Concord Grape Jam from Put 'em Up! Fruit for FSC Book Club

Put 'em Up! was one of the first preserving books I found on the local library shelves, and it quickly became a trusted favorite. So when author/canner extraordinaire Sherri Brooks Vinton came out with her second cookbook, Put 'em Up! Fruit, I immediately got myself a copy.

Then I spotted a fellow food swap group, From Scratch Club (from the Capital Region of New York), hosting just my kind of book club: The No-Stress Virtual Cook-Along Book Club! I've been keeping an eye on the activity—primarily via the Goodreads group—but this week {Meeting 5: Grapes, Grapefruit & Quince} was the first time I've been able to make something, and post about it. My Meyer Lemon Gastrique from {Meeting 4: Blueberries, Apricots & Lemons} made it to the last food swap, though I never posted on it.

Last year I counted myself super lucky to score some concord grape concentrate a friend had made from their backyard harvest. The resulting concord grape jelly became the go-to jam in my larder for PBJ's.

So, I didn't hesitate to purchase when I spotted some local concord grapes at a nearby market recently. Since the fruit in my fridge lined right up with the book club chapter, I set my mind on the Concord Grape Jam on p. 141.

This jam took me about 4 days to finish. Seriously. Though prepping the fruit and cooking it took no time at all, I knew I wanted to get it into the canner, and kept running out of time. So it ended up macerating in the fridge a solid 3 days, before I canned it up. I confess, one PBJ was eaten in the interim.

Concord grapes measure up

Squeezing the grape pulp out is fun

Grape innards

Jam hitting its boil

If you have never tasted homemade concord grape jam or jelly, you are missing out. The Smucker's of your childhood just doesn't measure up. Doesn't compare! Doesn't hold a candle to the real stuff! Truly.

Grape jam/jelly you make yourself shines. It has deep purple grape-y essence, but with built-in flavor layers and explosions. It's like a meteor shower of sweetness. It is the M-80 of the jam world. It's a knockout.

Bonus points: my grape jam jars have grapes on them!

One of the great features in Put 'em Up! Fruit is the 'Use it up!' meal recipe accompanying each preserving recipe. No jars full of dregs and last bits of whatever here! So, I am looking forward to putting this jam to savory use in Butter-Basted Steak with Grape Reduction down the line.

If any makes it that far, that is.

Warning: you may be tempted to eat this by the spoonful

Make Pickles - Cook It! August Resolution: Curry Pickle Slices

Making pickles is already one of my preserving pastimes. And out of everything I've made, my hands-down favorites are these Curry Pickle Slices. Last year's supply didn't last long, so I made a few batches earlier in the summer for the June food swap, but as pickling cucumber season was beginning to wane I had to squeak some more in during August. So they are the perfect fit for the August "make pickles" resolution for Cook It! 2012.

If you are making pickle chips of any kind, I highly recommend using a mandoline. This is not only about a thousand times faster than slicing them with a knife (no joke), but will ensure your slices are uniformly thick and they'll look nice too.

For most pickle chip recipes you'll need to plan on two days. The first one you prepare your vegetables and leave them in salt overnight to remove excess moisture. The second day you make the brine and get them into jars. If you are not a home canner, you could easily make a half batch and keep them in your fridge. I bet they wouldn't last long at all.

Curry Pickle Slices

Adapted from The Complete Book of Small-Batch Preserving by Ellie Top

Makes 4 pint jars

8 cups pickling cucumbers, sliced

3 small onions

1 tablespoon pickling salt

2¾ cups cider vinegar

1¾ cups sugar

1 tablespoon curry powder

2 teaspoons pickling spice (Penzey's has a great one, or you can make your own)

1 teaspoon each: celery seeds and yellow mustard seeds

Remove the cucumber ends and then cut into thick slices. Thinly slice your onions and place with the cucumber in a large non-reactive bowl. Sprinkle with pickling salt and let stand, covered, for 24 hours.

Drain the cucumbers and rinse them twice with cold water, draining thoroughly.

Combine your remaining ingredients: vinegar, sugar, curry powder, pickling spice, celery and yellow mustard seeds — and bring to a boil over high heat in non-reactive pan.

Add the cucumbers and onions and return just to a boil before removing from heat.

