Canning day
Mar. 25th, 2011 02:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
magidNow that Purim is over, it's officially the countdown to Passover, which means, among other things, getting rid of the things in the fridge. I've had some containers of produce left over from making liqueurs, and had the idea I should transmogrify them somehow, since I wasn't using them as they were. And I had some brine leftover from the last batch of carrot pickles a few weeks ago. So today turned into a canning day.
I started boiling the jars, and sliced up three of the carrots I had left from the last farm share pickup (I'm sure there will be more this afternoon), figuring that would be about two pints worth, and I had about a pint of brine left, which would be about right for two pints of pickles. (The brine included: white vinegar, rice vinegar, water, salt, sugar, pink peppercorns, and the ghost of some ginger slices that weren't there in person.) It took longest for the huge pot of water for the canning jars to heat, of course.
Once the jars had boiled themselves for more than 10 minutes, I took them out, put more pink peppercorns, mustard seed, and a stick of cinnamon in two pint jars, filling them with slices of carrot. I'd guessed right: I had a few slices left to crunch on myself, and the rest fit. I'd overestimated the brine, though (or not packed the carrots as well as I'd hoped), needing a slight glug of rice vinegar for the second jar. Then those went into the canner.
I washed out the pareve soup pot I use for the food part of canning, and got the jar of boozy yellow heirloom tomatoes and basil left over from October's experimental batch of liqueur (which turned out fairly well, though the tomato flavor is not as intense as I'd like; next time with red tomatoes, since they have more tomatoeyness; I'd gotten the yellow ones because they were the only ones I found at the farmers' market that looked really good, since I'd decided to try this too late in the season). I drained them into the pot, using the boozy liquid as a base for the conserves, and ditching the basil, which was unsightly already. I chopped the tomatoes into smaller pieces, adding them to the pot with some sugar. The mix cooked for 10–15 minutes, enough time for the liquid to become more like liquid jam, and then I packed it into a half pint jar, using a chopstick to make sure there weren't air bubbles. That went into the canner with the still-boiling carrot pickles.
Next up: boozy beets, from the batch of beet liqueur. I'd found some recipes online for beet conserves, which involved boiling the beets, then adding sugar, lemon juice, zest, and bits of fresh ginger, then adding walnuts at the end. I didn't have lemons or fresh ginger, so yesterday was thinking I'd need to go to Trader Joe's (they reliably have organic lemons). This morning I remembered that I had part of a small bottle of lime juice left, and that plus ground ginger would be different, yet perhaps adequate, since I was starting with a slightly different base anyway. So I drained what liquid there was in the beets into the pot, cut the beets up more finely, then added them, the rest of the lime juice, sugar, and some ground ginger to the pot to boil into conserves.
While the beets were cooking, the carrot pickles and tomato conserves came out of the canner. I debated putting walnuts in with the beets, but when I tasted them, the lime sour was strong enough that I somehow didn't want the texture the walnuts would give, despite being a bit more on the chutney end of the flavor spectrum. Plus, this mean that nut-allergic friends could try some. Which turned out well, with two half pints plus a teeny bit more for tasting now.
While they were in the canner, I started a new batch of brine (rice vinegar, water, white vinegar, salt, a bit of local honey) and started cutting up radishes (farm share). I don't know why, but other than watermelon radishes, I'm just not a fan of them raw. I sliced white and black radishes, layering them for color contrast, putting them into three pint jars with some garlic (farm share again) and mustard seed. By the time they were ready to be processed, the beet preserves came out.
I did not estimate the brine well: yet again I have about a pint left. Perhaps more carrots next week...
And here are the results. From left to right, 2 pints of cinnamon carrot pickles, 2 half-pints of beet conserves, 3 pints of black and white radishes, 1 half-pint of tomato conserves.
I started boiling the jars, and sliced up three of the carrots I had left from the last farm share pickup (I'm sure there will be more this afternoon), figuring that would be about two pints worth, and I had about a pint of brine left, which would be about right for two pints of pickles. (The brine included: white vinegar, rice vinegar, water, salt, sugar, pink peppercorns, and the ghost of some ginger slices that weren't there in person.) It took longest for the huge pot of water for the canning jars to heat, of course.
Once the jars had boiled themselves for more than 10 minutes, I took them out, put more pink peppercorns, mustard seed, and a stick of cinnamon in two pint jars, filling them with slices of carrot. I'd guessed right: I had a few slices left to crunch on myself, and the rest fit. I'd overestimated the brine, though (or not packed the carrots as well as I'd hoped), needing a slight glug of rice vinegar for the second jar. Then those went into the canner.
I washed out the pareve soup pot I use for the food part of canning, and got the jar of boozy yellow heirloom tomatoes and basil left over from October's experimental batch of liqueur (which turned out fairly well, though the tomato flavor is not as intense as I'd like; next time with red tomatoes, since they have more tomatoeyness; I'd gotten the yellow ones because they were the only ones I found at the farmers' market that looked really good, since I'd decided to try this too late in the season). I drained them into the pot, using the boozy liquid as a base for the conserves, and ditching the basil, which was unsightly already. I chopped the tomatoes into smaller pieces, adding them to the pot with some sugar. The mix cooked for 10–15 minutes, enough time for the liquid to become more like liquid jam, and then I packed it into a half pint jar, using a chopstick to make sure there weren't air bubbles. That went into the canner with the still-boiling carrot pickles.
Next up: boozy beets, from the batch of beet liqueur. I'd found some recipes online for beet conserves, which involved boiling the beets, then adding sugar, lemon juice, zest, and bits of fresh ginger, then adding walnuts at the end. I didn't have lemons or fresh ginger, so yesterday was thinking I'd need to go to Trader Joe's (they reliably have organic lemons). This morning I remembered that I had part of a small bottle of lime juice left, and that plus ground ginger would be different, yet perhaps adequate, since I was starting with a slightly different base anyway. So I drained what liquid there was in the beets into the pot, cut the beets up more finely, then added them, the rest of the lime juice, sugar, and some ground ginger to the pot to boil into conserves.
While the beets were cooking, the carrot pickles and tomato conserves came out of the canner. I debated putting walnuts in with the beets, but when I tasted them, the lime sour was strong enough that I somehow didn't want the texture the walnuts would give, despite being a bit more on the chutney end of the flavor spectrum. Plus, this mean that nut-allergic friends could try some. Which turned out well, with two half pints plus a teeny bit more for tasting now.
While they were in the canner, I started a new batch of brine (rice vinegar, water, white vinegar, salt, a bit of local honey) and started cutting up radishes (farm share). I don't know why, but other than watermelon radishes, I'm just not a fan of them raw. I sliced white and black radishes, layering them for color contrast, putting them into three pint jars with some garlic (farm share again) and mustard seed. By the time they were ready to be processed, the beet preserves came out.
I did not estimate the brine well: yet again I have about a pint left. Perhaps more carrots next week...
And here are the results. From left to right, 2 pints of cinnamon carrot pickles, 2 half-pints of beet conserves, 3 pints of black and white radishes, 1 half-pint of tomato conserves.
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