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Guest Essay

Seasonal Canning Giveaway

Jul 11th, 2012
by Shannon.
2 comments

Editor’s Note: A couple weeks back, members from Canning Across America had the opportunity to chat with Marisa McClellan of Food In Jars while we noshed on an assortment of pickled vegetables and savored a batch of last years strawberry schrub. We were so inspired by her new book Food in Jars: Preserving in Small Batches Year-Round (Running Press, July 2012), that together we wanted to share the joys of seasonal canning with our readers prior to our fourth annual Can-a-rama. Enjoy!

The first time I really clued into the concept of seasonality was when I was a sophomore in college. In those days, I lived in Walla Walla, WA, home of vineyards, wheat fields and a fast and furious asparagus season. For the two or so weeks of harvest, asparagus was everywhere and typically sold for as little as three pounds for $1.

I had grown up thinking of asparagus as a special-occasion vegetable, too pricy for anything other than birthday suppers and holiday meals. Seeing it for so little at every independent grocery store in town made me realize that it wasn’t an inherently expensive vegetable when grown locally. It was the travel and scarcity that made it so. I’ve carried around that lesson every since.

Once you clue into the seasonality of food, there’s really no going back. Not only are things more affordable when they’re abundant, they also taste far better. The one question that comes up is what do you do when you have a hankering for asparagus in November or peaches in January? You can either squelch the urge or you can do a little work during their respective seasons.

I choose to do the work every time. I make asparagus pickles each spring, make vast vats of apricot jam in July and preserve about 100 pounds of tomatoes each September. As I eat through my stores, I think about the time I spent preserving and appreciate the seasonality of food, even from half a year away.

To enter to win a copy of my new book, featuring 100+ seasonal recipes for everything from jams and pickles to chutneys and flavored salts, visit the Canning Across America giveaway page.

CAA Contributor Marisa McClellan grew up in Oregon, where she learned to can local blueberries, blackberries and apples from her mother. A move across the country came between her and her canning pot, but a fortuitous blueberry picking expedition with a friend in 2006 reawakened her passion, and she has been canning and preserving ever since, blogging about it on Food in Jars, one of the Internet’s most popular and enduring canning blogs, which was selected as one of Saveur magazine’s “Sites We Love” in 2011. 

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My Experience With National Can-It-Forward Day 2011

Jul 9th, 2012
by Jeanne.
Comments are off for this post

Editor’s Note: As we gear up for the Can-A-Rama weekend next week, we look back at last year’s event as seen through the eyes of one of our backstage helpers!

A sunny Saturday at Seattle’s Pike Place Market is bound to be mayhem with crowds of foodies. Last August 13 in the midst of fruit vendors, fish throwers, and coffee roasters, the Canning Across America team set up shop under a pop up tent on the cobblestone streets eager to show off their knowledge, creativity, and playful attitudes for the National Can-It-Forward Day event. With various cooks from the gluten-free favorite Jeanne Sauvage to the rabble rousing Shibaguyz, the day was packed with innovative demonstrations and delectable samples. Each demo alternated between the creation of a canned product and example of how to use it in other dishes, showing passers-by that canning isn’t just about jelly.

I was located in the prep station, conveniently partitioned off to the side of the kitchen set-up. Surrounded by boxes of jars, produce, and gadgets, we back-stagers were in charge of getting every ingredient and tool ready for the show. Sound hard? The quick turnaround of dicing veggies and scrubbing pots in our makeshift wash-basins was not a stressful race as one might expect with so many culinary demos. It was full of laughter, interaction from playful bystanders, and so many delicious samples and snacks. The Ball Canning crew really knew what they were doing and kept churning out finished products as fast as we had the ingredients prepared. Between the crowd, the lively team, and the beautiful weather, the day was both jovial and informative. Thankfully technical difficulties were minimal, no fingers or eyebrows were lost, and through the curtain separating stage from sideline, I gained more knowledge about canning techniques than I ever thought possible.

