While sipping said amazing cocktail (and then wanting another), I realized that we never posted our favorite jam recipe. So here it is – blueberry lime jam + blueberry bramble cocktail. It’s also awesome as the filling in a coconut layer cake . . . → Read More: Blueberries for Morning and Night]]> I had planned to post a delicious way to use up all those CSA greens, but then Erik met a friend for a drink last night and I made myself a post-baby-bedtime cocktail.

While sipping said amazing cocktail (and then wanting another), I realized that we never posted our favorite jam recipe. So here it is – blueberry lime jam + blueberry bramble cocktail. It’s also awesome as the filling in a coconut layer cake or stirred into yogurt (especially homemade!). Enjoy.

NOTE: In the interest of brevity, I haven’t included detailed canning instructions. See our post on canning for more details on the canning process and safety. If you haven’t canned before, this is a good one to start with, because it’s just as good as a syrup, so you really can’t mess up on the gelling stage.

Blueberry Lime Jam

Makes about 10 quarter-pint (4 ounce) jars

Directions

1. Prepare your jars, lids, bands, and equipment.
2. Put a couple of small dishes in the freezer. You’ll see why…
3. Put all the ingredients into a big pot – the wider, the better – and boil until gelled, stirring occasionally. A wide pot will help this happen faster than a narrow one, but it could take about 20 minutes of boiling. Be careful to keep the boil under control – stirring more frequently as time goes on will help with this; sugar boils up and out of the pot quickly and can cause nasty burns.

   To test for gelling, put a teaspoon of jam on one of your freezer plates and return to the freezer for a minute or two. If you can draw a clean line through the jam after this short stint in the freezer, it’s ready. (See our vanilla rhubarb jam post for a photo)

4. Fill your jars, leaving 1/4 inch headspace
5. Process for 10 minutes.

Now for the fun part – 1 ounce lemon juice, 1-2 ounces vodka or gin, 1 tablespoon jam, and finish with ice and seltzer. Mmmmmm….

We have complained about / celebrated our CSA many times on this blog. I hate / love it. I LOVE the actual farm. The produce is almost always top notch, the eggs are amazing, and it’s fun to support people living their dream. However, when our refrigerator overflows with turnips or zucchini, I want to bail and just get take out. Half of me gets irritated at the other half that wants to throw . . . → Read More: How to Make Sauerkraut]]>

We have complained about / celebrated our CSA many times on this blog. I hate / love it. I LOVE the actual farm. The produce is almost always top notch, the eggs are amazing, and it’s fun to support people living their dream. However, when our refrigerator overflows with turnips or zucchini, I want to bail and just get take out. Half of me gets irritated at the other half that wants to throw out the last radish; but that other half gets annoyed with the first half for being unreasonably anti-waste. Then Erik intervenes in my internal monologue and stops the crazy.

This time of year, we are overflowing with cabbage. (Lindsay #1) It keeps forever, so let’s go out to dinner. (Lindsay #2) Why waste money on a restaurant when we have all this food at home? (1) + (2) = (3) Sauerkraut.

Sauerkraut uses up a ton of cabbage, while allowing us to eat something other than pale green leaves for a week. Homemade sauerkraut is different than the typical store-bought stuff – crunchier and more flavorful. We’ll post a couple sauerkraut-centric recipes in the upcoming weeks, but I’m not shy about eating it straight from the jar.

In addition to being tasty, sauerkraut is super fun to make. It makes me feel very “Laura Ingalls Wilder”, y’know – Little House on the Prairie? I don’t remember ever reading that she made sauerkraut, but smashing salt into sliced cabbage with your hands has a homestead-y, making-do-with-what-we-have feel to it. May I suggest making sauerkraut on a Friday night after a hard week at work? Cheap therapy.

Plus – look at that color! Red cabbage makes the prettiest sauerkraut. It starts out so vividly purple, but then fades to a beautiful magenta. Much better than the regular raw stuff!

Sometimes I water-bath process it, so that I can keep it in the basement and free up space in the refrigerator. But if I’m just doing a single head, I don’t bother. Apparently, this is the healthier way. According to Real Food Fermentation, fermentation, as opposed to canning, preserves and sometimes creates nutrients in food, such as B vitamins, and provides healthy bacteria that we need for digestion and immunity. The high heat required for canning can destroy these benefits. Plus, it’s easier!

The process is pretty simple, but make sure to work with clean hands, clean tools, and clean food.

