Preservation Link Roundup 8/20/10

Tomatoes, Tomatoes, Tomatoes

The Can Jam deadline is upon us and there is post after post of canned tomato recipes.

Ketchup seem particularly popular and people are using a variety of recipes and techniques to make it:

• What Julia Ate - Tomato Ketchup: August Can Jam
• Putting By - Ketchup
• Hitchhiking to Heaven - Roasted Red Pepper Ketchup -- With Kudos
• Yes, Another Cooking Blog - Ketchup for August Can Jam

There are other interesting posts as well.

Such as a tomato jam, which makes a refreshing change of pace in both savory and dessert applications Backyard Farms modifies one recipe with the addition of bay leaf and celery seed (CanJam # 8 Tomato Jam). I like the use of savory spices in jams. Bay leaf is almost always a good call and celery seed pairs very well with tomatoes, so why not?

Barbecue sauce is a great cannable item and Putting By has some good suggestions (Barbecue Sauce).

Local Kitchen makes a classic salsa but uses some time-saving techniques (Can Jam: Roasted Tomato & Chipotle Salsa). In addition to Ketchup, Yes, Another Cooking Blog also made salsa (Salsa-August Can Jam Tigress).

Tomatillos aren't green tomatoes, but they still make amazing salsa, as Put a Lid on It uses them instead of too expensive tomatoes (Roasted Salsa Verde).

I'll end the tomato posts with Well Preserved (Stewed (Canned) Tomatoes). A simple and classic recipe, to be sure, but check out the list of tips for canning. Some are tomato specific, but many are just general good ideas. Especially "Never do it if you don`t want to. It is supposed to be fun and it`s well worth it when you are in the moment." But read them all.

Ok, so maybe you are tomatoe'd out. August is also the best time of year for peaches. Stick a Fork in It, the OC Weekly's food blog, looks at peaches (At the Farmers' Market: Peaches), as does The Atlantic (The Annual Hunt for Perfectly Ripe Peaches):

These are my words of wisdom when it comes to peaches. Never squeeze a peach, as you basically ruin it. Select unbruised peaches with nice color, full shape, and nice weight for their size. Place the peach stem side down on a linen napkin or cotton tea towel—no substitutions. Make sure the fruits don't touch, and keep them in a cool place, not in the sun, then cover them with another linen napkin or cotton tea towel. It may take a few days. They are ripe when they smell like peach and the stem side is pressed down a bit from the weight and softening of the peach. The perfect peach should be quite perfumed, juicy, and soft.

Canning recipes almost always say to remove the peach skin before various types of processing take place. I say, not always. Check the peach first. Biting is the best method. Is the skin too thick, too chewy, too annoying? Then go ahead and skin those peaches. But if the skin is thin and not too chewy, why not leave it on? If you're going to chop finely or purée (as for a peach butter), then the skin is even less of a problem.

With all the August preserving emphasis on tomatoes and stone fruit, it might be easy to forget that pepper season is coming soon, if not already here. Squid Ink looks at a pepper variety now showing up in the farmers' markets (What's in Season at the Farmers Markets: Sometimes Spicy Padrons) and The Kitchn provides a recipe for pickling and canning them (Savory Canning: Pickled Peppers).

The Paupered Chef makes homemade pineapple vinegar (How to Make Homemade Vinegar (It Couldn’t Be Easier)). I'm a huge fan of homemade vinegar in all its varieties. What is happening here, of course, is an alcoholic fermentation of the pineapple and brown sugar (the more traditional piloncillo is readily available - and cheap - in Mexican supermarkets), and then a secondary fermentation from an alcoholic beverage into vinegar. I'd probably distinguish the two fermentations myself, and innoculate the alcohol with my own mother, but his method couldn't be simpler.

Emergency Food Storage Pros sing the praises of "Lock & Lock" food storage containers (Food Storage Containers: Lock & Lock). They love them, but there might be a little bias:

One thing that I have not spoken enough about on this food storage website is food storage containers. I have no excuse, now that I have been in South Korea for the past six weeks, and my brother in law is Chief Production Officer of Lock & Lock here.