The morning began with Jeanne, who whipped up a beautiful mixed berry jam that was served to the audience on fresh baguettes from Le Panier. After the demo, retro pastry chef Kelsey Angell of the Pink Door Restaurant swooped in like Lucille Ball meets a Hell’s Angel to show how to use that jam to make a Mixed Berry Torta with a flaky golden lattice that left us gluten free’ers salivating. Next up was a pickling tutorial by Allrecipes’s Judith Dern. The cooked cukes were turned into dill pickle and cream cheese sandwiches by Diane LaVonne of Diane’s Market Kitchen generating much excitement from the crowd for the how-to of such a simple treat. Who knew that with the help of the Ball Home-Canning kit, pickling was literally as easy as one, two, three? The next project stayed on the savory course with canned tomatoes, (courtesy of preserving blogger Brook Hurst Stephens) which were transformed into an aromatic seafood soup by French chef Phillipe Thomelin of Olivar Restaurant. With the help of a few additions including saffron, fresh scallops, and olive oil, Chef Thomelin had heads turning and necks craning. “I thought this was a canning demo?” one man said out in the peanut gallery. It is! Look what you can whip up with a dash of fish! Last but not least were the Shibaguyz Shannon and Jason Mullet-Bowlsby, who kept energy high for the finale of pepper jelly, a spicy addition to the bunch. Several stragglers stopped by the prep station asking to buy a jar of the hot sweet treat. Although no products were up for auction, they weren’t left empty handed but directed to the Canning Across America recipe section to make their own!

With rising trends in locavorism, home-growing, and community gardens, it’s no wonder that canning has stepped up as a serious new fixture in the food world. The concept has changed from a technique to survive winter into a wonderful way to enjoy seasonal flavors year round—while also getting really creative. Sorry jam, your glory days are over. Pickled vegetables, chutneys, jellies, syrups, and pie fillings have bumped up from their status as artisanal treats purchased in gourmet shops to the latest DIY projects. Pickled lemon asparagus, ginger fig jelly, or spicy peach tomatillo salsa anyone?

Not only is canning fun, but it’s affordable. As a college student, I’m on a tight budget but would rather cook than eat cheap, processed foods. Making my own is a bit more laborious, but a labor of love that I find relaxing, educational, and comforting. I’ve loved canning ever since I starting playing with the surplus from my aunts fig tree. It has only been a few years but has become a seasonal ritual that allows me to indulge in nostalgia for other seasons and regional flavors. It’s economical, especially if you grow your own produce, and it’s fun to do with friends or family. Last summer my mom and I made blackberry jam (a hysterically messy, laughter infused process) that I am still giving as gifts.

Last fall, I used my canning equipment for autumnal flavors. I went to the farmers market then made pumpkin butter, applesauce, and pickled cauliflower using the jars from the polished off strawberry and fig jams I made this summer! Unfortunately my canning bath is at home in Seattle but I make small batches in my pint-sized New York apartment. You don’t always need to make an event out of it, sometimes it’s nice to just experiment a little, especially if you’re prone to stockpiling your cabinets with surplus but take your time getting to the bottom of a jar. I also like to make one big batch of jam or fruit butter and add different spices to different jars at the end. That way I get to see which flavor combinations I like the best without making a dozen batches.

Canning isn’t only about tradition anymore–it’s also about freedom of expression. Work with what’s in season with the help of local markets, reuse your jars, swap with friends, and get crazy. Don’t forget to read the safety book on safe home canning though as it’s crucial to do it properly– you don’t want your loved ones to get a gift that keeps on giving (in a bad way!).

CAA Contributor Kayla Harvey is in her senior year of undergraduate studies for photojournalism at Eugene Lang College, The New School for Liberal Arts in New York City. She is an avid baker and canner during her summers at home in Seattle and drags her concoctions back across the country to savor Northwest produce year-round. She is working on a photojournal on educating children about nutrition through community gardens and school programs.

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To Can or Not to Can. That Is the Question.

May 11th, 2012
by Jeanne.
1 comment

Have you ever seen a super hot deal on produce and think “I should can that”? Me, too.

I’m what many seasoned canners call a “newbie”: meaning that I am new to canning. And last fall I purchased a shopping bag of persimmons. Then I did what all newbies should: scouted for a tested recipe from a reputable source.

The search produced few results–persimmons are, it turns out, not a popular fruit to can. Not a single hit from my favorite resources: the National Center for Home Preservation website (I love the search function), Ball Canning website, or my other canning books. To add insult to injury, the conflicting information online gave me little hope that I could successfully water bath the fruit without a pH meter to determine how much acid was needed to remain safe.

Turns out (pardon me if this is already common knowledge), there are many varieties of persimmons with a variety of characteristics that make some of them unappealing to can, including astringency. Fortunately, I had picked a non-astringent variety.

