Keeping Currant

One of the types of plants that we put in the front garden, which is an edible garden, were several red currant bushes. This is the first year the berries were plentiful. Enough to make a batch of jelly.

The first thing I noticed is that while I was preparing the juice it smelled similar to crabapples. Almost a little cinnamon-y. It's also very pink, which made a nice bright red (think Kool-Aid) jelly. One batch of jelly used 6.5 cups of juice, 7 cups of sugar and a box of pectin, and made about 10 cups of jelly. 

Also today, I made mulberry jelly from the juice of the berries I picked from our tree in the backyard. Four cups of juice, 3 T. of lime juice, 5 cups sugar and 1 box of pectin, made 12 half-cup jars and one 12-ounce jar. This is a good start to this year's gift stash!

Jellied Plans

The farm share sent along a bunch of mint. I don't use fresh mint a lot in my cooking, maybe I should, but the first thing I thought of was making mint jelly. I haven't made any in years, because both of the kids stopped eating lamb and that's generally what we would serve it with. However, the kids are spending a lot less time eating at home, so I thought making a batch would be nice. 

Mint leaves were steeped in 4+ cups of water for 10 minutes, then the resulting tea was combined with 5 cups of sugar, 1 package of powdered pectin, and 3 drops of green food coloring and one cup of blue. This made just under 6 cups of jelly.

My red currant plants finally started producing and I have enough to make a batch of currant jelly this year, which I will do when I harvest the rest of the berries. As I do with mulberries, I extract the juice and save it for when I have enough volume. So far I have 5 cups, I need 6.5 cups so I'm close. I also have about 5+ cups of mulberry juice, but I currently have 10 jars of mulberry jelly and 4 jars of mulberry syrup in my inventory so I'm not sure what to do about that. Maybe gift stash?

Elderberries

It's been four years since I made elderberry jelly. For some reason, I am always busy while they are in season and their season is relatively short. This year, I managed to catch them between travel and work, and so got enough berries to make a batch of jelly. Just like before, 5 cups of elderberry juice, 1/3 cup lemon juice, 6-1/2 cups sugar and 1 box of powdered pectin. If I decide to enter things in the fair this year which, so far, is going ahead as scheduled, I will enter this.

Lemon Balm

The farm share started up again this week and yesterday I picked up the share. As is typical for the first share of the year, it was rather small. Split between my friend and me, I ended up with 4 radishes, some arugula and mustard greens, and a bunch of lemon balm.

Actually, we were given the option of one bunch of herbs in total, with the options being lavender and sage, mint, Chinese chives, and lemon balm. After a quick mental stock of my canning inventory I opted for the lemon balm, thinking that maybe I could make jelly from it. Of course, the internet came to my rescue as it always does for these things, and I found several similar recipes for lemon balm jelly.

Essentially, you make a tea with lemon balm leaves and hot water and should end up with 3.5 cups of tea. Add half a cup of lemon juice, 1 box of pectin and 4 cups of sugar and you have a lemony jelly. It tastes like lemon marmalade, but without all the challenging bits of peel. (I believe I've mentioned before that I'm not a huge fan of marmalade.)

I've added three small jars of this to my gift stash which now has 18 jars in it. I'm starting early this year. 

Proctor Hill Berries

The place I used to go horseback riding is called Proctor Hill. I was given permission to forage there; there were nettles but, mostly, there were berries. All sorts of berries. Over the years, I foraged wee little amounts of black raspberries, red raspberries, wild blueberries, a handful of blackberries, and wild grapes. These were tucked into the freezer, waiting until I had enough of them. I had always intended to make a mixed berry jam or jelly as a gift for my riding instructor. 

Time has marched on and my instructor has left that farm for a place that better suited her current needs. I haven't ridden for over a year, after a spectacular fall made me question whether I wanted to continue. I was just getting ready to consider Western pleasure riding instead when the pandemic effectively made the decision for me. At least, for now. I do miss it; spending an hour or so a week without a cell phone in sight, only focused upon the immediate challenge of convincing a very large living and opinionated creature to do what I wanted. It got me out of my head in a way that nothing else seems to do. 

