Doris and Jilly Cook » canjam

Hot Corn Relish, Yet Again

dorisandjilly — Sun, 17 Oct 2010 18:19:48 +0000

The October CanJam focused on peppers. Though I thought about doing jars and jars of pickled peppers (and in fact put up one basic jar Monday night, following Marisa’s instructions over at Food in Jars), I wanted something more interesting. More creative. More original.

That plan backfired. Instead, I grabbed a jar of hot corn relish from the basement (canned a couple of weeks ago), gussied it up for its close-up, and called it a day. The recipe is the same one I made last year, which is basically a marginally modified version of the Ball Blue Book’s recipe.

I’ve been struggling with the CanJam for a couple of months, but haven’t really been able to put my finger on what was bothering me until now. This was about more than a lack of ideas for peppers. I’ve mentioned before that I’m a fairly utilitarian canner—I put up what we’ll eat and what I’d like to give away. While there’s some room in my cupboard for goodies like lavender lemon fig jam, what I really want is a wall full of canned tomatoes, a shelf of dried peaches, and a freezer full of kale. Food preservation takes a certain amount of time and effort, and I want the things that I preserve to be reliable, predictable, and flexible in their use. Canning carrots for the sake of learning how to carrots (I know, I know, I was the one who announced that train wreck) doesn’t really hold my interest.

Hence my recent somewhat uninspired entries in the CanJam. I like and trust my salsa verde and hot corn relish; therefore, I make them again and again, year after year. I love reading about all the creative and novel things that other people are doing for their entries for the CanJam, but by this time of year all I want to do is to get my canning done. Next year, I’ll go through the various round-ups and pick a few new things to experiment with, and hopefully I’ll find some new favorites.

Don’t mistake me—I’m thrilled that the CanJam has brought together such a fantastic community of online canners, and I’m absolutely loving all the new blogs that the Tigress’s monthly wrap-ups have turned me on to. But I’m very glad there are only two months left. And I don’t want to end up with green ketchup.

So what about you? Still making up new stuff, or back to the tried-and-true?

Salsa Verde Safe for the Water-Bath

dorisandjilly — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 02:13:25 +0000

For the August canjam, I made what I made almost exactly a year ago today: salsa verde. And because I am creature of habit, I’ll say pretty much what I said in last year’s post: there are shockingly few published instructions available for canning tomatillos. Most of these recipes treat tomatillos like tomatoes, adding acid, and they treat salsa verde like regular tomato salsa, adding onions. But here’s the thing. Being a stubborn goat, I don’t like either of these preparations. I like a salsa verde that’s pretty much tomatillos, water, and a jalapeno or poblano pepper or two.

So what is a goat to do? Turn to Twitter, of course. Last year, zoecancan was kind enough to point me to an incredibly helpful article in the peer-reviewed journal Plant Foods for Human Nutrition. Since it’s behind a paywall, I’ve reproduced the abstract below:

Three studies were conducted to evaluate the safety of tomatillos and products containing tomatillos canned by the water-bath processing method. In the first study, plain tomatillos were processed for 25, 37.5, 50 and 62.5 min. In the second study, five tomatillo/onion combinations were prepared while five tomatillo/green chile combinations were prepared in the third study. pH evaluations were conducted to determine safety in all studies using pH 4.2 as the cut-off value. No differences in the pH of plain tomatillos were detected due to processing time. All jars of plain tomatillos had pH values below 4.1. All combinations of tomatillos/onions and tomatillos/green chile containing more than 50% tomatillo had pH values below the 4.2 cut-off value. Results of the three studies indicate (1) acidification of plain tomatillos is probably unnecessary for canning by the water-bath processing method and (2) combinations of acidic tomatillos and low-acid onions or green chile must contain more than 50% tomatillos to have a pH low enough for safe water-bath processing.

So, based on this, I feel pretty comfortable saying that it’s safe to water-bath can this version of salsa verde, or in fact any version of salsa verde where the quantity of tomatillos (by weight) exceeds the combined weight of onions and/or peppers and herbs. The acid safety cut-off is a pH of 4.6, so at 4.1, this is plenty acidic (remember that a lower pH means higher acidity).

For the recipe, along with instructions for water-bath canning (for the scientific), pressure canning (for the conservative), or freezing (for the squeamish), click here. This time, 2 pounds made 4 half-pints. It scales up, so, if you’ve got a bushel full of tomatillos, knock yourself out!

Lemon Lavender Fig Jam

dorisandjilly — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 19:01:23 +0000

Thank you, thank you, thank you, oh CanJam! All this time I have been pooh-poohing fancy, foodie-oriented artisanal preserves, in favor of my work-a-day, practical, frugal canned goods. I have been a fool. Food in Jar’s announcement of herbs as the starring ingredient for the April canjam practically gave me hives. I found the admonition to stay away from pestos (because they have to be pressure canned) depressing, and the only other practical thing I could think to do was to make a vinegar—and since vinegars are shelf stable, there’s really no point in canning them.

And then I remembered my deep (and deeply repressed) longing for Laundry Etc.’s Lemon, Fig, & Lavender Marmalade. Somewhat ironically, the recipe was posted for the January canjam (citrus)…but since it stars lavender, it counts! An Americanized, simplified version, complete with the Doris and Jilly Lazy Approach To Marmalade Making™ follows. It’s really, really, really good.

And, dear ones, this time I remembered to make a 4-oz jar just for you. Leave a comment by May 1 to enter. As always, the winner will be selected by random number generator.

