Kitchen Notes: Canning Unsweetened Fruit Juice

I thought about making a mixed berry jam using the berries that have been in the freezer; but my pantry currently suffers from a glut of uneaten jams. To convert this into the base of a drink spritzer, take an equal amount of a basic sugar syrup (1:1 ratio of sugar to water, boiled together and volume reduced by half) and add it to the juice. Then add up to a 1/4 c of the juice mixture to a glass with ice and sparkling water (or sparkling wine).

TheFoodening Blog - Unsweetened Mixed Berry Juice

I just needed to free up some freezer space for my dumplings. Anyhow. Onto the process.

This batch had a lot of seeds! OMG. So many tiny seeds to filter out. I batch strained the solids 2-3 times (the -3rd time was the thick goo leftover in the strainer and I let it drip out overnight in the fridge in a bowl).

1/2 lb boysenberries, from the farmers market - big, ripe and not really sweet
1 lb strawberries - uhh, I froze them whole so the stems were still there
1 qt blueberries - these have been in the freezer for a while, a couple years; picked at Majestic Farm Blueberries a few miles away

I am not sure why I tossed in the remainder of an opened jar of Fonseco port, but a bit more than a cup of port is also in this "juice".

Crock it all together in a slow cooker for a few hours on LOW.

Made: 5 half pints

Plum Jam with Whiskey and Ginger

In this batch, I set aside two 8 oz freezer jars to see what this stuff tastes like on toast and/or pbj sandwiches. The jam didn't set in the water bath and spreads easily enough after being refrigerated. And no, pectin was not used. And no, it didn't set like a normal jam where equal portions of sugar and fruit purée were used. If I made this again, I'd omit the whiskey/bourbon. It tastes good with peanut butter without the whiskey. The ingredient ratio comes from the My Friday Food Swings blog.

TheFoodening Blog: plum ginger jam ready to eat

3 lbs Italian plums (dark purple skin, yellow flesh), pit removed
2 1/2 c organic granulated sugar
2 tsp kosher salt
1/4 c fresh lemon juice
2 tbsp ground ginger
1/2 c whiskey or bourbon, any plain variety

Directions

1. Wash and quarter the plums, removing the pits. Place plums in a large bowl and mix with 1/2 c sugar, salt, and lemon juice. Store in refrigerator overnight.

2. Cook plums, its juices, and remaining sugar in a heavy-bottomed pot over medium heat for 15 minutes. If you're going to strain out the skins, do so at this point, otherwise use an immersion blender and purée it all smooth. Stir frequently or the jam will burn. Add ginger powder and cook for an additional 15 minutes.

As you boil the plums with the sugar, don't be alarmed by the not-red color this produces before using the immersion blender.

At this point, I reserved a cup of jam, letting it cool in a bowl before transferring it to a freezer jar.

3. Add the whiskey, if using, and boil for an additional 3 minutes.

4. Process using hot jam in hot sterilized jars/bands/lids in a hot water bath for 15 minutes.

Made: 2 half-pint freezer jars + 4 half-pint jars

Hatch Chile Salsa, version 2

Can't say I've been making or trying out new things this year in the kitchen. Life, the universe, and everything has been busy. I've stopped making the crockpot apple butter because it simply yields more jars than I can reasonably give away as gifts. Besides all the hassle of making the apple butter, nobody is eating it. Bummer. Anyhow.

Homemade salsa is always a winner. There is more to it than just eating it with chips, tacos, or nachos. Salsa goes into a variety of recipes. In July I did a control batch of salsa; basically the heat base is from a dozen green jalapenos and two red jalapenos. It is surprisingly mild; though, probably has a little more heat than the hatch chile salsa.

