Pam Crooks

Like Tomatoes? Or Corn? Or Pigs or Bees? Join the Club! by Pam Crooks

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Corn Clubs

After the turn of the century, most farmers didn’t trust new technology. Their sons, however, were more receptive, and guided by agricultural teachers and researchers who hoped the latest techniques would be embraced and then adopted on the farm, they formed after-school clubs where the boys learned hands-on lessons to improve corn production.

They were allocated an acre of land, usually given by their fathers. Their leaders taught them how to improve the quality of their seeds, how better to cultivate the corn – and make some nice money besides.

In addition, they were expected to keep precise records of their yields and expenses, as well as to participate in local, regional, and state corn contests, the precursor to today’s county fairs.  Any prize money won was theirs to keep, as well as any profits made from their acre plot.  With these funds, the boys were able to help their families with purchases otherwise deemed unaffordable–clothes, school supplies, and  fun extras. Once their successes were observed, the corn clubs provided their seed to local farmers, boosting economies.

Eventually, the corn clubs expanded to include different crops and even livestock, peanuts, cotton, and potatoes, all through the successful concept of teaching young boys important agricultural skills.

Hey, what about the girls?

Not long after, notable women like Jane McKimmon Simpson, a home economist from North Carolina, and rural schoolteacher, Marie Samuella Cromer, also from the South, recognized the importance of the boys club successes and that they could, indeed, be applied to young girls. They chose to focus on tomatoes, since cultivating them were not as strenuous as raising corn (running a plow down the fields would have required far too much upper body strength).  The women and girls, eager to add to the family’s support at a time when most farms didn’t have running water or electricity, loved the idea of harvesting tomatoes, and soon Tomato Clubs flourished.

Burdensome?  I think I’d resent that!

Tomato Clubs

Tomato Club members were aged about 12 – 18 years and cultivated individual plots of 1/10 acre.  They worked in groups to can and market their produce, and like the boys, kept the profits.

Since most housewives were accustomed to buying tins instead of glass jars, the clubs focused on canning the tomatoes in #3 size tin or steel containers, sealing them with solder.  While the Mason jar had been invented, access to a pressure canner and the jars themselves was scarce.

Like the boys, the girls were required to document their work in multi-page reports, giving them a female touch with uniquely decorated covers, some tied with ribbons, and all precisely written.

One young lady named Lizzie reported harvesting 2,000 pounds of tomatoes and selling 800 #3 size cans, earning a profit of $78 (about $2,470 today). Some serious cash for a young girl in the early 1900s, right?  Good for her!

Another young lady in 1913, Sadie, wrote, “A girl can make money for herself if she desires and still stay right on the farm.”

Another in 1915 writes, “It has been a way by which I could not only have my own spending money and pay my expenses at the Farm Camp, but I also have a bank account of sixty dollars.” (About $1,881 today.)

As you may have guessed, corn clubs and tomato clubs (as well as potato clubs, bee clubs, poultry clubs, and so on!) were the precursor for 4-H Clubs, which over time evolved beyond agriculture to fostering leadership, personal growth, and all kinds of life skills.

 

Have you ever been in a club while growing up?  Did you find it meaningful and educational or more social? Did you have 4-H groups at your school?

 

 

 

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Ready to Exercise? Grab your Corset! by Pam Crooks

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Like many women my age, I discovered I was losing some bone density. Nothing major or scary, but my doctor urged me to take more calcium and develop a weight-lifting routine.  I’m definitely more of an outside walker (every day) and much less of a weight-lifter (almost never), but dutifully, I looked into what I could do to build more muscle mass.

Fortunately, my insurance will cover a gym membership, which is, of course, much cheaper for the company than paying for hospital stays, surgeries, and physical therapies for their insured customers, and more importantly encourages a healthier lifestyle.  I’m not much into going to the gym every day, but a brand new one opened up close to me, and it is really nice.