Ingredients

• Cabbage – any kind
• Pickling salt – This doesn’t contain iodine, which can darken food.

Tools

• Sharp knife, mandolin, V-slicer, or food processor with slicing blade
• Food scale
• Calculator – nothing fancy; the one on your cell phone will do.
• Bowl for mixing
• Glass or ceramic container for fermenting

Technique

1. Remove the outer leaves from the cabbage as well as any damaged internal leaves. Cut the head into quarters from the North to South Pole. Remove the core. Slice the cabbage thinly with a knife, mandolin, V-slicer, or slicing blade on a food processor.

   

2. Weigh the sliced cabbage and get out your calculator to figure out how much salt you need. Fermentation requires 2.5% of the cabbage’s weight in salt.

   For example, the last time I did this, I used one gigantic head of red cabbage – 1,600 grams after prepping – and 40 grams of salt. 1,600 grams x 0.025 = 40 grams. I think it’s easier to do this in grams, rather than pounds, because the amount of salt can be too small for an accurate reading in ounces. If you can’t measure in grams, you can use about 1 3/4 teaspoons of salt per pound of cabbage.

3. Using clean hands, layer the cabbage and salt in the mixing bowl. You can do this in batches, if necessary, just make sure to use even amounts of cabbage and salt each time. Now, for the fun part, massage/squeeze/press the salt into the cabbage until you release some cabbage juice. The cabbage will eventually stop feeling fresh and crispy and start feeling kind of rubbery. The amount of time will depend on the freshness of the cabbage and the strength of your hands, so be prepared to work it for up to 10 minutes – put on some music or enlist a kitchen buddy for entertainment.
4. Pack the mixture tightly into the container you’ve chosen for fermenting, so that the liquid you’ve massaged out covers or almost covers the cabbage. I like to use quart jars, if I’m doing 4 pounds or less (about 2 jars), or a crock like this for larger batches. Whichever you use, make sure to leave some room at the top for expansion – an inch or so.
5. You have a couple of options for lids. Essentially, you want to prevent air from getting to your food. One good option is to fill an appropriately-sized zip-top bag with water and nestle it into the container on top of the cabbage/liquid, so that it fills the entire opening. Another option is to just screw on the lid of the jar, if you’re using one.
6. Hide the sauerkraut away in a cool, dark location. I’ve had good luck in a corner of my kitchen when the weather isn’t to hot. Check on it every couple of days. After a while, you’ll notice more liquid is released, so make sure to push the sauerkraut under this liquid. This will help keep the spoilers out. If you’re using a crock, you might try weighing down the sauerkraut with a plate. If you’re using a jar, sometimes a smaller jar will fit right in and keep things under control. After a few days, it will start to get bubbly. This means it’s working! It’s done whenever you like it, so grab a (clean) fork and give it a taste. I usually let mine go for a couple of weeks, but it’s really up to you. When it’s done, pop it in the refrigerator to drastically slow the fermentation. It will keep almost indefinitely as long as the solids are kept under the liquid. During the whole process, watch out for mold, which means the bad microbes hijacked your food and ruined it. If you work clean, you should be able to avoid this.

If you’re interested in other fermented foods, such as yogurt, kimchi, or vinegar, consider picking up Real Food Fermentation

a.k.a How to Can Summer

I don’t use my . . . → Read More: How to Can Strawberry Lemonade]]>

a.k.a How to Can Summer

I don’t use my Ball canning book for recipes very often. It’s a great resource for information on safety and basic ideas, but most of the jams use commercial pectin, which I try to avoid, or more sugar than I want. However, we hit on a winner with the strawberry lemonade concentrate last summer.

It’s a perfectly refreshing beverage no matter what your mood – sparkly, still, naughty (I’d recommend gin)… You can add herbs like mint or basil for a little extra something. You can grab a jar on your way to that Fathers’ Day picnic and make a quick stop at the gas station for some seltzer. Done! I’m thinking of trying it in this pink lemonade cake. I’ll let you know if I do.

In case I haven’t given you enough motivation, it’s also a SUPER simple recipe. It only has three ingredients and you can cheat on the lemon juice by using bottled, as long as it’s good quality. Because it’s a liquid, you avoid some of the tedious parts of canning – no packing oddly-shaped food into jars or careful bubbling.

You might notice that the photos are from our NYC apartment. We never got around to posting it last year…better late than never!