In the end, I scrapped my processing aspirations for the safest option. One that my Master Canner pals would be proud of: refrigerated persimmon pickles and refrigerated persimmon butter.

To my newbie delight, the un-processing adventure was a success. Refrigerated foods in cans might not last all year in your cupboard but are just as tasty. The butter was introduced at a dinner party (within a thumbprint cookie) and the refrigerator pickles made a debut for Thanksgiving. I’ve taken on a new title that no longer reflects my length of experience but my passion for safe preservation.

As a founding member of our collective, I’m here to tell you that us newbies are doing more than a riding trend and blogging about it. We know our limits. And hopefully, we are helping to creating a forum for conversation about safe preservation.

Quick Persimmon Refrigerator Pickles

Modified from The Budding Gourmet

Ingredients
10 ripe Fuyu non-astringent persimmons (approximately 3lbs)
3 tsp white mustard seeds
2 tsp black peppercorns
1 tsp fennel seeds
2 tsp salt
9 cloves garlic, cracked
3 red chili peppers
3 cups white distilled vinegar
¼ cup sugar

  1. Wash persimmons and dry. Remove stems and core. Slice into wedges.
  2. Grind spices into a course powder (I like to use a dedicated coffee grinder for all of my spice concoctions but you can also use a mortar and pestle)
  3. Place persimmons into 3 sterilized pint jars. Add three garlic cloves and one red chili pepper per jar. Pour 1/3 of the spice mixture in each jar.
  4. Combine vinegar, sugar, and salt in a pan and bring to boil, stirring until dissolved.
  5. Pour hot vinegar into jar and remove all bubbles.
  6. Cover with lids and bands and store in refrigerator for one week.

Makes 3 Pints

Persimmon Butter (refrigerated)

Modified from Saving the Season

Ingredients

10 ripe Fuyu non-astringent persimmons (approximately 3lbs)
2 cups of water
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 ½ tsp pomegranate molasses
1 ½ tsp honey
1 tsp cinnamon (ground)
½ tsp ground nutmeg
1 cup sugar
6 sprigs of thyme

  1. Wash persimmons and dry. Remove stems and core. Slice into ½” cubes.
  2. Place persimmons in pot with water and simmer 25-35 minutes until soft. Run through a food mill.
  3. Return puree to pot and add sugar, pomegranate molasses, honey, lemon juice, cinnamon and nutmeg. Bring to boil and then lower heat to simmer. While constantly stirring, reduce to consistency of a soft apple butter. (Note: I use a heat diffuser like this one when making butters.)
  4. When reduced by half, add leaves from 6 small sprigs of thyme.
  5. Place persimmon butter into 3 sterilized ½ pint jars. Remove bubbles. Cool on countertop and refrigerate. Eat within one week or freeze in snap-seal container.

CAA Founding Member Shannon Kelly is the founder of In Your Head trends research, creative development, and marketing consultancy. Since joining the collective in 2009, she has gone from rookie to intermediate canner—putting up a pantry full of pickles and preserves with friends. In addition, she runs the CAA Facebook page.  Shannon tweets about the intersection of food, fashion and culture as @trendscaping and loves to can in stylish shoes.

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Preserving Fruit, Preserving Memories, Preserving Myself

Jan 11th, 2012
by Jeanne.
1 comment

There are times in life when things just don’t go according to plan. For someone like me, who loves to plan the future, there is really nothing worse than periods of chaos and uncertainty.

I’ve spent the last six years in graduate school, getting a PhD in Indian literature. For the last six years, my life has been fairly well organized, with plenty of structure and purpose. I travelled all over India to examine archives and learn languages. I spent days and nights single-mindedly writing my dissertation on Classical Indian poetry. It was the perfect life for me. A life of pleasant order, with plenty of time to write and think.

Then, one day, I finished my dissertation and graduated. I was suddenly on the job market, in the real world, forced to reckon with my next step. I spent days searching for jobs, applying to jobs, facing rejection for the first time in my life. There was nothing to do but to keep forging ahead, against the odds. For me, not having a vision of the next step was so disheartening that I became, well, not depressed, but perhaps, blue. While I waited to hear back from jobs, I felt completely unproductive. In fact, I felt like I was losing sight of what I wanted from life, of the things that gave me pleasure in life, of the joy of pursuing a project. It was hard, when I was not doing anything, to remember who I was.

