Plum Jelly Round-Up

Earlier this year, tired of squirrel bandits on my bird feeders - I discovered that I could trap them in my Hav-A-Hart trap -- and relocated 3 of 5 squirrels to a park two miles away.  The unexpected upside of this is that my neighbors finally got tree-ripened loquats and I had a LOT more plums on the tree in my backyard this year -- I harvested about 125 lbs in the two days before July 4th!

I barely had room in my freezer and fridge to put all the juice and puree -- and this week I am making up jelly -- a lot of it!

Plum-Habanero
16 c plum juice + 1 c lemon juice + 4 c sugar + 5Tb & 1tsp pectin + 5Tb & 1tsp calcium water + 3.75 oz habaneros (seeds cut out) =

• 21- half pints plum habanero jelly

Plum-Habanero-Lemongrass

• 18 - half pints 
• 15 - quarter pints

 Plum
20 cups of plum juice + 5 c sugar + pectin/calcium water + 1 c lemon juice =

• 11 - 20 oz jars 
• 13 - half pints

Plum-Lemongrass
24 cups of plum juice + 6 c sugar + pectin/calcium water + 1 1/4 c lemon juice + lemongrass =

• 33 - half pints

Ground Cherries!

I ended up with about a gallon of ground cherries - cooked them down and finished making the jelly.  I had the same issue as last year - it doesn't seem to want to set very well, but finally set with a very soft jell - just perfect for eating out of the jar!

Ground Cherry Jelly
12 - 8 oz jars

Pears!

In the first week of October, a friend forwarded an e-mail to me with a photo attached of a pear tree about to break under its own weight.  I made arrangements and arrived at the warehouse space near Jack London Square to investigate - the pears were different from other pears I have seen - dark brown on the outside, like a sunburn that scratches off, to a light green underneath.  The pears were hard and either under-ripe or just not dessert pears - but there were a lot of them so I set to work harvesting.


I poached two dozen of them the next day, and set rest out on trays in single layers to ripen - and a week later, still not ripe, I did some research and found an interesting article on Kieffer Pears.


I think that the tree is possibly a Kieffer Pear - not so great for eating raw, but excellent for canning. The pears are usually ripe in October, just as hard as they were back in July, and the trees often grow so tall that most people can't pick all the fruit easily.

However - the pears lack the sort of rusty stipple - but look more like Passe Crassane in the picture here: http://www.frenchgardening.com/tech.html?pid=1139483932219159

An interesting tip I picked up from these articles is that you should not store any of the pears too close to tomatoes or other fruit while you're letting them ripen - the esters will cause the softer fruits to speed up too much and get moldy (I realized this with some tomatoes that were on the table with the pears!).

After about three weeks of ripening indoors - some of the pears turned into little squishy spore bombs, so I decided it was time.  I decided to do a batch of canned pears in light syrup with vanilla and a batch of pickled pears (apple cider vinegar & spices).  I still have 3 trays of pears with blemishes and am going to make some pear chutney - and then maybe I'll try my hand at chow-chow since I have some green tomatoes!

Canned Pears

• 4 quarts & 1 pint canned pears, plain
• 8 qts & 3 pints canned pears, with vanilla
• 1 qt & 9 pints pickled pears

Fall Tomatoes

After spending 4 hours at Mariquita's farms in Gilroy, exhausted from picking 160 lbs of tomatoes - I wasn't sure I'd have energy for much else. It took nearly a full week for me to process two big batches of marinara and one big batch of pottsville relish!

The part that seems to take the most time is the same regardless of equipment - the foodmill. I use the food mill attachment on my Kitchen Aid, but I am pretty sure it took a lot longer using a chinois. I have to stop and take it apart to get all the skins out - but the chinois was a lot more physical labor.

Since I often cook red wine into my pasta sauce, I decided to put it in the sauce while I was cooking it down. I made sure to add lemon juice to each quart this year and processed everything nice and hot for a good 45 minutes.

Tomato sauce

• 27 qts

Pottsville relish

• ~2 gallons (forgot to count jars!)

