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Oh boy, this is the thread of my dreams! Ok, so I moved to NYC last year from San Francisco. I had never realized how spoiled I was by the nearly year-round growing season we have in California, so I had never felt any need to jam things. I had made peach jam my sophomore year of college, and it was a huge, way too sugary waste of money. Last winter I discovered just how much balls the northeast could be in the winter. Fruit and veggies are a pretty substantial part of my diet, and I'm one of those dirty hippies that hates the concept of fruit thats been flown half ways through the world and tastes like nothing. Flash forward to now, when I've returned from the field (I'm an entomologist, wheee!) and decided to make something each weekend. So far I've made yogurt (doesn't really count, but heck, it saves money and is easy), yellow plum preserves, peach preserves and peach jelly (made from boiling the skins and other refuse of the preserves). Last night I made sauerkraut. I don't have any fancy equipment, so a lot of this is experimenting with what you can do with canning jars and a stock pot. My one concession was jar tongs, because after splashing boing water fumbling with regular tongs and a full quart jar, you do. I'm somewhat worried by the sauerkraut- I couldn't get the ziplock bag with water thing to work because I don't have ziplock bags, nor are the jars wide mouth. I had read online that ye olde folks used to use whole leaves they saved from shredding, and basically used those to create a sort of seal that would keep floaters from surfacing. I did that, but with kale (had already shredded all my cabbage), and it seems to be working, except for some kale floatage. And boy, when you burp the mason jars (to prevent 'splosion), it truly smells like a nasty burp. In light of my iffyness about the sauerkraut, I was wondering if any one could tell me how checking the ph for safety works? I work in a place with a bunch of labs, so I'm pretty sure I could get my hands on some. My sauerkraut has corn in it, so when mushed, it means the liquid is milky white. I guess that's from the corn juice and sugar? I wonder what will happen  And finally, this weekends preserve session should feature strawberries. I try to can things I wouldn't be able to find at a grocery store, so a recipe that goes beyond just plain strawberry jam would be great. Does any one have a good balsamic strawberry jam? Maybe a strawberry + other fruit marmalade? Thanks all!
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Aug 8, 2012 16:01
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So I tried the hot pack method for some elephant heart pluots I purchased. Boiled for two minutes in the medium sugar syrup (3 cups water to 1 cup sugar), and maybe I boiled it too long or I cut the slices too small, but basically, the fruit fell apart. Now I got some beautiful red juice with bits of pulp in it cooling down on my counter. It isn't beautiful, but do you think it's safe (still processed the pints for 20 minutes, sterilized everything, etc)? I hope so- I figure at worse I have an awesome halloween party snack (it looks awesomely ghoulish) and at best I have something that'll be a good topper for pancakes. Thoughts?
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Aug 11, 2012 18:34
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Woah! Hey entomologists all over the place! Where do you work? And a new bizarre mystery that has sent me here- One of my damson jam jars just "pinged". Heard it all the way from the kitchen and it's a pretty distinct noise. Sure enough, I can now pop/flex the lid in. But testing the seal by holding up jar only by the lid still works. What the hell is going on? Might it be because it was next to the oven and I'm roasting some veggies? Will it "ping" back down? mystery....
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Aug 20, 2012 00:15
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Highspeeddub posted:I make both in the crock pot and it is indeed the best way to do it. Free apples are the best. Free food is always the best. So I went to the farmers market, swindled them into letting me buy a bulk amount of apples (bout ten pounds, which is way more than their usual client gets), and turned it into spicy apple butter (the spicyness mainly comes from the fresh ginger I chopped into it!). Just processed those suckers. I'll take a picture when they are not scaldingly hot. 1 batch, four half-pints and a full pint. I also bought ten pounds of pears for the same purpose, but they are not quite ripe enough.
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Aug 26, 2012 22:33
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Rule .303 posted:I've been cheating. I run apples through a steam-juicer to make juice for apple jelly and can-able juice, and then run the rest of the pulp through a food mill, add brown sugar and spices and stir in apple shreds I make with the cheese shredder to make mock-apple butter. It is not as good as cooked down apple butter but it is a way to use up the pulp. Hmm I wonder if you could use the pulp as an egg replacer- I think a lot of vegan recipes use it in place of eggs, and I imagine since the pulp is pretty bland, it'll be neutral. I'm in NYC! Haha, if you have a ton of apples, my guess is you have a tree and you're out in the country.
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Aug 27, 2012 21:41
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