In the process of moving out and then back in to a freezer, I found all those berries. It was clear I was never going to add to the stash so it was time to make jelly out of what I had. The grapes are the dominant flavor but the raspberries do add something, I think. I cooked down the berries with water, extracted almost six cups of juice, let the solids settle, and then made jelly. Ultimately I ended up with about nine cups of jelly, enough for 12 small jars for my gift stash and a few extra just for us.

Flowers and Berries

This year the mulberry tree in our yard has been fairly prolific. In three picking sessions I got enough juice to make a batch of mulberry jelly. Since I didn't see the lime juice in the fridge right away, I grabbed the key lime juice instead. I think it makes it even better:

4 cups mulberry juice

3 T. key lime juice

5 cups sugar

1 package powdered pectin

Makes 7 cups plus a little more.

The other thing I'd been toying with was the idea of a rose jelly. Not rose hips, just an extraction from the petals. I have scarlet creeper roses in my yard and picked enough to make 2 cups of infusion. Now, the issue here was that I didn't want to add lemon juice because the rose flavor is pretty subtle and easily overpowered. Cooking also causes the rose essence to evaporate or something. So I added some tartaric acid for the acidity without changing the flavor. Why tartaric? I didn't have citric acid but I did have tartaric acid for cheese making.

2 cups rose petal infusion

1 tsp. tartaric acid

4 cups sugar

1 package liquid pectin

1 T. rosewater

I tossed the rosewater in after the jelly had its one minute hard boil so there would be that rose scent and flavor preserved. Into each jar, I added 2 fresh rose petals. This made 4 cups of jelly.

Last Minute Fix

Yesterday I was getting my entries ready for the fair, printing out the recipes and entry forms, and then I realized I'd made a mistake. You see, I entered a class that consists of three different kinds of jelly entered together. My mistake was, I had jams picked out, not jellies. I had two options: not enter the class (fine, but where's the fun in that?) or quickly make a few more batches of jelly. Today. When I have to enter everything tomorrow.

Yeah, you guessed it. I made jelly.

Lavender White Wine Jelly

3 ¼ cups white wine

2 T. dried lavender buds

¼ cup lemon juice

1 package Sure-Jell Pectin

4 ½ cups sugar

and

Rosemary Red Wine Jelly

3 ¼ cups red wine

4 sprigs fresh rosemary, about ¼ cup

½ cup lemon juice

1 package Sure-Jell Pectin

4 ½ cups sugar

Each of these were made with the same method: simmer the herbs in the wine for about 20 minutes then strain out the herbs. Boil the wine, pectin and lemon juice and then add the sugar. Boil hard for 2 minutes and then process in the boiling water canner for 10 minutes. They only make about 4-5 cups of jelly but that was enough to get some things for the fair and add to the gift stash. 

The third entry for this category will be elderberry jelly, which I made last month. Good thing I caught my error before tomorrow!

Grape Goodness

Today I finally had time to make grape jelly from all that grape juice I extracted the other day. First I made two back-to-back batches of grape jelly (per batch: 5 cups juice, 7 cups sugar, 1 box Sure-Jell) which came to 18 cups or 11 jars. I used some half-pint jars and some pint jars and will enter two of the half-pints in the fair.

I had just over three quarts of juice left so I added four cups of sugar and heated the juice. I'm currently canning three quart jars of juice in the canner and saved the rest for the youngerchild to drink with dinner.

It's my weekend (and holiday) to work, so that may be all I have time for until Tuesday!

Elderberry Season

One of the few plants that did well this year were elderberries. In the spring the large puffy white flower heads were visible everywhere I looked. I tried to remember where I saw them so I could find the berries at this time of year. My usual spot didn't look so good today, perhaps due to having done so well last year, so I went to a different spot and got a good amount of berries.

The most tedious part of foraging has to be the cleaning and prepping of the food and elderberries are tops in tedium. It took me probably 90 minutes to get all the berries off the stems. After that, though, extracting the juice and making a batch of jelly took no time at all.

For today's jelly: 4 cups elderberry juice, 1/4 cup lemon juice, 5 1/2 cups sugar and one package of powdered pectin. This makes almost exactly 7 cups of jelly.