So my husband and I enrolled in their SilverSneakers classes, which, if you’re not familiar, are stretching, weight-lifting, zumba, water aerobics classes, etc, designed for seniors.  Ahem, people my age.  The classes are enjoyable and low-stress, and their workouts are excellent.

After that first class, as we were leaving that spiffy, sprawling, modern gym that had more exercise equipment than I would even know how to use, I couldn’t help thinking about women throughout history who would never have dreamed of such a high-tech place to exercise.  Farm and ranch wives didn’t need a work-out routine when they already worked hard inside the home and out, caring for crops and livestock, with a minimum of tools to make their work easier.  I can only imagine how tired they’d be at the end of every day!

But what about the women in cities who were raised not to exert themselves?

Nineteenth-century America required modesty for women. Young boys could compete in sports and games, but daughters were expected to get their exercise from doing normal household chores.  For those females who might be prone to athleticism, any public performance was decried as immodest, selfish, and attention-seeking, especially if she was in her childbearing years.

However, in the 1830s, a fad called “calisthenics” arrived from Europe. Women took to the light choreographed movements that were set to music and resembled dance steps. Society approved the routines as graceful and dignified, emulating upper class beauty and elegance.

As the years passed, females increased their physical activity by walking in zigzags, marching in place, bending the arms and legs, and skipping, their intent mainly on increasing blood flow and preventing bad posture. In time, with the advent of elite women’s schools and country clubs, more aristocratic activities like tennis, croquet, archery, and bathing-beauty swimming in lakes or beaches thrived in popularity.

For others, there were opportunities to exercise at home with these manmade contraptions for those who could afford them. There was no such thing as “work-out clothes” like we have, and so women simply exercised in private and in their regular clothes which included, yep, their corset.

Men even exercised in their suits.

By the 1890s, the bicycle had created a social revolution and eventually became accepted as a means for women to stay active. Two million bicycles were being manufactured every year, and like today, they were designed with a “step-through” frame to enable women to climb on and off. They certainly dressed for the occasion, hats and all. Some added weights to their dress hems to keep them from flying up, and this young lady could most certainly be wearing her corset.

Can you imagine?  Ha!

The Olympics began in ancient Greece, but were abolished because of paganism.  The games were finally revived in 1896, although women were not allowed to compete until 1920.  A special “Women’s Olympics” on a smaller scale than the men’s began in 1922 and continued well into the 1930s.

Fast forward to today, and exercising is roundly applauded and encouraged for its health benefits for all ages. Children as young as two can enroll in tumbling classes. Soccer and t-ball teams are organized for four-year-olds. Sports of all kinds abound for male and female, young and old, in public arenas open to spectators who cheer on the participants. The benefits are enormous, and we’re all living longer lives because of them.

The SilverSneakers program began in 1992, partnering with health care plans like mine to help seniors enjoy convenience access to fitness programs geared just for them.

From their website:

“From national gyms to local community centers, there are more participating fitness locations available in the U.S. to SilverSneakers members than there are Starbucks.”

We’ve come a long way, for sure, and thank goodness for that!

 

Do you like to exercise?  What’s your favorite kind of physical activity? 

Are you familiar with SilverSneakers?  Do you have their program near you? 

 

To stay up on our latest releases and have some fun, too, join our Facebook Reader Group HERE!

 

Cowgirls in the Kitchen – Pam Crooks

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Fifty years ago, when I was newly married and newly pregnant with my first baby, I joined La Leche League for all their collective wisdom and encouragement with breastfeeding.  Not only was their focus on nursing babies, they stressed nutrition, too, for ourselves and for our families.

Those ladies were some of my best friends for many years, and they were great cooks, too.  One of them shared her Grape-Nuts Bread recipe, which I’ve made more times than I can count.

C.W. Post developed the cereal in 1897. In 1933, Grape-Nuts sponsored Sir Admiral Byrd’s expedition to Antarctica, fed the troops during World War II, energized explorers during their exploring, and soared through the years where it even got a little marketing help from Barney Fife on the Andy Griffith Show.

