I spent much of last September in a canning frenzy. This September wasn't. I went on a two-week vacation starting Sept. 27 and needed to get things done to be ready for heading out of the country to England.
October? Also not a canning month. That two-week vacation went into mid-October, then we had a family weekend trip (which involved giving away jars of tasty treats), then I had a business trip.
Oct. 31, however, brought me a nasty surprise that meant November would start with a lot of canning. Went out to the freezer and discovered the door was open a tiny, tiny bit. Just wide enough for long enough to have defrosted every last thing, including all that produce I'd prepped and frozen earlier in the year. My visions of cozy winter weekends making a batch of this and a batch of that when the mood struck turned into a salvage situation with the clock ticking.
I made some fast decisions about how much I could get through in a weekend and put those thawed bags into the refrigerator. I figured since the apples and pears were mostly destined for apple-pear butter they could stand the freeze/thaw/freeze cycle a bit better than berries and tomatoes, so they stayed in the freezer to go back into their cold slumbers.
Saturday production:
Blackberry Jelly 15 quarter-pints, 6 half-pints. This no-pectin recipe jelled like a dream. I usually make jams but I had two big bags of blackberries and I still have seedless blackberry jam from last year, or was it the year before? The pulp and seeds will go into fruit leather with some plums a neighbor gave me.
Tayberry Jam: 16 quarter-pints, 8 half-pints. Pruning those bushes really paid off in production! The tried and true Chef Heidi Fink recipe I used last year. My experience has been that it takes much longer to get to the jammy stage than her recipe suggests. I use two tests: Does it run together in a sheeting action when I dip some up in a spoon, and does it hold together and slide down a plate from the freezer without a lot of juice separating out when I tilt the plate? I picked the latter tip up from a recipe somewhere and really like it, as it doesn't involve burning my finger in the jam.
Sour Cherry Amaretto Jam: 5 quarter-pints, 2 half-pints. The cherries are courtesy of a Buy Nothing you-pick offer. I didn't get a lot, around 3.25 pounds. I used the no-pectin sour cherry jam recipe from Sourdough Brandon, enhanced by the amaretto suggestion in the recipe from DishNTheKitchen. Honestly, a tiny bit disappointed on this one. The sour tasted more of the lemon juice than the cherries to my tastebuds.
"Razzbuzzy" Jam: 7 quarter-pints. Going with the "let's add liqueur to jam" theme, I made the Classic Raspberry Jam recipe from Creative Canning. I only had about 2.5 cups of raspberries. I used a 1:1 fruit:sugar ratio per the recipe and added 3 T. raspberry liqueuer. Not all the alcohol cooks out, or so I've read, but this isn't really enough for a buzz. It's just a fun word.
Spiced Blueberry Jam: 7 quarter-pints. Another tiny batch. I had just about 1.5 pounds, perfect for one of the Food in Jars small-batch recipes.
I'll cover Sunday production and beyond in another post.
Related reading
- My Circular Economy of Apples
- Making Taybarb: Tayberry Rhubarb Jam Recipe
- Canstravaganza! Food Preservation 2024
- Blackberry Apple Chutney Recipe
- Green Tomatoes. So Many Green Tomatoes.
- Apples, Apples, Apples!
- Zucchini Tomato Salsa (Everyone Needs Salsa, or, What to Do with a Really Giant Zucchini)
- Tomatoes, Tomatoes, Tomatoes!
- Pears, Pears, Pears!
- Future Marmalade
