What Are You Preserving, and How Are You Doing It? (2016–)

[kayb]

They weren't bad at all. I cracked them all over, rolling them around in my palms, and then put them back in cold water. Started peeling at the rounded end, and if you can get under the membrane, the shell comes off for the most part in a long spiral ribbon.

 

One interesting note: I was peeling counterclockwise. I found that if the egg wasn't peeling well, I could change the way I held it so the direction was reversed, and it'd peel like a charm.

 

[sartoric]

On 17/12/2016 at 8:11 PM, liuzhou said:

 

I'm delighted to hear you decided to try it. Please do say what you think of it.

 

BTW, the recipe is here.

 

 

A little lunch today - the relish on slices of aged cheddar on sesame Vita Wheats. 'Twas marvellous ! 

No photo, scarfed it down.

[ChocoMom]

Made a vat of Uncle Carl's sloppy joe recipe over at the new house.  Used a bit for dinner, plus 1 quart for lunches tomorrow.  And..pulled out that magical wonder- the pressure canner- then proceeded to can another 6 quarts for later use.  

This new BlueStar stove is amazing. I ran it on the lowest setting, and it kept the pressure perfectly for 90 minutes. 

[suzilightning]

On ‎12‎/‎17‎/‎2016 at 9:19 AM, suzilightning said:

From Vivian Howard's book the Rutabaga Pickles.  John's cousin Debbie and her daughter love rutabagas as do I.  I had one leftover from the dish I did for Thanksgiving and have a pint jar for both ladies and a half pint for myself.  Will report back on how they are ... Ms. Howard suggested letting them go for a week before trying.  What could be bad, though?

 

spoken as someone who drinks pickle liquid.......

Well this was an epic FAIL. 

The pickling liquid and everything else was fine but the rutabagas never softened at all.  Luckily I didn't give any away.  I went back and re-read the recipe.  I followed it to the letter.  Not sure what went wrong.

Will strain out the liquid and throw the veg away...

[HungryChris]

Found some nice looking pickling cukes and made garlic refrigerator dills. The mushrooms were on sale and looked good as well.

HC

 

[chefmd]

Beef jerky in my thrift shop found brand new Nesco dehydrator that sat me back four dollars!  No temperatue control but it did a great job!  Beef was marinated in soy sauce, Lao Gan Ma, red pepper flakes.

[blue_dolphin]

So last week, I spotted a recipe for a small batch of blood orange marmalade on the LA Times website and thought it would be fun to try so I picked up some blood oranges at the local farmers' market.  

 

Before I get into that, I thought I'd mention that Marisa of the Food In Jars blog, is hosting a preserving skills mastery challenge for 2017 featuring a different skill each month.  January was marmalade and I thought the fun part was the round-up she's publishing at the end of the month, sharing some of the submissions from participants.  Fun to see what people come up with. Here's a link to the marmalade round-up.  

 

My fridge is suffering from condiment over-population at the moment but I think I will participate in the challenge anyway as a way to try some new things.  February is Salt Preserving.  I've still got plenty of preserved lemons in the fridge but I should put up a jar of limes since my tree is absolutely loaded. 

 

Back to the blood oranges.  The LA Times recipe has you remove the zest with a peeler and slice it into fine shreds, then cut off all the pith and basically supreme the fruits. My oranges were small and I was disturbed by the amount of flesh I was losing in the process of removing all the pith - they were just about golf ball-size once I removed the zest and pith.  Christine Ferber has a recipe that uses just the zest and juice but it depends on making a green apple pectin, something I didn't feel like doing. Then I remembered that I had good success with the quick Instant Pot marmalade that sliced the whole fruits with a mandoline so I switched to that method.  I'm sure I could have gotten a more refined, sweeter and less bitter result from the first process but I'm happy with this.  It's fairly bitter and I decided to play that up by adding a shot of Campari just before it reached the set point.  

 

Blood Orange-Campari Marmalade:

 

Edited to add:  The Instant Pot recipe I linked to calls for a 2X ratio of sugar to fruit for lemon or lime and suggests less for oranges.  I started out with 1X and added a bit more after tasting so the final was 1.33X.

Along with the Campari, I also added about 1.5 oz of lime juice and a pinch of salt to balance the dominant sweet-bitter thing. 

600 g fruit/zest from 9 small blood oranges

800 g sugar

1.5 oz lime juice

1.5 oz Campari

pinch salt

Edited February 4, 2017 by blue_dolphin (log)

[ninagluck]

what a coincidence, I just started to make my marmalade from seville oranges today

[FrogPrincesse]

@ninagluckI am so jealous of your Seville oranges! They may be available here in SD but I haven't had a chance to go to the farmers market to find out. Stores don't carry them.

 

Meanwhile I have a batch of kumquat marmalade in progress. I bought them a couple of weeks ago and almost forgot about them! I am following this recipe from David Lebovitz.

 

 

 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

1 hour ago, FrogPrincesse said:

@ninagluckI am so jealous of your Seville oranges! They may be available here in SD but I haven't had a chance to go to the farmers market to find out. Stores don't carry them.

 

Meanwhile I have a batch of kumquat marmalade in progress. I bought them a couple of weeks ago and almost forgot about them! I am following this recipe from David Lebovitz.

 

 

 

 

What's the green stuff in the first picture?

 

[FrogPrincesse]

Just now, JoNorvelleWalker said:

 

What's the green stuff in the first picture?

 

 

The seeds! It's fairly quick to slice the kumquats but then they have to be deseeded, and that is a rather slow process as they are full of seeds! In the first picture, the top pile of slices still have their seeds, while the bottom pile has been deseeded.

 

All the seeds go into a piece of cheesecloth so their pectin can be extracted.