Remove hot jars from the canner and fill with vegetables, using a slotted spoon to remove from the pickling liquid. Pack into jars and pour in liquid, leaving 1/2 inch headspace. 

Process 10 minutes for pint jars and 15 minutes for quart jars.

Note: I've increased the amount of pickling liquid in this recipe adaptation as I always seem to be just a little bit short, and it is much better to have an excess than not enough to properly pickle all your hard work.

These pickles go great on nearly any sandwich and are awesome in egg salad.

Canning Whole Fruit - Cook It! July Resolution: Plums in Syrup with Rosemary

Plums are one of those fruits you can almost always bank on getting free. Folks who have plum trees are continually looking for friends to take the abundance off their hands. I usually get a good haul in from a couple trees at my parents' place, but was away during plum harvest season this summer so was happy when the plums I'd been ogling in the yard in Eugene were ready by the time we left town.

So whole plums in syrup seemed the obvious choice for the July Cook It! project.

Plums in Syrup with Rosemary
Yields one quart-sized jar

1½ - 2 lbs whole plums, depending on size of fruit
2 cups of water
1 cup of sugar
1 piece of fresh rosemary, washed

While you heat up your water bath canner, place water and sugar into a non-reactive pot and stir to dissolve sugar. Bring to a boil and cook while stirring for one minute.

Wash the plums and prick each one 3-4 times with a skewer or toothpick. Place the plums in your hot jar, packing them as tightly as possible. They will shrink once you add the hot liquid and process them, so squeeze as many in as you can.

Place the sprig of fresh rosemary down one side of the jar, and pour the hot simple syrup over the plums, leaving ½" headspace.

Wipe the rim with a clean, damp dish towel, placing the lid on top and screwing down the band to fingertip tightness.

Process for 25 minutes and let cool on a wire rack. Over time the rosemary will infuse the syrup and plums with more flavor, so keep this jar on the shelf for at least a month or two before opening. 

Use the flavorful plums to top ice cream or cake-like desserts. The extra syrup provides the perfect hint of fruity and herbal flavor for cocktails.

Note: If you are using thin-skinned plums, they may burst inside the jar when you process them. While this isn't the most attractive outcome, there's always a silver lining: when you open the jar, you can quickly cook them down in the syrup to make plum rosemary compote! (Just don't forget to remove the pits.)

Dynamic Duo: Meyer Lemon Curd & Cardamom Rose Meringues

Citrus season is upon us! If you are lucky enough to have a Meyer lemon tree in your yard (or a neighbor's) I highly recommend making some Meyer Lemon Curd.

Freshly scrubbed organic Meyer Lemons 

The homemade stuff is beyond compare. Fresh lemon (or other citrus) curd is like a flavor bomb for your palate and its creaminess is something the store-bought versions will never, ever deliver. Plus, since you will end up with extra egg whites from your curd, why not double up and make some meringues?

I recently discovered my love for citrus curds, so already knew that's what I wanted to do with the Meyers procured from the last swap. But I was surprised to learn just how easy lemon curd is to make.

Essentially all you do is zest and juice the lemons, add eggs and butter, cook, strain and put it in jars. If you can wait that long. Fair warning that you may just start eating it from the bowl directly!

Mmm, zesty.

Straining your lemon curd

Cooling jars

Eat it by the spoonful if you like!

I used My Pantry Shelf's Meyer Lemon Curd recipe and loved the results! That said, I have a few notes based on my wayward recipe-following ways...

By accident I grabbed the wrong measuring cup and didn't figure it out until later, so my curd had only 3/4 cup sugar which left it on the tart side, but still plenty sweet for my liking.

My lemons were a variety of sizes, so it took 6-7 of my lemons to produce the required 1 cup of fresh lemon juice. Also, I used 4 oz. jars so I adjusted the processing time to 10 minutes. Yield was 5 jars.

After this success, I was motivated to put my four extra egg whites to use. Meringues immediately came to mind. A quick recipe search resulted in countless options, but I was looking for one that would put ingredients I already had in the house to use. (Well, actually in full disclosure I did borrow cream of tartar from my neighbor since I didn't want to break my stride and make an excursion to the store just for that. I repaid her in merigues so it all worked out. Thanks Betsy!). Even better when I landed upon one I could adapt to use my rose water in. Enter Cardamom Rose Meringues.