I've never actually used them myself; I'm more of a Cambro guy (Surf City rulz!), but I've been seeing more and more of them, so they're probably pretty good. They're available on Amazon and at Bed, Bath & Beyond, but if you are here in Southern California, you'll find the best selection and prices at Korean supermarkets or department stores, where they are readily available. When next I need some storage containers, I'll probably give these a try.

Last but not least, Little Homestead in the City does their weekly roundup of what is happening at their urban farm (Homestead Happenings). Their canning shelf is absolutely fantastic!

Preservation Link Roundup - Catching Up - 4/9/10

Since last week I discussed pickling leftover Easter Eggs, I decided to share a "before" shot of some of the four dozen eggs I pickled this week. In a couple of weeks, I'll share a photo of the finished eggs and even a dissection (to see the color gradation inside). I tried the pineapple pickled eggs and a soy sauce/pineapple brine.

Master Food Preserver (and co-author of this blog), Delilah Snell, has finalized her food preservation classes for the near future - check them out! I'll be doing one, wish I could do more, but my new job means my schedule is uncertain right now: Food Preservation Classes, Workshops and More - FINAL

She also is on the lookout for free fruit to preserve, especially loquats (Adventure in Loquats and Other Backyard Fruit - and a Special Request for Readers of this Blog!):

if you have any fruit trees that you want me to pick or you can pick and hand over-i will give you a few jars of whatever i make....viva Spring!

I was a participant in "loquat-a-palooza" last year, they are a great preserving fruit (though a little labor intensive).

Food in Jars takes a look at Ashley English's new book: Homemade Living: Canning & Preserving with Ashley English: All You Need to Know to Make Jams, Jellies, Pickles, Chutneys & More (A Good Book for the Can Jam or Anytime). She discovers that it is perfect for providing some ideas for April's Can Jam.

Not everybody has the room for a backyard smoker, or even a backyard. The Chicago Tribune runs a nice story on stovetop smoking (Smoke Signals). If you haven't tried smoking food at home yet, the stovetop method is a great place to start. You'll be surprised by the flavors you can achieve. I love smoked foods, and what you can do easily at home beats the heck out of what is available commercially. Smoke is another one of those techniques that can be used to transform routine dishes and take them to a new level. Mmmmm ... smoked roasted chicken salad.

Leda Meredith of her eponymous Urban Homestead did a radio interview on the Heritage Radio Network's Hot Grease in which she discusses lacto-fermentation as a preservation method among other topics (Hot Grease Interview).

If you are lucky enough to have access to ramps (foraged or in farmers' markets), then you might want to read a bit about using and preserving them. Local Kitchen provides some excellent ideas and information (Ramps):

The Spring ramp season is short; to preserve your bounty for the coming months, blanche & freeze the leaves as you would chard or kale, or make pesto or infused oil or vinegar as you would with fresh herbs. Dry chopped bulbs and leaves in a dehydrator or low oven, or use in pickles, chutneys, or confit. For a host of allium preserving recipe ideas, check out the March Can Jam round-up. I have a big pile o’ ramps to cook with, and I hope to score some more to preserve, so I’ll update this post as I experiment. Stay tuned!

The Canning Doctor roasts a chicken and then makes and cans stock from the carcass (Pressure Canning Again). This is an excellent practice whenever you roast a chicken (one of the greatest, most versatile meals there is). If you don't have time to make the stock that day or the next, freeze the carcass and make the stock when you do have the time.

The Practical Preserver provides instructions for properly freezing strawberries (Strawberry Season). Though I'm a huge fan of canning, in my book, it is always a good idea to have some frozen berries available in the pantry - then you are ready for all sorts of quick desserts and sweet/savory dishes.

One Perfect Bite makes a versatile pesto (aren't most pestos versatile?) from homemade sundried cherry tomatoes (Red Pesto Sauce + Home-Style Sun-Dried Tomatoes). It'll be awhile before tomato season is back, but I'm lucky enough to have a stock of homemade sundried (actually, dehydrator'd) cherry tomatoes from last August to give this pesto a try.

What Julia Ate is clearing out her freezer by canning the contents, in this case combining summer stone fruit with her homemade pectin (Apricot Plum Jam with Orange Pectin). Once again, she shares her valuable experience in working with homemade pectin.