[chromedome]

I used to halve mine, squeeze out the seeds over a strainer, then finish slicing them. Speeded things quite a bit, I found, and I'd reclaim the juice from the bowl under the strainer when I was done (there usually wasn't much).

 

I was using them in sauce quantities, not marmalade quantities, but I expect the principle's the same.

[ninagluck]

I bought a beautiful, large cedro lemon at the market. on the stand with the preserved fruits I saw some candied ones, they are cut in half lenghtwise, innerpart removed and the rind with the thick albedo perfectly translucent. has anyone tried that?

[teonzo]

If you are talking about traditional candied cedro (like this one) then just don't try it. You need to start with a green fruit, then follow a peculiar method. If you start from a ripe (yellow) fruit then you will end with a huge disappointing mess. We discussed about it on this thread:

Ripe cedro (peel and albedo) can be great in salads (fennel, arugula, so on). You can make a great marmalade. Just avoid candying it.

 

 

 

Teo

 

[ninagluck]

@teonzo  thank you so much for saving me hours in the kitchen with a final disappointment

[kayb]

I pulled a quart and a pint of tomatoes out of the pantry today with an eye toward putting vegetable beef soup in the Instant Pot after dinner tonight to have tomorrow. I don't know if the tomatoes are this past summer's or the previous summers. The seal is intact, but the tomatoes have turned a bit dark on top. I haven't opened them yet, but I can't see any obvious mold or anything of that nature.

 

If they pass the smell test when opened, should I use them? Toss them? Haven't run across this problem before.

 

[Shelby]

43 minutes ago, kayb said:

I pulled a quart and a pint of tomatoes out of the pantry today with an eye toward putting vegetable beef soup in the Instant Pot after dinner tonight to have tomorrow. I don't know if the tomatoes are this past summer's or the previous summers. The seal is intact, but the tomatoes have turned a bit dark on top. I haven't opened them yet, but I can't see any obvious mold or anything of that nature.

 

If they pass the smell test when opened, should I use them? Toss them? Haven't run across this problem before.

 

I've had that happen.  I don't know why it happens.  Now, of course, people are going to say "when in doubt, toss it out" but if they smell like heavenly garden canned tomatoes, I've eaten them.  I obviously don't want you to get sick, but I've used them.  You're going to probably bring them to a simmer/boil in a soup so......

[FrogPrincesse]

Kumquat marmalade day 2 - cooking with the sugar, and the finished product. I added 1/2 tsp of kirsch from Basel at the end as a little flavoring boost.

 

 

 

 

 

[ElainaA]

2 hours ago, kayb said:

I pulled a quart and a pint of tomatoes out of the pantry today with an eye toward putting vegetable beef soup in the Instant Pot after dinner tonight to have tomorrow. I don't know if the tomatoes are this past summer's or the previous summers. The seal is intact, but the tomatoes have turned a bit dark on top. I haven't opened them yet, but I can't see any obvious mold or anything of that nature.

 

If they pass the smell test when opened, should I use them? Toss them? Haven't run across this problem before.

 

I agree with Shelby. If the seal is intact and they were initially processed as long as they should be AND they smell fine - I would use them. Be sure to boil them. I am sort of squirming as I type this - I am a bit of a fanatic on food safety. But If they pass the above tests, i would use them.

[kayb]

3 hours ago, Shelby said:

I've had that happen.  I don't know why it happens.  Now, of course, people are going to say "when in doubt, toss it out" but if they smell like heavenly garden canned tomatoes, I've eaten them.  I obviously don't want you to get sick, but I've used them.  You're going to probably bring them to a simmer/boil in a soup so......

Kinda what I thought. Soup delayed until tomorrow night because, doggone it, I'm tired. Or taa-aahd, in the vernacular.

 

[sartoric]

The current batch of olives, brining away.

Didn't lift a finger for these, our house/dog sitter sorted them while we were OS.

They'll be ready to try in a couple of weeks.

 

Edited February 9, 2017 by sartoric (log)

[kayb]

I cannot imagine how wonderful it must be to have an olive tree. 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

26 minutes ago, kayb said:

I cannot imagine how wonderful it must be to have an olive tree. 

 

A friend's mother-in-law has a oliveyard in Morocco.

 

[HungryChris]

Pickled / marinated mushrooms. Whole white mushrooms were on sale at Aldi this week. It took 7 8 0z pkgs to fill this 2 quart jar. I clean and cut them, bring to a boil in salted vinegar water with bay leaves. Drain and put them into the jar with several cloves of crushed garlic, sliced onions, 1 1/2 TBS kosher salt, dried dill weed and  crushed red pepper. I fill the jar  half way up with distilled vinegar, add water to the 3/4 point and top off with good Italian dressing. Refrigerate for a few days and give it a shake every now and then. They are a great addition to a salad or as a snack. Here they are cooling on the deck rail.

HC

 

 

Edited February 21, 2017 by HungryChris (log)

[Shelby]

32 minutes ago, HungryChris said:

Pickled / marinated mushrooms. Whole white mushrooms were on sale at Aldi this week. It took 7 8 0z pkgs to fill this 2 quart jar. I clean and cut them, bring to a boil in salted vinegar water with bay leaves. Drain and put them into the jar with several cloves of crushed garlic, sliced onions, 1 1/2 TBS kosher salt, dried dill weed and  crushed red pepper. I fill the jar  half way up with distilled vinegar, add water to the 3/4 point and top off with good Italian dressing. Refrigerate for a few days and give it a shake every now and then. They are a great addition to a salad or as a snack. Here they are cooling on the deck rail.

HC

HC

 

These look soooo gooood.  I love pickled mushrooms.  Store bought ones are always to vinegar-y for me.