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Canning And Preserving


mdt

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Anyone know where I can get canning supplies in the Silver Spring/Tk Pk area? I need two piece lids, and half-pint jars. Strosniders was the first place that came to mind but they don't have them.

That's very surprising. Strosnider's usually carries them--perhaps they were just temporarily sold out. It is a little bit early in the season for canning. That's where I usually get them. Have you called the Bethesda store? Sometimes Safeway and Giant sell them--they may not have the "quilted" decorative jars that Strosnider's has, but that's another option. I can't remember seeing them at The TP/SS Co-op, but it might be worth a phone call to see if they have any.

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Strosniders does carry them. I was looking in the wrong place.

I picked up four quarts of strawberries from Toigo yesterday and spent the morning making jam. I have ten beautiful little ruby jars cooling on the counter now.

BTW, they sold me a half flat for $4 a quart, rather than $6. Not a bad price.

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I picked up four quarts of strawberries from Toigo yesterday and spent the morning making jam. I have ten beautiful little ruby jars cooling on the counter now.

Do you use pectin, or the long-cook method? I think that pectin has the advantage of fast-cooking leaving you with fresher-tasting fruit and more bang for the buck, since the long-cooking method thickens by evaporating much of the water out, leaving you with smaller volume of preserves. But I'm interested to hear from people who think otherwise.

I made preserves yesterday, too. I had picked wild cherries in Battery Kemble Park on Saturday--my first official foraging coup of the year. There are a couple of very old cherry trees (Queen Anne-type) there, one of which is probably a feral tree, growing in a clump of other trees and the other was probably planted when the land around this part of DC was still farmland. Both trees have a lot of fruit on them but only the one that was more in the sun had ripe fruit on it. Most of it is up very high, inaccessible without a tall ladder, and must be left for the birds. The few cherries I was able to reach are smaller than last year's--due to much less rain this year. And even though the variety is not known to be a cooking variety, they work as preserves because they are very sour. The cherry flavor is not as intense as a Montmerency or Morello-type sour cherry. But, still the fun of it is that it is wild and "free."

Have you noticed, though, that the days you choose to do canning are invariably the hottest and muggiest of the season? It never fails, as far as I can tell. All that boiling and sterilizing, and heat and steam. I really understand the concept of the "summer kitchen"--imagining when this operation needed a hot fire in a wood-burning stove, and there was no air conditioning. Since it isn't even June yet, our only allowable cooling comes from open windows and ceiling fans and the kitchen feels like a sauna, and I don't feel as if I've come a long way, baby. But when those juicy, jewel-like jams are in their sealed jars, the feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction --not to mention the deliciousness--makes it worth all the sweat and toil.

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I always use pectin, for the reasons you mention: fresher tasting jam and larger yield.

Canning is wonderful. I'd love to have a bunch of people over for a prep and processing session. We could split the cost of the jars and the fruit & veg, make a jam, a relish, and some kind of pickle and send everyone home with a jar or two of each. Would anyone be interested? I have two canning kettles and alll the accessories.

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Count me in... I have everything too ( and lots of jars). This summer I will can tomatos, hot pepper jelly, hot pickled beans, rosemary jelly, several pickles, applesauce and who knows what else!

I always use pectin, for the reasons you mention: fresher tasting jam and larger yield.

Canning is wonderful. I'd love to have a bunch of people over for a prep and processing session. We could split the cost of the jars and the fruit & veg, make a jam, a relish, and some kind of pickle and send everyone home with a jar or two of each. Would anyone be interested? I have two canning kettles and alll the accessories.

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I'd be interested, too. My maternal grandmother did a lot of canning and I always enjoyed a visit to Little Rock that included some of her awsome preserves. My mom wasn't a fan of the process, I guess, because we never did it at home. I'd love to learn more and would chip in for suppliese, etc. of course.

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I am interested in canning but scared to death of botulism. Do any of you know if there a canning class around where I can learn to can, and increase my self confidence that I will not poison my friends and family?

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I am interested in canning but scared to death of botulism. Do any of you know if there a canning class around where I can learn to can, and increase my self confidence that I will not poison my friends and family?

Depending on what you want to can the risk of botulism is rather low. Start with simple fruit preserves and move on from there. Don't know of any specific courses, but here are a couple of books that explain things well. You can probably pick them up from your library.

