Step-By-Step: Traditional Preserves

Before you read this post, please understand that home canning carries with it inherent risks. Please, please make sure you are taking every precaution to avoid introducing bacteria into your canning process. I recommend taking a class, reading plenty of information about home canning, and working with a buddy who has also taken steps like these. And of course, inspect your canned goods before eating them to check for any signs of them going bad (smells, etc.). Once you're prepared, canning is a lot of fun!

Making traditional preserves isn’t much harder than freezer jam, but it does require a little more work and one very important step. The key to home canning is keeping everything clean. Since the jars will be stored in a pantry instead of the fridge, they must start out squeaky clean and stay that way throughout the entire process. This is what will keep you safe from the home-canner’s biggest fear: botulism!

Canning is easiest when you have a few tools at hand. The basic canning tools, which are really handy, are:

• stock pot, large enough to cover your tallest jar by about an inch of water

• jar tongs

• canning rack (this can be DIYed with a few extra canning rings)

• wide-mouth funnel

• jars, lids, and bands

• magnetic lid-lifter

If you’re taking a one-time shot at canning, you can get by with what you have in your kitchen. A big pot and some regular tongs will do the trick. But if you foresee that you’ll be canning each season, invest a few bucks in a canning utensil set. Lately, I’ve been using mine almost every weekend for small batches.

The first rule about canning? Keep it clean. Start with clean jars.

To begin, fill your large stock pot about three-quarters with hot tap water. Put the canning rack (or canning rings) at the bottom of the pot, and place empty jars (no lids) in the water. Be sure the jars are full of water and totally submerged. Set the pot on the back burner, turn on the heat, cover with a lid, and get that pot boiling. As it comes to a boil, the jars will be sterilized. Putting them in the bath before turning the heat on will save you from cracking glass due to extreme temperature changes!

While the jars are sterilizing, get started on your preserves.  

Peach preserves begin the same way as freezer jam: first, you’ve got to peel and pit the peaches.

The fruit then needs to be cut, chopped, or mashed. I chose to mash.

Meanwhile, you’ll want to ready the lids. Canning lids have a reddish seal on the underside. In order to make sure your jars seal properly, you’ll want to soak the lids in warm water. I put mine in a small saucepan, cover them with water, and put on the back burner on low heat while I’m cooking.

 

Following the recipe, combine the fruit, sugar, lemon juice, and pectin in a large pan. Cook according to the recipe directions.

 

Once the preserves are cooked, you may need to skim a little froth off the top.

At this point, your jars will be nice and sterile. Using the jar tongs, carefully lift the jars out of the water. Leave the heat on, and as you remove each jar, allow the hot water to pour back into the stockpot. Set the empty sterilized jars on a clean kitchen towel.

Remove your lids from the heat as well.

 

Using a ladle and a wide-mouth canning funnel, carefully fill the jars with the cooked preserves. Leave about a half-inch between the preserves and the top of the jar (some recipes recommend different amounts of headspace).

 

With a clean, damp washcloth, clean the rims of each jar. This will help ensure the jars seal correctly and cleanly.

 

 

Using a magnetic lid lifter, carefully bring the lids out of the warm water and place one on each jar.

 

Twist on the bands (or rings), but don’t twist them too tight. Just be sure they’re on the jar. When it stops turning easily, it’s good. This allows some air to escape as the jars are processing.

 

 

Using the jar tongs, pick up each full jar and slowly lower it back into the stockpot. The jars will still be warm, so the shock of the hot water should not cause them to crack. However, if one does crack, don’t worry! Just remove it, set aside, and (if the water is still clean), carry on with the rest of the jars.

Cover the stockpot and let it boil for 20 minutes.

Carefully remove the jars with the jar tongs and set on a clean dish towel. Listen—you’ll begin to hear them pop! That’s the indication they have successfully sealed. Most will pop right away.

Let the jars cool, and then check each top to be sure it’s sealed. Press directly in the middle of the lid. If it gives way, it has not sealed. If the lid is depressed slightly in the middle and doesn’t give to the touch, then it’s properly sealed and can be put up in the pantry.

Any jars that do not seal correctly are still ok—you can enjoy them like you would freezer jam. Store in the fridge for up to three weeks or in the freezer for up to a year.

That’s it! You’ve just made preserves!