Strawberry Lemonade Concentrate

Yields about 6 pints

Note: You will need a blender and a digital or regularfood thermometer for this recipe.

Directions

1. Get your canning gear ready. (Steps 3 and 4)
2. You have three choices for making lemon juice. (1) Buy it bottled. (2) Use a manual juicer or press. If you do this, just cut the lemons in half. (3) Use an electric juicer. I did number 3, so I had to peel the lemons first. To do that, first cut a slice off each stem end. Next, stand the lemon on one of the newly flat ends and use a sharp knife to carve off strips of peel in a downward motion. Juice enough lemons to make 4 cups of lemon juice.

   

3. Place the washed and hulled strawberries in a blender. While you do this, keep an eye out for any bad spots, which should be cut out, or moldy strawberries, which should be thrown out. Blend until smooth. Depending on the size and power of your blender, you might want to work in batches or add a little lemon juice to get things going.
4. Strain the strawberry smush through a fine sieve to remove the seeds. This part is optional, but I’d recommend it. You’ll have to work it a little toward the end, because the screen will start to fill up with seeds. After you’ve pushed as much juice through the sieve as possible, discard the remaining pulp.

   

5. Once the strawberries have strained, put the puree, lemon juice, and sugar in a heavy-bottomed, wide-mouthed pot. Cook over medium heat, stirring frequently, until the mixture reaches 190 degrees. Do not boil. You want to dissolve the sugar, but not turn it into jam.

   

6. Skim off any foam. Fill your pint jars, leaving 1/4 inch headspace, and process for 15 minutes. (Steps 6 through 22)

   

Maybe I’m late to the party, but I just realized this morning that I don’t have to fill my big canning pot with an insane amount of water every time I can. I have been trying out various small batch (3-4 jars) canning solutions, but they are all pretty hacked and inelegant. It’s such a downer to make a quick batch of jam only to wait (and wait and wait) for my canner to . . . → Read More: Vanilla Rhubarb Jam (Small Batch Canning in a Large Batch Pot)]]>

Maybe I’m late to the party, but I just realized this morning that I don’t have to fill my big canning pot with an insane amount of water every time I can. I have been trying out various small batch (3-4 jars) canning solutions, but they are all pretty hacked and inelegant. It’s such a downer to make a quick batch of jam only to wait (and wait and wait) for my canner to come to a rolling boil. Yesterday, I bought cute, squat half-pint jars at our local hardware store and realized that they only take about 6 inches of water to cover properly. Hurray! That will boil so much faster than the 12 inches I need for regular half pints!! I can’t believe I didn’t think of this before. I’ve been crafting racks for smaller pots out of everything I could think of, but they all end up floating to the top and upsetting the jars. Seriously, folks… Lesson learned.

The jars were my second awesome find this weekend. The first was a big handful of rhubarb from the Somerville Winter Farmers Market. Rhubarb is a weird thing, but I love it. It’s treated like a fruit, but it’s really a vegetable. It has been cultivated in China for centuries due to its medicinal qualities. Interesting fact and tie in to our recent trip to Hong Kong – In 1839, China threatened to end the rhubarb (and tea) trade if Queen Victoria continued to allow opium into China. The Rhubarb Compendium has more interesting factoids, if you’re interested.

One cautionary note about rhubarb…Although the leaves look like tasty swiss chard, they’re poisonous, so don’t eat them. This is the one time I fully support tossing out the dark leafy green part.

For this jam, I modified a recipe from Canning for a New Generation to fit what I had on hand, namely vanilla beans rather than oranges. Did I break Unbreakable Rule Number 3? No, and here’s why.

1. The National Center for Home Food Preservation gives a recipe for stewed rhubarb with only sugar and rhubarb. Since the original jam recipe was only rhubarb, oranges, lemons, and sugar, I’m could take out the oranges AND the lemons without compromising acidity.
2. The vanilla I added was just a tiny bit, so I am assuming that the lemon juice more than offsets any acidity damage. I have also seen similar recipes from trusted online sources (such as Food in Jars)

On to the recipe! This is a simple one. Just a few ingredients and minimal fussing. There’s just enough sugar to be sweet, but not cloying, and the vanilla smooths out the rhubarb’s tartness. Adding the lemon hulls into the jam towards the end ups the pectin, which results in a firmer jam without having to include commercial pectin. Yum yum yum!