Book 1

Book 2

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I'll be taking care of the nieces for a week. One thing they enjoy about my visits -- besides later bedtimes -- is cooking with auntie. I'm thinking making jam or pickling would be a great activity. Is it okay -- or even advisable -- to make a small quantity of jams, jellies or even pickles and not can or preserve them? The products would only be around for a week or so and then tossed.

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I'll be taking care of the nieces for a week. One thing they enjoy about my visits -- besides later bedtimes -- is cooking with auntie. I'm thinking making jam or pickling would be a great activity. Is it okay -- or even advisable -- to make a small quantity of jams, jellies or even pickles and not can or preserve them? The products would only be around for a week or so and then tossed.
They should keep for quite some time in the fridge. You might consider freezer jam. It's super easy, makes smaller amounts, and doesn't involve giant vats of boiling water. Any package of Sure-Jell brand pectin will have the instructions inside.
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Make 9 jars of strawberry jam this afternoon from berries picked at Homestead Farms this morning. If you have not been out to pick there is very little time left. They did say that sour cherries will probably be ready by next weekend. I guess I need to block off some time next weekend to can some of those.

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I grabbed a pint of chillies from the farmer's market on Sunday, and I'd really like to have a jar of chopped chillies to hand in my fridge. I made up this recipe from the USDA. I didn't actually bother with sterilizing & putting it up, since I'm planning just to keep it in the fridge, but does it sound a bit suspect to anyone else? Just chillies, water and a teeny bit of (optional) salt?

How come this won't just rot in the fridge? Is the capsaicin content in chillies enough to retard spoilage? I know they typically don't rot in my fridge if I keep air circulating around them -- they just dry out and shrivel up, but I have a shaky gut feeling about this recipe (pun entirely intended).

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I grabbed a pint of chillies from the farmer's market on Sunday, and I'd really like to have a jar of chopped chillies to hand in my fridge. I made up this recipe from the USDA. I didn't actually bother with sterilizing & putting it up, since I'm planning just to keep it in the fridge, but does it sound a bit suspect to anyone else? Just chillies, water and a teeny bit of (optional) salt?

How come this won't just rot in the fridge? Is the capsaicin content in chillies enough to retard spoilage? I know they typically don't rot in my fridge if I keep air circulating around them -- they just dry out and shrivel up, but I have a shaky gut feeling about this recipe (pun entirely intended).

Since you didn't pressure-can your water-pack chilies, they will eventually mold in the refrigerator. It may take a month or more, but it is inevitable. A better, simpler method is to peel the chilies, lay them on parchment on a baking sheet and put them in the freezer. When frozen, peel them off the paper and pack them in a freezer bag and keep them in the freezer for up to 6 months. If you want them in a jar, and you don't want to pressure can them, you need to pack them in a vinegar brine--as chiles en escabeche, or pickled chiles. Then they will last for a year in the fridge, or you can process them in a water bath canner (loosely sealed jars, submerged in a kettle of water and boiled for 20-30 minutes or so, removed and the ring twisted tight). Then, they can be kept in a cupboard, and do not need refrigeration. Remember, if you are not freezing, and you want to process any low acid-vegetables: water-pack requires pressure canning; acid packing can be done in a water bath canner. Only red tomatoes have enough acid in them that they can be canned in a water bath without adding acid. In any case, you need to sterilize the jars,

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I bought a box of Honeycrisp apples yesterday at the Arlington Farmer's market (for a mere $15!) and am thinking about canning some of it as a pie filling or chutney. Anyone done this before? Google has found a lot of good information but if someone has any good recipes they'd like to share I'd be grateful.

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We now own one of these, which substantially increases our production capacity for canning. Yay!
Scott picked up a fancy new pressure canner this weekend. I haven't had the nerve to try it yet; I need to look up how to convert the cooking times for jams, etc. I am looking forward to canning some green beans and other veggies this summer, and I'd like to figure out how to can my rillettes so that we can have them year 'round.
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I have two quarts of strawberries giving up their juice on my stove right now. I did an earlier batch of jam this summer, but it was very watery -- as others have theorized, perhaps due to the very rainy spring we've had this year. My first batch I also got fancy with the measuring, measuring the berries (by volume) by the amount of water that they displaced. I don't think my Joy recipe needs that much precision. Presumably that also upped the berries:sugar ratio.

My coworker tells me that I can save my runny jam by adding a smidge of cornstarch to the finished produce. Any thoughts from folks here on that? (I've been saving it by putting it on pancakes, which has also worked very well.)