Lemon Lavender Fig Jam

7 unwaxed lemons
About a pound of dried figs
1/3 c. dried lavender flowers (from last year’s garden, of course)
3 c. sugar

1) The night before you plan to make the jam, slice the lemons thinly and remove the seeds. Chop them. Throw them into a pot with water to cover. Simmer for 5 minutes, then turn off the heat. Meanwhile, chop up the figs and toss them into the pot. Wrap the lavender up tightly in cheesecloth and toss that in, too. Let everything sit overnight.

2) Remove the cheesecloth from the pot squeezing to remove the extra liquid. Discard. Stir in the sugar and turn up the heat. (Meanwhile, start your boiling water bath and sterilize your jars. I needed 4 half-pint jars and 2 4-oz jars.) Stir frequently until you reach the gelling point.

3) Transfer the hot jam to the hot jars and adjust two piece lids. Process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes (or not, if you’re British).

A note on reaching the gelling point: I had a hard time find finding it, and I think I may have sailed just past it. Fortunately, it’s a pleasing texture, more like membrillo than gooseberry glue. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go buy some Manchego to eat this with.

And the jar goes to….

dorisandjilly — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 13:33:09 +0000

Libby, over at Cafe Libby, is the lucky winner of the strawberry lemon marmalade (random number 34). But don’t worry: I’ve bought two dozen 4-oz jars just so I can start giving more of these tasty treats away. Stay tuned for February!

Strawberry Lemon Marmalade

dorisandjilly — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 17:16:40 +0000

Herewith begins my contribution to the Tigress Can Jam! If you’ve missed it, the canjam is a yearlong canning challenge. Each month, canjammers will be asked to create a water-bath friendly recipe based on a seasonal ingredient. Tigress started us off gently, with citrus. I assumed—rightly as it turns out!—that this would turn into a giant marmalade fest, so I was looking for something just a little bit off-center. I found my inspiration in the freezer: a bag of sugared strawberries I put away last May. Technically, I guess that means I’m in violation of the seasonality rule, but given that these were local berries that I picked and stored myself, I hope you’ll agree that it’s in the spirit of the game.

I *love* the way this turned out. I started with a recipe in the Ball Blue Book, but reduced the sugar (I wanted it tarter), added more lemons, kept the peels, and eliminated the pectin…which makes it not really a Blue Book recipe at all. It’s more in the spirit of the tangerine marmalade I made last month, but with lemons and strawberries instead. Now, if you do the Twitter Thing, you’ll know that sugar has recently been a subject of much controversy. I tell you, people: yes, you can reduce the sugar in a marmalade. The safety question in water-bath canning is about acid. Lemons and strawberries have plenty of acid. As both the National Center for Home Food Preservation and the Ball Corporation’s Fresh Preserving Guide make clear, it is not a safety issue to reduce the amount of sugar in fruit preserves. Now, this is not to say that sugar isn’t a preservative—it is, my friends, it is!—but preservation is fundamentally a different question than safety. Sugar preserves taste and helps you get to the gelling point faster. It also prevents mold, which is why jams and preserves that are high in sugar will last longer once you’ve opened them. Sometimes low-sugar preserves aren’t as pretty as high-sugar preserves, and they often have a softer set. Some people, such as the USDA, say that you need to process low-sugar foods longer than high-sugar foods. (But keep in mind that the French don’t process their canned jams at all, and they’re still here.) In this case, though, there’s so much pectin in the lemons that I achieved an excellent set, without pectin and with less sugar than the recipe called for. And since the product is mostly lemons, it’s plenty acidic.

Tweaking canning recipes is a topic that gets plenty of food educators exercised. Those who object are, quite rightly, concerned about your safety. There is a growing consensus among some in the “new” canning community, however, that some of these rules are a tad too rigid. The spirit of the canjam is to improvise within the limits of safety. Part of the challenge of this exercise is to figure out what you can change (spices, fruit combinations, sweeteners) and what you can’t. If you change the recipe, there is, in fact, a chance that something will go wrong. Maybe your jam won’t set. Maybe it will grow mold in 3 months. But you know what? If you see mold, throw it out. Live and learn. And if you’re worried about botulism, don’t, so long as you’re working in a high-acid (i.e., fruit-filled) environment. My personal opinion is that the USDA rules should be taken as a guideline, not as hard and fast rules. Keep in mind that the USDA also recommends that you not eat raw fish or raw eggs, and that meat should be cooked through. Nevertheless, for the record, when you change a recipe, you are doing so at your own risk.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get down to business!

Strawberry Lemon Marmalade

1 qt frozen strawberries, in sugar
4 medium lemons, chopped
3 c. sugar
about 3 c. water

1) Wash your lemons. Slice them as thinly as possible, then chop them into pieces. Put them into your jam pot, cover with water, bring to a boil, and simmer 5 minutes. Turn off the heat and let the pan cool. Put a lid on the pan and walk away. Meanwhile, take your berries out of the freezer.

2) The next day, mash the berries and their juices (I use a potato masher). Toss them into the pot along with the sugar. Bring to a boil. Boil it until you’re just at the gelling point. Be careful: there at the end, it gets quite thick rather quickly, and my last jar is a bit thicker than I might like. There’s *lots* of pectin in the pith.

3) Meanwhile, sterilize 4 or 5 half-pint jars and bring your water bath to a boil. Heat new lids. Transfer the hot jam to the hot jars and adjust the two-piece lids. Process in a boiling-water bath canner for 10 minutes.

My version made 4 half pints and 1 4-oz jar, which I’m giving away! Leave a comment by Monday at 8 AM and I’ll select a winner by random number generator. Happy canning!