An Old Member of the Household

Yesterday you met my Keurig, the newest member of our household. Now meet one of my favorite gadgets. It’s like “Hard Boiled Eggs for Dummies.”

I love hard boiled eggs. On a salad. With bacon and mayo. In potato salad. With tuna and mayo. Salt and Pepper.

But I’m NOT Betty Crocker. As a matter of fact, when I want to boil eggs, I have to go get my Betty Crocker cookbook to figure out how to boil the darn things.

This EggCOOKER is so easy to use. I put in as many as 7 eggs in the tray. Pour in the appropriate amount of water. (It comes with a no-brainer cup that tells you how much water to put in depending on how many eggs you are hard OR soft boiling.) And turn it on. The only bad thing about this EggCOOKER is the loud buzzer. I jump out of my skin every time it goes off! But I can be anywhere in the house and hear it.

I’ve found the best way to peel them is to put them in a small strainer right away, run cold water over them and shake them up. This cracks the shells all over. Then I peel them while still running cold water over the eggs.

This kitchen gadget also comes with a tray to poach 4 eggs!

How do you eat your hard boiled eggs??

Love, CathyJayne

Canned Venison

We had talked about canning venison a few times. The day finally came. Since hubby and and I have NEVER canned a single thing, we turned to my parents for help. Dad got out the big pressure cooker and helped us get everything ready. It was much easier than I thought it would be. And the venison tasted amazing!

We started with 4 pounds of venison shoulder, partially thawed and cut into pieces.

After boiling to sterilize the jars, lids, and rings, the venison was packed into the jars. One recipe called for 1 teaspoon of salt per quart. We were using pints and I forgot to adjust the salt for that! We used garlic salt then also added tomato juice to 2 of the jars. This was an experimental small batch, to test the process and try a couple different techniques.

Into the pressure cooker….

Once the steam builds and water spits out of the valve, close the valve and let the pressure build up to 10. Maintain heat for 75 minutes at 10 pounds of pressure. It takes some watching to adjust the heat to maintain the correct pressure. After 75 minutes, turn off the pressure cooker and let the pressure go down on its own. Then release the pressure valve. Opening the pressure cooker required pliers and a screwdriver. It was only a few minutes after we took the jars out that we could hear the lids popping as the jars cooled and completed the sealing process.

The meat filled jars weren’t quite as filled when finished. Lesson learned… pack more meat into each jar! Since the meat started out frozen, we could only get so much in the jars. Next time we’ll use completely thawed meat so we can get more in the jars.

Eager to do a taste test, we opened 3 of the jars into a skillet to make a sauce to go over noodles. The meat was tender, a bit salty, and tasty! It was a success and we plan on canning more venison!

Don’t go getting any ideas that I’m any kind of cook! This was a great opportunity for me to wear my apron, but it didn’t get dirty! So now I can go put it back on and make some venison sausage meatballs!