Q. Can tangerine marmalade be made with Stevia and/or Splenda for people like me who have diabetes?—Deborah

A. You can absolutely make [...]]]> Ask the Goats is a semi-regular Monday feature in which we attempt to answer your questions about growing, making, eating, and preserving food. Got a question for the goats? Drop us a line at dorisandjilly@gmail.com.

Q. Can tangerine marmalade be made with Stevia and/or Splenda for people like me who have diabetes?—Deborah

A. You can absolutely make a fruit spread from Stevia, Splenda, or other sugar substitutes. You can also go sugar free. If you want a consistency that in any way resembles a traditional jam or marmalade, however, you’ll need to add some form of pectin. Sugar is essential to the gelling process, so when you reduce or eliminate it, you have to add some other means of structural support. Although I haven’t had much experience with it myself, many low-sugar canners swear by Pomona’s Pectin. Laura at Squirrel it Away! recently posted an extremely helpful piece about her experiences converting her high-sugar recipes to low-sugar jams with the help of Pomona’s Pectin. (Note, though, that hers still include 1/2 c. of honey, which may be too much for you.)

Depending on what sort of artificial sweetener you’d like to use, you’ll probably need to experiment to locate just the right amount. You should also be aware that some artificial sweeteners (I don’t have enough experience with them to know which ones) produce an off-flavor when heated, so you’ll probably want to add your sweetener at the last possible minute before transferring the marmalade to the jars. For ideas, a good place to start would be Norma McRae’s Canning and Preserving Without Sugar.

Finally, remember that sugar is a preservative. While it’s safe to can reduced-sugar or sugar-free fruit products, be aware that they won’t last as long as traditional jams once you open them. You should plan on eating the contents of your jars within a week or two. If you can’t finish them that quickly, you might want to consider smaller jars.

Good luck, and please report back on your results!

Q. Is it really necessary to sterilize the jars for jams? I’ve been making [...]]]> Ask the Goats is a semi-regular Monday feature in which we, the goats, attempt to answer your questions about growing, making, eating, and preserving food (though you probably don’t need much help with the eating). Send your questions to dorisandjilly@gmail.com.

Q. Is it really necessary to sterilize the jars for jams? I’ve been making marmalade for many years, and I figure that since the marmalade is almost boiling hot when it goes into the jars, that should do the job. At least, I’ve never had any go bad in the jar.—Ed

A. Weeeeeeeel. It depends. If you’re doing everything else by the book—using a sugar to fruit ratio of at least 1:1, processing your jars for 10 minutes, heating up the lids—it’s highly unlikely that you would have any problems with mold or yeast formation in marmalade unsterilized jars. But those are a lot of ifs.

There are only so many corners that you can cut when canning fruit preserves. You want to reduce the sugar? Fine, but be sure to process the jars for at least 10 minutes. You want to thumb your nose at the USDA and skip processing altogether, like the French? OK, but be sure to use a full 1:1 sugar ratio and sterilized, piping hot jars—and don’t expect the jars to last forever.

The short answer is that you need not sterilize your jars if your processing time is longer than 10 minutes (see the Ball Company’s helpful FAQ for more information). The longer answer is that I often sterilize my jars, both out of habit and because hot jars are less likely than cold jars to break when placed in a boiling water bath. There’s no harm in it, and it doesn’t require any extra energy since you have to boil the water anyway. More importantly, it helps solidify your canning routine so that you’ll automatically remember to sterilize your jars when you really need to.

Long story short: it’s good practice, and harmless, but probably not strictly necessary so long as you’re processing for 10 minutes or more.

That plan backfired. Instead, I grabbed a jar of hot corn relish [...]]]>
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?

Q. I made a beef stew in a 350°F oven. That’s hotter than a water bath, so why can’t I just can the stew as is? Why [...]]]> Ask the Goats is a (mostly) weekly feature in which we, the goats, attempt to answer your food preservation questions. Got a question? Drop us a line at dorisandjilly@gmail.com.

Q. I made a beef stew in a 350°F oven. That’s hotter than a water bath, so why can’t I just can the stew as is? Why do I need a pressure canner?—anon (to me, anyway) via Kaela at Local Kitchen

A. This is a great question, just at that point where common sense bumps up against the laws of physics. We say, over and over again, that the heat of a water-bath canner is not sufficient to kill off the kinds of nasties (botulism, I’m looking at you) that can live in low-acid, anerobic environments (i.e., beef stew). But, obviously, a 350°F oven is much hotter than the 212°F of boiling water. So, what’s the problem?

The problem has to do with what’s inside the stew pot. When an oven thermometer reads 350°F, that means that the air temperature is 350°F. Your stew, on the other hand, is going to be hovering at its boiling point. This is a consequence of what’s called the Phase Change Law, which says (more or less), that a substance will maintain the temperature at which it changes phase until the phase change is complete. Water melts at 32°F, and it boils at 212°F. If you put a pot of boiling water in the oven, it’s not going to get above 212°F until all of the water has turned to steam. Then, and only then, can the temperature start increasing.

Now, in beef stew, you’ve got a liquid that, depending on what it has in it (water, wine, stock, etc.) is boiling probably somewhere between 190°F and 212°F. But you’ve also got solids that are probably at a lower temperature. Think of what happens when you put a large roast in the oven. You might cook it for hours, and it might still be at 150°F. All of which is to say that your beef stew is nowhere near 240°F.

But how does the pressure canner do it? Well, when I said that a substance that’s changing phase will maintain an even temperature, that’s not quite true. It will maintain an even temperature under conditions of constant volume and pressure. Crank up the pressure, and the temperature goes up. And hence, safe canning conditions for low acid foods.

Want more canning advice? Check out the liveblogging stream from the panel on canning, preserving, and foraging that I participated in with Marisa from Food in Jars, Hank from Hunter Angler Gardener Cook, and Sean from Punk Domestics at last weekend’s BlogHerFood conference in San Francisco. I had a blast, and I hope those in attendance found it as informative as I did entertaining.