A huge thank-you to my sister Aubrey, who slaved along with me in a hot kitchen to shoot all these lovely photos! Check out her amazing work at Aubrey L. Stopa Photography.

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Step-By-Step: Peeling Peaches

Over at the Whole Foods Blog, I wrote about making summer jam. A couple of weekends ago, I made some Fredericksburg peach preserves, and here's a great tip for peeling and pitting peaches!

Sure, you need quite the setup—but trust me, this is the easy way.

1.     You’ll need a large pot of boiling water, a large bowl of ice water, and a clean bowl for the peeled peaches. Have a slotted spoon handy.

2.     Put fresh peaches into the boiling water.

 

 

3.     Boil for about a minute each, or until the skin begins to crack like this.

 

4.     Drop into the ice water.

 

 

5.     Gently peel off the skins. They should come off very easily!

 

6.     Remove the pits. You can do this with a knife, or if you prefer, the old-fashioned way—with your clean hands!

 

 

A huge thank you to my lovely sister Aubrey for taking these photos! Check out her photography site, Aubrey L. Stopa Photography.

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Wordless Wednesday: What 109 Degrees Will Do to a Plant

Yesterday we broke a record in Texas. A high of 109 degrees was recorded in the middle of the city, only a couple of miles from where our garden grows. Or ceases to grow. In case you were wondering what the garden looks like (and why I'm totally ok with saying goodbye and waiting for fall...), this should answer some questions.

The gardens at 6:30 a.m., after a little watering. (Sorry it's blurry, I had peppers in one hand.)

The same gardens at 6:30 p.m., after a peak temperature of 109 degrees. Fahrenheit.

Peppers and tomatillos, 6:30 a.m.

After. Fin stopped to smell the roses, and show how hot it is.

Cucumber vines, 6:30 a.m.

Cucumber vines, 6:30 p.m.

Close-up of the cucumber vines at 6:30 p.m.

Something ate this cantaloupe. Regrettably, it wasn't me. 

Despite some ugly leaves and way-too-small cages, the tomatoes are still producing!

The giant sunflower (taller than the house! almost!) and the watermelon patch.

Fin and Ryan showing the enormity of our magnificent sunflower.

My tall hubcap can't even reach the top!

Even with all this vine borer damage, two of the zucchini plants continue to produce about two zukes each week.

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Pinja Challenge: Cherry Tomato Pie

Cherry (tomato) pie in a homemade (sharp cheddar) crust. 

Maybe I lean a little too heavily on Pinterest for inspiration, but so far it has not led me astray in the kitchen. Thank you, Claire, for coining the term "Pinja." Allow me to explain. Pinja (n): A ninja-like, resourceful wizard who successfully concocts things pinned on Pinterest. Claire's a quilting and crafting Pinja. I'm having fun honing my Pinja skills in the kitchen.

Halved cherry tomatoes, garden oregano, and fresh onions.

Late last week, I happened upon this lovely pie, via Pinterest, over at Not Without Salt. Cherry tomatoes sat on my kitchen counter, begging to be used up in a recipe—so happening upon one that called for roasting cherry tomatoes? This was just the thing. And on a sharp cheddar crust (one that required no rolling and just a handful of ingredients, might I add?)... Heaven. 

The finished product.

Alongside it we had a raw zucchini salad, dressed ever so lightly with avocado, olive oil, salt and pepper. Add a glass of malbec rose, and oh my... A wonderful dinner to celebrate the season's best flavors!

Simple raw zucchini salad; slice zucchini paper-thin with a mandoline, and dress with EVOO, S&P.

Oregano beginning to bud. We didn't eat these, but aren't they pretty?

What Pinja skills have you been working on? Do tell!

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Fruits from the Weekend

Here's a little taste of what I needed to know this weekend. The only thing not food-related was the ukulele search (it was unfruitful). The rest, as I'm sure you can tell, was very much so. In fact, we had a fruit-filled weekend.

After a couple of Googles, I decided there was indeed no time like the present to pick the muskmelon (cantaloupe) and one of our watermelons from the garden. The Internet told me that the cantaloupe would be more forgiving because it'll ripen on the counter for a day or two, but I had to be careful with the watermelon. There's no exact science to say when, precisely, to pick it. 

"When it ceases to grow any more."

"When thumped, it makes a hollow sound."

"When the ground spot is yellow or cream, but not green."