It was then that I reread Midnight’s Children, by Salman Rushdie. The main character of the book, Saleem, describes his relationship with chutney, that wonderful Indian canned delicacy. Towards the end of his exciting life, Saleem spends his days making chutneys because preserving food, to him, is a form of preserving memories. In a jar of chutney, he can include his favorite flavors and tastes, which as everybody knows, are connected to memories:

“…Rising from my pages comes the unmistakable whiff of chutney. So let me obfuscate no further: I, Saleem Sinai, possessor of the most delicately-gifted olfactory organ in history, have dedicated my latter days to the the large-scale preparation of condiments… You are amazed: but then I am not, you see, one of your 200-rupee-a-month cookery johnnies, but my own master, working beneath the saffron and green winking of my personal neon goddess. And my chutneys and kasaundies are, after all, connected to my nocturnal scribblings – by day amongst the pickle-vats, by night within these sheets, I spend my time at the great work of preserving. Memory, as well as fruit, is being saved from the corruption of the clocks.” (36, Midnight’s Children. Salman Rushdie, Penguin Books 1980).

Inspired by Rushie, one of my favorite authors, I decided to stop despondently looking ahead to the next step, and to do something productive. I decided to make chutney, or in American terminology, jam.

It was the best thing I could have done to get out of a funk. Jam making is an inherently productive task. You take your fruit, you create an interesting flavor profile, throwing in spices and liquors, and then, at the end of the process you have produced a bright, beautifully colored jar of something delicious. It gives you something lovely to offer those around you–your friends, your loved ones.

The task of jam making also gives you time to think. As you are chopping fruit and as you are slowly stirring your pot, so that the sugar does not burn, your mind can wander, or perhaps focus. While I was jam making, I stopped thinking ahead to the next job application or the next stage of my career. Instead, I remembered making strawberry jam as a little girl growing up in Paris with my mother. I thought about all the delicious jams I had tasted while having tea when I was living in London to do research. Like the character Saleem, preserving fruit allowed me to preserve memories. I thought about the things in life that give me pleasure and happiness. I began to feel like a whole person again. Someone who had a great deal to offer the world.

The creativity in the kitchen made me feel creative in other ways as well. I thought about all the different, exciting things I could do with my life. Things that were not in the original plan. Now, I’m on track to do a range of entrepreneurial and humanitarian projects that I never imagined I would do.

Why do I can? It gives me something productive to throw myself into, and that productivity is contagious. It helps me remember who I am, the simple tastes and experiences that I enjoy. It allows me to be creative and to think creatively about my future.

CAA contributor Liz Segran recently completed her PhD in Indian literature. She currently lives in Cambridge MA with her fiancé. She is the creator of Jam Experiments.

 

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Fermented Delicacies at Revel Restaurant

Oct 25th, 2011
by Jeanne.
2 comments

National Can it Forward Day has come and gone but that doesn’t mean the pickling action is over in the Pacific Northwest. In addition to working with Canning Across America I have the great privilege of working with amazing chefs and farmers at Seattle area markets and culinary events. Through this connection I’ve become involved with the Seattle’s Chef Collaborative chapter and therefore am afforded the opportunity to enjoy an amazing array of educational events offered up at area restaurants and farms.

Most recently I was invited to one of my favorite Seattle restaurants headed by Chef Rachel Yang, Revel, to partake in all things fermented. And while we didn’t eat everything you can ferment there was a pretty overwhelming array of preserved delicacies to try. Chef Yang and her co-conspirator and husband, Seif Chirchi have had a very healthy fermenting pantry going for years at their restaurant, Joule, in Wallingford and they favored us with an incredible dose of what they’ve been up to in that magic pantry.

Revel’s long chef’s counter was the perfect place for them to showcase an overwhelming pickled spread which featured:

Oysters with grapefruit and fennel
Cherries with Grand manier, cinnamon, orange, and star anise made into a rum cocktail
Marion berries dropped into sparkling wine
Beets with romanesco, coriander and lemon
Beef tongue with pepper and shallot (my personal favorite)
Baby carrots with cumin and chili
Nuoc cham cucumbers
Shrimp with corn and celery
Harissa pickled scapes
Watermelon
Pig’s feet and skin
Chowchow composed of corn, patty pan squash and turmeric




Kimchis:
Baby turnip kimchi
Chioggia and golden beet water kimchi
Napa cabbage white kimchi
Cucumber and garlic chive kimchi
Fennel and apple kimchi


Mostardas:
Apricot, mustard, shallot
Cherry, mustard, shallot

These pickled and preserved delicacies were served alongside 5 spice smoked duck breast, cured sardines and the largest rounds of cooked pork belly I’ve ever seen.

