A Weekend to "Preserve"

My son decided to strike a deal with my friend, D. He wanted a book she offered toward his Harry Potter series and she wanted an extra pair of hands for some of the yard chores. Given that he's all excited about using trimmers and saws and doing the whole "outdoor" thing (ie stacking wood and clearing limbs), it was a deal right up his alley. The night before, he called to make his arrangements about what time he should be at her house and such and was informed he would be helping harvest grapes. Girl child immediately wanted to know if she could help. Never have I heard D say no to extra help. So of course, when we took boy child over and presented D with the question of extra hands, she jumped at the opportunity. And seeing as how both children wanted to partake of this activity, Mom may as well also help.

D saw this as a great opportunity to not only get a jump on the grape harvest but to start the process of making juice since she wasn't needed in the garden and could make the indoor preparations.

The kids had a GREAT time! They had a race to see who could fill their containers first. Boy child thought he had claimed that victory until he was reminded that Mom had actually filled a portion of his container while D was finding an extra pair of nippers so that both children had a pair to use. In the end we declared it a tie and had more than enough grapes for D to juice that day.

D then took the time to explain the process and the equipment - let the kids get involved in all but the extremely hot part of canning juice. They learned so much and are anxious to help again (probably next year). For the fruits of their labor they were rewarded not only with the coveted Harry Potter book but with a jar of last year's juice as well.

Oh yeah, and to really bore you guys to death we also canned cake.

"Say what?", you say?

Simply put it's called cake-in-a-jar. Unless you're my boss, and then it's called cake-in-a-bottle. It's the perfect solution for those times when you want a treat but don't want to feel like you have to eat the whole entire treat before it turns bad (ie singles and couples who don't want cake every day). The best size is the pint size canning jar - they must be the wide mouth ones.

You make your cake mix (we've found that corn bread and muffin/quick bread mix works well too) just like always. Spray the insides of your jars and fill about half full with batter. Very important step: using a clean, wet rag, wipe the rim of the jar so that it is absolutely clean of all mix or oils. Set jars on a baking tray and bake according to temp directions on your recipe/box but then add about 5 minutes since you're baking dish is deeper than usual.

Once you remove the jars from the oven, set the lids in place and taking great care to use hot pads or a doubled dish towel - loosely screw on the rings. In about 5 minutes you'll hear the lids ping and know that they have sealed themselves. Let cool completely and store in your cupboard. The canned cake will be good for a couple of months and will be extremely moist when removed.

To remove the cake, simply unseal, run a knife along the edge if the cake seems to be adhering to the sides. Simply turn the cake out and slice. The one pint jar is a perfect 3 serving size, unless of course you really like cake!

In addition to our food storage projects, we also spent time together making homemade pizza (someday they will appreciate that pizza with only cheese is quite boring - but it was especially yummy considering all I had to do was supervise!) and playing Yahtzee. It was great to have such a low key weekend - just spending time together and working together and getting to know each other more.

It truly was a weekend to preserve in our memories.