Awesome Sauce!

Which would you buy?

This:

Miss Ginger's FABULOUS! Barbecue Sauce

Ingredients: Tomatoes, Onion, Bell Pepper, Brown Sugar, Cider Vinegar, Garlic, Spices, Salt















OR:

This:

Kraft Thick and Spicy Brown Sugar Barbecue Sauce

Ingredients: HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, VINEGAR, WATER, TOMATO PASTE, MOLASSES, BROWN SUGAR, APPLE CIDER VINEGAR, MODIFIED FOOD STARCH, SALT, CONTAINS LESS THAN 2% OF NATURAL HICKORY SMOKE FLAVOR, MUSTARD FLOUR, DRIED GARLIC, SPICE, POTASSIUM SORBATE (TO PRESERVE FRESHNESS), DRIED ONIONS, CARAMEL COLOR, PAPRIKA.

Sorry! You can't buy Miss Ginger's awesome sauce (yet!) But if you, like most people, are trying to avoid High Fructose Corn Syrup, and the shitstorm of chemicals it takes to make "modified food starch", you can make this delicious barbecue sauce at home, and preserve it to last for up to a year on your pantry shelf, without chemical preservatives! The work is satisfying and not hard to do, and you won't need a lot of specialized equipment, although there are a couple of cheap tools that make it easier. It does take the better part of the day, if you start with fresh tomatoes.

Miss Ginger started with about 24 large tomatoes that she bought at the local produce market.  She'd love to tell you that they were farmed by local nuns that use the proceeds to feed the homeless, but they were trucked up from Mexico, just like the ones at the grocery store.  They were cheap and fresh, just like her, and after being at the produce market, needed a good bath- just like her! She rinsed them in a tub of diluted cider vinegar, just to get any dirt or oil off of them.

Next, she cored them with her little plastic tomato corer thingy (you can use a paring knife if you're brave) and got them ready to peel.

Peeling tomatoes is not as tedious as it sounds if you know the hot/cold trick.  Drop the tomatoes into a pot of simmering water for 3-5 minutes, just until the skins start to crack.  Then, dunk them in ice water to stop the cooking and cool them down enough to handle.  The skins will slide right off, and you'll be left with a slimy, naked tomato, ready to give it guts to become part of your handiwork!

This part gets a little messy, so put on an apron!  You want to get the seeds and "goop" separated from the meat of the tomatoes, so you won't have to boil it for 3 days to get it thick enough!  You can slice them and scoop with a spoon, but Miss Ginger found it easier just to tear them apart with her bare hands, creating 2 separate containers of tomatoey carnage!

So here on the left is the tomato "meat", and on the right is the "leavings".  This lady says that the leavings are all you need for barbecue sauce, and that the meat should be canned for later use. She thinks it's a waste to use the good part of the tomatoes for sauce, but waste be damned, let's move forward!  

Actually, I did run the "leavings" through my juice mill, and was surprised to get over a quart of beautiful, fresh tomato juice, and just a tiny container of seedy pulp to add to the compost heap! 

(PS- you can skip ALL of the previous mess and steps if you use canned tomatoes!  Find a brand with no added salt or preservatives and it's pretty much the same.)

In a stainless stockpot, combine the tomatoes with 2 chopped onions and 3 chopped bell peppers. (The pot MUST be stainless to avoid a chemical reaction with the tomatoes. Do NOT use aluminum!)  Set on the stove over medium heat, and in a few minutes the tomatoes will give off a ton of liquid. Keep simmering, with an occasional stir, for about 45 minutes.

When all the vegetables are softened, puree them with an immersion blender, or a regular blender, or a food processor, or a food mill- whatever! Just blend the shit till it looks like:

this!  It took 2 batches in Miss Ginger's huge food processor. Once it's all pureed, return it to the stockpot and bring back to simmer. (Real life hint: If stuff has dried on the bottom of your stockpot while you were pureeing, wash it out so it won't scorch when it goes back on the stove!) Simmer for about an hour; the liquid should reduce by about half.

