Jam time!

Last year we made several types of delicious jam. My favorites were definitely plum and peach raspberry. So when Joe's boss gave us another few bags of plums, it was time to replenish our jam supply for another year. We had fewer plums but still have a few bottles of peaches left over. So I did half straight plum jam and half plum-peach.

This year the plums were pretty ripe and that made things much easier. Squeeze them by hand or crush with a potato masher to squish out all the juice. Bring the juice and the crushed plums to a boil. You can strain out just the juice and make jelly. I just pulled out the skins and pits, leaving the pulp in the juice.

For the peach-plum jam, put your bottled peaches in the blender and pulse a few times. Mix the plums and peaches in any ratio you like - I did about half and half. Follow the directions on your pectin to make and process the jam.

It was definitely a successful experiment! The kids were so excited and have eaten toast, rolls or crackers with jam every day since.

Homemade Applesauce

Well, the peaches may have been slow this year but our apples were right on time. This is the first time I've ever had an apple tree and, unlike the pears and apricots in the neighbors yard, this one actually belongs to us. Our tree has Jonathan apples which are perfect for me. They are sweet, tart and very crisp. I wanted to think of something to use up a lot of them (I hate feeling like the produce goes to waste) and Jenny suggested applesauce. My kids love applesauce and I figured that homemade would be more delicious and have less corn-syrup and preservatives than the store-bought variety.

For this project, an apple peeler/corer will be your best friend. I could not believe how simple this was! Plus, with proper supervision, this is a great way to let your kids help. Minnie loved turning the handle and watching the peeler work.

Drop the finished apples into a bowl of water with about 1/4 cup lemon juice stirred in (just to keep it all from turning brown before you're ready to cook it. Most recipes recommend a mix of different apples (sweet and tart). Because our neighbor's tree had an overload of pears, I "borrowed" some for the sauce instead. I figure I used a 3:1 ratio of apples to pears. The pears added a different layer of flavor and since they were sweeter, I used less sugar.

Put an inch or two of water in the bottom of a big pot (just to keep things from burning) and bring the fruit and water up to a boil over medium heat. Reduce the heat to low, add a few teaspoons of cinnamon and let it all simmer for a while, until the fruit is cooked down and mushy. Use a stick blender to mix it all up. If you don't have a stick blender, think of 25 reasons why you need one and pester your husband mercilessly until he tells you to go out and get one. Alternately, use the regular blender to puree batches of the hot applesauce. When it burns you, make your husband go out and buy a stick blender.

At this point you'll add some sugar. Depending on the sweetness of your fruit and your own personal taste you'll add anywhere from 1/2 to a few cups. Add it slowly and taste to see what you like. You might also want some more cinnamon or maybe even some pumpkin pie spice! It's your applesauce, make it taste however you want to. If the sauce is too watery let it simmer some more so it cooks down.

Here's the part where I turned slightly crazy. When I made my test batch, I put a few drops of red food coloring in, just for fun. The kids liked the pink applesauce and ate an entire bottle with dinner. When I was getting ready to pour this batch into bottles, I let Minnie talk me into coloring each bottle a different color.

About 2 drops of food-coloring worked for each pint jar. And just so you can learn from my experience:

Pink: pleasant to look at and appetizing
Yellow: looks fine
Green: a little weird but still OK - kids like it
Blue: getting a little iffy...
Purple: just don't try it. Food doesn't accept purple dye well. Joe tried to dye Rice Krispie Treats purple once and they turned the same shade of Deathly Zombie Gray that we got today.

Peach-Raspberry jam

I have not tried out this recipe yet but I have it on good authority (thanks Missy!) that it's excellent. A co-worker of Joe's gave us a big box of peaches and I've been saving our raspberries in the freezer. This is what I have planned for today.

Peach Raspberry Jam...
7 cups blended peaches
2 packages frozen raspberries thawed and blended (3 1/2 cups)
10 cups sugar
2 small packages raspberry Jell-O

Peel and slice peaches, tossing them in lemon juice or Fruit Fresh to keep them from browning. Blend in a food processor or with a potato masher. Combine first three ingredients in a thick-bottomed pot. Cook on low stirring often. Bring to a boil and cook for 20 minutes.