Vanilla Rhubarb Jam

About 3 half-pint jars

Directions

1. Get your canning gear ready. (Steps 3 and 4) There are two special steps this time. First, because the jam doesn’t process for very long, you need to sterilize the jars. Second, put a couple of small plates in the freezer. We’ll use these to test the jam later.
2. Wash the rhubarb, remove any bad spots, and cut it into 1/2-inch slices. Toss into your favorite pot.
3. Juice the lemon. Measure out 2 tablespoons of juice and pour into the pot with the rhubarb. Save the hull and seeds, but you can toss any remaining juice.
4. Cut the vanilla bean in half lengthwise. Use the tip of your knife to scrape out the seeds and drop them into the pot. Save the pod.

   

5. Add the sugar to the pot and cook over medium-high heat until enough juices are released to cover the rhubarb. Stir frequently. At first the pot will be totally dry, but it should only take 10 minutes or so.
6. While the jam is cooking, put the reserved lemon hull, seeds, and vanilla bean pod into a jelly bag. If you don’t have one, you can tie it up in cheesecloth or even a (clean) stocking. You just want the jam to be able to leach out all the goodness without the lemon seeds ruining things.
7. Once the rhubarb is covered in its juice, turn up the heat, drop in the bag you just made, and bring everything to a strong boil, stirring constantly. Try to keep the mouth of your bag out of the liquid, so that it doesn’t fill up with jam. I either tie it losely to the pot handle or hold it in my non-stirring hand.
8. After 5 minutes, turn off the heat and grab one of the plates from the freezer. Put a small dollop of jam on the plate and stick it back in the freezer. After a minute or so, take it out and draw a line through the jam with your finger. If it leaves a trail, it’s done. If the line fills in right away, it needs to be cooked more – bring it back to a boil, boil for 3 minutes, and retest.

   

9. Take out the bag and scrape off as much jam as you can. Bring the jam back to a simmer briefly, just to make sure it’s hot enough to can.
10. Fill your half-pint jars, leaving 1/4 inch headspace, and process for 5 minutes. (Steps 6 through 22)

I keep telling my friends that canning doesn’t really take that much time. Well, sometimes, it totally does. It takes all day and you end up sticky and with a sink full of dishes. BUT you can avoid that very easily by being smart about the recipes you make and how you make them. I made a canner full of applesauce yesterday, but I also managed to sleep in, do laundry, bake bread, finish . . . → Read More: How to Make Applesauce and Spend the Day Biking]]>

I keep telling my friends that canning doesn’t really take that much time. Well, sometimes, it totally does. It takes all day and you end up sticky and with a sink full of dishes. BUT you can avoid that very easily by being smart about the recipes you make and how you make them. I made a canner full of applesauce yesterday, but I also managed to sleep in, do laundry, bake bread, finish a knitting project, watch a little How I Met Your Mother, and go for a 20-mile bike ride. Your day might be full of family events, work responsibilities, reading a book, watching the news, whatever, but you can still fit in canning if you want to.

This recipe relies on two appliances to make life easier – the slow cooker and food mill. We actually used two slow cookers to speed things up. If you don’t have two slow cookers or can’t borrow one from your nice friend, Ben, you can cook in two batches. Just stick the cooked apples in another container in the refrigerator, load up the slow cooker again, and then mill everything when the second (or third or fourth) batch is done. The slow cooker is brilliant, because it eliminates all the time you’d otherwise spend standing over the stove. Plug it in and go play outside.

If you don’t have a food mill, then check out our original applesauce post. We posted a little tutorial on how to set up a KitchenAid food mill attachment, because I get buffaloed every time I open the boxes, but it really is a worthwhile tool.

Easy Peasy Applesauce

1 peck of apples will yield about 4 quarts of applesauce.