Tomato juice

• 4 qts, frozen

Plum Jelly 2011

The plum jelly report for 2011:

Plum Habanero jelly

• 9 half pints

Plain Old Plum jelly

• 3 12 oz
• 4 half pint
• 1 quarter pint

4 cups puree for plum ginger jelly or plum sauce

Strawberry addiction

I keep buying flats of strawberries from Mariquita! Today I finished up another batch of strawberry balsamic jam - I have decided that macerating the strawberries in sugar for 24 hours is the best way - I've got about 15 pints.   I am freezing lots of strawberries (3 gallon bags of frozen whole berries now!).

Tiny Bubbles

I'm pretty sure that the USDA home canning website would NOT approve of the "funghi trifolati" recipe that I received a while back from another mushroom forager.  Last December, after picking a small amount of chanterelles & blewits, I decided I wanted to try my hand at it.

First - here's the recipe as I received it:

With all the chantrelles you have, I thought I would pass on my favorite way to store them.  I learned this from my Italian friend's mom. It is a variation of funghi trifolati.  This stuff goes fast!

You need basic glass jar canning supplies.

Ingredients:

• A LOT of rough-chopped chanterelles (or other mushrooms--honey mushrooms, porcini and oyster are great).  It is cool when you get little ones to leave them as whole as possible.
• thinly sliced garlic
• chopped flat-leaf parsley
• chopped thyme
• a lot of good olive oil
• pickling brine:
  Fill a very large stock pot (big enough to accommodate this brine and a good quantity of your mushrooms) about half-full of water. Add enough quality salt so it tastes about like sea water (saltier than you think). Add quality cider or white wine vinegar to equal about half the volume of the water. Add bay leaf, peppercorns and whatever else you like to taste.
  
  Method:

1. Sterilize jars.
2. Bring brine to a strong simmer.
3. Add mushrooms and let them cook for two minutes after the brine comes back to a strong simmer. Strain the mushrooms from the brine as you jar them (you want them hot). Keep the brine, it is awesome in salad dressings.
4. With a sterilized slotted spoon or tongs add a layer of mushrooms, straight from the hot brine, to the bottom of a jar.
5. Add a layer of your chopped herbs and garlic.
6. Then add a layer of olive oil. repeat this process until you are about half-inch fro the top of the jar and fill this space with olive oil.
7. Tap the jars on a hard surface to try and coax excess air to the top.
8. Put the lid on the jar and store for at least a couple of weeks in a cool, dark place.

The mushrooms take on an amazing, oily-crunchy texture after time and all the flavors blend. the stored mushrooms are beautiful, in layers of gold and green. I have kept them like this for over a year. Some people worry about the addition of raw herbs and garlic and blanch them.

After reading a bunch of recipes, looking at the Ball Blue Book for canning mushrooms, this is basically what I did:

1. Prepare brine of vinegar & salt with spices, bring to a boil.
2. Add peeled & coarsely chopped garlic to brine, return to simmer for several minutes
3. Once garlic is soft, add mushrooms and simmer til liquid seems to be released from the mushrooms (several minutes).
4. Strain mushrooms & layer mushrooms in sterilized quart jar with steam blanched chopped green herbs (parsley, oregano, rosemary) and olive oil.  Cover with olive oil.

I let the jars sit on the counter for about 6 weeks, opening them up to try them in late January - delicious!  I shared some with other friends, the mushrooms were delicious and nobody suffered any ill effects. Two nights ago, when I opened the jar the lid made a slight "pop" like there was a build up of gases when I opened the chanterelles and it made a slight pop when I opened the jar.  My friend and I ate some anyway and they tasted good, we didn't get sick.

Today when I was cleaning in the kitchen, I noticed that the gas had built up again in the chanterelles.  I also noticed some very tiny tiny bubbles coming up, continuously, through the top layer of olive oil which had turned  a darker color.

On closer inspection (and in daylight, not like two nights ago), I noticed that there was some milky white sediment in the bottom.  There also seemed to be a LOT of air bubbles, pea size and bigger.  I had carefully used a butter knife to remove air bubbles and a fork/spoon to press down the contents when I filled the jars.

I pulled out a bamboo chopstick to explore and release some bubbles and noticed some of the larger pieces of garlic felt a bit firm and when I pushed on them - they released  alot of milky goo.    I also noticed, much to my surprise, that the bottom 2-3" of the jar was not olive oil but liquid (brine? juice?). 

Not wanting to risk botulism, I chucked just over 1/2 jar each of chanterelle & blewit pickle. Very sad.

