Peach Butter

Well, my canning adventures have slowed down a bit with the lack of incoming cannable goodies, though I did get a bunch of habaneros today that will be processed by tomorrow, they are getting limed tonight.  Anyway, in my 'slow' time I figured I'd give you the low down on my peach butter.  Not the stuff in the Ball book, mine.

Whole Peach Butter.  Interesting concept.  Whole peach butter.  But you ask, isn't all peach butter whole?  Nope.  I shall explain......
I have 4 peach trees on the property.  Most of them give me golf ball sized, white flesh, tart peaches.  Do you have ANY idea how hard and time consuming it is to peel that many peaches?  I do.  It ain't pretty.  And the skins don't just slip off when you blanch them like they are supposed to.  So I asked myself how not to waste them.  I came up with an idea and tried it.  It was an absolute success.

Since I have so many I decided not to measure anything up front, just fill pot and go, taste for sweetness, make sure it gets to a soft set and get it into jars.  The directions go like this:

Pick the peaches, if you have some dropping already that aren't fully ripe, that's fine, get them too, helps form the gel.  Wash them off in just plain old water and let them sit in the water until they cool down to room temp, this helps with the peach fuzz, which I swear is identical to fiberglass and can be really itchy. 

Once ready get the BIGGEST stock pot you own, set it on the lowest heat setting you have, pour in a little water to keep from scorching and start with the peaches.  All you do is cut in half, remove pit, evict any worms and their mess (no pesticides used here), remove anything bad, toss in the pot and repeat until the pot is as full as you can get it.  Put a lid on it and leave it alone until the peaches start breaking down.  Stir it at this point and it should have reduced down by a third.  You don't have to do anything here but remove the lid and watch it but.... I add more.  Yes, you read that right, I start adding more, I fill it up as full as I can get it and keep cooking it on low.
Here's what that looks like:

Looks like a gloppy mess doesn't it?  Well that's what it's supposed to look like so keep cooking down, stir it on occasion, leave the lid off.  I have to keep my stove on low otherwise it burns the natural sugar in the peaches and I loose a batch so for me it's a loooong process, takes 2 to 3 days.  You can also do this in a crock pot set on low, with the lid propped up on one end, overnight I'm told but..... I've burnt a batch by ignoring it like that.  If I use the crock pot I watch it really closely, if it starts getting really dark or supper sticky on the edges I turn it off for a few hours and stir, eventually I turn it back on again.  I also set the lid on top of bamboo chopsticks over the crock so that the mush can evaporate.

Once everything looks good and mushy, I like to bring out the stick/hand blender and puree it right there in the pot, less mess that way.  And keep cooking down.  Once it gets down to about half the volume at of the pot, taste test.  It should be fairly thick and near sheeting off a spoon at this point, if not keep cooking down.  Mine is tart due to the type of peaches, but it's really tasty. 

This is when I add sugar.  It's usually about 1/4 of the volume of peach mush, I eyeball it honestly.  For my crock pot it's normally 4 cups, for the stock pot it's normally 6 cups.  After getting the sugar completely mixed in, cook it down to the level it was at before the sugar was added.  By this point it should be sheeting off a spoon and will be a soft spread once canned.

Fill jars slowly to help avoid air bubbles, the bubbles are almost impossible to get out of this stuff once they are there.  Leave 1/2 inch head space.  Water bath for 20 minutes.

At this point in the year I have canned 25 pints, 3 quarts, and 2 half pints.  Right now I'm fighting with the green beetles over the peaches so I haven't put up a batch this week, I should have enough for at least one more batch tomorrow.

And to give you an idea on yield, my 7 quart crock pot if filled and topped off with more (like what I mentioned before) normally gives me 7 pints.  My stock pot filled and topped off with more can give me up to 9 pints at a time.

Nope, it's not your everyday fare.  It's not even spiced, though you could do that before you fill your jars if you wanted.  But it is WHOLE fruit and nothing but fruit and sugar.  No artificial anything, no fillers, no crap.  And for hubby, he likes making peanut butter and peach butter sandwiches on whole wheat nearly everyday for lunches and snacks.  I just hope I made and can keep making, enough to last until next year when the peaches start dropping again.

Off to finish cleaning the peppers and to find where I hid that bag of lime.....