Yep, Grape-Nuts cereal is still alive and well today.  It’s a bit daunting to love in a bowl with milk (my husband says it tastes like cardboard, and he’s right) but in this bread recipe, it’s so-o good!

Chock-ful of protein and fiber, it’s dense and hearty, requires no yeast, and comes together quickly (once the cereal soaks in milk).  It’s delicious toasted, spread with butter, jelly, or my personal favorite, cinnamon butter.

If you’ve never had this bread, you’ll be taken aback by its subtle sweetness and nuttiness.

As with most recipes, Grape-Nuts bread has lots of variations.  Here’s the original one as shown in this image. It’s easy to make, bakes up nicely, and is very good:

GRAPE-NUTS BREAD – Yield 1 loaf

Oven 350 degrees.

  • 1 1/3 cups milk
  • 2/3 cup Grape-Nuts cereal

Combine and microwave for 1 minute. Stir and cool while mixing the following:

  • 2 cups sifted flour
  • 2 1/2 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 2/3 cup sugar

Stir together, then add in:

  • 1 egg, well-beaten
  • 3 Tb. melted butter

Combine all with cereal and milk.

Bake in greased and floured bread pan 55-60 minutes. Cool before cutting.

Here’s my recipe:

GRAPE-NUTS BREAD – Yield 2 loaves

Oven 350 degrees

  • 1 cup Grape-Nuts cereal
  • 2 cups sour milk

To sour the milk, add 2 Tb. lemon juice or vinegar and enough milk to make 2 cups.  Let stand 1/2 hour or so. Mix the following:

  • 1 cup sugar
  • 2 eggs

Sift together:

  • 1 tsp salt
  • 4 cups flour
  • 1 tsp soda
  • 3 tsp. baking powder

Combine all ingredients with milk and cereal mixture.

Batter will be very stiff.

Bake in 2 greased and floured bread pans 55-60 minutes. Cool before cutting.

Did you grow up having Grape-Nuts cereal for breakfast?  Have you ever baked with Grape-Nuts cereal?   

Pam’s Flour Sack Towels Winner!

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I loved all your memories of flour sack towels, of how they were used in the past and now today.  So fun!

My winner of this set of towels is:

 

Donna Morris Morris

 

Watch for my email, and I’ll have these sent directly to you from Amazon!

 

(Winner chosen by Random.org)

 

 

 

 

Flour Sack Towels Through the Years by Pam Crooks

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Among the gifts I received for Christmas this year were flour sack towels. Three of them, to be exact.  Two were sweetly embroidered for my husband and me by our young granddaughters, and the third was screen-printed with a Christmas-themed gingerbread man with a stack of books from my sister.

With this towel came a slip of paper noting the history and benefits of flour sack towels. Of course, I suspect we all have a flour sack towel or two in our kitchen drawers right now, and we all probably have a pretty good idea how the towels came to be, but I especially found interesting the foresightedness of feed companies that led to their practical use and popularity.

I didn’t realize just how widespread that popularity was!

In 1850 or so, flour was shipped and sold in big wooden barrels to the general stores. Cumbersome and not particularly sanitary, right?  About this time, cotton was more easily harvested and became plentiful. Grain mills took to shipping the flour in thick-weaved cotton bags strong enough to hold fifty pounds and later, one hundred pounds.  Soon, sugar, animal feed, fertilizer, seeds, etc., followed in those bags, and it wasn’t long until frugal housewives, loathe to throw anything useful away, found new ways to use them.

Towels, aprons, diapers, bedding, and all sorts of clothing were just the beginning.  But alas, who wanted to wear a shirt or a dress with the flour company’s logo branded across the front?  Housewives determinedly removed the labels with rounds of soaking and washing with bleach and lye soap.  After the chain stitching was pulled out of the side of the bag, the cotton could be cleaned, starched, and pressed.