Now add the additional ingredients: 

1 cup brown sugar

1 1/2 cups cider vinegar (5% acidity)

and seasonings to taste. I used:

1 Tablespoon dry mustard

1 Tablespoon paprika

1 Tablespoon canning salt

1 teaspoon celery seed

1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper

a few shakes of Lea and Perrins

a buttload of tabasco

A couple of comments on substitutions, based on my research (yes, I DO research all most some the really complex blog posts!) You may substitute granulated sugar, molasses, honey, or Splenda® for the sugar in the same amounts.  You can use white vinegar instead of cider, but do NOT use malt vinegar, it will make your sauce bitter. Use should be able to safely increase the amount of vinegar, but do NOT reduce the amount! You must have at least 1 1/2 cups per 20 or so tomatoes in order to process safely. Canning salt is pure salt that has no anti-caking ingredients in it, which supposedly can caused preserved foods to appear cloudy. You can get it wherever you get your jars.

Cook for 1 1/2 to 2 hours more, stirring frequently as sauce thickens to prevent scorching.  Once it's reach the desired thickness, it's ready to use, freeze, or can.  The recipe makes about 2 1/2 quarts of sauce, which is 5 pint jars.  Frozen sauce is far less convenient than jars, since you have to allow time for thawing. I also find the freezing/thawing process thins the sauce a bit, so I end up having to re-cook it, which is a pain! It's worth taking the time to can it, which is about an hour, start to finish. 

By the way, if you've never canned anything, sauces are a great 1st project!  They contain plenty of acid, which is what keeps the food fresh.  And they have long cooking times, so you don't have to worry about rushing things so they don't overcook or get soft!

You can accomplish the process in any pot large enough to cover the jars with simmering water; it does not have to be stainless, since it won't touch the food. Bring the water to a steady simmer, and sink the jars, lids, ladles, and anything that will touch the food in there to be sanitized. BTW, you must use specific jars and lids made for home canning- save your leftover mayonnaise jars for other crafty projects! 

Here's my little "operatory" all ready to go. I've got my simmering canner, my hot sauce, and my simmered pint jars and lids, along with a sanitized ladle and butter knife.  I also have a couple of paper towels handy, a pair of tongs to handle the hot jars, and a glass of wine. Duh! 

Fill each jar, leaving 1/2 inch of headspace at the top. This allows the liquid to expand and contract without breaking the jars.  Once all the jars are filled, adjust the headspace if needed, and clean the top of the rim with a damp paper towel.  Set a pre-simmered lid on each jar and hand tighten the rings to hold the lid in place. Don't over tighten, just finger tight. Using tongs or a jar lifter, place the covered jars back in the simmering water bath, and let them simmer for 20-35 minutes, depending upon your altitude. Use a canning rack or add enough empty jars to fill the pot so your filled jars remain upright.

Keep the water at a steady simmer; if it boils a bit, just turn it down some, no harm done. If for some reason it stops simmering, turn the heat up, and restart timing from zero once it's reached a simmer.  After simmering for the correct time, carefully remove the jars from the water, and let them rest, undisturbed, on the counter for 14-24 hours, until they are completely cool.  Shortly after they begin cooling, you will probably hear each one "ping" as the pressure reverses and sucks the lid down into place, forming the seal that keeps it fresh on the shelf!  Once they are cool, unscrew the rings and lift each jar by the edge of the lid.  If the lid stays on, you know the jar sealed properly and is shelf-stable.  If the lid comes off, you didn't get a good seal.  You can reprocess that jar with a new lid, or keep it in the refrigerator and use it within a week. 

Add a cute label (don't forget the date, as Miss Ginger did on these!) and store them on a shelf in a dark, cool place like your pantry. Once they are opened, keep any unused portion in the fridge for a week or so. 

Concerned about the safety of home canned products? Knowledge is power, and there are 2 important sources of knowledge to help you put up food safely.  The USDA has a website specifically dedicated to helping you safely preserve food at home, and it includes 7 printable guides that form the "bible" for home food preservation.  This recipe is based on the recipe given in guide #3, which is all about tomatoes.

The other website is maintained by Jarden Home Brands, which probably manufactured the jars and lids you are using, at least in America. freshpreserving.com  has a variety of recipes and techniques using Ball® and Kerr® products.  Both sites include processing times for all altitudes, as well as lots of tips to make canning safe, healthy, and easy! 

Fresh barbecue sauce just in time for the summer holidays!  What should Miss Ginger make with it?!

Ragu Goes Alladin- The Pintester Movement Post!