Has this ever happened to you with this process?  What did I do wrong?  Was I wrong to chuck the mushrooms?  Is this an issue with the garlic? 

I had a similar experience with some tomato sauce I made last fall -- unlike the previous 20 years, I decided to put in some herbs and garlic.  The sauce cooked at a simmer for over 12 hours - it was damned hot!  I canned it in a hot water bath for 30 minutes.  However, when I opened the jars from that batch - there were tiny rising continuous bubbles in the sauce.  I reheated the sauce and simmered it for over an hour, after it cooled - it still had these weird bubbles (so I chucked it).

What's up with the carbonation?  Any canning mavens out there got any ideas?

Lemon Chutney - 2009 (redux)!

LEMON CHUTNEY:  You won't believe this but... the last two batches of lemon chutney spontaneously combusted.  *poof* gone.  Just like that.  Tasted really good, though.  So, I am making two more batches of lemon chutney.


Directions for 32-36 large lemons:

1. Lemons, pt 1: 
• Microplane or zest lemons (finely mince zest if necessary)
  
• Supreme and section, reserving the seeds and discarding all pith and membrane.
2. Combine zest with lemon pulp into glass or earthenware container (my grandmother's Hull beanpot works great for this, you might use a tagine or Pyrex covered dish) with 8 T of sea salt. Let sit overnight or several hours The lemon pulp will release plenty of juice!
   
4. The next day, strain the salty lemon pulp and zest, reserving the liquid. Divide evenly by weight using a kitchen scale (this was 4#  of pulp and zest in my case, with 2 c of juice), and put into two separate pots. 
5. Divide reserved juice evenly by volume into the two pots.  Squeeze enough lemons to bring you up to 2 cups of lemon juice, if necessary (don't forget to zest the lemons, first and chuck that in as well.
   
   
   
   

   Sweet(er) 2 lb lemon zest & pulp 1 c fresh lemon juice 1 c cider vinegar 3 T finely minced fresh ginger 2 oz minced garlic   1 c raisins 8 oz chopped sweet red pepper .5 large white or yellow onion, chopped 1/2 - 3/4 c chopped dried apricots 2 c unrefined sugar (without molasses) 2 c sucanat or brown sugar Grind in spice grinder & add to pot 1 tsp each: hulled green cardamom, coriander, whole clove, whole allspice, fenugreek seed, yellow mustard seed

   Lemon & Sweet Red Pepper 2 lb lemon zest & pulp 1 c fresh lemon juice 1 c cider vinegar 3 T finely minced fresh ginger 2.5 oz minced garlic 1 c raisins 16 oz chopped sweet red pepper 1.5 large white or yellow onion, chopped 1 lb sucanat (about 3 c) 2 t cayenne pepper flakes Grind in spice grinder & add to pot 1 tsp each: hulled green cardamom, white pepper, coriander, fenugreek, black mustard

   
   
   
   
6. Put seeds into cheesecloth if there were a significant amount - otherwise, don't worry - it's a chutney and you don't need a ton of pectin to set it like a jam or jelly.
7. Cook everything for 60 minutes or so until it reaches the right consistency.
8. Remove cheesecloth with lemon seeds. Let sit overnight. Taste, adjust seasonings or ingredients (additional lemon juice, more ginger or chili, for example).
   
9. Heat up, taste again, when satisfied, put into clean, hot mason jars and hot water bath can.
   
   

Yield: TBD

SWEET & FRUITY LEMON CHUTNEY
8 - 4 oz jars sweet lemon chutney
3 - 8 oz jars sweet lemon chutney

LEMON & SWEET RED PEPPER CHUTNEY
9 - 4 oz jars lemon & sweet red pepper chutney
4 - 8 oz jars lemon & sweet red pepper chutney

Lemon Chutney - 2009!

LEMON CHUTNEY: Despite using a microplane, I was still up til 2:30 zesting and supreming lemons.  Refinements on last recipes, below.


Directions for 32-36 large lemons:

1. Lemons, pt 1: 
• Microplane or zest lemons (finely mince zest if necessary)
  
• Supreme and section, reserving the seeds and discarding all pith and membrane.
2. Combine zest with lemon pulp into glass or earthenware container (my grandmother's Hull beanpot works great for this, you might use a tagine or Pyrex covered dish) with 8 T of sea salt. Let sit overnight. The lemon pulp will release plenty of juice!
   