1. Wash as many apples as you want, using the yield above as a guide. A peck weighs somewhere between 10 and 14 pounds.
2. Quarter the washed apples and toss them into the slow cooker(s). Don’t worry about peels and seeds, because we’ll remove these later. You might want to cut the bigger apples into sixths, just so that they nestle better into the slow cooker.
3. Cook on high for 6 hours. This part is pretty flexible as long as the apples are really really soft at the end. You could cook one batch on low overnight and then start the second batch on high in the morning. I started right before lunch, then went on a nice long bike ride. When I got home for dinner, they were ready to go.
4. When the apples are cooked, get your canning gear ready. (Steps 3 and 4)
5. Pass the cooked apples through a food mill directly into a pot. The food mill will remove the peels and seeds and smash everything into a nice consistency.
6. If you want, you can spice up your applesauce at this point. You can add any herb, spice, or sweetener you want. We did maple syrup and cinnamon last year, which was a big hit. I think brown sugar and crumbled dried chiles would be good. Maybe smoked paprika? That stuff makes everything awesomer. Do not add nuts, dried fruit, dairy, or oil, however. Those ingredients change the pH of the sauce, potentially rendering it unsafe for canning. (Read this post for more science-y stuff.)
7. Regardless of whether you add extra ingredients, put the pot of sauce on the stove and heat to boiling. If you want your sauce thicker, keep it at a simmer until it reaches the consistency you’re looking for.
8. Fill quart, pint, or half pint jars, leaving 1/2 inch headspace, and process for 20 minutes. (Steps 6 through 22)

Thing #1 = jars of food in the basement. Before the 2011 canning season started, I promised myself (and Erik) that I would do a better job of preserving useful things than I did last year. Those fancy jams just call to me, but two responsible adults can only eat or give away so much. So, I did that. But now we . . . → Read More: Dark Days Challenge Week 5: Fish and Pickled Asparagus]]> There are two ingredients that I’ve been meaning to use more of.

Thing #1 = jars of food in the basement. Before the 2011 canning season started, I promised myself (and Erik) that I would do a better job of preserving useful things than I did last year. Those fancy jams just call to me, but two responsible adults can only eat or give away so much. So, I did that. But now we have to use it all.

Thing #2 = fish. We have great access to locally-caught seafood, but for some reason, I rarely include it in our weekly meal plan. I think part of it is because getting fish from the market in the heat of summer kind of grosses me out. I’m sure it’s fine, because it’s on piles and piles of ice, but it just doesn’t appeal to me. Then I forget about it when cooler weather rolls around.

This was the week to knock out both goals. Well, actually, last week was the week to do that. Sorry…we’ve been busy. This is barely a recipe, so go crazy. If you don’t have spicy pickled asparagus, use dilly beans, fresh beans/asparagus, or tomatoes. Maybe even pickled beets. Add in some olives or herbs. Use a different type of white-fleshed fish or even shrimp. Just dig around in the refrigerator or stash of jars and use what you find.

We ate this on a pile of wheatberries from Cayuga Pure Organics to soak up the juices. Very satisfying for very little work!

Fish and Spicy Pickled Asparagus Packets

Serves 2

Directions

1. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.
2. Cut two long pieces of foil (about 2 arm-lengths each). Fold each in half, so that you have two shorter pieces. Lay one on your counter and pour about half the sunflower oil (1 1/2 teaspoons) in the middle.
3. Cut the fish into two roughly equal halves. Put one half on the foil and flip it over to coat both sides in the sunflower oil. Sprinkle with a pinch of salt, a few grinds of pepper, and half of the garlic.
4. If you’re using pickled vegetables, drain off the brine. Cut the vegetables into small pieces – about the size of your pinky finger. Toss them on top of the fish.
5. Gather the long sides of the foil up to the middle and crimp them. Roll up the short sides tightly. You want to trap steam, but not smother the poor fish, so try to keep some space around the fish itself.

   

6. Put the packet on a baking sheet and repeat with the other piece of fish.
7. Put the baking sheet in the oven and bake for 15 minutes or until the thickest part of the fish reaches 145 degrees and is flaky and opaque. If you’re using thin fillets, start checking after about 10 minutes; thicker ones might need 20.

   

Happy New Year!! I hope you all had a wonderful 2011. Ours was very exciting – we traveled to some interesting places (here and here), got engaged, and moved to Somerville, MA. Whew! 2012 promises to be a fun one as well. We wish you all happiness, health, and delicious food!!

After last night’s festivities, you might want to top your burnt toast with this marmalade full of vitamin C and fructose and just . . . → Read More: How to Make Clementine Marmalade]]>

Happy New Year!! I hope you all had a wonderful 2011. Ours was very exciting – we traveled to some interesting places (here and here), got engaged, and moved to Somerville, MA. Whew! 2012 promises to be a fun one as well. We wish you all happiness, health, and delicious food!!