If reading about this spread makes you want to take a stab at fermenting, you might want to start with a favorite of mine Pat Tanumihardia’s classic cabbage kimchi recipe.

Happy Preserving!

CAA Contributor Jenise Da Silva is passionate about cooking, gardening and the “farm to school” movement. Jenise’s experience with canning started when she was a kid in the Midwest and she continues that tradition today. She has used her experience in community building, marketing & brand management to create many award-winning projects including FireFree which was recognized with top honors (the Golden Smokey Award) by the US Forest Service.  She authored the book Women and Money and launched a national facilitated discussion series (years before Suzie Orman penned a book under the same name).  Jenise is an avid supporter of community gardening and farmers markets and you can usually find her at Pike Place Market, in a PCC Cooks classroom, weeding in the Interbay P-Patch or at a farmers market in Seattle.

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Confessions of a Canning Virgin

Sep 30th, 2011
by Jeanne.
2 comments

Honestly, if I had been this nervous about sex, I would still be a virgin. I can proudly say that I am a canning virgin no more. In contrast to other such firsts, this time I was very anxious before, but deeply satisfied later.

This inaugural journey into canning was not pretty. You might say the journey of a thousand tomatoes begins with a single slice. In my case, I was about… oh… maybe, THREE tomatoes in when it happened. That’s three tomatoes in — to the FIVE pounds of tomatoes my first canning recipe called for. When I sliced my finger, I sliced it well. A beautiful u-shaped cut that supplied copious blood. I contemplated a trip to the ER, weighing it against the loss of the produce and against the concept of a failed canning adventure.

I recalled the time a nurse told me that 20 minutes is the point at which the bleeding should stop and if it hasn’t by that time, you go get stitches. In that case, as I recall, it was more like 40 minutes and a roll and a half of paper towels…but this time, I had a mission. And, I had a bunch of fresh tomatoes from the farmers’ market.

So this, I tell myself, cannot be like that time. It just can’t. I’ve already got the twelve ears of corn, shucked, parboiled, and cut from the cobs. I’ve already got the other ingredients all “mised up”–diced, peeled, measured. I flush the finger with hydrogen peroxide, I press the wound closed, apply pressure, hold it over my head. I am grateful for clean, sharp knives. The cut doesn’t hurt as much as it worries. It must be tonight! Even ran out of cumin, but got some more.

Eyeing the now-so-much-more-enormous looking bowl of tomatoes, I slice. Carefully. And slowly. This is going to take a lot longer than I’d anticipated. The throbbing left middle finger complains as I make my way, gingerly, through the five pounds of tomatoes.

Who was it that recently advised me against starting a canning project after dinner? I insist upon ignoring perfectly good advice, as I have done all my life, and forge ahead. This is the girl who refused to consider the Iowa Writers’ Workshop simply because it was in a state other than NY or CA. Why start listening now?

Upon returning from a weekend with a small group of insanely fun, intensely talented, incredibly supportive women, I was inspired to try this home canning thing. So I began looking for my equipment. I began poring over books. I decided that my first solo attempt should come from Sherri Brooks Vinton’s excellent book, Put ‘em Up! This seemed only right as it was Sherri who walked us through her pickled spicy carrots (page 148) recipe. We all went home with a jar.

Canning Across America helped start the Canvolution, which helped to fireup a national interest in home canning. I looped in my girl Linsey Herman and she jumped on it. She gathered a group to to offer a canning, preservation and pickling seminar in Cambridge as part of Canning Across America. Nika Boyce  is one local expert who taught us that day. Alex Lewin  demonstrated and walked us through lacto-fermentation. I remind myself that I’ve sort of done this before.

Re-reading the how-to section, in Put ‘em Up!, I discover I’m supposed to have two inches (minimum) above the lids after they’ve been elevated by the lid rings from the bottom of the pot. Preferably three. I have just one inch.

The pot I planned to use (my big pasta pot) is not tall enough. I pull out the stock pot which is slightly taller. It will only hold four jars, but I’ll have a little more room for boiling water to cover the top of the jars.