Skim foam. Remove from heat. Add Jell-O and stir until dissolved. Ladle into jam jars (a jar funnel will keep the jar mouth clean). Fit on clean, hot lids and rings. Process in a water bath canner for 10 minutes to preserve. Let sit in a draft-free place without bumping them until cool (about 12 hours). Check to make sure all lids are sealed down tight. Store in a cool dry place for up to 18 months.

Have I mentioned that I love fall?

I think October is my favorite month - so much The Favorite that it gets its own blog re-design. In celebration, I'm going to continue to post more great peach recipes.

If I can keep the kids from eating all the peaches on the way home from the orchard, I have lots of bottling/preserving possibilities. Last year I discovered this website that has recipes for just about any delicious thing you could ever want to can, bottle, tin or make ice cream from. On that site I saw this easy slow-cooker recipe for peach butter. Everyone always talks about apple butter, which is good, but peaches are nearer and dearer to my heart. So I had to make some. Here's how (it's easy!)

Wash, peel and slice your ripe peaches. Cooking won't ripen fruit so if they're green and under-ripe now, the peach butter will taste under-ripe. About 15 peaches fit in my crock pot, and I have the big oval 5 qt. one. Oh, and this makes your slow-cooker bowl super-duper sticky so if you don't have the kind with the removable, dishwasher-safe bowl, break yours, blame it on the kids (or dog or cat) and get a new one.

New crock-pot acquired, chop the peaches up (thin slices or cubes). The smaller your pieces, the more will fit in the pot. They don't have to be even OR pretty so this is a task that Husband can help with. Add 3-4 cups of sugar (depending on how sweet you want it) and about 2 tsp. of cinnamon, 1 tsp cloves, 1/2 tps allspice and a sprinkle of nutmeg. Set your slow-cooker to low, set the lid on but leave a space to vent and let it go for about 6-12 hours. My batch went from 6pm to about 8 the next morning and was perfect.

You can stir the pot if you want, and I actually mashed the peaches up a bit during the cooking process, just to have something to do. Remember that your lid shouldn't sit on tightly, or there won't be anywhere for the steam to escape and you want this to reduce. The nice thing about the slow cooker is that the heat is so low that you would have to forget about the butter for a week or so to burn it. An extra perk is that your house smells divine the whole time this is cooking. I think heaven must smell like peaches and baking bread.


Once it's all cooked down to about 2/3 or 1/2 of the original volume, blend it up. A stick blender is the best but if you have to, put it in your regular blender or food processor. You want the consistency to be nice and smooth. It gets thicker as it's all blended as well.

Fruit butters are really forgiving. Say that you made this, let it cool and it just wasn't as thick as you wanted? Just pour it all back in the crock pot, heat it up and cook it for longer. If you've made it too thick, pour in some fruit juice to thin it back out. To test it, I scooped up a few tablespoons in a cup and let it cool. It looked fine but I wanted to check the "spreadability" so I slathered it on some toast and ate it. Delicious.

Pour your peach butter into pint or half-pint jars and water-bath it the same way you would jams or jellies. Then it will store on the shelf for your all-winter enjoyment. I made this last year and I got enough to give out to family, as Christmas gifts to the neighbors, to bribe people to be my friends and still have plenty leftover for me. My favorite way to eat it was on crepes with cinnamon sugar and whipped cream. Excuse me while I wipe drool from the keyboard...

Happy harvest, etc.

jeri

Results from Peach Day 2008

It was a monumental undertaking and here it is, for the record.

3 - people that came to Peach Day

7 - boxes of peaches ready to be bottled

600+ - individual peaches to be blanched, peeled and sliced (mostly by Aleah, who claimed to enjoy the work)

3 - crock pots full of peach butter that needed blending and bottling

2 - hours Joe spent buying and assembling the Camp Chef stove (and we would have gone crazy without it)

6 - pots of boiling water (used for various purposes) we had going at any given time

7 - hours spent, in a row, on our feet, peeling, slicing and packing peaches

4 - peaches stolen by Little Man and left, half-eaten, around the house

6 - large bags of ice used

40 - pounds of sugar used (that's not an exaggeration, we really did go through 40 pounds of sugar for the bottling syrup and the jam). Oh, thanks to Becca's mom Valerie for telling us to put 1/2 cup sugar in the bottles with the peaches (then fill with boiling water) instead of mixing syrup separately. I think it was less messy and you didn't waste any syrup.