When Miss Ginger learned of "The Pintester Movement" she new immediately that she must participate, and she knew immediately which pin she would try to duplicate!  She had seen the Moroccan inspired Ragu jars on hundreds of boards, and felt pretty confident of her ability to pull this off.  While it may not really be in the spirit of the Pintester Movement to take on a craft she's already good at, let's face it: what ISN'T she already good at! I mean, the cards ARE kinda stacked in her favor. Still, it gave her the opportunity to knock off a craft  be inspired by another artist AND participate in an event of epic proportion, one sure to take the internet by storm! 

So, she printed off the "inspiration photo", left, and assessed her ownership of the required materials.

In the photo, the color on the glass seemed much more transparent than the paints Miss Ginger owned, so she made a trip to Michael's to get some glass stain and the gold paint to make the "metal" parts.  She didn't have any spaghetti sauce jars (Miss Ginger would NEVER serve jarred sauce!) so she grabbed a couple of pickle jars from her stash. (Miss Ginger LOVES pickles!) 

When she went back to the original pin to research the kind of paint originally used, she discovered that the pinner had committed the CARDINAL SIN of pinning- rather than linking her pin to the actual post about Moroccan inspired jars, she linked her pin to the title page of her enitre fucking blog!  Bitch!  Ain't nobody got time fo' dat!  There was NO WAY Miss Ginger was going to sift through 10,000 posts about this chicks wedding just to find out what kind of fucking paint she used!  "We'll just go with what we have", thought Miss Ginger, "I'll exhibit the true Pintester Spirit®!" 

Initially, Miss Ginger decided not to use a paper pattern to create her design- she didn't want it to look "perfect" or "machine made";  it should have an "old world" look, with patina and shit.  Yeah, no worries. The first attempt went into the trash. Miss Ginger knows when to admit defeat! 

So, for her second attempt Miss Ginger created a paper pattern inspired by the yellow jar in the photo.  She placed it inside the jar and brushed the gold paint on from outside, but when she pulled the pattern out: UGH! This paint was NOT covering the jar- it was just sliding around on the surface, creating little golden slime trails as it went.  Clearly not the right paint, but also clearly not going to be replaced at 10pm after most of a bottle of pinot grigio! It wasn't looking as metallic anyway, so Miss Ginger had the BRILLIANT idea to throw some glitter on it to help the paint cover.

That kinda worked, so Miss G went with it. She didn't have much choice at this point!  

After she got it all glittered she passed out went to bed, and got up the next morning to put the color on. 

This turned put to be a big hot mess, as well.  The "glass stain" that Miss G got at the craft store was runnier than, well, um.... I can think of an acceptable simile for something really runny!  But trust me when I tell you, this shit was runny! (oops, it happened anyway!) As you can see in the photo, this paint, too, kind of smeared on the surface of the glass. It was completely impossible to get even coverage. Miss Ginger let it dry, hoping a second coat (and more pinot grigio) would improve the final product.

Having gained a little confidence by fucking up when she tried to "follow the directions", Miss Ginger grabbed another jar and started to dab on gold gilt like a pro!  Once she got the "dabbing" technique down pat, she was pretty pleased with the appearance of little gold dots, and dabbed the night away, without a pattern, she might add! Well, the pickle jar DID have that little barrel-vaulted thingy at the top that ALL pickle jars seemed to have, so she sort of followed that, which seemed to work. So confident she became, in fact, that she decided to set in some paste "jewels" that she had in her crafty stash.  By now, our girl was positively giddy with the anticipation of OWNING this craft! 

After the gold paint dried, Miss Ginger used her regular glass paint to color the spaces between, with much greater success.  She is pretty happy with the way this one turned out, but she realized she had taken a LOT of poetic license up to this point, and hadn't really produced anything that looked like the original photo, so she grabbed another jar and tried, in earnest, to replicate one of the jars in the original pin.  



So, here's the side-by-side, folks:

Whadya think?  Pass or fail?

Organization QuickTip!

Use self-adhesive business card holders from the office supply store to label the jars and containers in your pantry, instead of using an adhesive-backed label. Print your labels on perforated business card blanks. This way if you change the product stored in the container, you can slide out the old card and insert a new one, without having to peel off a stubborn label and deal with the residue it leaves behind! 