Now I have a dilemma: I have entered the "other jelly" class in the fair, and I have both elderberry and rose hip jellies. I think tonight there will be a taste test to determine which one I should enter (I can only enter once per class).

Sunshine on a Rainy Day

The tail end of Tropical Storm Hermine has finally arrived in our area and we are getting some much-needed rain. Indoors, I had the last four cups of rose hip juice waiting to be turned into jelly. First, though, I needed jars. Before that, I had to take the car into the shop for service. Having done all that and getting a rental for however long that takes, I got home and started working on the jelly.

Same recipe as before:  4 cups juice, 1/2 cup lemon juice, 5 cups sugar, 1 package powdered pectin. As this is being added to the gift stash, I am using 4-oz jars. The recipe made enough to fill 12 jars, one whole flat, plus a little extra for us.

This brings the gift stash up to 42 jars. That's excellent!

Now I have my eyes out for elderberries. I drove by the place I usually get them but they didn't seem as plentiful this year. I have a few other options I will check out in the next day or so.

Sunshine in a Jar

Every few years I get a chance to drive up to my (now former) boss's house and borrow his driveway. He lives near a beautiful beach just teeming with beach roses and this time of year the rose hips are ripe. A few days ago he sent me a photo so I could tell how they were doing and it was certainly time to get them if I had time to get over there. So my husband and I made a day of it with the 11-year-old. We drove up, walked along the beach, watched the sandpipers, skipped stones (well, tried to), and collected rose hips. After that we drove up to Woodman's of Essex and tried out their fried clams. They're very very good. I am going to have to go back up to the Clam Box so I can compare while these ones are still relatively forefront in my mind!

When we got home I washed and trimmed all those rose hips and simmered them. I turned off the stove and left them in the pot while we went to see a movie and when I got back I was able to quickly extract 4 cups of juice to make jelly:  4 cups rose hip juice, 1/2 cup lemon juice, 1 box of powdered pectin and 5 cups of sugar. Two of the jars are slated for the fair (making a total of 10 canning entries) and the rest will be for us and the gift stash.

As an aside, the movie we went to see was Kubo and the Two Strings. Truly the most stunning animation I've seen in a while and the story was beautifully told. I highly recommend it if you get the chance!

There is still another 4 cups of rose hip juice and a whole lot of pulp. I'm going to run the pulp through the food mill and see what I can do with it. I have read it makes a tasty fruit leather.

Springtime in a Jar

Yes, it's that time of year again - violet season!

My friend with the large and violet filled yard went the extra mile this year and brought me 2 cups of violets last week. Knowing I didn't have time to make the jelly, I steeped them in 2 cups of boiling water and then kept the whole concoction in the fridge. That was six days ago and today I was able to make them into jelly.

I strained the violets, topped off the liquid with water to 4 cups, and then added 1/2 cup of lemon juice. This and a package of Sure-Jell pectin was brought to boiling and then I added 5 cups of sugar. When the jelly was done I had about 8 cups, which is two more than last year. Not sure what was different but sometimes that happens. I am canning 13 4-ounce jars and have the rest in a small container in the fridge for us. The 11 year old loves this jelly.

And, with that, I have started the gift stash for this season.

Late Night Bottling

After dinner this evening we bottled the beer we've been brewing. We'd split the batch in half and added fresh ("wet") hops to one half. After a week, it was time to bottle. First we tasted and bottled the half-batch without the extra hops, this was about 9 liters. Then we racked the half-batch with the hops into the other carboy and bottled that. Again, about 9 liters. The half-batch with the extra hops tasted smoother, almost sweeter, than the other. It'll be interesting to taste it again when they're ready to drink.

Also today I made a batch of grape jelly using 5 of the cups of grape juice I made a few days ago. I have enough for another batch which I'll try to get to in the next few days. I still have almost a half-bushel of apples to work with and some zucchini for another batch of chocolate zucchini bread but I just don't have those big chunks of time right now.

