Green Tomato Relish

I had a couple of green tomatoes from the CSA, and this recipe came to my inbox.  So I decided to try it.

Now, I didn't have enough to make a big batch.  And I didn't feel like it anyway.  And I learned you should never really work on something that needs to be simmered for an hour when you are nursing a baby, as it's all too easy to lose track of time and burn the crap out of everything.

But I digress.  I scooped out the top and my husband cleaned the burned bits out of the pan.  It's very tasty.

I cut the recipe in 1/4.  I still didn't have enough tomatoes, so I added zucchini.  I cut the hot peppers in half (used only one).  I could have used two.  I'm the only one eating the stuff anyway.  I got about 1 pint. 

Yesterday, I made a ham panini on my George Foreman and slathered it with this tasty stuff.  Yum!

Mini Jam Session

So, three things have happened in the last couple of weeks.
#1, I read about this book and this blog on The Kitchn, and started to get SERIOUSLY interested in small batch canning.
#2, We got a pound of apricots from our CSA.  I don't really like apricots.
#3, I am 42 years old, 39+ weeks pregnant, it's hot, so in an effort to "move things along", I went blueberry picking for 2 hours with a friend and our combined 5 kids (most of them hers right now).  It was 73F when we started and 88F when we finished.  I ended up with almost 5 lbs of blueberries (our 2nd batch of the year).

I have been interested in canning for quite awhile.  I grew up in rural PA, and we did a lot of canning.  It was a necessity thing for us - not a lot of money, and we had a garden.  We would can vegetables (corn, peas, beans), tomatoes (juice, tomatoes, salsa, spaghetti sauce), pickles, and jams in the summer time.  One summer we canned so many pickles and strawberry jam in so many sessions that I had the recipes memorized. I was probably 12 or 13 years old.  It was hot, steamy work, but I loved helping my mom can.

Then I became an adult who didn't cook, much less can.  I tried my hand at freezer jam (pretty easy).  Eventually, a combination of the books I read, the "pick your own" days at our CSA, and my history gave me the canning bug.  So a few years ago, I bought a canning kit.  You know, the big black canning pot and stuff.  We've done a little bit here and there.  Strawberry jam one year, salsa and spaghetti sauce the next year, tangerine marmalade (we have a tangerine tree).  It's a lot of work though. 

The processing of the ingredients is step one.  A bit pot of ... something.  We made our tangerine marmalade out of 9 lbs of tangerines, for example.  It's a lot of chopping and cooking when you are making that.  Then there's proper sterilizing of the jars (the dishwasher helps with that), the lids (on the stove, but then you are up to a 3rd burner you need), you get the picture.  It's a big production.

Then I read about this "small batch canning" method.  I swear I am going to buy this book and some of the equipment.  But I am going to wait a few weeks.  Make sure I really mean it.  One one hand, I'll be home for 3 months this summer and will have "time".  On the other hand, I'm about to give birth.  I probably won't have "time" if past history is any indication.  But small batch canning can be done in an hour or two.

I decided to try a mini-batch of apricot-blueberry jam, because I googled "apricot blueberry recipes", and that's what came up.  I used this recipe, and made a half batch (but did add more sugar, as recommended).  It made slightly more than a pint (I don't have any 1/2 pint jars, need to get those).  I didn't water bath can it - since I only got two jars, one went into the freezer and the other half into the fridge.  The advantage of this small batch method is that it took about an hour to make it because it cooks down so quickly in a small skillet.

Chop the unpeeled apricots and heat over medium-low with the sugar (I used 2 c apricots and 3/4 c sugar)

When the apricots have cooked down a bit (15-20 min), add the blueberries.

Continue to cook for a total of about 45 min, until the jam looks like...well, jam.

Pour into clean or sterilized jars (are you going to freeze or can?) and enjoy!

I would say that the big disadvantage of canning is from a health standpoint.  In order to preserve many fruits as jams, you need a LOT of sugar.  On the other hand, how much jam do you use on a daily basis?  A tablespoon or two?  It's probably okay. 

Tangerine Jamalade

Pardon for not posting for awhile. Busy, tired, under-the-weather.

One tool in the box of the frugal cook is preservation. Freezing, canning, drying... I have used all three now and then. Probably in that order.

For freezing, I often freeze surplus CSA or farmer's market finds. Fruits (strawberries, blueberries) and vegetables (steamed kale, collards, garden fresh tomatoes - use only cooked).

