Recipe link: Spiced peach butter

So here’s something that I’d never though I’d ever say – I love to can. I love it so much that I’m spending Labor Day canning possibly my most favorite thing – spiced peach butter.

What’s that, you say? “Spiced peach butter? What is that nonsense?” Think apple butter, but only made with peaches. It’s divine. It’s so good my parents brought me peaches yesterday from my favorite farm market near their house to con me into making more. I pay them for the peaches with a jar of spiced peach butter. Works for me!

The ingredients are simple: peach puree, sugar, and a combo of all or a few of cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger. I just use cinnamon and a dash of clove ’cause I’m a rebel like that. If you have the 100th Anniversary Edition of the Ball Blue Book (don’t mistakenly call it the Blue Ball Book or your husband will give you alarming looks – not that I have done this or anything), the recipe is on page 30. Or, if you don’t have it, you can find a similar recipe at PickYourOwn.org, which is a fantastic canning website.

Which I love about the peach butter is that it’s not sickening, put-you-in-a-diabetic-coma sweet. When I make jam, I used the recipes in the Sure-Jell low or no sugar packet to cut down the amount of sugar. I like a little sugar with my fruit, thank you. And peach butter just looks so pretty in a shiny glass jar!

I’m going to be a Susie Homemaker this year and put my peach butter in our county fair in October. I’ve never done this before in my life, and this is only my second year canning, but I’m going to try it. I’m also entering my blackberry jam and ketchup. Since I got a Presto 16-quart pressure canner this year, I’ve felt like a canning goddess and feel fearless. Here’s a shot of the fruits of my labors so far, minus a few jars that I’ve given to family members in exchange for things:

What are you canning this year?

A marmalade mishap

It looks pretty, but in reality it's a pretty big mess. This shot is not the greatest either.

I tried to get my Martha Stewart on last weekend and make marmalade. It didn’t go very well.

I found out that marmalade is a sticky, hot mess. Seeds will fly. Juice will spill and splatter and you’ll need to mop afterwards because your floor will be as sticky as a glue trap. Scraping the pith (the white stuff) off of a peel is the biggest pain in the rear I’ve ever encountered.

So what in the world possessed me to make marmalade? My uncle delivers food to restaurants for a living. He delivered a load of tangerines to a restaurant the week of Christmas, but they refused them saying they were too ripe. So, my uncle ended up with several boxes of them to make a long story short. When we gathered at my grandmother’s on Christmas Day, no one was leaving that house without taking a few bags of tangerines. I ended up with three bags and had no idea what to do with them since I’m not much of a tangerine person. My mom suggested marmalade, so that’s what I decided to do.

I did some Googling and decided to modify the orange marmalade recipe in the Ball Blue Book Guide to Preserving. It took 17 tangerines and one lemon to get the portions I needed. That wasn’t the hard part. The hardest part was peeling those blasted tangerines and then scraping the pith off with a butter knife so the marmalade wouldn’t be bitter. And don’t even get me started on finding all of the seeds in the fruit. I had no idea tangerines had so many freaking seeds.

The lemon, tangerine plup and rind before cooking.

I left it sit overnight as instructed by the recipe, but the marmalade would not set up when I cooked it no matter how much praying I did. I canned three pints of it and stuck the remaining two pints in the ‘fridge. It’s possible that this marmalade will set up after two weeks like some jams do, but I’m not holding my breath. It has a nice flavor, but it’s more tangerine goop than marmalade. I baked the remaining goop into muffins Monday morning. That actually turned out pretty well.

I suspect that the fruit was too ripe to have a lot of pectin remaining in the peel and that’s what went wrong with the gelling process. Or, maybe it was because I used an orange marmalade recipe when I should have used a tangerine recipe. Perhaps all citrus is not created equal?

If I do this again, and I think you might have to put a gun to my head to get me to tackle this a second time, here’s what I’m going to do:

1. Save myself a migraine and buy seedless tangerines. But hey, these were free, and beggars can’t be choosers.
2. Use this recipe for tangerine marmalade that I found online. There’s no need to scrap the pith in this version. This would be much easier to work with! Just throw in in a food processor and done.
3. Wear gloves. Lemon juice in paper cuts are not a fun time.
4. Read this tutorial first on how to properly cut the citrus for the pulp. It took me forever to get into a groove to cut these things.

If you want to get ambitious and make this, I would suggest that if you don’t have a food processor, borrow one or buy one before you make this. Chopping up citrus peel by hand requires the patience of a saint. I also suggest that you buy both ripe fruit and green. That will (hopefully) provide you with enough pectin for your marmalade to gel. Buy back up pectin just in case.

Anyone else ever tried marmalade? How did it work for you?