2 - bottles lost to unforeseen accidents


27 - little cuts Aleah has in her hand from the paring knife

1 - time we sat down and actually ate something

3 - lids we had left over (whew!)

253 - times I told Minnie that she could not use the computer/play in the street/assemble a functional rocket, until I was done with the peaches

87 - quarts of peaches successfully bottled (I don't know how many pints of jam and peach butter we ended up with. Pam?)

36 - bottles which belong to me and are stored lovingly in my food storage room to be petted, admired and gobbled up throughout the next year.

Peach Day 2008

A few people have expressed interesting in having Peach Day this year, where we can get together and bottle peaches for the winter. Last year Hannah and I bottled peaches and it was a lot of fun, a lot of work and very rewarding. It was so nice to have fresh and yummy peaches all winter instead of the tin can variety (you'll never go back). I have rationed out the last of our peaches and have exactly ONE bottle left. When I say "ration" I'm not really kidding. Bart and Lisa would happily slurp down a quart of peaches in one sitting... every day.

If you plan on participating in Peach Day 2008, here are some things you should know:

- Jessica recommends the Lemon Elberta peaches from Allred Orchards.

- Last year I got 3 half-bushel boxes and it was enough for bottled peaches and peach butter. Since the kids like the peaches so much, I might get 4 boxes this year.

- I've found mason jars at DI for 25 cents each. Also you can raid your grandma's old canning stuff and find a lot of bottles.

- I called Allred's today and the Elbertas will be ready after the 20th of this month (the late frost slowed down the peaches I guess). They recommended buying your peaches about 3 days before bottling and let them sit in a box to get a bit riper. They were very helpful.

- If you are interested in participating in Peach Day 2008, please e-mail me and we'll pick a Saturday that works for everyone (the 27th or 4th of October?). You will need your peaches, mason jars, lids and rings and sugar. Also bring a knife, cutting board and a few extra-large bowls/pots, just in case. If anyone has a camp chef stove, I think that would help a lot.

Plum jam

Last year my mother-in-law made enough strawberry freezer jam to supply a developing country... or so we thought. The cartons of jam took up half of my chest freezer but every time a brother- or sister-in-law came to visit they would help themselves to the jam. Last week they took the last 2 containers and we are out of jam.

Joe's boss has a plum tree (not the regular purple plums, these are green/red on the outside, bright red inside and more tart) with tons of fruit. He invited us over to pick plums and we got enough to fill a large stock pot. And so we begin the jam-making process again.

I didn't want to go through the process of removing the skins, so this is how I made the jam. I guess technically it would be called jelly - except that doesn't sound as fancy. Anyway, wash your plums and chunk them in a big pot. Put in a cup or so of water and slowly bring it to a boil. Crush the plums with a potato masher to release the juice. The fruit will scorch if there is not enough liquid.

Keep mashing and stirring until it all comes up to a boil - let it simmer until the fruit is soft and mushy. Strain the juice out with a colander or cheese cloth.

Once you have your plum juice you can follow the directions for jam (or jelly) on the package of pectin. Just make sure you have:

1 box of pectin for every 6 cups of juice
oodles of sugar
clean mason jars, rings and lids
a deep pot so you can water bath the jars when they're filled with jam

The whole process is pretty easy but it does take a considerable amount of time. I suggest putting a good movie in so you can listen to it while you're stirring/mashing/waiting/stirring. I have a set of project movies for when I'm quilting or working on things like this (they need to have good music, be fun to listen to even if you can't see the picture the entire time and be long enough that you're not switching out the disks all the time). Some of my recommendations are:

My Fair Lady
North and South
Pride and Prejudice
Lord of the Rings

I bet other people could suggest some other great ones in the comments. Enjoy!

