I think most of them were closer to 3/8 of an inch rather than a half inch. I'm about to take them out of the water bath, we'll see how many of them seal.
I wound up with 5 half-pints and 2 pints of apple butter, which I'm canning using the hot water method, because having a big pot of boiling water in the kitchen on a day when the high is 5 below just sounds good.
I tried something I read somewhere, since apple butter tends to be a little thick, I had a small amount of warm apple cider that I used to make sure the jars were full to the half-inch mark on the head-space stick, usually adding less than a teaspoon.
I'm finishing the batch of apple butter I started yesterday, cooking it down a bit to thicken it after adding the vanilla.
Might have some on some toast, a spoonful of it tasted pretty good, though.
Here's a recipe for pickle brine:
https://www.southernliving.com/recipes/pickle-brine
Adding some dill might make it better for rye bread, and maybe some mustard seed.
My mother always put a lump of alum in a jar of dill pickles, but if you're not actually making pickles that's probably not necessary.
Winesaps are what I made the first batch of apple butter from two months ago, I think they're a great cooking apple. The wine professor at UNL also taught fruits, and he says Cortland is even better, and is an all-purpose apple. Finding them in the stores is another matter, though.
I had about 20 winesap apples left and they were getting a little soft for pies, so I'm making another batch of apple butter. It just filled the slow cooker.
Happy birthday, I hope you can reschedule your celebration. A friend of ours had his birthday in December but was working double shifts at the railroad repair shop at the time, so they just had it last night.
I don't think I've ever tried to braid a rye dough, but when I do the marbled rye bread I shape several rectangles, stack them in alternating colors and roll it up, and that seems to work well.
The Swiss steak was very good, and we had it with mashed potatoes.
A couple of years ago I made my wife's mother's Swiss steak recipe, today I'm doing my own take on that recipe from my notes, more onions, adding some beef stock, carrots and celery. I did the browning and sauteeing on the stove top but I'm doing the slow cooking in the oven in my dutch oven.
The cold weather is here, a high of about 7 today with sub-zero lows and a few sub-zero highs for most of the next 4 days. Snow expected to stop in the next few hours, but we've probably gotten 6 inches since yesterday afternoon.
That's a good one, BA.
We had baked pork chops with orange juice, brown sugar, mustard powder, salt and pepper. Yummy and a keeper recipe. These were bone-in, next time I'll probably try boneless chops.
We also had salad with artichoke hearts and olives.
https://www.cdkitchen.com/recipes/recs/2306/Orange-Baked-Pork-Chops108257.shtml
When I make marbled rye bread, I use Peter Reinhart's recipe in BBA, but I change it to 41% medium rye flour vs 30% white rye in the book. Above that and I find the dough doesn't rise as well.
We had leftovers as we watch the Washington-Michigan game.
I'm making semolina bread today, letting the bulk rise go longer than normal because it is cool in the kitchen, as it has been snowing since around 8AM after some freezing rain. We could wind up with as much as 10 inches of snow from this storm, but unless the temperature drops (as forecast) the snow may melt quickly.