Pickles, the old way

After reading several books on preserving as well as several other blogs and forums I decided to give fermented pickles a try, just to see what all the hype was about.  I'm glad I did.
But first a disclaimer: If in doubt, throw it out.  Don't risk your life if you don't think something smells right, looks right, etc. just because you want to try something new.
That said and out of the way.... this is what I did:

Wanting to try this for a while I started looking for a pickle crock.  My budget screamed at the prices of a real pickle crock and I nearly gave up even thinking about trying this until I had an epiphany in the middle of Wal-Mart.  I was in the cooking gadets section, looked down and saw a glass cookie jar for a whole $8.  MUCH cheaper than the $50 to $60 (+ shipping) a crock would have run.  So I bring it home and pull up the one recipe I would be willing to give a try, after all it's Alton Brown's recipe and his normally work the best for me.

• 5 1/2 ounces pickling salt, approximately 1/2 cup
• 1 gallon filtered water
• 3 pounds pickling cucumbers, 4 to 6-inches long
• 1 tablespoon black peppercorns
• 1 tablespoon red pepper flakes
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 teaspoon dill seed
• 1 large bunch dill

Combine the salt and water in a pitcher and stir until the salt has dissolved.
Rinse the cucumbers thoroughly and snip off the blossom end stem. Set aside.
Place the peppercorns, pepper flakes, garlic, dill seed and fresh dill into a 1-gallon crock. Add the cucumbers to the crock on top of the aromatics. Pour the brine mixture over the cucumbers in order to completely cover. Pour the remaining water into a 1-gallon ziptop plastic bag and seal. Place the bag on top of the pickles making sure that all of them are completely submerged in the brine. Set in a cool, dry place.
Check the crock after 3 days. Fermentation has begun if you see bubbles rising to the top of the crock. After this, check the crock daily and skim off any scum that forms. If scum forms on the plastic bag, rinse it off and return to the top of the crock.
The fermentation is complete when the pickles taste sour and the bubbles have stopped rising; this should take approximately 6 to 7 days. Once this happens, cover the crock loosely and place in the refrigerator for 3 days, skimming daily or as needed. Store for up to 2 months in the refrigerator, skimming as needed. If the pickles should become soft or begin to take on an off odor, this is a sign of spoilage and they should be discarded.

I followed this recipe to the letter with the exception of the pepper flakes, I have allergies and peppers are #1 on the list.  I did change how the crock was to be set up, I used a butter dish lid to put over the cukes and turned the glass top upside down to hold everything under the brine.  Worked pretty well actually.  Here's the hardware:

I placed my crock in my main pantry, where the cats would not be able to mess with it and knock it over.  Started it on a Monday evening, checked for flavor on Thursday and decided to wait a few more days, they just weren't quite fermented through yet.  Saturday they were ready and I put them in fridge receptacles this morning.  Let me tell you, the house smelled wonderful all week, all dill and garlic.  It was nice.  The brine did get a little cloudy, but then again our AC isn't on all the time and it doesn't get below 80 even when it's on so it was a little warm.  They taste so different it's amazing, and the crunch!  Wow!  On my to-do-again list!

What I tossed in the fridge today:

Jamming Onions

I found another recipe that I wanted to try, Caramelized Onion Jam.  Sounds great doesn't it?  I found it here

• 4 whole garlic bulbs
• 1 teaspoon canola oil
• 5 cups chopped sweet onions (1-1/2 pounds)
• 1/4 cup butter, cubed
• 3/4 cup cider vinegar
• 1/2 cup bottled lemon juice
• 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
• 1-1/2 teaspoons ground mustard
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 teaspoon white pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 6 cups sugar
• 1 pouch (3 ounces) liquid fruit pectin

• Remove papery outer skin from garlic (do not peel or separate cloves). Cut top off garlic bulbs; brush with oil. Wrap each bulb in heavy-duty foil. Bake at 425° for 30-35 minutes or until softened. Cool for 10-15 minutes.
• In a Dutch oven, saute onions in butter for 30-40 minutes or until lightly browned. Squeeze softened garlic into pan. Stir in the cider vinegar, lemon juice, balsamic vinegar, mustard, salt, pepper, ginger and cloves. Bring to a rolling boil. Gradually add sugar, stirring constantly. Return to a boil for 3 minutes.
• Add pectin; bring to a full rolling boil. Boil for 1 minute, stirring constantly. Remove from the heat; let stand for 3 minutes. Skim off foam. Pour hot mixture into hot jars, leaving 1/4-in. headspace. Adjust caps. Process for 10 minutes in a boiling-water bath.

I followed everything almost exactly with the exception of the mustard powder, you guessed, I was out, so I substituted more ginger instead.  But..... it didn't gel as well as I would have hoped, it still tastes totally awesome though.  Can't wait to try it as a glaze on chicken or pork tenderloin!

Pickled peppers

Instead of trying to find some way to use all hubby's peppers before they go bad I decided to pickle them when we get enough to fill a jar.  The recipe is simple and is a per pint basis.