For drying, it is mostly herbs right now. I don't have a dehydrator (anymore anyway), so I tend to dry herbs by...letting them sit on the counter until they are dry. Very scientific. :)

For canning, my experience is limited...sort of. I grew up in the country of western PA. We had a large-ish garden and an acre. So as a pre-teen and early-teen, I spent the summers "putting up" with my mom. So much so that one summer, I had the dill pickle, green bean, and strawberry jam recipes memorized. I remember it being fun. Then again, I would help the neighbor do her laundry in a tub with a "wringer" to dry them out from wash to rinse, so take that with a grain of salt.

As an adult, I started with freezer jam. It's easy, it's good, it uses a LOT of sugar. Last year, we graduated to making strawberry jam in the water-bath canner. We only made a few pints, and they were gone lickety-split.

This year, our teeny tiny tangerine tree in the back gave us a bumper crop of tangerines. That my spouse decided to pick almost all at once, right before he left on a business trip. The thought of doing anything with them while working full time and doing double-duty at home was too much.

But then he came back. Sick. Wait a few more days. In the meantime, my boss brought a bumper crop of tangerines from his tree. I swiped a couple of pounds.

I decided to make tangerine marmalade. I looked up several recipes. The one that I liked the most was here. But I also looked here and here. I have the Ball Blue Book and the instructions that came with the pectin recipe. Which ended up being very helpful. Marmadale is not supposed to need pectin, because there is plenty of pectin in the peels of the fruit. But despite boiling our mixture for an hour and half, it wasn't "setting", so we added pectin. Which clumped. So we used the immersion blender. Which pulverized our peels. Which is why my friend Angela dubbed it "jamalade".

As much as it was a lot of work - 2.5 hours on Friday night, chopping the fruit, and 2.5 hours the next day, cooking the mixture and canning - we both felt proud of ourselves. There's some bit of satisfaction with taking food from your own tree and turning it into something yummy.

So here goes:

Tangerine Jamalade:
8 lbs tangerines: $ 0
1 grapefruit (we had it): $0
1 lemon: $0
14-16 cups sugar: $3.28
1 package Pomona pectin: $2.50

Total: $5.78 for 14 pints of jamalade, or $0.41 per pint. Plus the cost of the jars, which is about $0.90 each. You can reuse the jars, but that doesn't work if you give some of the stuff away. Which we do.

You can see that if you have a free source of fruit (or cheap in season), it can be worth it to can it. Especially if you live somewhere where produce is scarce in the winter. (I don't.)

Peel the tangerines. Dice small, painfully, so as to avoid the seeds, until you get through 8 lbs and realize that you only found 3 seeds. Promise next time you are going to use the food processor, as a couple of the recipes recommended. Slice the peel.

Place the fruit and peel with 6 cups water. No wait, that wasn't quite enough. I used closer to 8 cups of water in my largest pot. Let soak 12-18 hours.

Add sugar. Here's where it's tricky, because a lot of recipes say one cup per pint of fruit mixture. Now the original recipe said about 13 cups for 8 lbs tangerines. But I only had 7 pints of fruit mixture. Until I realized that the graduated lines on the side of my pot was for QUARTS not PINTS. Then, the 14-16 cups makes more sense.

Cook the sugar and fruit until boiling. It should get to about 220F, so it boils and starts to thicken. Ours didn't really. Some reading I've done suggests that marmalade will thicken in the jar over a few weeks. I didn't want to take that chance. So we added the pectin. The Pomona pectin recipe for marmalade actually suggests using pectin (of course it does, they are selling you pectin). Most others don't. But you are supposed to add it with the sugar. Presumably, if you do that, it won't form little dry balls of pectin. Ours did (hence the immersion blender).

Meanwhile, sterilize the jars and the lids. You don't want to boil the lids, just simmer. This is where I now remember that canning takes all four burners. One for the fruit, one for the boiling jars, one for the canner, and one for the lids.

When everything is ready, start pouring your fruit into your jars. We used a big funnel and the pyrex 2 cup measuring cup. Wipe the rim of the jar, and place the lid on top. My tweezer skills from work come in very handy here - getting the lids out of the simmering water. Screw on the top. Finger-tight. Remember to use an oven mitt, and don't forget to tighten it. We had one jar that we didn't tighten. It's runny.

Place in boiling water bath and can for 10 minutes. Remove to cool on the counter on a towel. Repeat with remaining fruit. Feel proud. Enjoy on bread.