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

[Shelby]

Kind of boring lol but I do love my new purple rubber ice cube tray!  I had some onions going south so I made Vivian's R-Rated onions and froze them.  After frozen I popped them out and vac packed them.  Handy.

 

[FauxPas]

On 6/26/2021 at 7:01 AM, Shelby said:

Kind of boring lol but I do love my new purple rubber ice cube tray!  

 

Not boring! Actually, quite beautiful!  🙂

 

I made a tiny little bit of lower-sugar apricot jam recently, just a simple recipe of fruit, sugar, lemon zest, tiny bit of Grand Marnier. It's the one thing I absolutely have to make each year. 

 

Yesterday was blackberry-raspberry jam and today was Sun Relish. Sun Relish is a recipe from The Complete Book of Small-Batch Preserving (eG-friendly Amazon.com link). It includes equal amounts of peaches and yellow bell peppers along with lemon, some hot peppers, sugar, white wine vinegar, lemon, salt. I made it a few years ago and gave some away and got some great feedback on it. It's tasty and pretty! This time I used habanero peppers but used them very sparingly. 😀

 

Blackberry-raspberry jam and Sun Relish

 

 

 

[heidih]

Cherries looked great and $2.99/pound hand picked. But minimum 2lbs so I did 2 small jars of pickled ones that I enjoyed so my on my first attempt. The liquid adds a lovely something to salads. Did the balsamic one again and a ginger apple cider vinegar one. Not heated. Kept really well last time.

[kayb]

Late next week will be figs. Friend has some getting ripe in his yard. He's going to pick and meet me to hand them over, after I return from Child B's from taking cats home and helping her unpack.

 

"Will 4-5 gallons be enough?"

 

Well, yeah. Given that a gallon will make all the fig jam I'll use in a year's time. In fact, I have some left from last year. But I'll make these up, and give him well more than half of them, and we'll both be ahead of the game. Can't say that it's that much harder to work up 4-5 gallons of figs than it is 1 gallon.

 

[Shelby]

10 minutes ago, kayb said:

Late next week will be figs. Friend has some getting ripe in his yard. He's going to pick and meet me to hand them over, after I return from Child B's from taking cats home and helping her unpack.

 

"Will 4-5 gallons be enough?"

 

Well, yeah. Given that a gallon will make all the fig jam I'll use in a year's time. In fact, I have some left from last year. But I'll make these up, and give him well more than half of them, and we'll both be ahead of the game. Can't say that it's that much harder to work up 4-5 gallons of figs than it is 1 gallon.

 

Now you're just killing me.

[kayb]

15 minutes ago, Shelby said:

Now you're just killing me.

 

Come on down. I expect there's plenty for you, too.

 

Course, you'd probably have to do the preserving at my house. Not sure fresh figs, even on ice, would make the ride back to Kansas. So just come a stay a few days. I got wine and a guest room.

 

[Shelby]

1 hour ago, kayb said:

 

Come on down. I expect there's plenty for you, too.

 

Course, you'd probably have to do the preserving at my house. Not sure fresh figs, even on ice, would make the ride back to Kansas. So just come a stay a few days. I got wine and a guest room.

 

Kay, I love you bunches......oh wouldn't that be fun!

 

Not sure you have enough wine .....I've become quite a lush....

[kayb]

We got a BIG liquor store in the next county.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

1 hour ago, kayb said:

We got a BIG liquor store in the next county.

 

So do we, but it's half a mile away.

 

[FauxPas]

Got a few pickling cukes, made a few pickles. Nothing too crazy. 🙂

 

 

[haresfur]

22 hours ago, kayb said:

Late next week will be figs. Friend has some getting ripe in his yard. He's going to pick and meet me to hand them over, after I return from Child B's from taking cats home and helping her unpack.

 

"Will 4-5 gallons be enough?"

 

Well, yeah. Given that a gallon will make all the fig jam I'll use in a year's time. In fact, I have some left from last year. But I'll make these up, and give him well more than half of them, and we'll both be ahead of the game. Can't say that it's that much harder to work up 4-5 gallons of figs than it is 1 gallon.