3. Lemons, pt 2: Zest, halve and juice enough lemons to get 2 cups of lemon juice
   
4. The next day, strain the salty lemon pulp and zest, reserving the liquid. Divide evenly by weight using a kitchen scale (this was 3# 13 oz of pulp and zest in my case, with 2 c of juice), and put into two separate pots. Divide reserved juice evenly by volume into the two pots, as well as any  reserved extra zest.
5. Mise-en-place for two batches of chutney as follows:
   
   
   
   

   Sweet(er) 1.75 lb lemon zest &  pulp, prepared as above 1 c fresh lemon juice 1 c cider vinegar 3 T finely minced fresh ginger 1 c raisins 1/2 - 3/4 c chopped dried apricots 1/2 c currants 2 c unrefined sugar (without molasses) 1 c organic brown sugar 1 t cayenne pepper flakes 1 Tb salt Grind in spice grinder & add to pot 1 tsp each: hulled green cardamom, coriander, whole clove, whole allspice, fenugreek seed, yellow mustard seed

   Lemon & Sweet Red Pepper 1.75 lb lemon zest &  pulp, prepared as above 1 c fresh lemon juice 1 c cider vinegar 3 T finely minced fresh ginger 2 oz minced garlic 1 c raisins 4 oz chopped sweet red pepper 1 large white or yellow onion, chopped (about 8 oz) 1 lb succanat (about 3 c) 2 t cayenne pepper flakes 1 Tb salt Grind in spice grinder & add to pot 1 tsp each: hulled green cardamom, white pepper, coriander, fenugreek, black mustard

   
   
   
   
6. Put seeds into cheesecloth if there were a significant amount - otherwise, don't worry - it's a chutney and you don't need a ton of pectin to set it like a jam or jelly.
7. Cook everything for 60 minutes or so until it reaches the right consistency.
8. Remove cheesecloth with lemon seeds. Let sit overnight. Taste, adjust seasonings or ingredients (additional lemon juice, more ginger or chili, for example).
   
9. Heat up, taste again, when satisfied, put into clean, hot mason jars and hot water bath can.
   
   

Yield: TBD

SWEET & FRUITY CHUTNEY


LEMON & SWEET RED PEPPER CHUTNEY

December Projects

MUSHROOMS! More rain this week - but also a bit of chill.  Heading out shortly to collect more chanterelles - put up a mere 2# in the freezer (done by dry sautee of thinly sliced mushrooms, reserving the juice they release to freeze, too). 


LEMONS are still in my kitchen, slowly getting juiced, frozen and even turned into lemonade & lemon drops.  I'm going to make up a couple batches of lemon chutney, but probably will create variations on my last two versions for sweet & savory lemon chutney -- of course I still have Hachiyas, but also still have some sweet red peppers and plenty of homemade cayenne pepper flakes.  I also plan to make up a batch of marmalade and some candied lemon peel.

DESSERT!  On Monday, I made a pair of apple pies - apple rum raisin with allspice (and somehow I'm out of allspice?) and apple strawberry with ginger.  I also still have key lime juice and plan to experiment with variations on a key lime pie recipe that I found in a thread on the Post Punk Kitchen forum that doesn't use tofu or packaged pudding, and am going to sub almond milk and coconut milk to make a key lime pie to bring along to my birthday tomorrow.

BIRTHDAY party is tomorrow at Encuentro, kicking off a weekend of good food and soaking in hot water.  At last weekend's 40th annual Fungus Fair, Scott & I splurged on a white truffle and a couple  winter black truffles at from the lovely wife of Todd, the King of Mushrooms.  I'm bringing the marble rolling pin, semolina flour and a hand crank pasta machine to make some pasta to go with those mushrooms on this weekend's get away, along with leftover birthday pie, chanterelles, homemade marinara sauce and a candy thermometer so I can make vegan caramels (why not?).