Foraging When I Can

Yesterday was a pretty good weather day - 80's, a breeze, not too humid. Today we have thunderstorms. We were supposed to go camping this weekend but it's looking like that is a no go as this rain is supposed to continue all weekend. As our friends with whom we camp said, a passing thunderstorm is one thing but who wants to put up a tent in the rain?

Anyway, that same little voice that nagged me about the blueberries was after me about elderberries, too. The flowers had been so prevalent that there had to be tons of berries, the voice reasoned. And the voice was right. Yesterday I went back to my favorite elderberry shrub and the berries were ripe, plentiful and huge. I picked a whole bunch and came home and got them set up to extract the juice. I got about a quart of juice out of them. As I still have elderberry syrup and 1 jar of jam (of which I'm not fond because of the seeds) I decided jelly was the way to go.

This morning I mixed the 4 cups of juice with a little over 1/4 cup of lemon juice, 5-1/2 cups of sugar and 1 package of powdered pectin and came out with 7 cups of elderberry jelly. It still has that slightly earthy taste which I like.

Also this morning, I am pressure canning beans. I had about 4 quarts of string beans from the farm share and, as I already had dilly beans, I thought maybe pressure canning them might work. I don't really do a lot of vegetable canning this way, probably because I have an aversion to canned vegetables after eating a lot of elementary school lunches. Something about the metallic taste/smell, I think. Anyway, maybe glass jars are better? We'll see. Three quarts of beans, cold packed, are currently in the canner.

Another thing I did yesterday was put a jar of sugar syrup (3 cups sugar, 3 cups water) into the hive in my hacked together feeder. I used a plastic take-out tray and some bamboo skewers, cut to fit, to make a base for the jar of syrup. Using a nail I poked tiny holes in the lid for the bees to sip from. The base holds the jar up so the bees can get underneath it to drink. I went to check on them at the end of the day and they'd taken about 1/4 cup, maybe more, of the syrup already. This way I can make more syrup and just swap out the jars and hopefully a little less often than what I was doing in the beginning. There is a product called Honey B Healthy that contains essential oils for the bees, I purchased the ingredients online and will start making some when they arrive. Apparently one adds about a teaspoon of this mix to each quart of syrup and it's good for them. 

Frugality

From one 9-pound batch of free apples I made: 12 cups of apple jelly, 2 quarts of applesauce and 1 quart of sweetened apple juice. Not bad!  I plan to enter the apple jelly in the fair so for fair purposes: 7 cups prepared apple juice (9 pounds apples, 9 cups water, simmered and then strained through cheesecloth), 9 cups sugar, 1 box Sure-Jell pectin. Prepared the usual way, processed for 5 minutes. For the applesauce, I took the leftover pulp from making the juice, ran it through the food mill, and added about 3/4 cup sugar and 1/2 cup honey. I feel very frugal, having made all these things from one gift of apples.

Speaking of fruity gifts, the peach crisp was lovely for breakfast!

I also started the kimchi fermenting this morning. The cabbage was drained and the brine saved. Then the cabbage was mixed with scallion, ginger, red pepper, salt and sugar and packed into a 2 quart jar. The brine was poured over the top and then the rest of the brine is in a ziploc bag in the mouth of the jar to keep the vegetables below the brine. Shouldn't take more than a few days to ferment. I have warned my kids about the smell.

I am too tired today to get to the green beans, maybe tomorrow!

What I did have the energy for was to go "bar by bar" and inspect my hive. What I found was a little disheartening. There were plenty of new bees, larvae, and pupae, but almost no nectar and no honey stores. I got worried and emailed my beekeeper friend. She suggested I feed them from this point forward as there isn't a lot of nectar around right now and they're going to need it. I have an idea to make an easy feeder so I'll work on that tonight and set it up tomorrow. That way I won't have to feed them every other day. I was able to completely disrupt the hive by moving every single comb without getting stung so that's good, at least. I would have a video to share except that I don't seem to know how to work the GoPro. Next time.

Finally, Mulberries

As I mentioned in a previous post, I've been hoping to make mulberry jelly, exclusively from my own tree. Well, I managed it, but it took about a week to get enough mulberries to do it. Every time I got a bunch of berries, I juiced them and saved the juice. As of tonight, I finally managed to get 4 cups of juice.