Spaghetti sauce

Using my 60+ pounds of tomatoes, I made some spaghetti sauce and bottled it. I did the meatless variety, figuring that I might want to add chicken or sausage or something other than ground beef to the sauce later.

I followed these instructions almost exactly - except I added herbs and seasonings to suit my taste. Go easy on your seasonings since they might get bitter over time if you add too much.

Things that are high-acidity (like the pepper jelly) are safe to can in a water bath but things that are low-acidity (like green beans) are not and either require extra acid or the use of a pressure canner. Tomatoes are right on the fence of high/low-acidity and so most recipes will suggest adding vinegar to make the sauce more acidic...yuck. If you're going to bottle your own spaghetti sauce, maybe buy or borrow a pressure canner just for the sake of good-tasting sauce.

The other thing I noticed is that the amount of head space (air between the sauce and the lid) increased a lot after bottling. I think the tomatoes or peppers cook down and leave more air at the top, since I filled the jars almost to the top before sealing them.

I had one jar that I left open so we could eat it and it has been delicious. I'm looking forward to yummy, garden-fresh spaghetti sauce all winter!

Jalapeño pepper jelly

My lone jalapeño plant has started producing some excellent chili peppers, so I decided to make some pepper jelly with them.

Jalapeño Pepper Jelly...
12-18 jalapeño peppers (4 cups when chopped)
cider vinegar
sugar
pectin (powder, liquid, no-sugar... follow the recipe on the type of pectin that you buy because I have found that the amounts of vinegar and sugar change)
rubber gloves
6 1/2-pint Mason jars, lids and rings
jar funnel, jar lifter, water bath ** (for these small jars, any large pot will do)

Make sure your jars are free from any chips or cracks. I think the fastest way to sterilize them is to run them through the dishwasher, making sure your hot-dry setting is on. Put the lids in a pot of boiling water (use new lids each time you can something so the wax seal is new and good.) **Note: you don't HAVE to can the jelly. You can put it in the sterile jars and keep it in the fridge if you want. For lots of canning questions or more detailed instructions, check the insert that will come with the box of pectin, or this website.

1. Your peppers should be firm and crisp. Limp, wrinkled or old peppers will make your jelly bitter. Wear your rubber gloves to keep the hot peppers off your hands (the capsaicin is hard to wash off your hands and can really burn your eyes and mouth). Cut off the stems, slice them in half and remove the seeds. The ribs of the peppers are where a lot of the heat is stored. Scrape them out the jelly will be milder, leaving them in will make it hotter.

2. Put the sliced peppers and 1 cup of the vinegar in a blender or food processor. Pulse until peppers are finely chopped.

3. Add peppers, the rest of the vinegar and sugar to a large saucepan. Bring to a rolling boil. Add liquid pectin - squeezing as much as you can from the packet. Boil for 1 minute. Skim the foam from the top.

4. Ladle the jelly into your sterilized jars. Retrieve lids from hot water - seat lid on jar. Screw on ring until just hand-tight.

5. Submerge jars in a pot of water, bring to a boil. Boil for 10-15 minutes to process. Remove from water and place in a draft-free place for at least 12 hours or until completely cooled. Check to make sure each lid has sealed (it should stay tightly down and not move or "pop" when you press it.) If jar is not sealed, put in the fridge and use immediately. If jars sealed correctly, store in a cool, dry, dark place for up to 18 months (after 18 months jelly might be runny but is still usable).


My favorite way to eat the pepper jelly is on some good wheat crackers with cream cheese. I've been looking for some other recipes that use it though and here's a good start. If you have a recipe for something good that uses the pepper jelly, be sure to e-mail it to me.

Farmer's market

While my five little tomato plants are doing well and producing lots of tomatoes, I'm not getting enough to do more than make some spaghetti sauce, salsa or salads for a one-time use. Since I was anxious to try out my handy-dandy new pressure canner on tomatoes, I decided to take a trip to a local farmer's market to see what they had to offer.

There were lots of stands at the market, selling everything from tamales to jewelry. It was a fun, craft-fair atmosphere. Either because it's earlier in the season or because of our late frosts this year, there weren't too many people selling vegetables. I did find exactly what I was looking for though.