 

 

I have been unsuccessful at caramelizing figs but will keep trying with the 3-4 we get a year, especially since the person selling them at the farmers market is retiring. Still a long way from having enough for jam.

[shain]

Made some Indian style amba. Green mangoes with fenugreek and other spices. Sour, swee, salty, spicy.

 

 

Do you think Lao Gan Ma would approve?

[Anna N]

39 minutes ago, shain said:

Do you think Lao Gan Ma would approve?

It is a condiment that seems to have connections to almost every cuisine except Chinese!  

[kayb]

Figs. Figs, figs, figs, figs, and more figs.

 

Three pints of pickled figs (never tried 'em before, didn't have a recipe, but hey, they pickle peaches, so why not figs?). A pint of figs in brandy. What looks like it'll be 4-6 pints and 10-12 half-pints of fig jam.

 

That from about 2 1/2 gallons of the fresh variety. Brown figs, quite small. Didn't seem like they had a lot of flavor. Oh, well, cooking down to jam consistency forgives a multitude of sins.

 

[Wait. Wot]

On 8/1/2021 at 7:13 PM, haresfur said:

 

I have been unsuccessful at caramelizing figs but will keep trying with the 3-4 we get a year, especially since the person selling them at the farmers market is retiring. Still a long way from having enough for jam.

 

The Chicago fig we planted last year has two figs on it so you are closer than we are.

[FauxPas]

I became enamoured with these ladies and their description of Yard Sauce. It's basically taking produce from your garden (tomatoes, various peppers, onions, etc), roasting it with a bit of olive oil and maybe an herb like basil and then blending and freezing. Not all that unusual, but I liked them! And I could see using a variety of produce in the sauce and if you don't like to can and have the space, freezing the blended sauce makes for a nice preserving option. They also talk about how to freeze fresh basil, probably not an unknown option to most folks here. 

 

 

[Shelby]

Whole-fruit fig and lemon preserves from Deep Run Roots

 

 

And, I got brave enough to try another batch of kraut from This Will Make It Taste Good.  My first batch was perfect.  The next one, done the exact sam way, spoiled.  This time worked though.  

 

[Shelby]

And so it begins

 

 

No matter how many times I do it, the first pressure can of the year always makes me nervous.  No failures...knock on wood, hopefully that trend continues.

[Shelby]

I still have pickles that I crocked and then canned to decided to just do some quickles.

 

[ElsieD]

I haven't done any preserving except for frozen stuff for a long time now but I decided to take advantage of the fresh local strawberries (from Quebec) still coming our way and made up a batch of fresh strawberry and Scotch bonnet jelly.  I had a bit of a time scrounging up jars and lids as you can see by this motley collection.

[Shelby]

Excellent year for tomatoes.  I have them stacked everywhere lol.  These pictures are from two days ago.  I can't unload the baskets until I do my daily amount of canning.

 

 

 

 

 

So, I've been doing six or seven quarts of just plain tomatoes every day and about every other day I've made spaghetti sauce and pizza sauce and frozen that.

 

Thank goodness for wine.  That helps lol.

[Anna N]

4 hours ago, Shelby said:

Thank goodness for wine.  That helps lol.

It would take something a hell of a lot stronger than wine to persuade me to do that. Good for you. I do admire your industry and respect for the food you and others grow. 

Edited September 4, 2021 by Anna N
Missing the S on others. (log)

[SLB]

@Shelby  Guurrrrlll.  Whew. 

 

I'm rooting for ya.  

[Shelby]

31 minutes ago, Anna N said:

It would take something a hell of a lot stronger than wine to persuade me to do that. Good for you. I do admire your industry and respect for the food you and other grow. 

I'm eyeing the vodka as we speak.

21 minutes ago, SLB said:

@Shelby  Guurrrrlll.  Whew. 

 

I'm rooting for ya.  

I need all the rooting you can give.

 

It just quit pouring rain.  I've already had my shower and need to get busy on todays tomatoes.  I sent Ronnie to the garden to pick......I'm scared to see what he comes in with lol.

[Shelby]

And to think I was upset earlier this summer when a storm uprooted about twenty of our plants.

 

I am so happy that happened. 🤣