Now, I have to figure out how to configure lid rings and a smaller jar to ensure the filled pints stay upright. My glasses begin steaming up. I time the veggies so that the Corn-Tomato Salsa will be hot when the jars are hot.

More questions: should I have seen those teensy air bubbles escaping the rings when I lower the filled jars into the water bath? How will it affect the seal if I only had one inch of bubbling water?

Since only one pot in the house is deep enough to hold the jars with an inch of water above, I have to process the second batch after first come out of same pot. I get the kettle going.

Rolling boil in this pot means water all over the cooktop. I didn’t hear “pings” from the first batch but the seals appear to be fine. When I take the second batch out of the water bath, they ping immediately. Suddenly, I’m so happy. I can almost forget about the throbbing finger. Almost.

I end in the wee hours of the morning, with eight pints of corn-tomato salsa, some leftover for the fridge, a ton of pride and determination to can more. Can a pressure canner be far off?

Tips for Canning Virgins:

Many advise picking something easy like jam to start out. We just don’t eat much jam.  I’m lucky to have friends that gift me jars now and then and that’s much-appreciated. I wanted something that we would really enjoy and use a lot. So either, pick something easy if you follow conventional wisdom. Or, if you don’t, pick something you will love, regardless of whether it’s easy or not.

1) Think through the prep and start at an appropriate hour.

2) Prepare your canning “mise en place”–i.e., get the tools you’ll need all clean and lined up. Prep as much of the raw materials ahead if you can. You don’t want jars to cool off while you begin chopping or peeling.

3) Clean sharp knife always make kitchen work easier and safer. Also makes cuts hurt less, heal faster.

4) Read through the recipe and canning steps several times. I learn best by doing, not reading. I can tell you my next canning experience was so less fraught. I did some beets. Only, I forgot to think through what would be the weight of the beets in the recipe without the greens. So, I ended up with one and a half jars of beets. The half jar went into the fridge.

5) Check the height of your jars and lid rings etc., before you get that water boiling.

You will enjoy this tremendous feeling of self-sufficiency when you have your finished jars lined up. Don’t fret, canning is like many things we do every day with hardly a thought about the dangers. Things like crossing the street or driving a car are just as hazardous if we don’t follow simple rules and precautions. So it is with canning. Forget the rules, you can grow harmful, even lethal bacteria in your preserved food. Follow the rules you will be fine.

Using Boiling Water Canners: Tips from The National Center for Home Food Preservation

CAA Contributor Jacqueline Church is an always-hungry, ever-curious freelance writer. Currently, she’s working on a book about chefs and the heritage breed pigs they love. She’s a topic editor at Suite101.com where she writes the gourmet food column and writes frequently about the intersection of sustainability and gourmet food. She has remodeled her fingers more times than she can count. You may find her at Jacqueline Church, on Facebook, and she’s @LDGourmet on Twitter.

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Cleaning Out the Fridge With Quick Pickling

Sep 9th, 2011
by Jeanne.
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Got produce in your fridge? You can quick pickle all of it. Fruit, vegetables–heck, putting vinaigrette on salad is the quickest pickling possible.

I am obsessed with condiments. To me, condiments complete a meal. So when I learned how to quick pickle produce, every weekend turned into an adventure in brining. And that’s all there is to it, mastering a brine and fiddling with flavor. With quick pickling, you can celebrate produce that is in season, but it’s an even better method for preserving what you’d like to hang on to in your refrigerator just a while longer.

A brine is essentially a salt-based soaking liquid originally developed to preserve food. Quick pickling adds vinegar, sugar and water.  That’s it!  Understand the ratio, consider the food pairing potential, and start slicing. All you need is a foundation recipe and flavor enhancing becomes your namesake.

The recipe that jump started my quick pickling craze is David Chang’s “Vinegar Pickles, Master Recipe” in his cookbook, Momofuku. In the book, he also lists about fifteen fruits and vegetables that one could quick pickle with only slight variations to the recipe. And for many, the variations are simply technique on how the produce should be sliced and prepared.

Now for the vinegar. Vinegar not only brightens the flavor, it also brightens the color of what you are quick pickling. I tend to lean toward rice wine vinegar most of the time simply because of its milder flavor; apple cider vinegar and white vinegar tend to have a more sour bite–but these bold tastes often mature with time in the jar. And after reading about vinegar in the Wall Street Journal article, “Vinegar, Every Chef’s Secret Weapon,” I’m on a rampage to buy and try vinegars. I especially like the quote, “salt makes everything round–acid brings the flavors into focus.” Low and behold, quick pickling wraps everything up into a jar of balanced flavor.