This season, I've altered the hatch chile salsa ingredient ratio that I used in the previous year. It currently includes:

4 large green jalapenos, seeded and stemmed, then diced
12 tomatillos, quartered
5# red tomatoes, stemmed, chopped
1 bunch fresh cilantro. finely chopped
2 heads of garlic, peeled and chopped
1.5 lbs prepared hatch chiles (picked this up from Trader Joes)
12 fresh hatch chiles, prepared (roasted, peeled, seeded, chopped) -- this surprisingly only made 1 cup of prepared chiles
1 green bell pepper, stemmed/seeded, then diced
2 tbsp sea salt
1/4 c fresh lime juice

This batch made 7 pints total: 6 pints plus 2 half pint jars

I'm sure that omitting the red tomatoes would have just made it a salsa verde (or green salsa) but I like the sweetness that tomatoes bring to salsa.

Yeah, the processing was different too. Because it took so long to prep all the ingredients, I ended up only boiling the ingredients together (except for the jalapenos, cilantro, green bell pepper, salt. and lime juice) for 1.5 hrs. Then I let it all cool down and stuck the pot into the refrigerator until I could complete the recipe. Fact of it is, I didn't have fresh limes on hand. Ooops.

By the end of the week (today), I managed to get around to preparing and adding the rest of the ingredients. Before adding the remaining ingredients, I tasted the salsa. A little bland, but what did I expect, I hadn't salted it. Also, it lacked the spicy heat of chiles, even though more than two pounds of processed hatch chile peppers went into the batch. I also pureed it to a not-chunky consistency with the immersion blender. 

For texture, I diced the green jalapenos and green bell pepper at this stage.

The salsa pot might have been simmering on the stove for an hour more or so; then I added the jalapenos, bell pepper, cilantro, salt, and lime juice and cooked the batch for a half hour more to help preserve the color of the bell pepper and cilantro.

I did not blend the salsa before putting these into prepared jars and into a 15-minute boiling water bath.

Homemade Pickled Ginger / Gari

Young ginger is a summer season ingredient; so it's best to pick it up fresh at your local Asian grocery store that has it before summer ends. I picked this up from Portland's Fubonn Asian supermarket on the southeast side of the metro. Inexpensive, for what it is. Though, I'm not going to break even on cost with preparing it into pickled ginger compared to what it costs already prepared. At least it won't have any of that nasty pink food coloring.

I made it from this recipe ratio from Just One Cookbook and let's just say that I'm very disappointed in the thinness that a Cook's Illustrated top recommended mandoline has done with these ginger slices. I could have sliced them thinner with a knife. They taste OK, though, more like ginger pickles than the pickled ginger you'd eat with sushi. There was no pink to the young ginger to begin with, so these didn't turn a shade of pink while fermenting. In fact, they are of a light brown color.

TheFoodening Blog: pickled ginger, ready to eat

Canning 2018

The part about food blogging that bugs me is that if I don't write something up as I am doing the recipe or series, it doesn't get written up at all. Now I have to look at my old social media posts to see if I did any canning in 2017 other than a case of salsa (12 pints). I will surely update this post as the year progresses.

Bitters is a new experimentation series. Instead of taking the bitters class at OMSI, I thought I would just read up on it and try out the experiments myself instead of spending $130 on the course. Isn't that what the library and the Internet are for?

Here's what's been going on so far:

Extracts
Young ginger, 4 oz

Bitters
Cherry bitters, 4 oz

Liqueurs (vodka base, simple syrup sweetened)
coffee liqueur (Stumptown coffee base), 1 litre

Salsas
Control batch salsa (jalapeno peppers), 5.5 pints, 0.5 pints eaten already
Hatch chile salsa, 6 pints plus 2 half pints

Here's what's scheduled to be made:

strawberry liqueur
chocolate liqueur

Completed Extracts
Lemon extract, 1 pint
Vanilla bean extract, 1 pint
Bing cherry-infused bourbon, 1 pint
Cherry blossom extract, 4 oz

Kitchen Notes: Preserving the Harvest

I realize now that making a case of salsa (12 pints) for the year was excessive, so I only made five more pints to go with the five pints leftover from last year's canned batch. Although, now that I am eating the stuff that didn't make it into the jar, this recipe ratio is really good. Slightly sweeter than the default batch. What a difference ripe tomatoes and sweet peppers make.