I should also mention that I could've sworn I planted Moon and Stars heirloom watermelons. But when they all grew into perfect little spheres, which are having a hard time making it past 5 pounds each, I got to wondering. I looked up a number of varieties. The Moon and Stars variety, which boasts spotted leaves and a dark rind with small yellow dots (and bigger "moons") can weigh in at nearly 30 pounds. And they're oblong. But Sugar Babies met the description of what I saw in our bed, so perhaps—perhaps!—that's what I planted. 

Watermelon and cantaloupe from the garden.

In any case, I picked the biggest one and hoped for the best. It weighed almost 5 pounds and when I cut into it, all was well with the world. Boy, was it perfect. We ate half of it plain, but I soaked the other half in tequila and sprinkled it with salt—impromptu watermelon margaritas. Thank you, Pinterest!

The muskmelon was even more delicious. Perfectly peach, super sweet, and deliciously fragrant. Our niece was standing next to me when I cut into it, and she exclaimed, "Wow. You can grow ANYTHING in your garden." Just another reason I love that kid. 

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Freshworthy Friday: Dirty Food

Dirtying Up Our Diets
New York Times, Jeff D. Leach

I read this yesterday and immediately sent it out on Twitter and Facebook. Why? Because I totally agree. To add to the problems of today's food supply—it's too far from real food, it's too dirty, it's too processed—think about this. It's too clean. Way back in the day, we ate food off the floor (who started the 5-second rule, anyway?). These days, food allergies and autoimmune diseases are at "alarmingly" high rates, and the Leach argues it's because we're missing important stuff in our food supply. Namely, the dirt.

Leach goes on to write that we need microbes and pathogens in our bodies, much like probiotics introduce bacteria to our guts. And where do we get this dirt?

Farmer's markets.  Ohhhh yeah. Bring it on.

OVER 7,000 strong and growing, community farmers’ markets are being heralded as a panacea for what ails our sick nation. The smell of fresh, earthy goodness is the reason environmentalists approve of them, locavores can’t live without them, and the first lady has hitched her vegetable cart crusade to them. As health-giving as those bundles of mouthwatering leafy greens and crates of plump tomatoes are, the greatest social contribution of the farmers’ market may be its role as a delivery vehicle for putting dirt back into the American diet and in the process, reacquainting the human immune system with some “old friends.”

Having grown up on a farm, I got a taste of running around barefoot, shoveling hay into the trough for the cows, and picking caterpillar-ridden tomatoes from the garden ("Let's just cut that part off, and... perfect!"). While cleanliness is important to avoid really bad stuff, like salmonella or E. coli, a little bit of dirt never hurt anyone.

[Full disclosure: I habitually rinse before eating. I know, I grow 'em and I can trust 'em. But my mother must have drilled it into me at a very young age: rinse your food before you eat it, no matter where it came from! Also, when I was eating my thoroughly rinsed cherry tomatoes at lunch yesterday, I picked one up with a suspect-looking dot on the top. I pressed on the dot and out came a tiny (like, less than a centimeter long) green worm. I squealed as if a roach had just walked onto my plate and threw it directly into the trash.]

I was really struck by this article and hope all of you will read it and understand the importance—can we say it enough?—of eating food as close to the source as possible. Get to know your local farmers, and visit the farms if you can! Shop at the market, or grow your own food.

It's good for ya.

Oh! And another thing the author mentions briefly is that diets of the past included many more preserved and fermented foods. We don't eat as much of those as we used to, and I heard a compelling piece about fermented foods last week on NPR. 

Yes, compelling.

Fermented foods—anything from yogurt to kombucha to pickles, and including cheese, coffee, and alcohol—are wonderful for our guts and introduce a bunch of probiotics (good stuff) to our bodies. 

[Another fun me fact, since you asked: my favorite foods as a child were: 1) Dill pickles; 2) Hamburgers. I still LOVE dill pickles.]  

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Easy Caprese

Green tomatoes, red tomatoes, jalapenos, and banana peppers—all picked this week!

 Yesterday I made it sound like our garden was kaput, and some of you might have thought, "Wow, she's in a bit of a funk."

So to those of you who may have stopped by for the first time after seeing my Zucchini Enchilada recipe over on Whole Foods' blog, I want to say welcome to the Sustainable Diet Kitchen and Garden! Please stick around—there's plenty of cookin' and growin' going on.