As for a flavoring technique, there are two things to consider: spices and concentrating the flavor of the brining liquid. As for the spices, play with combinations that compliment what you’re quick pickling or other food that might make it to the plate. The Flavor Bible is an interesting read for brainstorms like this. As for concentrating the flavor, heating the brining liquid before pouring it over produce often works well for curing hard vegetables like carrots or turnips. Otherwise, you can prepare the brining liquid at room temperature for produce like cucumbers and most fruit.

Done and done. Root through your fridge and pull out what’s starting to go and give it one more jolt of life. Some of my favorite things to quick pickle are chili peppers and fennel; oddly enough, the heat from chili peppers mellows a bit after quick pickling and they go great with eggs and meat. My next challenge is to make a sweeter quick pickling brine for fennel to mimic the pickled fennel in a salad that I recently had at Revel in Seattle.

Remember, all you need is vinegar, salt, sugar and water to make the brine–it’s just a matter of choosing a vinegar and deciding whether to go the savory or sweet route. Pop those submerged beauties in the fridge for a week and munch on them soon thereafter as most quick pickles don’t last more than a month. Enjoy!

REFRIGERATOR PICKLES (QUICK)

CAA Contributor Sarah Lawer is a Canvolution newbie with a love for pickles and all things condiments, which makes her a perfect fit with the team. Originally from Alaska, where preserved foods and fresh ingredients are celebrated and stocked, Sarah grew up championing everything local and continues to do so today. She writes about start-up business strategies and has a new online presence coming soon, stay tuned.

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Canvolution in My Suitcase

Aug 8th, 2011
by Jeanne.
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I packed my suitcase last month full of clothes I haven’t needed in Austin, TX since February. In between all the layers Pacific Northwesterners told me to pack, I carefully stashed 11 jars of home-preserved thank you gifts to distribute on my two-week PNW book tour. (This of course meant I had to leave my second pair of cowgirl boots at home.)

My book tour has been such an adventure, propelled mostly by the kindness and enthusiasm of internet pals turned real life friends. Had I any real money, I might take friends who’ve opened up their homes to me out to dinner or buy them a nice bottle of wine, but the whole point of my book is how to do all this home-related and general life stuff on a tight budget. When it comes to food money, on the other hand, I’m rich. I have shelves full of seasons we’ve enjoyed in New York and now in Texas.

As I selected jars from my shelves, I did some guess work on what would mean the most to the recipient, and in the case of other canners, I brought something I figured they usually wouldn’t make. I brought the sweet spreads team over at Blue Chair Fruit Company–a jar of last year’s gingery watermelon rind pickles. I brought my preserving hero, Linda Ziedrich, a jar of Meyer lemon star anise marmalade, since Meyers are never local to her area.

Sure a simple thank you note would suffice, but these people are hosting a party on a weekend day they could’ve spent relaxing; they’re cleaning their floors or doing laundry to prepare for a houseguest; they’re being so darn hospitable. The least I can do is stick a jar of kaffir lime blueberry jam or rhubarb hibiscus vanilla preserves in my checked luggage.

BLUEBERRY PLUM BASIL JAM RECIPE

CAA Contributor Kate Payne is the blogger and author behind the book, The Hip Girl’s Guide to Homemaking. She lives in Austin, TX and hosts food/jar swaps and invites friends over often to watch and participate in canning adventures. She posts small-batch canning recipes, gluten-free baking projects, DIY cleaning ideas and other creative home improvisations to her blog, The Hip Girl’s Guide to Homemaking.

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Plums

Jul 27th, 2011
by Jeanne.
1 comment
Photo by basecadet from the CAA Flickr pool

Hello Canvolutionaries and Food Eaters!  I love plums.  And since it’s summer, and you’re likely human, chances are that you really, really like plums, too.

A  few years ago a friend invited me over to his house to help myself to his  abundant plum crop.  Not only did we fill our baskets (and our stomachs, and the  bottoms of our shoes) with as many plums as we could hold, but I had the awesome  challenge to get creative with what to do with all of the fruit.  Some plums went  into smoothies, and some became jam.  Some got bottled in a complete nest of  sugar, pushed to the back of the pantry, and intentionally forgotten about–eventually, I am hoping this will turn into plum brandy of some kind.  Last  Christmas, some of this extremely macerated fruit found its way into fruitcake  along with some equally-macerated kumquats.