1/2 tsp each black peppercorns, coriander seed, minced garlic, pickling salt, granulated sugar
1bay leaf
Vinegar
peppers to fill the pint jar, we have all hot peppers but use what you have.

Dump spices etc in jar, slit the peppers in several places or slit all the way through the bottoms so that the vinegar can enter them.  Heat vinegar on stove and pour over peppers, kinda mash around with a spoon or something to help empty the air pockets in the peppers and top off with vinegar, allowing 1/2" head space.  Water bath for 15 minutes (for longer term storage) or toss in fridge.  Let sit for 2 weeks before using.

Totally Eat-able

I ran across the most interesting recipe on one of the forums I frequent and it was just so out of the ordinary that I had to try it.  Zucchini Candy, which can be found here with additional little tid-bits.  I know what you are thinking, something along the lines of 'what the heck' but trust me, it's awesome!
Zucchini Candy
10 cups peeled diced zucchini 1/2 inch cubes
3 cups water
2 pkgs. unsweetened Koolaid
2 1/2 cups sugar
Peel zucchini, dice, removing seeds. Mix the liquid syrup together. Add zucchini. Bring to a boil and them simmer for 25 min. Drain. Put on dehydrator trays. Dry 14 hours at 125 degrees. Turn pieces over and dry another 4 hours. This will feel dry and not sticky when done. Store in jars or other tightly sealed containers.If you dip in sugar when you turn them, they will be more like "gum drops" on the outside.

Knowing my dehydrator and it's tenancy to eat diced foods I just peeled, scraped out the seeds and sliced into crescents about 1/4" thick (I wasn't thinking by that point, I was just hacking away, next time they will be a bit thicker).  Based on what I had seen mentioned about the amount of syrup I decided to just add zucchini until I couldn't fit anymore in the amount of syrup, possibly around 15 cups but since I didn't measure, I can't be for sure.
I used the black cherry flavor Koolaid, since it's one of my more favorite flavors and filled my dehydrator almost to capacity.  Then promptly forgot about it until this morning, say 18 hours?  I let it cool and started retrieving the gummy worms, ahem, zucchini.  Mine were still a bit tacky so I tossed in some granulated sugar and ended up with this:

 5 cups of totally insane 'candy'.  And it's delicious!!  I so wish I had my own zucchini this year!!
Imagine candy that's somewhat good for you, has fiber, can count as a veggie serving, looks fun and tastes great.  I'm already planning flavors for the next batch.  I may have to get out my spare dehydrator.

Trying something different

I have a couple ripe peaches and wanted to experiment.  I used the same recipe for canning liquid that I used in the pickled cantaloupes and ended up with 2 pints of pickled peaches.  I have enough of the liquid mix leftover to make more if these turn out ok, or it will be used on another cantaloupe if they don't.  We'll see.

A half bushel of tomatoes

Sounds like a lot doesn't it?  But it's not, especially once all the seeds are removed and they are cut up.  That was my day today... tomatoes, skinning tomatoes, seeding tomatoes, chopping tomatoes.....
So what did I can?  Salsa, Italian tomatoes and just plain tomatoes.  No big ground breaking recipes here, just your normal things from the Ball Complete Book of Preserving.

Salsa, 5 pints:

Regular old canned tomatoes, 4 quarts:

 Italian Tomatoes, just plain tomatoes with a little basil, oregano and garlic added, 6 pints:

Banana Butter

Was at the grocery store and found a nice big bag of reduced price bananas that were starting to turn brown, still good, but needed to be eaten or used straight away.  At 15 cents cheaper than normal, the price was decent.  I have several banana jam recipes but they are all overly complex and I don't have half the ingredents so I did a search and came across this one.

banana preserves!
so we had four bananas that were going bad and were into the banana-bread range, but we had no flour or eggs, so i found this recipe instead:

banana preserves:
4 bananas
3 tbsp lemon juice
1 1/2 c sugar
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice / few shakes of cinnamon, ginger and cloves

mash up the bananas with the lemon juice
put the mash into a pan and bring to a boil, stirring so it doesn's splatter all over and kill you
once it thins out and breaks down some, throw in the sugar and the spice and bring back to a careful, non-killing boil
reduce heat and stir for 15 to 20 minutes while it simmers and thickens
jar up and seal (i do the boil-the-jar-while-everything's-cooking method)
made two moderately-sized random jar fulls
ate the last tablespoon or so on toast and it makes the regular bread taste like banana bread

oh, and i threw in the last maybe half-teaspoon of light rum which really didn't change the flavor at all, but maybe brandy or sherry would be a nice addition.