Persimmon Rose Preserves

Today, I decided to put away the rest of my persimmon pulp in the freezer, in 2 cup batches, for future use in salad dressing.  The last 6 cups, unpureed pulp, became an other batch of preserves - with a hint of rose - it came out absolutely fantastic:

Ingredients:

• 6 c persimmon pulp
• 2.5 c sugar
• 1/4 rose water
• pectin per instructions

YIELD:
6 - 8 oz jars
6 - 4 oz jars

Persimmon Jam

PERSIMMONS are a bit tricky.  They are not exactly chop or mash-able.  So, I put them in the blender and whiz them - but that introduces a few air bubbles into the puree.  It spreads really nicely on dehydrator sheets for fruit leather, though.  Since persimmon pulp is taking over my fridge, I decided to try making some jam out of the pulp - put it in the blender and ended up with a thick, persimmon-butter like jam.  It's so good - my taster says that he can't believe that there are no other spices added because the persimmon flavor is so rich and yet so subtle and complex.

INGREDIENTS:

• 12 cups of pureed persimmon pulp
• 3 cups of sugar
• pectin as directed by Pomona's Pectin

NOTES:
Heat up the puree in the pot before adding the sugar.  It helps if you thoroughly mix the pectin with the sugar, first.  However, since the persimmon is so thick - I found that the sugar and pectin didn't dissolve very well.  Next time, I will try reserving some of the puree mix the pectin and sugar in the blender before adding it to the rest of the pulp already hot in the pot.

YIELD:

• 11 - 8 oz jars persimmon jam
• 5 - 4 oz jars persimmon jam

Applesauce!

I love applesauce.  I hate quartering, coring and peeling apples.  I've been doing it since I was 10 years old - and always found that the hand pain was just no fun at all.  This year, I decided to try something easier - I halved the apples and used a melon baller to scoop the cores, cooked up the apples and then put them through the food mill attachment for my Kitchen Aid.

I was amazed and pleased to discover that this worked a lot more easily - with no clogs! - than the tomatoes!  And, in fact, there was way less waste than if I had cleaned the apples by hand!  I ended up with about 2 cups of skins & centers from the apples instead of a whole bowlful of seeds & cores.

Next time - I'm just going to quarter them and leave the seeds/cores and run the cooked apples through the food mill.  Even less work!  Even less waste!

YIELD:

8 - 16 oz jars of applesauce

Strawberry Jam, Redux

The strawberry jam I made in June was tasty but - it wasn't the deep ruby red color that I wanted.  I wasn't sure quite what happened there, til I came across this fantastic Bay Area Bites article on Strawberry Jam using directions based on a Helen Witty "Good Stuff Cookbook" recipe.

The basic premise is simple - macerate with sugar, capture the juices, simmer the juices to syrup, add berries, put in jars - voila! No pectin!

1. Weigh your strawbs, add the sugar and some lemon and let it macerate in a non-reactive container - overnight in the fridge of several hours on the counter at room temperature, stirring occasionally to get the sugar mixed in and dissolved.  
2. Heat in a pot and bring to a simmer for a couple minutes.
3. Return berries & juice to non-reactive container for a few more hours or overnight.
4. Sterilize your jars - I like to wash mine in hot water and keep the in the oven at 150 on a cookie sheet.
5. Strain the berries from the juice. 
6. Simmer the heck out of the juice until it starts turning into a syrup
7. Add the berries.  Mash if necessary (I sliced mine before macerating).
   
8. Simmer again until the berries are translucent and the jam thickens.
9. All usual tests for setting apply.
10. Put into hot sterilized jars, seal and lick all your spatulas, spoons and fingers before washing them.  OK, that last bit wsn't in the instructions but it happens.

INGREDIENTS:

• 3 lbs berries
• 3 cups sugar
• 1 lemon, juiced

YIELD:
4 - 8 oz jars strawberry jam
2 - 4 oz jars strawberry jam

Red Enchilada Sauce

Friday night found me putting together red enchilada sauce - after reviewing a ton of recipes, I decided a course for my own version which turned out quite well.  It isn't as much a rockstar as the Green Enchilada Sauce, but quite good.  I've noticed this happens in my food experiments - the Fig-Early Girl Tomato chutney had a combination of spices & fruit that worked so amazingly well together that it nearly made me want to chuck all the other chutneys I have made.

Faithful readers - for your review - here is the recipe.  If you have suggestions for tweaks that might send this over the top - please chime in!

Red Enchilada Sauce

• 8 c roasted/seeded/peeled red Anaheim chiles
• 6-7 c veggie broth
• 2 c water (add'l as needed)
• 1/2 lb tomatillos, husked & halved
• 1.5 lb white or yellow onions, peeled & quartered
• 1 bunch cilantro
• 1/2 bunch parsley
• 3 Tb dried epazote

Simmer all ingredients except peppers til soft.  Mix in peppers & puree in blender in batches.