And the best part? No onions.

Makes: 5 pints + 1 cup
Heat: mild

Ingredient Ratio

1 green bell pepper, small dice
1 red bell pepper, small dice
1 orange bell pepper, small dice
12 tomatillos, washed/peeled, quartered
12 green jalapenos, stemmed/seeded
2 red Fresno chiles, stemmed/seeded
2 heads of garlic, cloves peeled and roughly chopped
5 lbs ripe vine tomatoes, quartered
1 bunch cilantro, finely chopped
juice of 2 fresh limes
2 tbsp kosher salt

Add all to a stockpot and bring to a boil. Cook for 1.5 hours.

I ended up having to cook this on a simmer heat for an additional hour to get to a salsa consistency (not watery and thick enough to be held on a tortilla chip). I also used a slotted spoon to fill the jars and I had more than a pint of 'salsa water' leftover, which I haven't used for anything.

The garlic got a rough chop in the food processor.

These items got pureed together: tomatillos, jalapenos, red Anaheim chiles

I also used an immersion blender, but didn't blend the whole batch. Though, the sauce wouldn't be in the chunky category for salsa.

I've been sterilizing washed jars in the oven at 170 F (lowest the oven can go) for 30 minutes.

The lids and bands, get the boiling water treatment. I have yet to get food poisoning using these methods.

Processed in a boiling water bath for 30 minutes. Really, canning time is just under an hour since after you add the jars to the water, it has to come back up to temperature, even though everything is already hot.

Remove from heat and set on racks to cool. Tap on lids after jars have cooled for an hour to check seals. Leave to cool completely for 24 hours. Once you're sure that the jars are sealed properly, you can store the jars with or without the metal band.

Canning 2016

One day I'll figure out an easier way to log this down. At the moment, I'm just copying a list of what got made on the Notes application of my smartphone with the hope that I remember to blog about it.

Here's what got made in 2016:

peach brandy, 1.5 pints refrigerated
strawberry-rhubarb syrup, 2 pints refrigerated

Extracts
lemon extract, 1 pint
chive flower-infused vinegar, 1 pint
blueberry-infused vodka, 1 quart
blueberry-infused bourbon, 1 pint

Salsas
Control batch salsa (jalapeno peppers), 5.5 pints
Hatch chile salsa (hatch chiles), 5 pints
Spicy salsa (Anaheim & jalapeno peppers), ... pints?
Harissa (dried chile negra, ancho chile, Calif chile), 1 pint refrigerated
La jiao jiang (hot chile paste), 0.5 pints refrigerated

Fruit butters/jams/preserves
Winesap apple butter, 6 pints
Peach bourbon jam (burnt)
Peach bourbon jam (normal)
Apricot-pineapple preserves, 1 pint, 3 half pints, 1 four-oz jar
Apricot-rosemary preserves, 3 half pints, 4 four-oz jars
Strawberry basil preserves, 5 half pints plus 8 oz refrigerated
Strawberry port wine jam, 5 half pints plus 8 oz refrigerated

Pickles/Pickled
Bread and butter pickles, 3 pints
Kimchi, 1 quart refrigerated

Kitchen Notes: Salsa

Last year I forgot to write up the ingredient ratios for salsa. It was a really tasty batch too. This year, my local produce market had vine tomatoes on sale for $0.69/lb. I haven't seen prices like that since the early 2000s in southern California. Plus, Kerr jars were on sale as well and I picked up five cases of jars. Crazy huh?

The only thing I remember from last year's ratio was that I had more tomatoes than jalapenos which was my primary deviation from Harold Shifflett's video recipe. I also halved the salt.

Also last year, I made salsa with roasted hatch chilies. It was so tasty that it never got to the canning process. I ate it all. Whoops. 

Batch #1 yield: 5 pints, one half-pint