First off, I love the humor in the recipe and the simplicity is great!  I didn't add the rum though.  I tripled the banana count but only used 3 cups of sugar (seriously, why does everything have to be so ridiculously sweet?) and 6 tablespoons of lemon juice.  Once it started cooking down I took out my hand blender and pureed it. Let it cook down by half and it was sheeting off a spoon.  Processed 10 minutes.
Landed myself 7 half pints.

Pickled Cantaloupe

I managed to land myself 2 free nearly ready to eat cantaloupes yesterday.  I'm not a fan.  Hubby already had a large amount of watermelon to eat and probably would not get to these before they were past edible.  So what to do?  Hit the books and google searches.  I didn't like most of what I saw, especially the ones where you cook it for an hour.  Then I found this little gem
Source:   Southern Living July '99 (Carolyne M. Carnevale, Ormand Beach, FL

3		lemons -- thinly sliced
2	cups	water
2 1/2	cups	white vinegar -- 5% acidity
7		cinnamon sticks -- 2 inches each
24		whole cloves
2	large	cantaloupes -- cut into bite-size pieces

• Bring first 5 ingredients to a boil in a large saucepan; reduce heat, and simmer 5 to 7 minutes.
• Pack cantaloupes into hot jars; add hot syrup, filling to within 1/2 inch from top. Remove air bubbles; wipe jar rims. Cover at once with metal lids, screw on bands.
• Process in boiling-water bath 10 minutes. Yield: 6 pints

This one I had to try.  I didn't have any cinnamon sticks on hand and wasn't about to pay a fortune for that amount so I used ground cinnamon instead, 3 tablespoons.  And apparently I had extra large cantaloupes because I ended up having to double the liquids to fill all the jars.  Ended up with 6 pints and 6 half pints.  I made sure to add a lemon slice or two to each jar as well.

Pickled Red Onions

So we were sitting there watching Food Network and Throwdown comes on.  Caught a glimpse of a pickled onion recipe and had to try it, it was the Oaxaca Dog episode.  Though I had to make it can-able.  So I tweeked Mr. Flay's recipe a bit.

The original:

• 3/4 cup fresh lime juice
• 3/4 cup distilled white vinegar
• 3 tablespoons super fine sugar
• 2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 1 serrano chile, slit down center
• 2 teaspoons finely chopped fresh oregano leaves
• 1 large red onion, peeled, halved, cut into 1/8-inch-thick slices

Combine lime juice, vinegar, sugar, salt and chile in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil over medium heat. Cook the mixture until the sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat and let cool for 5 minutes.

Put the onion slices in a small bowl. Pour the warm vinegar mixture over and toss to coat. Cover and refrigerate for at least 4 hours and up to 48 hours, stirring the mixture a few times.

My version:

• 1 cup lime juice
• white vinegar to cover onions by about an inch
• 3 tablespoons sugar
• 2 tablespoons pickling salt
• 2 tablespoons dried oregano leaves
• 3 pounds red onion, peeled, halved, cut into 1/8-inch-thick slices (we used the last of ours straight out of the garden after they had been cleaned up and dried a few days)

Toss it all together in a large plastic bowl, cover and let sit overnight.
Next day, bring to a boil, ladle into jars and process for 15 minutes.  Any liquid left that did not fill a jar would be great for pickled eggs!  This gave us 3 pints and 3/4 pint of extra soaking liquid.

Taking a stab at gardinere

We lived in Chicago for 5.5 years.  One of the condiments hubby liked was the gardinere served on top of the roast beef sandwiches.  I haven't wanted to even try this due to the amount of oil in most recipes that would prevent water bath and possibly even pressure canning so I passed.
That is until this year.  I decided to do this my way, which is ignoring all the directions and making it up as I go.  This is what I ended up with:

Want to know what I did?  Yeah, well so do I!
Here's the general gist:
Veggies.  All different types, diced and placed in a bowl with salt to draw out water.  What veggies did I use?
Hmmmm...... cauliflower, yellow squash, onion, celery, green bell peppers, jalapenos and carrots
After letting the veggies marinate for a few hours, I didn't count, I was working on everything else I was canning, I drained and rinsed them well before tossing them in a stock pot where I covered them by an inch of white vinegar.
To this, while the mix was heating up to a boil, I added celery seed, dried whole chilies, red pepper flakes, mustard powder and dill powder (yeah, having to wait on those to arrive in whole form) and about a cup of sugar.
Once this hit a boil I ladled into jars and started processing, the pints and half pints for 10 minutes and the quarts for 15.

I'll add olive oil to these as needed once the are opened.  For now though they get to sit and marinate for a few weeks.