Measure spices:

• 1 Tb cumin seed
• 1 Tb coriander
• 1 t white pepper
• 1-2 dried chipotle peppers, snipped into 1/4" bits
• 1 6-8" stick Mexican cinnamon (soft cinnamon - aka "Ceylon cinnamon") - broken into 1/2" pieces
• 1 star anise
  
• 1/2 c white sesame seeds

Toast  all spices except sesame seeds together - place in spice grinder.  Toast sesame seeds & place in spice grinder.

Toast & grind:

• 2 c whole raw almonds

Add toasted & ground spices & nuts to puree, mix and reblend everything.  Next -

• 3-4 c yellow cherry tomatoes
• 2 Tb salt
• 1-1.5 c cocoa powder
  

Add remaining 3 ingredients to puree & reblend in batches to ensure thorough mixing.

Prepare your enchiladas with fillings of your choice or ladle into sterilized jars for canning.

YIELD:

• 1 large pan of 12 enchiladas
  
• 10 - 16 oz jars of red enchilada sauce
  

Quince - the Final Chapter for 2009

While we were enjoying the fire in the backyard and preparing to render five pounds of red jalapenos into charcoal, the rest of the quince were simmering away on the stove. I did one pot of quince preserves in big chunks with very light syrup and spices, and one pot of compote with dried cherries and figs added - and that one certainly came out beautifully!

YIELD:

3 quart jars of quince preserves
2 quart jars of quince-cherry-fig compote
2 - 12 oz jars of quince-cherry-fig compote

Chipotle - FAIL!

This evening, before dark, I got a really good fire going. Scott helped me clean the quince, and we sat outside for a couple hours, had some awesome cucumber-cherry tomato-avocado salad with a pistachio butter-blood orange vinegar dressing, and chatted while grilling seitan sausages & corn, enjoying the Unti 2005 Dry Creek Zinfandel, nearly full moon and sounds of four different aircraft and the freeway from my North Oakland neighborhood.

Finally, the fire died down and it was time to put on the mesquite chips in the heavy aluminu foil pan I made for Sunday's test run. Scott thought the fire would die down too quickly so bade me add more small bits of wood - some oak bark the size of my wrist - around the sides of the pan. I put the 5# of red jalapeno peppers above the soaked mesquite and put the aluminum foil covered spar arrestor back on. It was smoky.

Soon enough - I saw weird lights - I knew what it was - a few weeks ago at my friend Freeze's house in West O, we were visited by firefighters looking for a housefire. I went back into the yard and stepped up on the fence to see my new neighbor Pete showing his cold grill to a firefighter. I told him "I'm smoking peppers back here on my BBQ, do you want to come see?" - he said no and left. Then, less than 10 minutes later, I saw more weird flashing light from the front of my house - I went out and saw another fire truck - they wanted to see my grill. One of the first things they did was hand me half an 8.5x11" sheet of paper with a phone number of the fire dispatch - next time I have a BBQ, they said, just call and give my address.

The three firefighters followed me to my back yard - I showed them my fire pit and they said, "That's fine - fires in that kind of contained setting are good." I lifted the lid to show them my red jalapenos that were supposed to be smoking - and the flames jumped up and the flashlights showed charred peppers.

"Oh," said one firefighter, "That's a do-over."

Gee. Thanks, dude. Scott took responsibility for it - he said to add more wood and the fire went way too high. I salvaged 1 cup of roasted pepper for 5# of peppers. *sigh* That's expensive. Time to check with Julia at Mariquita to find out if I can get more red jalapenos in a couple weeks when I get back from my big off road motorcycle adventure.

Quince Jelly

This year, my quince jelly came out a gorgeous shade of rose instead of a deep carnelian - perhaps because I used unrefined cane sugar (I may have used sucanat last year...). The half gallon jar of juice was so thick and syrupy without sugar - having soaked with a vanilla bean pod for a week - it was edible as it was and I nearly broke out my seltzer bottle to make it into quince soda!

However, preserving prevailed and I made a gorgous quince jelly instead:

YIELD:
6 - 12 oz jars quince jelly
3 - 4 oz jar quince jelly

Quince - the Cleanup Recipes!