Homemade ketchup is (surprisingly) not rocket science

That book was the best $7 I've ever spent! A jar of ketchup is on top, apple butter on the bottom.

Remember I few weeks ago I was complaining that I had too many green tomatoes and I didn’t know what to do with them? That problem resolved itself after a good two days of warm sun and dry weather. Then my problem was I had too many ripe tomatoes! My freezer was full of several quarts of tomato sauce I had frozen and a few quarts of tomatoes I roasted with garlic and then froze, so I figured I’d finally take my first leap into canning and make ketchup.

I was apprehensive about the whole thing at first. One, it seemed to be a really, really daunting task because it this was my first canning project. Also, the Ball Blue Book recipe has allspice in it, and that made me flash back to my elementary school days when the cafeteria ketchup tasted more like cinnamon and less like tomatoes. I also remembered it being a very, very odd shade of reddish brown. It was beyond gross and totally ruined every grade school kids’ tator tots.

But at the same time, making ketchup didn’t seem like that big of a deal – no different than baking a cake or a pie (unless you don’t typically do that from scratch, then I can see why you’d think I’m a complete overachiever). I remember my grandmothers talking about making it and it seemed like a logical thing to do with all of the freaking tomatoes my six little plants have spewed out this year. I picked up the famous Ball Blue Book at the hardware store, found the recipe, and got to it. Since I have a glass top stove, I canned in a 14-quart, flat-bottomed stock pot instead of the traditional water bath canner (see previous post why the traditional water bath canners and glass top stoves don’t play well). I threw a dishtowel in the bottom of the water to protect the jars and it worked like a champ.

Two plastic grocery bags full of tomatoes made about two pints of ketchup. Not a lot, but I was still pretty proud of myself for getting in touch with my inner Susie Homemaker. And the smell and quick taste I took can only be described as AMAZING. I wish I could describe the savory/vinegar/sweet taste of homemade ketchup. It puts Heinz to shame and if I can help it, I won’t buy ketchup again.

So what did my family and friends think? I debuted it Saturday at a wiener roast at my grandparents’ house. I told my grandmother I had started canning and ketchup was the first thing I “put up.” She responded she hadn’t had homemade ketchup in years and was really pleased that I brought a pint. Everyone loved it. The enthusiasm to that condiment was almost as high as if I had trucked in a keg to a frat house and hollered “free beer!” Well, maybe not that enthusiastic, but you get the idea.

I had posted on my Facebook page it was a hit, and I had so many people come up to me to ask me about it. I did get a few people asking why I put so much effort into making something I can pick up in the store for a few bucks (answer: waste not, want not, and why not?), but mostly I was told this – “My grandmother used to make homemade ketchup!”

The flavor is well worth the work!

~ Julie

Too many green tomatoes

I find myself in a bit of a pickle. Well, it’s one option anyway.

I have a surplus of green Roma tomatoes still in my garden. The vines are dying and I’m sure frost isn’t far behind. So what in the heck should I do with these things?

I found recipes for pickled green tomatoes, green tomato preserves that are flavored with a box of Jello, green tomato relish and a green tomato chutney for meat. I’ve never tried any of those.

The relish comes highly recommended by Sax Guy’s mother who raves that it’s the best thing for hot dogs ever. I’ve never put relish on my ‘dog before. The only thing I use relish in is tuna salad. Not sure how green tomato relish would fare with my fish.

So, if you were me, which would you choose? Or, anyone have any other recommendations?

~Julie

Canning conundrum

A friend of Sax Guy’s was kind enough to give us some of the Rambo apples from his trees again this year. He’s loaded us up with enough apples over the past few years for me to slice, blanch and freeze for pies around Christmas.  I’m truly grateful for that because these apples make the best freaking pie and cobbler that I’ve ever had. The taste is well worth the hours of work!

This year, I wanted to try turning those apples into apple butter using an oven-only recipe I found and can it. I’ve never canned before, but I figured since it would be a hot water bath processing technique I just might be able to tackle it. I borrowed my mom’s old canning supplies and jars, picked myself up a few lids, and fully intended to start canning on Sunday when I came across a problem while researching – I have a glass top stove.

Turns out I can’t can using a glass top stove because my water bath canner isn’t flat-bottomed and is too large for the burner. From what I’ve read, glass top stoves have a sensor that won’t let the stove top get hot enough to heat up several gallons of water so it won’t crack. The weight of the water is an issue too. So I’m stuck.

I found this webpage with a few other options to work around this, and one of the suggestions was to use a propane camp stove. We’ve got one of those, but I’m afraid to try it.

Does anyone have some ideas or work-arounds I could try that’s worked for you? I want to avoid buying a bunch of new equipment if possible. Thanks for your help in advance!

~ Julie