If you are a seasoned farmer's market customer, you probably already know this but... everything was much cheaper if you bought it in bulk. The stand was selling large tomatoes for a dollar each - or $25 for a big box! So even if you don't need the Lifetime Supply Box, maybe go with a friend and split it. Also the workers are quite helpful. I told them I wanted ripe tomatoes to use right away and he selected the nicest, reddest box and topped it off for me. They even carried it to my car (I had Bart and Lisa with me, clamoring for gelato from a neighboring stand).


Returning home with my prize, I discovered something that I hadn't really considered. I could barely lift the box! The last time I bought a box of tomatoes it was a half-bushel box and it weighed 30 pounds on the bathroom scale. This box... wow. I wrestled the thing inside and onto the kitchen counter. When Joe woke up (he is on the night shift and sleeps during the day) I had him estimate the weight of the box and he put it between 60 and 70 pounds. Compared to the store prices of tomatoes right now, this was an excellent deal.

I made salsa and spaghetti sauce to bottle and store and I'll be posting those recipes this week.

Oh yeah...

... it's all coming together.

We are starting to get produce out of our garden on a regular basis. Little sweet peppers, huge zucchini, long spicy Anaheim chilies, perfect green beans, little cucumbers and tomatoes of all sizes. We have Roma, grape and cherry tomatoes so far (the Better Boys aren't quite ready). I feel like my coffee experiment with the tomatoes was a success because they are doing so well. My jalapeno peppers cross-pollinated with something (I'm guessing) and they are tiny, bright red and sweet instead of hot. Oh well. I'm just so freakishly excited about this garden! I go out and pull weeds and putter and admire all the little blossoms and tiny veggies... I can see why people get so caught up in this hobby!

I've been sorting and saving the tomatoes and peppers for salsa and spaghetti sauce which I will bottle with my awesome new pressure canner! I only have four tomato plants so I think that my salsa/sauce endeavor will be supplemented by a trip to the farmer's market this weekend. Also I have some great fresh-from-the-garden recipes that I'll be sharing this week!

Attempts at homemaking

I pulled the first vegetables out of our garden yesterday! I have about 12 small bush bean plants that have survived late frost, bugs and trampling-by-small-children and they're starting to produce. I got 1-3 beans from each plant, which was just enough for dinner (Joe caught 4 smallish trout so we had an excellent, fresh dinner!) My favorite way to prepare beans is to boil them for a few minutes until they're tender but not mushy. Slice half an onion, sauté it in a bit of butter or olive oil, add a sprinkle of garlic salt and toss with the beans.

In celebration of our not-dying garden, I bought something I've been eying for a while now... this beauty of a pressure-canner. I have crazy dreams of being able to bottle my own beans so that we can have fresh, nutritious veggies throughout the winter months. I think my only real obstacle will be not eating every bean as it comes out of the garden. Because they were so tender and so flavorful and sweet. YUM! I sowed a second crop yesterday that will hopefully have less frost problems and give us a fair amount of beans later in the summer. Also, if you're not living on a farm and gathering bushels of beans every day, how do you keep them fresh long enough to fill a few bottles?

Last year Hannah and I turned into crazy people and decided that, with no experience, help or know-how, we would learn to bottle our own peaches. We read this website numerous times, assembled our equipment, turned on a movie (Jane Eyre) and just went for it. It was a LOT of work, but we did get our boxes of peaches bottled. I ended up with 16 quarts of peaches and 14 small bottles of peach butter. It's been over 8 months of eating delicious bottled peaches and, since no one has had any botulism complaints, I figure we did everything correctly. Except we didn't get the lids wiped off well enough, so opening each sticky lid is a challenge. Live and learn right? Also my kids would eat an entire bottle on their own if I let them, which makes me happy.

Oh yes, as a sidenote, check out Hannah's blog because she's giving away a blog-header and believe me, you want it. That looks like a fun give-away. Maybe I'll do one in the future. Anyway...

Back to canning and bottling. I'm really excited about this! I'm hoping that in the late summer and early fall, we can get a group together again for Handy Homemakers Part II. So get your bottles, fruit and veggies and your home-makiest apron ready for fall. I can't wait.