Wide mouth quart canning jars are great for storing pantry staples, and are much easier to organize and find than a bunch of half-used bags of beans, peas, or rice spilling all over!  You can buy a dozen jars for about 16 bucks, and they will last forever!  For another 10 bucks, you can replace the 2 piece canning lids with a plastic storage lid that is much easier to deal with.

Finally, for about $30 at Lowes, you can get a wire shelf unit that screws to the inside of the pantry door, adding valuable space and keeping these often used items right up front where they are easy to find!

Miss Ginger has lots more great storage ideas to share, so stay tuned!!  

Stained Glass Bottles and Jars

Here's an easy, fun way to keep glass bottles and jars out of the waste cycle that requires no specialized equipment or skills- just an artistic eye and a few bottles of inexpensive paint!  It's so safe and easy even a kid can do it, but adult artists will also enjoy the ability to recreate "old world" techniques with modern, water-based products! 

Gallery Glass paints are one of those "sleeper" products that sort of "undersells" itself on the shelf at the craft store, with a lot of the example creations looking sort of juvenile and "crafty".  Miss Ginger's taste is a bit more "traditional", so she prefers to use the products to reproduce the look of stained glass, but it just underscores the fact that this craft has something for everyone!



What most of us think of as "stained glass" is actually "leaded" glass; thousands of pieces of colored glass, cut into sort of a mosaic, and pieced together with flux and solder. Beautiful, long-lasting, and expensive, real leaded glass is hard to come by these days. The work is tedious, somewhat dangerous (hot soldering irons, sharp glass, and molten metal!) and requires a lot of patience, practice, and trial and error! 

These products give the look of leaded glass with no lead, no heat, and no sharp edges!  The secret to the most traditional-looking results are the Redi-lead® strips  that provide the look of soldered lead from a self-adhesive vinyl product! The flexible "lead" lines peel off the backing paper with their adhesive intact, ready to smooth onto any glass surface. Easily cut to length with an Xacto® knife, the strips provide a consistent width and depth, similar to the lead wire that would have been used in days of old- but without that pesky problem of lead poisoning- not to mention the hassle of soldering!  With a paper pattern under the glass, it's easy to follow along the lines and curves from the outside to create the "seams" between your "pieces of glass"!

Liquid Leading® provides the look of soldered joints, without the hassle of a soldering iron and the danger of lead solder.  With the consistency of thick black paint, it's easy to dab Liquid Leading® onto butt joints to create the sections that you will paint to mimic colored glass. 

Once the leading is in place and the "solder" has dried, it's time to apply the color to the pattern pieces to finish your project. You don't even need a paintbrush! The bottle has a sharp tip that allows you to flow the product right up against the lead lines, and then quickly flow enough paint across the surface to create a solid section.

The color goes on opaque but dries to a translucent finish, with a wavy texture that mimics old-fashioned stained glass. Keep the surface horizontal until the paint has set, to keep it from flowing to the bottom of your shape.  On a round jar or bottle like this, you will have to apply the color in 4 "strips", rotating the bottle after each strip to bring the next area to the top.  Although the color dries to the touch in a few hours, it doesn't "set" for several days, so as you move from one section to the next, you will need to devise a way to "hang" your project so you can work on a section while the previous sections cure.  If you set it down on an uncured section, it will stick, and you will have a mess on your hands! 

A rod or dowel wedged into a drawer provides a stable way to apply color to the top of your project without ruining the bottom.  You will have to let one side dry for a few hours before you can turn it upside down, but that's better than waiting three days for it to cure completely! 

Once all your colors are applied, you're done!  Here's the pickle jar you saw earlier. With it's lid sprayed green, it makes a beautiful storage jar with a "Craftsman" feel to it. Or, leave the lid off and it can be a period-sensitive candle holder! 

Miss Ginger's first project was these Modrian-inspired spaghetti sauce jars. Instead of using leading, she used masking tape to tape off the sections, then sprayed matte black spraypaint over the whole thing.  When she peeled off the tape, she was left with clear windows. In authentic Modrian style, she left many of the sections clear, and colored only few.  Maybe not museum-worthy, but quick, cheap, and easy- just like Miss Ginger! 