My only variations here were doubling the recipe and using rose water instead of rose extract. Based on substitution proportions I found online, I substituted 1 tablespoon rose water for 1 teaspoon rose extract and reduced the amount of water in the recipe. (I did some calculations on how much to reduce the water, but can't make much sense of my math scribbles, so will leave that in your undoubtedly capable hands if you wish to go the same course).

I let my inner perfectionist go...

Again, even though everyone always says meringues are tricky, I found them remarkably easy and satisfying to make. Which doesn't mean they were a treat for the eyes...

I don't own any piping equipment, and though I knew you can jerry-rig your own with a ziploc bag, overconfidence had me thinking, "I can do this with spoons like the recipe says. How hard can it be?".  Well, judging by the photo shown here, it's pretty darn hard. I realized this after just one or two attempts, but I just decided to kind of go with it.

Did they end up looking more like crazy sand sculptures or Gaudí-esque creations than the quintessential merigue drops? Yes. But more importantly everyone I gifted them to said they were delicious! And their imperfection kind of made me smile.

Next time around I probably will try to make them prettier, and I'm going to make some of this homemade natural food coloring so I can dose them with color too.

Jalapeño-a-go-go

I admit I may have overdone it a bit on the jalapeño front during a recent u-pick adventure with my friend Jennifer. Partly it was because we made our trip out to Brentwood a little late in the season, and in general there wasn't that much on offer that we could pick ourselves. After checking out a bunch of different farms, we scored and landed at Smith Family Farm. First off they have a fantastic farmstand if you're not up for hitting the fields. Great variety, top quality and very reasonable prices. They did have nectarines, peaches, chard, herbs and LOTS of peppers available for picking - and everything is $1 a pound! This is always the price for u-pick, and they stay open to December, with a rotation of seasonal crops available at different times. I'm thinking pomegranate season might just bring me out there again...

Anyhow, we walked the rows of peach and nectarine trees for awhile, mostly just enjoying the inland heat and chatting. Occasionally we added a couple of fruits to our buckets, but really they were still virtually empty by the time we hit the rows of lush peppers.

A fraction of my u-pick pepper haul

The first four rows of peppers (jalapeños, anchos, Anaheim and poblanos) we were warned were all hot. Even with the typically milder varietals mixed in, they said we were not to be fooled. They also had bell peppers and another sweet variety I can't recall. They were all beautiful though and with a few pickling recipes in mind, I just couldn't seem to hold back. I picked a peck of peppers just like you-know-who.

After getting some chard and fresh sage, we paid up. Mine was $10, which for the amount of produce I had was ridiculously awesome, but also meant I had at least a good 8 lbs of peppers!

We picked up some gorgeous heirloom tomatoes, garlic and pickling cucumbers from the stand and then drove off for a cold beer to compensate for all our "hard work".

Sweet Garlic Dills, Pepper Jelly & Pickled Jalapeños

Using a recipe from Ellie Topp's excellent book The Complete Book of Small-Batch Preserving which I had just gotten from the library, I turned my cucumbers into my first ever batch of Sweet Garlic Dills. Then I made a half batch of the Pepper Jelly I had gotten inspired by the Shibaguyz doing a live demo of during the Canning Across America Canvolution. Finally I turned a couple pounds of the abundant jalapeños into pretty looking pickled rounds.

That was Day 1 of jalapeños.

Day 2 had me set on making some Jalapeño Bread & Butter Pickles which I think the fabulous Well Preserved folks had recommended. After selecting more peppers from my stash, I washed them and then donned protective latex gloves. Never underestimate the potential pain of working with hot peppers! You may think they're not that hot or that it won't bother you, but slicing and deveining 2 lbs of them had me feeling it in my lungs and eyes just from the fumes. Luckily I had a chance to recover since my recipe came with a built-in four hour break while the salted peppers and onions chilled in the fridge. After that it was as simple as adding the spices, cooking a few minutes, putting them into jars, and processing in a water bath for 10 minutes. Oh, and let's not forget the most important step: standing back and admiring your work.

Freshly picked jalapeños

Salted & sliced

In the pot with spices

End result: Bread & Butter'd

I did have grand plans of making hot sauce, and roasting peppers, and all kinds of other good stuff with the remaining peppers, but had to turn my attention to other projects so into the dehydrator they went. I'm sure they'll find their way into an interesting recipe this winter though and will spice up a cold winter day or night just right.