(These leggings were made by a Lakota woman sometime in the 1920s using leather and dyed porcupine quills on the lower half visible below a dress. On the upper part which would be hidden by the dress, she used flour sacks from Rex Flour.)

Eventually, seeing the growing popularity of up-cycling the feed bags and seeing a potential rise in sales, manufacturers switched to paper labels.  Housewives found removing the glue-backed labels with kerosene much easier but still a chore. The feed companies and flour mills took continued compassion (with an eye toward higher profits, of course) on housewives and began to print their logos using water-soluble vegetable inks.

Popularity for the bags soared in the 1920s when the cotton mills hit upon the idea of producing fabrics in colorful flower prints, designs for pillowcases and curtains, embroidery patterns, and even patterns for children’s clothing, teddy bears, dolls, and so on.

How fun, right?

(Isn’t this a pretty pillowcase?  Sacks were sewn with string and a large needle, and when the sacks were taken apart, small holes were left behind. Can you see the stitching on the edge of this pillowcase?)

Women had to compete for the bags, often bringing their able-bodied sons or husbands with them to the store to maneuver through a pile of heavy sacks to get to the bottom where the choice prints could be found. Rural wives, of course, had an advantage of plenty of bags on hand to feed their livestock. Others had to collect, save, and trade to have enough yardage for their projects.  Others bought larger bags called “empties” from bakers for only pennies a piece.

One 100-pound bag of feed netted a yard of 44 inch fabric. You can see how many bags would be needed for a large project or multiple clothing items.

Even President Calvin Coolidge, known for his frugality, benefited from the women’s enthusiastic creativity by receiving a gift of handmade flour-sack pajamas. It took five flour sacks to make the pajamas and were a show of support for his economic program.

During World War II, due to a shortage of cotton fabric, the government strongly encouraged use of the bags. Women sold their surplus bags for extra cash. After the war ended, rural women developed a sense of fashion from their frugality, and national sewing contests were held so they could show off their skills, netting prizes like expensive sewing machines, automobiles, or even a trip to Hollywood!

It’s easy to see how the cotton bags boosted the cotton industry.  Once the sacks were cleaned and readied for use, there were as comparable in quality and design as any new percale sold in stores, thanks to top textile designers from New York City and Europe who jumped on board to produce designs with colorfast dyes.  One of the earliest collections was by the Percy Kent Bag Company, still in business today in Missouri and have even done bag work for Disney films.

(Staley Milling Company of St. Louis and Kansas City was one of Percy Kent’s biggest customers. Here are packaged animal feeds in Percy Kent dress-print sacking.)

I don’t know that flour sack towels are used much to sew clothing these days, but they are the absolute best for drying dishes and being used in other ways in the kitchen.  They’re fun to use in crafts, too, like stamping, painting with paint pens, screen and digital printing, all things those 19th century grain mills and the cotton industry never dreamed of!

To win a set of these pretty flour sack towels, tell me how and if you use flour sack towels for anything besides drying dishes!

 

 

Have you gotten your copy of JOY TO THE COWBOY yet?  Book #2 of the Christmas Stocking Sweethearts series by the fillies!

She was sunshine. He was clouds.  Until a sprig of mistletoe changed everything.

Griff Marcello must live with the shame of the crime he once committed for his mobster father.  As he grows into a man, he’s found security as a cowboy living in Glory Hill, Nebraska, but the memory of his sin never leaves him.

Joyanna Hollinger is devoted to the community of Glory Hill, and with Christmas approaching, her plans for a special Christmas Eve service consumes her. All her efforts are falling into place–until she loses a key part of the celebration.

When Griff receives an unexpected gift from his former piano teacher, he never thinks her kindness will fill him with the spirit of Christmas, even when Joyanna needs him most.

Could the simplicity of a hand-stitched stocking and the Christmas carol tucked within chase away the clouds in his heart and warm him from the sunshine of Joyanna’s love?