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Scott picked up a fancy new pressure canner this weekend. I haven't had the nerve to try it yet; I need to look up how to convert the cooking times for jams, etc. I am looking forward to canning some green beans and other veggies this summer, and I'd like to figure out how to can my rillettes so that we can have them year 'round.

Pressure canning is fantastic. I have jars of roasted red peppers as well as poblanos for emergency chile potato soup. I've canned lots of things, and have only been disappointed in the pesto. The Ball blue book has times, and I also have a little book from the USDA. We are still unpacking from a move so I can't find it to tell you the name.

The one trick I can suggest is that you do a test run with an empty canner to learn the settings on your stove that will make it work. It is OK to turn the heat down if you need to, but if you have to turn the heat up during the process, a lot of the food will make its way out of the jars and into the pot. Not fun after all that work.

I've never used it for jams - I had the luck to find a steam canner at a garage sale years ago for a few dollars. It's wonderful to be able to process all the high acid foods with less water. That means less energy and less heat in the kitchen. Some day I'll be as smart as my Grandmother and do it all outside. :lol:

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I'm making cherry and blueberry jam this weekend. Anyone have any tips for making blueberry jam? It's the one fruit that has failed me repeatedly over the years, despite following the recipe. I'd prefer not to wind up with another six pints of blueberry syrup.

And does anyone have a good pickled peach recipe they would like to share?

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I'm making cherry and blueberry jam this weekend. Anyone have any tips for making blueberry jam? It's the one fruit that has failed me repeatedly over the years, despite following the recipe. I'd prefer not to wind up with another six pints of blueberry syrup.

Have you tried using homemade pectin? It's basically apple jelly. I use Christine Ferber's recipes that usually call for a kilo of fruit to 800 grams of sugar. You bring it all to a simmer, macerate overnight, then cook to completion the following day. This makes the fruit clear and sparkling - a very nice product. That's a rambling way to get to this point - her book has recipes that call for adding 8 oz of this homemade pectin to low-pectin fruit recipes to help them gel. It has worked for me in combination with using a candy thermometer to insure that the mixture gets to 20 degrees above boiling.

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I have two quarts of strawberries giving up their juice on my stove right now. I did an earlier batch of jam this summer, but it was very watery -- as others have theorized, perhaps due to the very rainy spring we've had this year. My first batch I also got fancy with the measuring, measuring the berries (by volume) by the amount of water that they displaced. I don't think my Joy recipe needs that much precision. Presumably that also upped the berries:sugar ratio.

My coworker tells me that I can save my runny jam by adding a smidge of cornstarch to the finished produce. Any thoughts from folks here on that? (I've been saving it by putting it on pancakes, which has also worked very well.)

You could empty the jars into a pot, add more pectin, and reprocess. I did that once with a runny batch. I think I used no sugar needed pectin when I added more.

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I'm making cherry and blueberry jam this weekend. Anyone have any tips for making blueberry jam? It's the one fruit that has failed me repeatedly over the years, despite following the recipe. I'd prefer not to wind up with another six pints of blueberry syrup.

And does anyone have a good pickled peach recipe they would like to share?

Sorry I don't have a recipe, but I'll gladly take some off your hands should you end up with more blueberry syrup! I'd make my own "fruit on the bottom" type yogurt, drizzle it atop oatmeal, add it to vanilla ice cream with some fresh blueberries on top...(blueberries, thankfully, are not one of my allergies!)

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I made freezer jam w sour cherries (combo Country Pleasures and Tree & Leaf) this morning, using Mark Bittman's recipe for low-sugar version. 6 cups fruit, 1 1/2-2 cups sugar, 2 teaspoons lemon juice.

Pitted, w a few discards, I had around 3 1/2 cups fruit. Started out w 3/4 cup sugar. Cooked 15 minutes low, then another 15. Still very, very juicy. So after another 10 minutes, I decided to jar all the cherries and reduce the juice with more sugar (recipe encourages you to add more sugar if need be to gel).

While the juice became syrupy in pan (wow!!!! what a joy to clean the cooled pan with my fingers), I came home to find the stuff quite liquid in the jar I kept in the fridge. It's okay since I mostly plan to stir the stuff into yogurt, but...

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I completely missed the pickled peach recipe request. I have a recipe for spiced peaches that are in a vinegar/sugar syrup, but you can easily leave out the spices and just have sweet pickled peaches. It also works great with pears. If that's the sort of thing you are looking for, I'll be happy to dig it out for you.