The mulberry juice was mixed with 3 T. lime juice, 1 package powdered Sure-Jell pectin, and 5 cups of sugar. Processed the usual way, this yielded 7 cups of jelly. I'm setting aside 2 jars to enter into the Fair, in the "other jelly" category. Two years ago my Rose Hip Jelly got an honorable mention in that category. So far, I have 2 entries set aside - this and the strawberry jam.

Permanently Stained

Our mulberry tree is in full production mode, and I'm hoping to be able to make a batch of something without having to resort to the tree on the corner of the block. It'll take a few trips, I think, as I was able to get 3 cups of plump berries today and there are still tons more waiting to ripen. My husband and I have decided we don't really like the texture of the berries in jam, so I'm trying jelly instead. 3 cups of fruit, simmered and crushed with a little water, made 1 cup of juice. I need at least 3.5 cups of juice. I'll be doing this again in a few days.

If you think this looks bad, you should see my jelly bag, which is now rather purple. Despite soap.

Rite of Spring

It seems that I've settled into a pattern of canning.  Strawberries in June.  Blueberries in July.  Elderberries in August.  Raspberries and peaches in September.  Applesauce in October.  And violets?  Well, violets in the springtime, whenever that may be.

Even though the warmer weather has been a little late this year, the violets have come up in full force in my friend's yard.  Yesterday we were at her house for a party and she'd asked her husband not to mow all the violets, please, knowing I'd like some for jelly.  There were enough to fill about 2 cups.  I steeped them overnight in 2 cups of water and then, as I wanted to make a batch with the powdered pectin and forgot I needed 4 cups of violets, I steeped them again, briefly, with another 2 cups of hot water.  Although the finished product isn't quite the magenta of previous years, it's a pretty lavender color.  It'll do.

Strangely enough, I was able to get almost 8 cups of jelly out of the batch.  Last time, it made only 6.5 cups.

It has been a really long time since I made any jam or jelly, and it felt good to be getting back into the swing of things.

Published!

It's pretty exciting!  A while back, Roxanne (my friend from the Topsfield Fair) let me know that someone was interested in publishing a cookbook of canning recipes that had won blue ribbons at fairs.  Since I'd won two (that was 2013), Roxanne suggested I contact the author, Linda Amendt.  Well, I did, and even though my recipes weren't much beyond the standard jam/jelly recipes, my Wild Grape Jelly recipe was included.  As was a little bio and photo.

The book arrived in the mail today, and I couldn't be happier.  There are lots of nice recipes in this book, variations on basics and interesting flavor combinations.  The best part, for me, is reading everyone else's bio and seeing the wide variety of people out there who have gotten into preserving for so many reasons.

Go ahead and check out the cookbook for yourself (I am not compensated for plugging the book, I'm just so excited to see my name and photo in print) - it's available for preorder.  While you're at it, go to Linda Amendt's website: www.lindajamendt.com.  Canning is but one of her many talents!

Do you know what makes it totally awesome?  Seeing the looks on my kids' faces when they saw my photo IN A BOOK.

Springtime in the Backyard

We went to my parents' house for the weekend and, in our absence, the flowers bloomed.

Also, the mint has been growing, and my mom loves mint jelly.  Time to make a batch, with fresh mint!  And, by fresh, I mean, new growth, picked and immediately washed, ripped by hand and steeped in hot water for 10 minutes.  This is, I think, the reason my mint jelly is so...well...minty.  2+ cups of shredded mint leaves, 4.5 cups of water, steeped for 10 minutes, then strained.  Take 4 cups of that mint tea, add 4 drops of green and 1 drop of blue food coloring.  Mix with 1 package of the powdered pectin, and then 5 cups of sugar.  This makes 6.5 cups of jelly which is processed the usual way.  I've set aside 2 jars to enter in the fair; I would think this falls under the category of "Herb Jelly," don't you?

Lastly, I will leave you with this little bit of excitement.  About 6 years ago I planted a Concord grape vine.  And I've waited, and waited, and waited.  This year, for the first time, little tiny grapes!  We'll be watching their progress all summer.