#kindleunlimited

AMAZON

AUDIOBOOK

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Christmas Stocking Sweethearts with Pam Crooks!

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Book #2!

JOY TO THE COWBOY is the only story in our series with a guy on the cover, and I love the looks of him.  He’s just how I envisioned my cowboy (even though he is a little grumpy at first!)  Trust me, you’ll love him in the end as much as I do!

She was sunshine. He was clouds.  Until a sprig of mistletoe changed everything.

Griff Marcello must live with the shame of the crime he once committed for his mobster father.  As he grows into a man, he’s found security as a cowboy living in Glory Hill, Nebraska, but the memory of his sin never leaves him.

Joyanna Hollinger is devoted to the community of Glory Hill, and with Christmas approaching, her plans for a special Christmas Eve service consumes her. All her efforts are falling into place–until she loses a key part of the celebration.

When Griff receives an unexpected gift from his former piano teacher, he never thinks her kindness will fill him with the spirit of Christmas, even when Joyanna needs him most.

Could the simplicity of a hand-stitched stocking and the Christmas carol tucked within chase away the clouds in his heart and warm him from the sunshine of Joyanna’s love?

AMAZON

Also Available in Audiobook!

Yes, we know. It’s that time of year when we sometimes feel less kind than we should.

Re-write the sentence in red to something less naughty and more nice.  For example:

NAUGHTY:  “Grandma’s eggnog is too thick and chunky.”

NICE: “Isn’t it wonderful Grandma is still with us to make her eggnog?”

THE ELECTRIC BILL HAS GONE UP.

You might win this musical piano ornament, new this year from Hallmark!  

(I love how it looks just like the one on my cover. Even better, it plays “Joy to the World,” the carol I’d already chosen for JOY TO THE COWBOY!)

All entries will be eligible for our oh-so-beautiful Grand Prize, too!

Winners announced Sunday, December 15!

(USA Winners only, please.)

On the Hunt for a Villain by Pam Crooks

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I’ve always had a fascination with the Mafia.  Be it my Italian heritage or the fact that I grew up in the 50s and 60s when the mob was prevalent in the news, their way of ‘doing business’ was shockingly at odds with their strong sense of family and faith.  Who doesn’t remember the infamous Baptism scene in “The Godfather” while Michael Corleone participates in the revered Catholic ceremony for his nephew, praising God and renouncing Satan, while at the same time his hitmen carry out orders to murder his enemies?

So as I was plotting my story for our Christmas Stocking Sweethearts series, I wanted my hero, Griff Marcello, to be plagued by his past. I wanted him to be as different from my heroine as I could make him. I wanted clouds and sunshine. And since I always have a villain in my books, I thought of having him commit a crime when he was younger, but it still troubles him when he’s older.

Of course, in the West, thieving, pistol-toting gangs abounded, but I was determined to find something different.  Since my book is set 1874, I wondered if the Mafia had infiltrated the United States yet. To my surprise and pleasure, they had, indeed.

The New Orleans Mafia put down their tentacles along the Gulf Coast and busied themselves with criminal activities like racketeering, extortion, gambling, prostitution, narcotics distribution, money laundering, loan sharking, fencing of stolen goods, and murder. The usual stuff, right? And not so different than their more modern-day counterparts.

In the mid-20th century, the Marcello crime family became notorious in New Orleans. Led by Carlos Marcello, who emigrated with his Sicilian parents in 1911 and settled in a decaying plantation outside of New Orleans along with his eight siblings, he eventually assumed the role of boss. The crime family wielded heavy influence until the 1980s when Marcello was sent to prison, and in spite of his downfall, it’s believed remnants of his Mafia remain in New Orleans today.

Remember those eight siblings I mentioned?  One of them was Anthony Marcello, who was far more elusive than his brother, Carlos. Thus, he became the perfect character as the father to my  hero, Griff.  And a shadowy villain, too.