But, my most favorite thing to happen to the majority of Tom’s plums was this plum catsup. I like it so much I included the recipe in my new book, Can It, Bottle It Smoke It. This is always in our fridge–seriously–because my entire family really digs it, particularly on baked French fries, a roasted pork loin, or even as a stir fry sauce for vegetables and tofu mixed with a little Chinese cooking wine and white pepper.  This can be hot water bath canned, but if you have the fridge space it will live in there for ages very happily.  Eat this warm or cold or anywhere in-between.

I like my catsup more tangy than sweet, but if your plums are kinda tart, or if you’re craving it as sweet as the bottled tomato stuff, by all means up the sugar to your liking. Now is the time to crank out a serious batch of this stuff–you may find that it disappears quickly.  Oh, and while it’s not by any means necessary, you get bonus extra cool points for including your own homemade marmalade.

PLUM CATSUP

CAA Contributor Karen Solomon is the author of Can It, Bottle It, Smoke It and Jam It, Pickle It, Cure It (Ten Speed Press), and the host of the Jam It Salon at 18 Reasons.  She has been a well-published food writer for over a decade. Her edible musings on the restaurant scene, sustainable food programs, culinary trends, food history, and recipe development have appeared in Fine Cooking, Prevention, Yoga Journal, Organic Style, the San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Magazine, the San Francisco Bay Guardian, Zagat Survey: San Francisco Bay Area Restaurants, and elsewhere, all of which showcase the diversity of her word-wrangling plate.



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Raspberry Jam from England to Texas

			
			

				Jul 19th, 2011
				
by Jeanne. 

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I visited the UK for the third time when I was fourteen (and actually old enough to remember) and fell in love with nearly everything. We went to Stonehenge and Windsor Castle and Buckhingham Palace.  We saw a bunch of rubbly castles in Scotland. I saw fantastic museums and gorgeous landscapes, but one of the most special things for me was having a real afternoon tea at the National Gallery.  Feeling very British, we ate clotted cream on scones with proper English tea.  It was there that I discovered the best thing about a real afternoon tea: the perfect raspberry jam that sat before me, chilled slightly, with a tiny spoon to spread it on my scone. It tasted exactly like ripe raspberries in the middle of summer–sweet with barely a hint of tartness. The ingredients list showed equal parts raspberries and sugar, a far cry from any jam I’d had before in Texas, laden with preservatives and sweeteners. Enchanted, I bought a jar and it was empty before we reached home.


Now, two years later, I was flipping through our ancient copy of Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management (for reasons now forgotten) and among instructions on how to prepare a thirteen course meal with no servants and how to cook various dishes I had no intention of eating, I found a recipe for raspberry jam. It looked simple enough, and had the golden 50:50 ratio of raspberries and sugar that the original jam did. I had experience canning from summers spent at my grandmother’s house making preserves and butters with the fruit from the trees in her backyard.  When she called and asked if I wanted to help her make strawberry jam one weekend, I told her all about the raspberry jam recipe and we decided to make both.


To make a long story short, the strawberry jam I helped with was not the culinary masterpiece we hoped for. It also had blueberries, raspberries and some chopped apples but it didn’t cook quite right, and halfway through it bubbled over and all over the stove. The next day while I slept in, my grandmother made it correctly, and it is delicious. But the raspberry jam is heaven. It tastes exactly like the jam I had at tea in the National Gallery in London, and more, because I know I made it all by myself. The recipe originally called for ¼ pint currant juice for flavor, and we bought some black cherry juice concentrate but I decided not to use it, to preserve the pure raspberry flavor. It also gave measurements in weight, e.g., one pound of raspberries to one pound of sugar, but we used volume and it tastes lovely.


This jam is wonderful warm over ice cream, on toast, or on scones eaten with afternoon tea.


RASPBERRY JAM from Mrs. Beeton


CAA Contributor Elizabeth Bowie is 16 years old and a rising junior at the Liberal Arts and Science Academy of Austin, where she is a staff writer for The Liberator, national award-winning high school newspaper. She is a HUGE Harry Potter fan, and lover of all things literary, glittery and artsy. She blogs at Cupcake Snob.




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