Plum butter crazy

I was lucky enough to be given 2 of those plastic shopping bags nearly full of plums, most of which were on the border of over-ripe.  What to do with so many?  2 words.  Plum.  Butter.
I don't have a recipe for this, it's one of those things you kinda learn by watching reading and experimenting but here's an idea of what you do.
Grab the largest stock pot you own, well in my case I had to, but it still didn't hold all the plums at first.
Turn on burner to medium add a tiny bit of water to keep fruit from burning at first and start piling in the plums, whole or pitted, I decided to do them whole and fish out the pits later.  Cook until they begin to break down stirring occasionally and add more if you have them.
Once all are added, reduce heat to medium low, possibly even low, and just cook until the plums have reduced by half.  At this point I fished out the pits with my fry spider then pulsed a few times with my stick blender to break up any large skins.
Keep cooking this down until it starts to sheet off a spoon, this is where I add sugar to taste, usually only 1/4 the total mass of total fruit.  If I have about 8 cups of fruit mush I'll only add about 2 cups sugar, but this is our taste, we don't like things too sweet.  Cook until it gels on a cold plate, you can find directions for this in most canning books and sites, ladle into jars and water bath can at 15 minutes for quarts.

Whole fruit, not a lot of sugar.  Great for sandwiches, toast, or anything you want to spread a little fruit on.

Once our peaches start ripening we'll do the same with them.

More bread and butter pickles

With more of our very own cucumbers we decided we'd like to try bread and butter pickles, the same recipe I used for the zucchini.  Not as big a batch this time only 5 quarts and 2 pints.

These look a bit cloudy for a reason.  I am waiting on mustard seed, I ran out in the middle of the season!!  Shame, shame, shame.  But then again I wasn't planning on doing that many pickle recipes that called for it!  So in order to get these preserved before it was too late (my spice order should be here Monday as we don't have Saturday service for large packages) I used powdered mustard seed instead.

Crisis averted and veggies saved for later use.

A time to shrivel

Well I tried my hand at one of my grandmothers pickle recipes and learned a lot.  I've always heard people talk about lime pickles and decided to give her recipe a try.
This is the recipe:
    * 7 1/2 pounds Cucumber
    * 2 cups pickling lime
    * 2 gallons cold water
    * 2 quarts white vinegar
    * 4 1/2 pounds sugar
    * 1 tablespoon pickling Salt
    * 1 tablespoon pickling spice

Dissolve lime in water. Pour over cucumbers and let sit 24 hours.
Drain, rinse let soak in fresh water for an hour and repeat 2 more times for a total of 3 hours.
Mix together vinegar, sugar, salt and spice, bring to boil and let cool.
Pour over cucumbers and let sit overnight
Boil in vinegar mix 35 minutes and then pack into hot sterilized jars

This is what I ended up with:

A bit shriveled no?  Well, I did them whole, didn't slit them or take off the little bit at the blossom end, that was a crucial step not known at the time.  I'll know better next time though!
These are our very own cucumbers from our very own garden.  Many things are coming in now so it's time for stocking the pantry!!  Stay tuned for more kitchen stuffs!

When the garden gives you zucchini... or not....

So our garden isn't cooperating fully this year.  We have had NO squash of any type, none, zip, zilch.  Which is a pity really since I actually love zucchini.  What to do?  Well you go visit a farmer's market on a Saturday and start asking around for a large amount, someone there is bound to have enough for a decent price.  In my case, I landed two very large boxes full of zucchini for $10, at least 2 bushels worth!

What to do with all that zucchini before it goes south?  Well you divide it in half, surf the internet and all your cook books for ideas then decide to make zucchini bread and butter pickles.  Two days worth of prepping and canning later you end up with 8 quarts and 11 pints of pickles (unfortunately one of those pints exploded in the water bath on me so technically only 10 were finished).  The picture is only a small portion of what I canned.

What to do with the other half?  Save some out for fresh eating and slice the rest up for stewed zucchini, spend a couple of hours cooking it all down and toss it in the freezer.

Want the recipes?

Bread and Butter Zucchini Pickles:
http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,1636,148176-228207,00.html

As for the stewed zucchini?  Well.... we've never written it down, never measured anything, so here's the best rendition I can figure...
3 to 4 medium to large zucchini, trim ends and slice supper thin.  I do this on a little 70's style plastic mandolin.
1/2 medium onion diced
about a tbsp butter
salt and pepper to taste.
Toss it all in a sauce pan and cook on medium low until basically mushy, usually 30 to 45 minutes.  Eat or dump into freezer containers.

This can be done with yellow squash as well.  Add as much zucchini or squash as your pan can hold if you want.