Lest you think JOY TO THE COWBOY is something dark and un-Christmas-like, trust me, it’s not. The New Orleans mobster is only backstory, transplanted from another time, but what a cool villain he could be.  Stay tuned!

And now… drum roll, please!…I’m thrilled to share with you my book in the Christmas Stocking Sweethearts series!  We’ve only just launched the series, and you’re among the first to see!

She was sunshine. He was clouds.  Until a sprig of mistletoe changed everything.

Griff Marcello must live with the shame of the crime he once committed for his mobster father.  As he grows into a man, he’s found security as a cowboy living in Glory Hill, Nebraska, but the memory of his sin never leaves him.

Joyanna Hollinger is devoted to the community of Glory Hill, and with Christmas approaching, her plans for a special Christmas Eve service consumes her. All her efforts are falling into place–until she loses a key part of the celebration.

When Griff receives an unexpected gift from his former piano teacher, he never thinks her kindness will fill him with the spirit of Christmas, even when Joyanna needs him most.

Could the simplicity of a hand-stitched stocking and the Christmas carol tucked within chase away the clouds in his heart and warm him from the sunshine of Joyanna’s love?

Tropes:

Holiday Romance
Grumpy & Sunshine
First Love
Small Town
Sweet Historical Western

PREORDER NOW

All books in the Christmas Stocking Sweethearts series will be released during Cowboys & Mistletoe, starting December 1st. But you can preorder each one now.

See all the books on our SERIES PAGE ON AMAZON

Do you prefer a villain in your books?  Or do you prefer a story less suspenseful?  What’s your favorite kind of villain?  Scary or well-intentioned?  Do you have a favorite villain from a movie or a book?  

An Outlaw’s Legend by Pam Crooks

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We’ve recently returned from a family trip to Durango, Colorado, a place that has been on my bucket list for years, not only for the western vibe but mostly because of the infamous train ride that it’s known for.

Like most everyone else who has visited Durango, we took the Durango-Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad train through the San Juan National Forest, an authentic ride through the mountains and wilderness much as it would have been back in the late 1800s. After 3 1/2 hours (which didn’t seem nearly that long thanks to our entertaining guide and beautiful scenery), we stopped in Silverton for a 2 1/2 hour visit before we boarded the bus back to our VRBO. (We took the bus back since it was literally 2/3 of the time faster, but we could have returned by train if we’d wanted a reverse view of what we had seen going up. LOL)

If I thought Durango had a western vibe, it had nothing on Silverton.

Quaint and full of history, we had our choice of restaurants to go for lunch, and we ended up going to the Lacey Rose Saloon, a bar and restaurant next to the legendary Grand Imperial Hotel. After a lovely meal, we meandered out of the saloon and stopped short at the bar. Though the hotel was built in 1882, the beautiful back bar was added in 1902. Made of tiger wood maple and graced with large mirrors, its carvings are stunning for the Victorian period.

 

And here’s the best part.

While in the throes of Silverton’s silver mining hey-day, outlaws and prospectors alike spent time in the saloon to slake their thirst and engage in some spirited gunplay. Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, and Bat Masterson were among them, and if you look closely, you can see that a bullet once pierced that beautiful tiger wood maple above the mirrors. Folks say it was Bat Masterson’s bullet. If true, either he’d fired a warning shot that day–or he wasn’t as good of a shot as he was known for.

Now this is interesting. Once my ex-military brother spied this photograph, though, he made a certain detail clear. That bullet was a casing–not a bullet projectile and therefore not Bat Masterson’s bullet. The saloon’s bartender did say it was a .38 special casing that had been placed there as a landmark in the last twenty or thirty years to help people locate the hole.

Hmm.

Was the hole originally made by Bat Masterson’s bullet, then filled in with a modern-day .38 casing for the tourists’ benefit? We may never know for sure, but all stories start somewhere, right?

That’s what legends are made of.

 

Do you have someplace that’s on your bucket list to visit?