This morning, I picked about a pound of perfectly ripe tomatoes (Romas, Black Cherry, and one lovely Purple Cherokee), almost two pounds of peppers, and one muskmelon. Full disclosure, I've been Googling, "When to harvest cantaloupe" for about a week now, trying to figure out when to pick the durned thing. Fingers crossed I made the right decision.

Black cherry tomatoes ripened on the vine. They have more of a purple tint in real (non-Instagram) life.

And oh, the tomatoes. We have so many! It's wonderful! This weekend's plans involve canning a couple of jars of Romas from our one plant. Last weekend, I watched my 8-year-old niece snack on cherry tomatoes and found myself thinking how awesome it was that she'd just sit there and plop them in her mouth, no Ranch dressing required. Ah, the little things in life.

We aren't growing any lettuce right now—it's way too hot for leafy greens in our yard, though my mom has been able to keep some growing well in the shade—but that doesn't mean we're salad-less.

Easy Caprese salad and some zucchini-arugula tortilla pizzas for a quick weeknight meal.

A quick Caprese salad is a great way to use some of our fresh tomatoes and basil. It's fantastic, even without mozarella on hand. A little shaved parmesan, a spritz of lemon, some ground pepper and sea salt, and voila! A garden-fresh salad.

For my next trick.... might I suggest a Caprese tortilla pizza. Maybe we can just call it a tortilla margherita pizza? Not to be confused with the other kind of tortillas and margaritas... Just a tortilla, topped with diced tomatoes, julienned basil, a little bit of cheese (I'm going to try goat cheese for a new kick), drizzled with olive oil and baked at 450 until the cheese is melted and the mini pizza crust is nice and crisp. I do believe I just came up with our dinner plans.

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Wordy Wednesday: Hello Summer, Goodbye Garden

This is how I'll remember my pole beans.

Today we herald in the official beginning of summer! And as the temperatures stay in the upper nineties, pushing 100 day after day, I'm coming to terms with saying goodbye to my summer garden.

This morning I harvested another zucchini, a few handfuls of perfectly ripe black cherry tomatoes, and one humongous cucumber that should've been picked days ago. Slowly, though, the garden is calling it quits. Wouldn't you? Imagine standing up straight all day, while it's almost as hot as the surface of the sun, getting only a slight reprieve from the heat at night? Thought so!

The first bed to go will be the beans and the butternut squash. They have given us all they could, and now it's time to let go. It's a good life lesson, really. Letting things go when they're ready to go. Gracefully accepting the change of the seasons, and understanding that sometimes, the circumstances set before you require you to surrender.

So I'll happily let my garden go, looking forward to the next season—when we usher in cooler temperatures and a whole new crop of circumstances. Letting go of one thing leaves opportunity to take hold of another.

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Meandering Thoughts

Each day, I try to consciously live a sustainable life. While many of my efforts go into the food I eat—from bringing my lunch almost every day to harvesting tomatoes from the back yard—others go into my daily routines.

Most of the time, I'm a bus commuter. Sure, I see my fair share of crazy things on the bus route (and once, I got jabbed in the head with a pen by a woman sitting two seats back, screaming jibberish), but overall it's a good experience that saves me money and keeps my carbon footprint small. It's only slightly less convenient than driving, and after a good year of public transit I can say that I prefer it over paying for parking downtown.

This week, though, I got a new bike. She's a beauty, and while I haven't named her yet, I already know we're going to be spending a lot of time together. She has a bell.

You know what this means, right?

BICYCLE commuting. I can barely contain my excitement, despite the undeniably miserable afternoon temperatures. 

It's exactly 8 miles from my door to my office, and it takes me about 40 minutes to ride (I rode a couple of times each week as training for the MS150). Not too shabby when you consider the bus ride takes 42 minutes, plus a half-mile walk, to get me home. Yes, I do get a little sweatier on the bike. Small price to pay. 

Imagine when this bike gets outfitted with her rear rack, and maybe a wicker basket on the front. There will be trips to the farmers' market, picnics in the park, bicycle-bound beer-drinking excursions, jaunts to the pool, and more. 

It's almost exciting as discovering that my not-quite-dead-yet zucchini plants are still putting out zukes that weigh in at almost two pounds. 

Be still my beating heart!

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