The next project was these wine bottles decorated with an oval-cut jewel pattern.  Here, she used black vinyl in her Silhouette® machine to create the pattern, hence the more modern appearance.  The only problem she found with this technique is that there isn't much depth to the sections, so the paint went on kind of thin.  She's going to fill them with blue Listerine® and put one in each bathroom, so it won't matter if the pattern is kind of weak! 

As she prepared to complete the "fully-leaded" project you see at the top of this post, she realized that the colors dry to a very different hue than the way they appear in the bottle, so she made herself a "swatch bottle" to show how each color looks when dry.

The paints cost less than $2.50 a bottle at Michael's; less when you buy a set.  The bottles you paint are free, so what's stopping you?!  Leave a comment and let Miss Ginger know how your project turned out! 

Gold Leaf Canisters

These beautiful treasure jars feature real metallic leaf, and are the perfect vessel for corralling beauty supplies in the bathroom, or craft supplies in the studio!  They would also be beautiful with a hand-made or store bought candle, or just filled with seasonal materials for festive decor.  They are a great project to practice the art of gold leaf, and can be made from cut bottles with wooden lids, or discarded glass jars with a screw-on lid.  Here are the steps Miss Ginger used to make this classic fleur-de-lis design:

After cutting her bottles, Boy G made the lids on the lathe, and she gathered the rest of her tools and materials.  "Gold" leaf comes in sheets from the craft store, and while it IS metal leaf, it's no longer all gold! You will also need adhesive, undercoat, and sealer- all available online or at the craft store- and and assortment of brushes, depending upon the complexity of your design.

Miss Ginger made stencils to create the fleur-de-lis pattern on the glass. The stencil will control the placement of the adhesive, so the gold leaf will stick to the glass only where the adhesive is applied.

She prepared the lids by painting them with red basecoat, the traditional undercoat for gold leaf.  She used the brownish-red base coat specifically sold for gold leaf, but she has found you can use just about any paint underneath. 







The options for the adhesive are not so generous- you really need to use "Adhesive Size" specifically made for gold leaf. It is thin and clear, dries with the right amount of tack, and stays sticky until covered with leaf.  It does come in a spray form and a pen form... sort of a "glue marker" that would be great if you have pretty penmanship! Miss Ginger has the handwriting of a serial killer, hence the stencils! 

After placing the stencils, she applied the sizing with a small artist's brush, allowed it to dry a bit, and then removed the stencil, leaving an almost invisible film of adhesive on the surface of the glass in the shape of her fleur de lis design.  You can't see it in the photo, but the adhesive is there on the 2 glasses on the left- I promise! Once the base coat was dry on the lids, she covered them with adhesive, as well.

Now comes the fun part!  Gold leaf comes in a little "book" with a clear plastic cover and tissue interleaves to keep each delicate leaf pristine until you are ready to place it.  Static makes it cling to the clear cover, which allows you to handle the leaf without tearing it.  After you've place a leaf, you can tear away the tissue, close the cover, and the next leaf will cling to plastic. Pretty neat, huh?

Miss Ginger laid the gold leaf across the adhesive on the jar and carefully slipped the plastic sheet away, leaving the leaf in place.  You can see the outline of the FDL in the photo; the gold leaf is adhered smoothly in the places where there was adhesive.  The leaf is loose in the voids of the design. 

With an artist's brush, Miss G smoothed the leaf onto the entire image, to make sure it was adhered everywhere. 

Then, with a stiffer brush and a somewhat more aggressive stroke, she began brushing away the excess leaf, in some cases using the brush a sort of a "spatula" to lift large pieces of leaf away that can be reused on the lids.  

There is very little waste with this process, as the pieces that surrounded the image on the glass could be used to cover the lids.  Part of the charm of real gold leaf is that a bit of the undercoating shows between the pieces of leaf, so this is a perfect place to use the "scraps". 

As the leaf is applied to the lids, it is brushed smooth, and the "crumbs" are brushed away and can be saved for even smaller projects!  After all the leaf was placed, Miss Ginger brushed sealer across the lids, and used a smaller brush to cover just the gold design on the glass. The sealer protects the leaf from abrasion, but if the glass ever needs washing it should be done very carefully by hand.

That's it! Wouldn't they be beautiful filled with woodsy fall potpourri?  Leave a comment and tell Miss G what YOU would put in them!