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I completely missed the pickled peach recipe request. I have a recipe for spiced peaches that are in a vinegar/sugar syrup, but you can easily leave out the spices and just have sweet pickled peaches. It also works great with pears. If that's the sort of thing you are looking for, I'll be happy to dig it out for you.

Please post it!

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I made freezer jam w sour cherries (combo Country Pleasures and Tree & Leaf) this morning, using Mark Bittman's recipe for low-sugar version. 6 cups fruit, 1 1/2-2 cups sugar, 2 teaspoons lemon juice.

Pitted, w a few discards, I had around 3 1/2 cups fruit. Started out w 3/4 cup sugar. Cooked 15 minutes low, then another 15. Still very, very juicy. So after another 10 minutes, I decided to jar all the cherries and reduce the juice with more sugar (recipe encourages you to add more sugar if need be to gel).

While the juice became syrupy in pan (wow!!!! what a joy to clean the cooled pan with my fingers), I came home to find the stuff quite liquid in the jar I kept in the fridge. It's okay since I mostly plan to stir the stuff into yogurt, but...

hi Anna Blume-

I don't know if you are committed to keeping it pectin free- but the gentleman at Country Pleasures suggested I use Pomona pectin- which doesn't use sugar to gel. It saved my strawberry jam a few weeks ago. of course then you'd have to reprocess...

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I made freezer jam w sour cherries (combo Country Pleasures and Tree & Leaf) this morning, using Mark Bittman's recipe for low-sugar version. 6 cups fruit, 1 1/2-2 cups sugar, 2 teaspoons lemon juice.

Pitted, w a few discards, I had around 3 1/2 cups fruit. Started out w 3/4 cup sugar. Cooked 15 minutes low, then another 15. Still very, very juicy. So after another 10 minutes, I decided to jar all the cherries and reduce the juice with more sugar (recipe encourages you to add more sugar if need be to gel).

While the juice became syrupy in pan (wow!!!! what a joy to clean the cooled pan with my fingers), I came home to find the stuff quite liquid in the jar I kept in the fridge. It's okay since I mostly plan to stir the stuff into yogurt, but...

With juicy fruit, the only way it will thicken without added pectin is if you boil it long enough to reduce the liquid and then hard enough to raise the sugar temperature to somewhere near the soft ball stage. This, IMO, pretty much kills the taste of the fruit. That is why I always use pectin to make preserves.

Even with pectin, sour cherries seem to defy expectations of what jam ought to be, based on our collective early Smucker's experiences. I have never tried to make a low-sugar or freezer jam version, but my various experiences with sour cherry preserves ending up very runny, despite using pectin and following the prescribed ratios in the pectin package, have led me to make a major alteration in the recommended method.

I pit and chop the cherries and then drain them in a colander. I don't press or squeeze them, but after the majority of the juice has drained off, is when I measure the fruit for the batch. I save the juice and make jelly with it. And I use the huge amounts of sugar that the Sure-Jel package calls for--equal or slightly greater than the same volume of fruit. I also add a scant 1 tsp. of almond extract per batch, after it has cooked, which enhances the cherry flavor without announcing itself too loudly. Never had anything but positive feedback since I developed this method--my SIL in NYC reported to me that she shared some I'd given her with friends of hers who are restaurateurs and chefs and they said mine were the best sour cherry preserves they'd ever tasted. Ooh, ouch! I just dislocated my shoulder by patting myself on the back so vigorously. Better go fix that... :lol:

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Please post it!

Here it is - I'm pretty sure this is adapted from the old checkerboard cookbook, but I learned from my Grandmother.

Spiced peaches or pears

The basic ratio for the syrup to make enough for about five pounds of fruit is:

1 cup vinegar (white is the usual)

2 cups water

3 cups sugar (I cut the sugar from where it was. If you want a heavier syrup, you can go as high as 5 cups of sugar)

Put this on the stove and heat it up along with sticks of cinnamon and cloves. The measurements are going to be sort of "to taste" because spices vary so much in flavor. I usually start with two sticks of cinnamon and a couple of teaspoons of cloves, and that will be enough if they are really fresh. You can let the spices stay in the syrup floating around and then put them in the jars with the peaches or pears, but they will cause browning and discoloration with storage. For a prettier finished product long term, use cheesecloth or a tea ball.

Bring the syrup to a boil, and add the fruit in batches to heat it through. Cook just until almost done because there will be processing later. Small peaches can be left whole, and if you do pears, a firm variety works best. We use Pineapple pears off my Grandmother's old tree - they stay crispy.