(I want to go on a cruise to the Bahamas! And then maybe to Ireland . . . )

Have you been to Durango?  Silverton?  On the Durango-Silverton train?

 

Harvest Time Means Canning Time! By Pam Crooks

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I would never say I have a green thumb, but boy, my garden was prolific this year. I had more tomatoes, cucumbers, green beans, snap peas, jalapeno peppers, and onions than we could eat. And then we picked apples from a nearby orchard. I had drawn the line at growing zucchini again, and my daughters were more than happy to give me some of theirs. I still had green peppers in the freezer from last year. Even with these adjustments, I had more produce than I could handle.

It’s a good thing I love canning.

While I never tried my hand at pressure canning (necessary for low acid foods like meats, seafood, soups and stews, and some vegetables and fruits), I’ve been water bath canning since a young bride. When the babies started coming, I stepped back from it, but then the urge to garden returned, especially when we retired. I love that two of my daughters have followed in my footsteps on a much smaller scale, and for the two that don’t can, I’m very happy to share my jarred bounty.  (Here are pics of most of what I’ve canned since I’d already given some away.)

 

With the passing of my mother, and later my aunt, I inherited lots of jars. I discovered the economy of ordering flats in bulk on ebay during Covid. I’ve canned for so long, I have my system down pat.

Up until the mid-1800’s, folks didn’t understand how poorly canned food and improperly sealed jars increased the chances of botulism, e-coli, and listeria. In 1858, John Landis Mason invented a resealable glass jar, modifying his design and the accompanying lids numerous times until his patent expired in 1879. Other manufacturers helped themselves to his work, and sadly, he never profited from his beloved Mason jars. He was forced into living a frugal life until his death in 1902.

In 1884, the Ball brothers, five in all, took up the glass jar manufacturing sensation, ultimately producing 245,000 jars per day in the early 1900s. Today, Ball is credited with producing 545,000 jars a day. That’s a lot of jars!

Canning jars have evolved from wire bailers and glass dome lids used with re-usable rubber rings to the flats and rings we’re familiar with today.

Canning jars are used many more ways than just preserving food. Drinking glasses, crafts, wedding table decorations, pack-n-go containers (like salads), and gifts–remember those cake and cookie ingredients in a jar? Soups and cocoa, too? Fun!–the possibilities are endless.

If you’re drowning in zucchini, here’s a jam recipe that calls for 6 CUPS. Since most recipes call for one or two cups, maybe three, but never six, this recipe caught my eye. It’s good! Even better, it’s easy.

 

Pina Colada Jam

6 cups sugar
6 cups shredded peeled zucchini
1 8oz can crushed pineapple, undrained
1/4 cup lime juice
2 – 3 oz pkgs pineapple Jello
1 tsp rum extract

  1. Combine sugar, zucchini, pineapple, and lime juice in Dutch oven. Bring to a boil.
  2. Boil for 10 minutes, stirring constantly.
  3. Remove from heat. Stir in Jello and extract until gelatin is dissolved.
  4. Pour into jars or freezer containers, leaving 1/2 inch headspace.
  5. Cool completely before covering with lids. Refrigerate for up to three weeks or freeze up to one year.

Note: I did water bath these. The jam will be a bit runny but will thicken when it’s refrigerated. And yes, there’s specks of zucchini peel because my husband was grating too fast for me to hurry up and peel. Ha!

It doesn’t taste like the cocktail (there’s no alcohol in it) but it’s still good. Try with coconut shrimp or even as a cake filling. Delicious on toast!

Have you canned food before? Do you love to garden? What’s your favorite canned food?

Pam’s Parade Candy Winner!

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It was great fun to hear about the parades you’ve enjoyed and that they are such happy memories for you and your families!

And of course, since candy is a super fun part of parades, I’m tossing a big bag of candy to

Joye!

Joye, watch for my email, and I’ll have the candy sent right out to you.

 

(Winner chosen by Random.org)