large, overdue batch: blackberries

By the time blackberries came in season this early summer, I was pretty excited. I also quickly discerned that my kids were approaching pro-rural status and was ready to test their picking skills. Son, 8, daughter, 5, and baby in a backpack managed to get out to the farm, pick 5 pounds of berries, and get home inside of an hour. We pretty much rock in the produce procuring process.

Blackberry jam making was my first go at making anything beyond a cobbler with this miraculous fruit. I'd been admonished about seeds, perplexed by articles fussing over how to remove them, which mill worked best, and admittedly I as a little worried at how I'd handle them. I made a few missteps, but putting on my black apron was the smartest thing I did all day.

My main mistake was thinking that I could put whole, fresh berries through the food mill. I didn't realize that they really needed to benefit from cooking before the seeds would begin to give from the berry flesh. Let's just say that the squirting of fresh berry juice gave me pause to consider my process. I cleaned out my food mill---and since it always comes up in posts, I'll mention that I use the KitchenAid food straining attachment to my stand mixer. Once I cooked the berries, the mill worked beautifully.

Due to quantity, I doubled my recipe and turned out a fantastic product. I really didn't know it would be such a hit, and now I'm sort of sorry that I waited so long to go for a second pick. Daughter ended up with almost 4 pounds of berries for a good friend, and I came away with just enough for a cold-pressed shrub. No complaints, I just feel bad that I don't have enough as I'd like to go around.

Blackberry Jam

~5 pounds of berries
9 cups of sugar

4 TBS lemon juice

2 pkgs. powdered pectin

1 tsp. butter (to reduce foaming)

Cook the berries in a non-reactive pot over medium heat until they're soft and begin to burst--about 15 minutes. Feed berries through a food strainer, mill or sieve. Discard the solids, and put the puree back in your non-reactive pot. Bring to a boil, add sugar, butter and cook until the mixture boils again. Skim off any foam. Add pectin, and bring to a boil once again. I tend to use a candy thermometer, and would cook until the blackberries reach 220 degrees. Turn off the heat, and ladle into sterilized jars, being careful to wipe rims, then adding lids and rings. Process in a water bath canner for 12 minutes at a rolling boil.

On a side note, this was the first time that my little girl helped in the jam making. She carefully counted out lids and rings to match jar quantities, sorted berries and stirred the pot. We both had a good time, and had 13 pretty, half pint jars to show for it.

Small Batch, part 2

So, there was that half cup or so of kumquat syrup reserved from what was left of the preserves into marmalade debacle. I decided to mix it in with a chopped mango, a cup of sugar, a couple of ounces of lemon juice, and a tablespoon of pectin. I cooked the fruit for a bit longer than I might typically, but only because the mango was not as ripe as I would have liked it to be. The yield was 1 half pint and 2 precious four ounce jars. I processed them in a water bath for about 12 minutes. The end product was still very lemony in color---despite how it shows in the photograph below which was taken with my mobile phone camera. The preserves have a really bright flavor, and that citrus infused syrup really serves it well.

next time? we'll go back to big batches with seedless blackberry jam!

Small Batch.

There's been some talk about small batches on the Food In Jars facebook page lately. Obviously, small batches are great for people with small kitchens, little households or who just want to make something to save rather quickly. I was really mentally puffing up like a proud bird, and preparing to do nothing EVER on such a small scale until two things happened: a couple of packages of organic kumquats were on sale at the grocer and my daughter started to peel a not quite ripe mango.

First came the kumquats. I read the Canning for a New Generation approach to preparing a kumquat preserve, and was really uneasy about the process. The boiling and rinsing three times perplexed me, but it turned out fine. The thing that ended up bothering me was that as beautiful as the translucent orbs appeared in the jar, they seemed really hard to approach from an eating perspective. I found myself wondering how on earth I'd serve a chewy kumquat in drippy syrup.

Luckily, I remembered that my mother-in-law was only a shade irritated about not getting a jar of the grapefruit-orange marmalade that I made in January, so I decided to remove the seeds from the kumquats and quickly process them in my Cuisinart. I ended up with enough product to make 2 half pint jars of marmalade with about 6 ounces of just the syrup reserved for my next project. There was also just enough to smear on some buttery, slightly burned toast.