After last night’s festivities, you might want to top your burnt toast with this marmalade full of vitamin C and fructose and just a tiny bit of whiskey. Once you slice up all the clementines, it comes together pretty quickly. If you don’t process it, you can have it ready in about an hour. It’s got a nice bittersweet flavor that would work well with rich food, if you get sick of toast – a glaze for salmon or maybe in a grilled cheese sandwich.

Hair of the Dog Marmalade

Makes 6 4-ounce jars

Directions

1. Prepare your canning tools, if you’re processing this. (Steps 3, 4, and 6)
2. Since we won’t be removing the peels, wash the clementines really well. They might be coated in wax, so give them a good scrub. Slice the clementines as thinly as you can, discarding the first and last slices and any seeds. I have a cutting board with a little moat, which is really helpful for catching the juice. If you’re using a regular cutting board, consider pouring the juice into your pot occasionally, so that you don’t lose any of it.
3. Add the clementine slices, juice, grated apple and carrot, and water to a wide saucepan. Put the cinnamon sticks and allspice berries into a tea ball or tie them up in a square of cheesecloth and add them to the pot. Bring the mixture to a boil.
4. Once the mixture is boiling, stir in the sugar and lemon juice. Once the sugar has dissolved, raise the heat to high and boil hard for about 15 minutes or until the liquid has thickened considerably. I know this is a vague description, but it’s done when there’s only a little puddle of liquid at the bottom of the pan.
5. Remove and discard the spices and stir in the whiskey.
6. If you’re canning this, fill your jars, leaving 1/4 inch headspace, and process for 10 minutes. (Steps 7+)

44 quarts of whole tomatoes and 18 quarts of Bloody Mary mix later, I’m trying to remember how we got ourselves into this.

I think the conversation went something like this…

Lindsay: How many pounds of tomatoes should we do this year?

Erik: Hmmm…how many did we do last year?

Lindsay: About 30.

Erik: Well, we need to at least twice that many!

Please note that Erik was living it up in the Hamptons . . . → Read More: How to Can Whole Tomatoes]]>

44 quarts of whole tomatoes and 18 quarts of Bloody Mary mix later, I’m trying to remember how we got ourselves into this.

I think the conversation went something like this…

Lindsay: How many pounds of tomatoes should we do this year?

Erik: Hmmm…how many did we do last year?

Lindsay: About 30.

Erik: Well, we need to at least twice that many!

Please note that Erik was living it up in the Hamptons with some college friends the weekend that I did tomatoes last year, so he has no idea of what he’s getting himself into. Also note that I didn’t argue.

Lindsay: OK, so we should do 60 pounds. Do you think Brian and Mary (friends who recently started canning) want some, too?

Erik: Yeah! And we should do it at their house because they have a nice big suburban kitchen.

Lindsay: Swell! 120 pounds it is then!

A few months later…

Jimmy from Northshire Farm: The only way to can tomatoes is on one of those camp stoves with a high BTU.

Erik: Whoa! That makes it kind of like grilling! Let’s get one.

A few weeks later on canning day…

Nice lady at Cherry Lane Farms: Here, let me fill up these boxes for you, so that you have five 30 pound boxes instead of five 25 pound boxes.

And the rest is history…

Lessons learned:

• Although some recipes say to boil the tomatoes for one minute before peeling, our tomatoes were stubborn and required two minutes. I would personally rather have a slightly overcooked tomato than battle with tomato peels.
• You can not possibly have enough bowls. Next year, I think we’ll buy some of those big plastic bins that people use to store stuff in the garage. A big tub for each step, rather than piling slippery tomatoes into every bowl, brownie pan, and pie tin we could find.

  

• Camp stoves are awesome!! It was so nice to do our work outside in the nice breeze. Plus, they’re much more powerful than the kitchen stove and heated the water up in no time.

  

• Save the peels and cores!! We got 17 quarts of Bloody Mary mix out of them…totally free. We’ll try to get the recipe up here soon.
• If you’re canning outside, either start before lunch or have a light source other than the sun. The lanterns helped and it was kind of cool and witchy standing over a steaming pot in the dark, but I definitely burned myself once or twice because I couldn’t really see what I was doing.

  

• Many hands make light work. This year was much more fun than last year. Thanks, Brian, Mary, Kevin, and Ellie!!!

  

Whole Tomatoes
Yield: About 7 quarts

Directions:

1. Boil a big pot of water.
2. While the water is coming to a boil, cut a small X into the bottom (i.e. not the stem end) of each tomato. If the water starts boiling before you’re done with all the tomatoes, move on to the next step and come back to the X-ing while each batch is boiling.

