For those not following on Twitter (where, yes, I'm still alive on the interwebs), I've taken up canning.
Yes, canning.
The impulse, I believe, is part aspirational hipster, part nostalgic Southerner, part sanctimonious yuppie farmer's market scavenger.
I love baking, but, well, the products of my hot oven are both transient and oinky. So baking is out. Until Christmas, at least, when I try to convince my mom that people will enjoy jars of pickles as much as they've historically liked my cookies.
Thus far, I've made sweet curry pickled (meh--will try again), spicy rhubarb chutney (intensely stellar), heirloom tomato salsa (also kickass), and, tonight, I made up a jam recipe! Which I found worth recording.
As anyone who's been around me for 10 seconds will tell you, I loathe winter. But I am prone to spontaneously throwing little parties-of-one in my kitchen come summertime. Sometimes, I look around the farmer's market and bring home stray fruit with pleading eyes. And sometimes, I read a bunch of recipes and make up my own. And sometimes I do not have all the necessary ingredients on hand and am wont to make do. Hence, I bring you:
3 1/2 cups tiny, perfect, ruby-red local strawberries (The water-logged, flavorless, mutant-colossus California berries will not do here. They won't.)
6 cups brown sugar, divided (every recipe I looked at called for regular sugar, but I had nowhere near 6 cups, so I substituted with brown, and man, was that a good idea. Whole new level of rich molasses-y flavor.)
3 1/2 cups fresh rhubarb chopped into 1/2-inch pieces
1 tsp lime zest
3 tbsp lime juice
1 1/2 tbsp freshly ground cardamom pods
1 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1. Sterilize jars and lids in a boiling water bath. This recipe yields just shy of two quarts. I'm out of pint-jar lids, so I now have two BIG jars of jam, but that's fine. Really. I'm fine with big jars of jam.
2. Crush strawberries in the bottom of a Dutch oven with a potato masher. Stir in 4 cups of brown sugar. Add the rhubarb, lime zest and juice, cardamom, ginger and cinnamon. Mix together. Bring it all up to a rolling boil and cook for about 5 minutes.
3. Add the rest of the sugar, bring back up to a boil; cook for another 5 minutes or so.
4. Remove from the heat and skim off the foam. Ladle the hot jam into hot jars.
5. Put the lids on and process in the water bath for 10 minutes.
Apparently, home-canned stuff is supposed to be good for a year-plus, just hanging out on a shelf somewhere. I've yet to test this theory as I'm quickly consuming all the stuff I'm making.
Well, cooked-down, ecstatically fresh fruit and vegetables are good. You know it's true.
Yes, canning.
The impulse, I believe, is part aspirational hipster, part nostalgic Southerner, part sanctimonious yuppie farmer's market scavenger.
I love baking, but, well, the products of my hot oven are both transient and oinky. So baking is out. Until Christmas, at least, when I try to convince my mom that people will enjoy jars of pickles as much as they've historically liked my cookies.
Thus far, I've made sweet curry pickled (meh--will try again), spicy rhubarb chutney (intensely stellar), heirloom tomato salsa (also kickass), and, tonight, I made up a jam recipe! Which I found worth recording.
As anyone who's been around me for 10 seconds will tell you, I loathe winter. But I am prone to spontaneously throwing little parties-of-one in my kitchen come summertime. Sometimes, I look around the farmer's market and bring home stray fruit with pleading eyes. And sometimes, I read a bunch of recipes and make up my own. And sometimes I do not have all the necessary ingredients on hand and am wont to make do. Hence, I bring you:
Cardamom-spiced Strawberry Rhubarb Jam
3 1/2 cups tiny, perfect, ruby-red local strawberries (The water-logged, flavorless, mutant-colossus California berries will not do here. They won't.)
6 cups brown sugar, divided (every recipe I looked at called for regular sugar, but I had nowhere near 6 cups, so I substituted with brown, and man, was that a good idea. Whole new level of rich molasses-y flavor.)
3 1/2 cups fresh rhubarb chopped into 1/2-inch pieces
1 tsp lime zest
3 tbsp lime juice
1 1/2 tbsp freshly ground cardamom pods
1 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1. Sterilize jars and lids in a boiling water bath. This recipe yields just shy of two quarts. I'm out of pint-jar lids, so I now have two BIG jars of jam, but that's fine. Really. I'm fine with big jars of jam.
2. Crush strawberries in the bottom of a Dutch oven with a potato masher. Stir in 4 cups of brown sugar. Add the rhubarb, lime zest and juice, cardamom, ginger and cinnamon. Mix together. Bring it all up to a rolling boil and cook for about 5 minutes.
3. Add the rest of the sugar, bring back up to a boil; cook for another 5 minutes or so.
4. Remove from the heat and skim off the foam. Ladle the hot jam into hot jars.
5. Put the lids on and process in the water bath for 10 minutes.
Apparently, home-canned stuff is supposed to be good for a year-plus, just hanging out on a shelf somewhere. I've yet to test this theory as I'm quickly consuming all the stuff I'm making.
Well, cooked-down, ecstatically fresh fruit and vegetables are good. You know it's true.