Ahh - the quince - I still have 25 quince, several are half mushy and six or so are bigger than my two fists together. Since I am out of all vinegar except balsamics (I KNOW? right??) - quince pickle is out, but I do have cranberries in the freezer so am going to make (drum roll) Quince Cranberry Compote. A compote is fruit cooked in sugar - you serve it over something like cake or ice cream. Or crepes.

So, tonight - I'll make quince jelly with the lovely half-gallon jar of juice, quince-cranberry compote and... I'm going to need to do something else with the quince. Poached? Time to go fill the hot water bath and get it started!

Quince Compote:

• 2 lbs quince, quarter, peeled, cored & cut into 1/2" pieces
• 8 c water
• 2 c sugar
• 12 cloves
• 18 allspice berries
• 2 Tb orange zest (wide strips)
  
• 1 12-16 oz bag cranberries
• 1 c currants
  
• 1 cinnamon stick (3" long)
• 1 vanilla pod
• Blood orange vinegar, 1 Tb in each jar after filled
  

Combine water, sugar, spices and orange peel. Bring to boil, stirring, to dissolve sugar. Add quince. Reduce heat, cover pan and cook very slowly until fruit has turned a deep pink color, about 2 hours.

Sort and rinse cranberries, add to cooked quince. If mixture seems too dry, add a little more water or cranberry juice. Increase heat a little and cook cranberries until they begin to pop open, 12-to-15 minutes. Gently mix them with quince. Remove cinnamon & vanilla and pack jars. Add 1 Tb vinegar to each jar.

The compote is BEAUTIFUL!

YIELD:
5 16 oz jars
2 8 oz jars*

*In a very odd "first" - one of the wide mouth half pint jars cracked - the bottom of the jar broke right off, and the jar turned over, keeping most of the fruit inside the broken jar (which I saved for picture in the morning). This is only the 3rd mason jar I have ever broken. The 2nd was an empty half-gallon broken by a falling filled half pint. The 1st happened last year - a jar just cracked down the side when I put hot plum jelly into it. Are jars being made with less quality assurance these days? I have never had jars break like this in 20 year of canning!

Dilly Beans (Again) & Peppers

Since I have such poor impulse control, I responded affirmatively to the call for orders for peppers from Mariquita, and had to pick up 25# of peppers on Friday after work. Saturday was dedicated to quince (and I still have 10# of quince!). After various motorcycle & household chores, Sunday night saw me roasting peppers on the fire pit in the back yard in the company of three friends - in the dark. Less than ideal as it was late and I ended up not seeing what I was doing quite as well. I was up well past midnight peeling and seeding peppers with Scott's company & Season 1 of Mad Men.

My purchase consisted of:

• 10# mixed sweet peppers (mostly yellow & orange, a few red)
• 10# Anaheims (equal mix of red & green)
• 5# red jalapenos

I managed to smoke about 9 jalapenos as a test (for making chipotle peppers) - seemed to work out alright. I added the rest of the peppers and went to bed, but so did the fire! It went out overnight and the 2nd larger batch of peppers didn't even roast! The 9 test peppers are in the dehydrator, drying out the rest of the way.

The Anaheims are destined for red and green enchilada sauce, while the sweet peppers are to be canned plain for use in recipes over the winter.

I also picked up 3# of string beans and some habaneros to make even more spicy dilly beans... so, tonight, I managed to actually finish the dilly beans and put the roasted sweet peppers into jars! I also had two japanese cucumbers in the garden so in jars they went as dilly spears (with some slices of red jalapeno and yellow sweet pepper).

That leaves only freezing the roasted Anaheims to make sauce later, smoking the rest of the red jalapenos, and making a quick batch of quince jelly with the half gallon jar in the fridge before I can actually start packing for my trip! I do wonder sometimes why I do this to myself! It's a good thing I am off on Friday and the Lost Coast Dual Sport ride is on Saturday!

YIELD:
5 - 16 oz jars spicy HOT dilly beans
2 - 16 oz cucumber dill spears
1 - 16 oz pickled yellow sweet pepper
1 - 16 oz roasted yellow pepper
4 - 12 oz roasted sweet yellow-red peppers
2 - 8 oz roasted sweet yellow-red peppers