes. 

We're also trying this project for the second year - 

Check out the biggest flea market on the east coast!

Heritage Collection - Blue Mason Jars - Limited supply!

If you're into DIY projects or have ever wasted time on pintrest, you've probably not missed this versatile  piece of glass. I'm talking about mason jars. Everyone loves them and when it comes to desirability - the older, the better.

Blue mason jars are the rarest. And with the 2013 limited-edition jar - Ball is keeping it that way. 

2013 is the 100th anniversary of the first Ball canning jar of 1913.

Designed by the Ball brothers, each jar was intended to be better than the one before. The launch of the first true "Perfect Mason" jar was in1913.

Ball has stopped manufacturing these blue jars. Once they are sold out, that's all we're ever going to get. up and coming limited edition jar? 

But! you can buy them from Red Hill General Store for $9.99! 

heritage jar 2013 on left - original on right

Reasons to support local businesses & how you're helping us build community

Image from the Institute for local self reliance. 

While I’m not really one for re-posting images with neat little sayings on them, this one happened to catch my eye and stand out to me. I saw the post below on facebook recently and thought it had some piratical advice. If we all work together - maybe we can create communities that make our families happy and healthy. At Red Hill General Store in Hillsville & Raleigh we're already working on some of these very things that businesses with a shopkeepers bell - those businesses that are locally owned and operated - should all be doing.

  

We try to promote those things that make leaving your house worth-while. I’m guilty of not doing this enough.  I keep making excuses as to why I can’t… mostly the lack of money… but I start getting restless with cabin feaver when I haven’t left the house in awhile.  To me, home starts to feel like a prison and I start feeling like a caged animal. I even get on my own nerves.  Sure even mundane things like trips to the grocery store are better than sitting and staring at the same ceiling and walls. But we've got free drive-in movies - schedule below! - and that's a pretty good excuse.

Selling flowers to be planted in gardens or buckets across the community is beautiful work. They’re nice to look at, they smell pretty good and there’s something to be said about working with dirt and seeds.  There’s a kind of satisfaction in planting a seed and watching it grow into something beautiful…  Also, flowers attract bees… and we need bees… or we die.

Put up a swing - Because who doesn't enjoy the feeling of weightless flying?

Then preserve the food you grew in your own garden with your canner. There’s nothing like popping open a jar of homemade jam on a blustery winter day, as our grandmothers knew all too well. Once maligned as unnecessary and labor-intensive, home canning has undergone a renaissance. A new generation is discovering that there’s something uniquely satisfying about preserving the season’s best produce.

Start a tradition - and we believe in starting meaningful traditions like the 18 mile Hillsville flea market, our summer movies, and going to see our wind-turbine provide clean energy in the Appalachian mountains. It's pretty small at only 100 feet and powers just one farm in Fancy Gap- but it's all this local business could afford. Tom Largen was quoted when we celebrated the powered-by-free-fuel machine beginning, "It's about doing everything you can - with what you have - every change you get."

We hire neighborhood young people for odd jobs like building our home-grown wind-turbine, setting up our drive-in movie screen, or taking pictures of cowbell for our website. The sense of entitlement some young people have today is flabbergasting, but on the other hand, kids shouldn't be treated as slave labor either. They need that common-sense work ethic we've been passing along in the Red Hill family since we stated.

We need a more humane and sustainable definition of success that includes well-being, wisdom, wonder, empathy, and the ability to give back. There is a big conference on this - and article "Beyond Money and Power (and Stress and Burnout): In Search of a New Definition of Success." This challenge - just like seeking to understand - requires participation individually and collectively. We can no longer go throughout our days unaware and uncaring. We must be mindful, present in our experiences, and determined to figure our the best ways to do things and how we can create them.

Subscribe to our blog (using the menu on the right)! We'll talk about wind's economic viability in Carroll County and how it might save our farms and heritage from housing development. You won't want to miss this.