To recap, I followed Liana Krissoff's recipe for Kumquat Preserves before mincing the kumquats, adding a tablespoon of pectin, a tablespoon of lemon juice, some lemon zest and boiling to 220 degrees. I processed for 12 minutes in a water bath, and checked for a good seal. The product was delicious---a little more pungent than orange marmalade, but a surprisingly good, little batch.

look for my post on how to make something special with 4 ounces of kumquat and lemon infused simple syrup and just one mango next!

Sweet Vidalia Onion Jelly

Last week I came into a bushel of Vidalia onions. My father-in-law came back from his annual trip to the beach with bags and bags of these "straight out of the dirt" onions. It was pretty exciting...it has also been pretty intimidating to have 50 pounds of onions in your kitchen with nary an idea of what to do with them. I've imagined bottling my own salad dressings, chopping and freezing some of them, but when I had serious questions of preservation, I went straight to the horse's mouth.

The Vidalia Onion Committee has a wealth of amazing recipes and history about the Vidalia onion which is sort of like Serrano ham or Champagne in that it can only be called a Vidalia if it's really, truly, honestly from Vidalia, Georgia. All onion'd out already? Let's get to it...

I decided to try the committee's recipe for Sweet Vidalia Onion Jelly last night. It turned out really nicely even if it only used up 3 of my eleventy million onions. The end product is something that a southern woman would spoon over a brick of cream cheese and serve with crackers. I also imagine a dollop in my meatloaf mixture or as a pork glaze. In its wildest dreams, I imagine that this peppery-onion-y jelly, which is really more "jammy", would love to be paired with some cream Havarti and a fresh pear. (and, maybe a cracker.)

The recipe is as follows:

3 cups chopped Vidalia onions
3/4 cup cider vinegar
2.5-3 cups sugar
1 tsp. red pepper flakes
1 box of powdered fruit pectin (no sugar needed variety)

Instructions:

Puree the onion and vinegar in the blender until smooth. Pour into a saucepan. Add the sugar and red pepper flakes. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Boil for 5 minutes and then add the pectin. Bring to a hard boil for 1 minute. Pour into hot, sterilized jars. Secure the lids and process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes.

Some notes about this: First of all, I chose to use my food processor for the whole chopping/pureeing process which worked fine. I then added all other ingredients in the pot. I wasn't happy with the color with only 6 minutes of cooking time. It seemed sort of like white mush with red flaking. I cooked the entire mixture a bit longer--probably 10-15 minutes to bring a more caramelized color. It also allowed some of the red pepper flavor to infuse a bit more. I added a bit more cider vinegar, red pepper flakes, and probably ended up using 3 cups of sugar. I got 5 half pint jars of the jelly with a little left over to sample. I processed them for 15 minutes just to be on the safe side.

This recipe turned out really well, and I'm looking forward to experimenting with other ways to save the Vidalia onion season.

canned.

First of all, I love windfall fruit. Second, I love pears. Third, I love putting them up in jar after sparkling jar where their champagney color shines through. But, sometimes when canning, I start feeling overwhelmed. Oh, say, for instance when I got through my 5th batch of preserves and a healthy stash of baby food, and realized that I still had about 10 pounds of pears left. That said, there's something about just soldiering through them all and getting it done.

Canning some 40 pounds of pears has taught me a lot about why I like to preserve. To me, there's a great feeling of safety in feeling like food has been set aside, lying in wait. Canning is also a metaphor for turning what's been stifled into something good. What does that mean? It means that for every time I've been stressed out, and chosen to get to work with this stuff, I've ended up with a beautiful collection of jars to share. A good many times I've known in my heart that it's not wise to talk about my feelings, so I've bottled them up, put them in jars, sealed them, and shown them off here. In short, I find that the amount that I can is directly proportional to how overwhelmed or vexed I feel. It calms me down.

To wit, the past two weeks' therapeutic canning has been brought to me by my friend Krista, who gave me all of these knotty, little pears. I've worked off a basic pear preserve recipe which reminds me of my Nana's work. She somehow managed to create long ribbons of those hard, farm pears which cooked up beautifully in wide breadth, and then were stuffed into jars with their syrup. This time, I've cooked up the original recipe, but I've also made it four other times: Once with a vanilla bean infused in the syrup, another time with a nice splash of Grand Marnier, again with chopped, crystalized ginger, and most recently with ginger with the addition of a chopped red delicious apple and a dash of cinnamon. Here we go...

Pear Preserves:
4ish cups chopped pears (to your liking, but I worked with thin, wide slices)
2 TBS bottled lemon juice (consistent pH, yo.)
4ish cups sugar
1 pkg. pectin
1/2 tsp. butter (if desired to reduce foaming)

Peel, core and slice pears as you like to yield about four cups. I say "about" because I think that some pears are more watery and/or crispier than others.

gratuitous adorable baby with pears shot...