   

3. Once the water is boiling, fill a large bowl with ice water. Don’t fill it to the brim – you need room for some tomatoes.
4. Drop a batch of tomatoes into the boiling water and boil for 2 minutes. The size of your batch will depend on the size of your pot. The tomatoes should be able to circulate around. When I do this at home in my Dutch oven, I only do 5 or 6 at a time. When we did it outside, I used my friend’s canning pot, so there was room for 20 or so.

   

5. Once the 2 minutes are up, fish the tomatoes out with a slotted spoon and drop them into the ice water.
6. Now it’s time to make a decision. If you have a friend around or can press a loved one into service, have them start peeling (next step). Otherwise, repeat the steps above until all the tomatoes are boiled.
7. After the boiled tomatoes are cool enough to handle, cut the stem end out of the tomato and peel all the skin off. The stem end should come out like a little cone. Take a look inside and see if anything looks bad. If so, cut it out or toss the tomato. Sometimes the skin will fight you, but it should come off pretty easily.

   

8. When you need a break from peeling, get your canning gear ready. (Steps 3 and 4)

   

9. Once the tomatoes are peeled and the jars are warm and ready, get your big pot back out and put a layer or two of peeled tomatoes in it. Cover them by about an inch of water. Boil gently for 5 minutes. Don’t rush this part! The tomatoes need to be thoroughly heated to be safely canned. Yep, it’s pretty frustrating. My biggest pot only holds enough for 2 or 3 quarts, so I either have to cram another pot on my stove or take twice as long to fill my canner. I’d recommend the two pot approach, if you have a choice.
10. Add 2 tablespoons of lemon juice to each quart jar. This is important, because the acidity of tomatoes can vary. They’re probably acidic enough to can without the lemon juice, but why mess around? We couldn’t taste the lemon juice at all in last year’s batch.
11. Pack the hot tomatoes into the warm jars with a slotted spoon leaving a generous 1/2 inch headspace (Steps 7 through 9). Don’t be afraid to squish them. They’ll shrink more as they’re processed. Add enough of the cooking liquid to cover, leaving 1/2 inch headspace. Don’t forget to bubble your jars!

    

12. Wipe the rims, seal, and process for 45 minutes. (Steps 10 and onward)

    

13. Sit down and admire your hard work.

    

Last Saturday was National Can-It-Forward Day, a day to spread the fun and value of home canning. Erik and I had our own little party and taught two of our friends the art and science. There was gabbing, a few glasses of wine, and plenty of boiling water. This was the first time I had every canned with people and it was a blast!! A lot of canning is sitting around waiting for the . . . → Read More: Can-It-Forward Recap]]>

Last Saturday was National Can-It-Forward Day, a day to spread the fun and value of home canning. Erik and I had our own little party and taught two of our friends the art and science. There was gabbing, a few glasses of wine, and plenty of boiling water. This was the first time I had every canned with people and it was a blast!! A lot of canning is sitting around waiting for the pot to boil or meditatively peeling tomatoes, which I appreciate for its mind-centering qualities, but it was a hoot to sit around our kitchen island with a couple of ladies and gossip/discuss/debate the events of the day.

We made two recipes, neither of which I’ll repeat here, because we made them both just as published. First, whole tomatoes, the workhorse of the canning world. The recipe said that we’d get 7 quarts out of 21 pounds of tomatoes, but it only took us about 18 pounds to get there. Heavy tomatoes? Overly gentle packing? I don’t know. The rest became tomato and cashew chutney from Canning for a New Generation the next day.

Since the tomatoes need to process for 45 minutes, we whipped up a batch of Blueberry Lime Jam. Yes, really whipped up. It was almost no work at all. It took about 35 minutes at a hard boil to get the gel point, but this will depend on your particular conditions. We got 12 quarter-pints (4 ounces) plus a tiny little bit in the refrigerator that I think Erik has eaten already. It was his favorite jam last year.

What’s on deck in my canning calendar? Peaches peaches peaches this weekend then a crazy tomato canning extravaganza (120+ pounds) over Labor Day weekend. Peaches and tomatoes were the big winners last year, but, unfortunately, they show up at the same time and often require peeling. This makes August and September a little busier than I would like, but it’s worth it.

Happy canning!