Ladle the hot fruit into jars. At this point, I add in a slice of fresh ginger. Do the usual tamping down of all the fruit to pack it in and leave the threaded rim for headspace. Now divide the syrup into all the jars. This is the tricky part - I almost always end up needing more syrup, but the syrup in the pan is now full of spicy fruity goodness. So divide it evenly, then make more fresh to top off the jars if you need to. Close them up and process pints for 20 minutes, quarts for 30. If you have extra fruit, you can put it in a container in the fridge and break it open in a week or so.

Vinegary, spiced, and sweet all at once. :lol:

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Thanks for the peach recipe. Now all I need is some ripe fruit to try it on. :-)

This week I've made tarragon pickled carrots, onion/rosemary marmalade, Vidalia pepper relish, sour cherry relish, sour cherry jam, and pickled cherry tomatoes. Apricot marmalade on the list for this weekend.

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Thanks for the peach recipe. Now all I need is some ripe fruit to try it on. :-)

This week I've made tarragon pickled carrots, onion/rosemary marmalade, Vidalia pepper relish, sour cherry relish, sour cherry jam, and pickled cherry tomatoes. Apricot marmalade on the list for this weekend.

Wow, you been busy, girlfriend. Are the above for work, or for personal consumption at home? I made a few jars of brandied apricot preserves--1/2 fresh fruit, and 1/2 fruit that had macerated for a couple of weeks in a mixture of apricot liqueur, apricot eau de vie and brandy. Very tasty.

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Thanks for the peach recipe. Now all I need is some ripe fruit to try it on. :-)

This week I've made tarragon pickled carrots, onion/rosemary marmalade, Vidalia pepper relish, sour cherry relish, sour cherry jam, and pickled cherry tomatoes. Apricot marmalade on the list for this weekend.

Are you doing waterbath canning? Pressure? When I make jam, I just flip the jars over after I've ladled the hot stuff in and tightened the lid. After a while I flip the jars back over and as they cool, the lids seal themselves. I love the sound of that little "ping" as the lids contract in the middle. But I used to do waterbath processing for pickles and relishes-- an extra step that preserves don't require. And all that steam in the kitchen in the summer heat...

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Even with pectin, sour cherries seem to defy expectations of what jam ought to be, based on our collective early Smucker's experiences. I have never tried to make a low-sugar or freezer jam version, but my various experiences with sour cherry preserves ending up very runny, despite using pectin and following the prescribed ratios in the pectin package, have led me to make a major alteration in the recommended method.
Interesting information, all. Thanks, especially for confirming what I suspected about the lack of syrupy consistency. Makes sense since my only other experiences with sour cherries are in making pie when there are other thickeners involved--or making a sauce (thanks, monavano for your comments there).

All these recent posts are making me hungry for breakfast!

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I picked up 2 quarts of Toigo's Japanese cucumbers at the market on Sunday, and today made my version of bread & butter pickles. They smell really good; they're better if they cure for a few days but I might not be able to wait that long.

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The nice ladies who set up at the entrance of the Penn Quarter market gave a great deal on a box of rain-soaked green beans. We put a beach towel on our dining room table, set up a fan, and spread them out to dry overnight. Today I get to figure out what to do with 15 lbs. of beans. Some are going to be pickled with dill, and I'm going to take a stab at hot packing and pressure canning some. We're having moo pad prik king for dinner tonight, and I might do a batch of sichuan green beans for the freezer. Any other ideas out there?

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The nice ladies who set up at the entrance of the Penn Quarter market gave a great deal on a box of rain-soaked green beans. We put a beach towel on our dining room table, set up a fan, and spread them out to dry overnight. Today I get to figure out what to do with 15 lbs. of beans. Some are going to be pickled with dill, and I'm going to take a stab at hot packing and pressure canning some. We're having moo pad prik king for dinner tonight, and I might do a batch of sichuan green beans for the freezer. Any other ideas out there?

Cook until just tender and shock. Cut into a reasonably bite sized length and make a cold salad--mix with quartered new potatoes, kidney or garbanzo beans, oil-packed tuna, sweet onion, capers, olives, herbs and a vinaigrette for a nicoise-type bean salad. or just make a good ol' American 3-bean salad. forget the wax beans, just do green beans, kidney beans and garbanzos, onions and celery and a vinegar-oil dressing with some honey or sugar in it.

