Pumpkin Pear Soup

My delightful billy goat made this delicious soup with ingredients that came from our basement (mostly). We’re not participating in the Dark Days challenge, but it almost qualifies, depending on how you classify the pears. We used fresh pears from a not-terribly-local-or-organic source, but if you want to be exceedingly virtuous, you could make this [...]

Canning Onion Confit

There are some spectacular onion confits and jams floating around the internets right now. This one is an onion and rosemary confiturra from Serious Eats, via The Kitchn, that I heard about through a round-up post on Consider the Pantry (got that?). It’s a luscious combination of red onions, balsamic vinegar, red wine vinegar, white [...]

Tangerine Marmalade

Apparently great minds think alike. Yesterday morning I made a big batch of tangerine marmalade, as, apparently, did the folks at Put Up or Shut Up! The ingredients are pretty similar (there are only so many ways to combine tangerines and sugar), but there’s still plenty of variety in the technique. Pros of their version: [...]

Split Pea Soup in the Pressure Cooker

Split pea may possibly be my absolute favorite winter food. The leaves fall, the rain comes, and it’s time for a big bowl of green goodness. In the past, I’ve made it in the crockpot, but sometimes it ends up tasting a little overcooked—especially if bacon is involved. This version, in the pressure cooker, will [...]

Applesauce vs. Applesauce

Last year, you may recall, I made a lot of applesauce. When I had time, I canned it; when I was lazy, I just stuck it in the freezer. Nine months later, we’ve been eating lots of each. The results?

No contest.

The canned applesacue is sooooo much better than the frozen. It has excellent texture, a [...]

Crockpot Chili with Sweet Pepper Salsa

Remember the only-slightly-weird sweet pepper salsa that I canned back at the beginning of September? It’s really not bad—but since it does taste more like gazpacho than true salsa, I couldn’t quite imagine putting it on chips. Hmmm, I thought. What goes well with tomatoes, peppers, onions, and vinegar? Actually: a lot. You could probably [...]

Brandied Pears

Like regular canned pears, only drunk.

Brandied Pears

5 pounds ripe, yet firm, pears
Sugar syrup, at your preferred level of sweetness (I like 1 sugar: 2 water)
Several cups brandy

1) Put on a pot for a boiling water bath and sterilize your jars. I used 2 quarts and 2 pints. Life will be easier if you use wide-mouth [...]

Peach Sorbet

A spectacularly easy peach sorbet, made from homemade canned peaches. Note that this will only work if you canned your peaches in syrup—if you canned them in water, you’ll need to add at least a cup of sugar.

Peach Sorbet from Homemade Canned Peaches

2 pints or 1 quart canned peaches in syrup
1 T rum, brandy, or [...]

Pickled Plums

It never would have occurred to me to pickle plums, but my friend Christina convinced me that pickled fruit was both delicious and indispensable. Hence, pickled plums. I made a couple of jars about a month ago and have been waiting until now so that I could taste them before sharing the recipe with all [...]

Raspberry Plum Sorbet

My husband—a native New Englander—insists that the time to eat ice cream is winter, not summer. So, now that there’s a chill in the air, he’s craving frozen treats. Since this is an excuse to pull out yet another gadget from the pantry, I am happy to oblige.

Sorbets are basically a frozen purée of fruit [...]

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