Quick! Run to the market immediately and buy sour cherries before they’re gone!! Tell your boss it’s a family emergency. These cherries aren’t the kind of fruit that tempt you to nibble them straight out of the basket, but if you add a little sugar and some time, magic happens. They turn into the most beautiful ruby marbles that are perfect wrapped in a pie crust or piled next to a slice of pound . . . → Read More: How to Can Sour Cherry Preserves (Pie Filling)]]>

Quick! Run to the market immediately and buy sour cherries before they’re gone!! Tell your boss it’s a family emergency. These cherries aren’t the kind of fruit that tempt you to nibble them straight out of the basket, but if you add a little sugar and some time, magic happens. They turn into the most beautiful ruby marbles that are perfect wrapped in a pie crust or piled next to a slice of pound cake.

If you don’t want to can them, at least make pie. Eat the whole thing right now by yourself. If you’re feeling generous, you could make mini cherry pies for your coworkers (mine loved them). Use a 3.75 or 4 inch biscuit cutter for the bottoms and 2.5 inch cutter for the tops if you make them in regular muffin tins.

If you can them, you’ll have some leftover syrup. Don’t throw it away! I ended up with about a pint, so I froze half of it and used the other half in a really tasty cocktail this weekend when it was too hot to move. Fill a small glass with ice and add 1.5 ounces vodka, 0.5 ounces cognac, 2 ounces of the leftover syrup, and top off with seltzer.

One more note: Remember that canning is scientifically safe as long as you are safe and scientific. Read through our posts on canning before starting, if you’re new to this.

This recipe is from a great book – Canning for a New Generation: Bold, Fresh Flavors for the Modern Pantry by Liana Krissoff. I highly suggest picking it up, if you, like me, don’t have a whole root cellar to store your jars and can’t spend a whole weekend canning. Most of the recipes make a single canner’s worth (7 jars), which is both easy to store and not terribly time-consuming.

Sour Cherry Preserves
Yields about 6 half pint jars plus extra syrup and applesauce
Note: This takes a little planning ahead, because you need to pit the cherries and mix them with sugar on day one, then can on day two.

Directions

Day 1:

1. Put the cherries and sugar into a large pot. We use a Dutch oven, because the heavy bottom prevents burning. Heat to a simmer.

   

2. Keep the cherries and sugar at a simmer until the sugar is dissolved and enough juices accumulate to cover the cherries. It took about 10 minutes for me.

   

3. Remove from heat and cool to room temperature. Cover and let the cherries soak overnight. This step isn’t 100% necessary, but it results in plumper cherries and I like how it breaks up the canning process. Especially since pitting the cherries can be quite a chore.

Day 2:

1. Prepare the tools and half-pint jars/lids/rings you’ll need for canning and start heating the water in your canner. Because the jars will be processed for less than 10 minutes, you will need to sterilize the jars and rings. (Steps 3 and 4)
2. Place a strainer over a bowl and dump the cherries and juice into the strainer. This will allow you to cook the syrup separately to thicken it without overcooking the cherries themselves.

   

3. Quarter and core the apples. Put the cores and lemon peel in a jelly bag or tie them up in a few layers of cheesecloth. The pectin in the apples will help the syrup to jell a little.
4. Pour the drained juice back into your pot and add the apples and cores. Heat to a boil over a high flame until the syrup reduces and thickens a little. This took me about 30 minutes. Remember to stir every now and then so that it doesn’t burn.

   

5. Toward the end of this time, start heating the jar lids. (Step 6)
6. Remove the apples and cores/peel. Don’t throw the apples away! You can smoosh them up to make really tasty cherry applesauce. I got almost a pint.
7. Add the cherries, any extra juice, and the lemon juice to the pot and allow to simmer for about 5 minutes. It’s important that you heat up the cherries so that the jars don’t siphon, i.e. leak into the pot when they’re processed.

   

8. Use a slotted spoon to fill the sterilized jars with cherries, leaving 1/2 inch headspace. You can push on the cherries a little to pack the jars, but try to be gentle.

   

9. Pour the syrup over the cherries, leaving 1/4 inch headspace. Bubble the jars. (Steps 7 through 9)
10. Wipe the rims, screw on the lids, and place your canner. Process for 5 minutes. Cool, check the seals, label, and store.(Steps 10 through 19)

I ended up with 6 half pints of cherries (one didn’t seal, so it’s in the freezer), a pint of syrup (half in the refrigerator, half in the freezer), and almost a pint of applesauce (in the refrigerator). Not bad!