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The nice ladies who set up at the entrance of the Penn Quarter market gave a great deal on a box of rain-soaked green beans. We put a beach towel on our dining room table, set up a fan, and spread them out to dry overnight. Today I get to figure out what to do with 15 lbs. of beans. Some are going to be pickled with dill, and I'm going to take a stab at hot packing and pressure canning some. We're having moo pad prik king for dinner tonight, and I might do a batch of sichuan green beans for the freezer. Any other ideas out there?

Our favorite preparation is to make a packet with foil and fill with green beans, chopped garlic, a drizzle of olive oil, and some good sea salt. Grill until the green beans are very tender and a bit caramelized from the heat of the grill. My 4 yr old almost always gets seconds on these and sometimes thirds!

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I have no business making anything since I have so many jars already in the cupboard, but there is a little bit of shelf space. We went to Johnson's Berry Farm, and the berries were so wonderfully flavorful and tart, and then the peaches at the market were so nice with that red blush. And everyone knows it isn't summer unless you are putting food in jars. :lol: So blackberry peach preserves are macerating in the fridge.

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We went a little crazy last weekend doing the PYO thing at Crooked Run Orchard and ended up with 11 pounds of blackberries, and way too many peaches. We made up about 4 pints of blackberry jam, 5 pints of what was supposed to be peach jam which didn't set once again and ended up being peach syrup for pancakes, waffles, and ice cream. We also canned 6 quarts of peach halves in light syrup for the winter and still ended up freezing at least two quarts of blackberries for a mid-winter crumble.

When we go for pears in a few weeks we will have to try and be restrained. We did manage to eat an entire bucket of apples within a week however.

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We went a little crazy last weekend doing the PYO thing at Crooked Run Orchard and ended up with 11 pounds of blackberries, and way too many peaches. We made up about 4 pints of blackberry jam, 5 pints of what was supposed to be peach jam which didn't set once again and ended up being peach syrup for pancakes, waffles, and ice cream.

Do you strain out all or part of the seeds for your blackberry jam? Blackberry is one of my favorites when it comes to preserves, but I don't like really seedy jam. So when I put up blackberries, there are the extra steps of pureeing and then running them through the food mill to get out the seeds. That cuts down on the amount of final product, because no matter how diligent you are, some pulp always manages to stick to the seeds and ends up being discarded. But oo-la-la what luxurious flavor and texture!

As regards the saucy peaches, I haven't done any preserves this year, but I've made peach desserts, and I think that the peaches are just extra juicy this year due to all of the rain we've had. My method of dealing with that, which I have used with pies and cobblers, and to make a peach bread pudding last Friday, is to macerate the peaches with sugar and a bit of lemon juice for half an hour or more, then strain off the liquid and reduce that by 2/3 on the stovetop, and then make the dessert. That concentrates and intensifies the flavor, and eliminates or cuts down on the amount of tapioca or cornstarch that's needed, depending on the application. For preserves, you could do what I do with sour cherries, which is to strain the fruit and only use a small amount of the juice when measuring the peaches for the preserving kettle. The peaches continue to exude juice when cooking the jam, and it seems like the amount of pectin you are using is being overwhelmed by all of the liquid.

I had a peach pie over the weekend, made by a friend (a very good cook) who says he doesn't like to use thickeners. The bottom crust was so soggy, he didn't even take any of it out of the pie pan, and it was basically peach soup with a top crust. It was very delicious peach soup, but not an unqualified success as a pie.

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Do you strain out all or part of the seeds for your blackberry jam?

I did not strain. I'm the only one in my house who is bothered by the seeds, and I don't have a food mill to make it easier to remove them.

As regards the saucy peaches, I haven't done any preserves this year, but I've made peach desserts, and I think that the peaches are just extra juicy this year due to all of the rain we've had. My method of dealing with that, which I have used with pies and cobblers, and to make a peach bread pudding last Friday, is to macerate the peaches with sugar and a bit of lemon juice for half an hour or more, then strain off the liquid and reduce that by 2/3 on the stovetop, and then make the dessert. That concentrates and intensifies the flavor, and eliminates or cuts down on the amount of tapioca or cornstarch that's needed, depending on the application. For preserves, you could do what I do with sour cherries, which is to strain the fruit and only use a small amount of the juice when measuring the peaches for the preserving kettle. The peaches continue to exude juice when cooking the jam, and it seems like the amount of pectin you are using is being overwhelmed by all of the liquid.

This is a good tip. I will need to try this next round. I can tell you that both batches of preserves had the same amount of pectin and the blackberry is a jam while the peach is liquid. I may try the reduction method you suggest next year.

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