In a nice sized pot, place your pears, lemon juice, and any flavoring you might add--this would be the time to introduce that vanilla bean, liqueur or ginger. (I think I used half of a whole vanilla bean split down the middle) Stir well, and then sprinkle the pectin on top of the mixture.

mmm...pectin!

Bring to a rolling boil, then add your sugar, and bring back to a boil for about 3 minutes or to reach roughly 220 degrees F.


While the pears are cooking, I usually bring my water bath to a good boil and sterilize my jars and rings. In a separate bowl with boiling water, I warm my lids. Once the fruit mixture has fully cooked, turn off the heat and get ready to fill the jars that you've naturally readied to fill. Using a canning funnel, fill the jars to ~1/4 inch of the top, wipe the rims with a wet cloth, pop the lids on and screw on the rings.


Process at a rolling boil for 12 minutes. This means I usually process them for 15 minutes because it takes a tiny bit to bring the pot back to a boil. Finally, you're left with just the pretty, popping lidded jars on the counter. This recipe yields about 3 pints (6 half pint jars) per batch, and is dedicated to everyone who has ever been told to put a lid on it, that nobody cares if they scream, or has been left to silently "white knuckle" their way through life. Pop off that lid---there's a whole jar full of sweetness.

pickled.

I've been staring at 5 pounds of organic red onions for 2 weeks--or maybe they have been staring at me. After seeing this recipe, I became convinced that Pickled Red Onions with Mustard Seed was absolutely the next canning adventure I should have. I think it was heavily influenced by the pretty pink onion draped over the delicate, sterling pickle fork that got me.

Today, I finally got to it. Well, I basically decided that 2 hours in the kitchen would be preferable to 2 hours of studying statistics. In the end, the effort was well worth it, but I sort of felt like I was being punished for neglecting my books as the stinging onion eyes set in. As you can see, the end result is beautiful, and there was even enough brine left over to make some refrigerator pickles with my baby carrots.

what's your favorite thing?

My son has been following me around the house asking me this question for days mainly because he loves the answer. He teases me, challenges me, and laughs with hysteria as I answer, "plum jam" every time.

Him: "Don't you know that PEOPLE are more important than plum jam?"
Me: "Noooo...nothing is better than plum jam."
Him: "OH COME ON! You like Baby better than plum jam!"
Me: "I'm not so sure..."
Him: "Mom. I'm your son. The care of others comes first."
Me: "Stop with the guilt tripping. I'm all UH-BOUT some plum jam!"
Him: "Name your three favorite things!"
Me: "Plum jam, plum jam, plum jam!"

I've never thought a whole lot about plums. Sure, summer rolls around and I cut those luscious California black plums into eighths for snacks, but I've never really thought of them outside the odd offering of a sauce next to duck or turned into prunes which Mom would warn to never eat more than two of.

But, when my parents decided to go out of town and left me with a sack of plums, I decided to turn them into jam without much of a clue as to how I was going to accomplish it. Do you peel the plums? How much sugar do you use? The recipes vary, but I decided not to peel them, and chose to lower the sugar content because most times I felt like people were calling for way too much.

What I came up with astounded me. It is the most heavenly pinky red color and tastes like heaven. This summer I've canned like a locavore, but I'm really glad I took a leap and used these West coast beauties.

plum jam

4.5 cups chopped, pitted, unpeeled black plums
2 TBS fresh lemon juice
1/2 cup water
1 package of pectin
6 cups sugar

Chop your plums and place them in a large pot with the lemon juice and water. Cook them on medium-low heat for ~20 minutes or until soft.


Once soft, add the pectin and bring the mixture to a rolling boil for one minute. Then, add the sugar, stirring constantly. This is the first time that I've used a candy thermometer to really look for accuracy in temperature, but I found it was very helpful in watching for 220 degrees. This resulted in a really nice semi-firm set.


As you can see, the plums cook up just beautifully. Next, ladle the hot mixture into prepared jars, and add lids and rings. I ended up with 4 half pint and 5 four ounce jars of jam. I am really glad I used less sugar, and truly would even consider lowering the content to around 5 cups. This has been probably been the most delicious fruit preserve I've made this summer. Maybe I'll consider red plums when I'm finished putting up the 1/2 bushel of peaches I just bought!