After learning how easy it is to make buttermilk, What Julia Ate also learns how easy it is to make crème fraîche (Crème Fraîche). Crème fraîche is basically buttermilk made from cream, so it is richer and thicker. It is an excellent substitute for sour cream in most recipes, and is incredibly useful in its own right. It doesn't curdle and it is a great addition to hot dishes, such as soups and sauces. Or use it to make your own "ranch" dressing.

Preservation Link Roundup 3/29/10

Mere hours after I posted my weekly email on making homemade vinegar using "Two Buck Chuck," a cheap an inexpensive, but decent wine, I got the news that some people are suggesting a ~$5 tax per bottle of wine here in California, according to LAist (Initiative to Tax Alcohol Could Bring California Billions — That's Because Your Vodka Will Cost $17 More).

A new initiative that would increase the tax on alcohol was cleared for signature gathering today by the Secretary of State's Office. And it's not a modest tax increase, it's huge. Tax on a six-pack of beer would increase from 6-cents to $6.08. And say goodbye to two-buck chuck--a tax on a 750 ml bottle of wine would go from 4-cents to $5.11

Hopefully they won't get enough signatures to get on the ballot and, if they do, I hope Californians realize what a bad idea this would be, not just for homemade vinegar but for cooking and eating in general.

Know Whey is celebrating sugar making time in the Northeast with a breakfast cake that features two preserved foods: homemade applesauce and yogurt (Sugaring Time: Maple Sugar Applesauce Breakfast Cake). It looks delicious.

I'm wondering if you alter the recipe and substitute in any fruit butter (with a little liquid) in order to alter the flavor and look.

Speaking of breakfast cake, Kevin West reports on the breakfast he makes as a preserver (A Preserver's Breakfast). Here's hoping he feels better soon.

They always say the toughest step is admitting you have a problem, and it appears as if Hitchhiking to Heaven has taken that step (I Need a Canning Intervention).

This will be my first time entering anything in the [Marin County] fair and I'm kind of spazzed out about it. I'm pretty well set in most of the categories I want to enter: I have three marmalades, three jams, and a conserve, which are the things I do best -- and you'd think that would be plenty. Except I got it in my head that I want a jelly. One really nice jelly.

H2H is having a few problems with the jelling point. This isn't an uncommon problem, especially when you are working with new recipes. Experience really helps, so just keep at it!

And a reminder for my local readers - don't forget to get ready to enter preserving judging at the LA County Fair (Time to Prepare for the Oscars of Food Preservation - Weekly Email).

The Waterbury, CT Republican American profiles Tom Wallace, a local gardener/canner (A Year-Round Gardener Cans It in Seymour).

Last year, the Wallaces canned 237 quarts, 220 pints and 57 half-pints. Since 2000, they have canned 4,336 jars. He stores them in his basement, except the peppers, which he keeps in the freezer.

I'm such a slacker.

The Santa Rosa Press-Democrat reports on a "Spring Gleaning" (Spring Gleaning: An Evening of Hope and Bounty).

Spring Gleaning was an inspiring event held Sun., Mar. 21, 2010. Hosted by Slow Food, Slow Harvest, Farm to Pantry and Susan and Lou Preston, it was a celebration and collaboration of sustainable farming, gleaning, canning, caring and community

Sounds like a cool idea.

Finally, Nelson's Home Canning Tips makes some loquat jam (Loquat Jam). Loquats are coming into season in Southern California. They are rarely seen in the markets, because they go bad so quickly and don't travel well. They are sometimes seen in the farmers markets, but not often.

Of course, if you live in LA, you've probably seen an incredibly fecund tree or two in the neighborhood. Enjoy the fruit fresh, but preserving them is the only way to enjoy them outside that two or three week window. More on the loquat in a later post.

Preservation Link Roundup 3/27/10

Food in Jars announces the Can Jam for April: Herbs (April Can Jam: Herbs!). With a few exceptions (herb jellies are the only one I can think of off hand), herbs are supporting flavors in pickles and preserves. The possibilities are infinite. I look forward to seeing some awesome flavor combinations I would never have thought of.

What Julia Ate has been saving the pith of her citrus peels for some time ... enough time to gather 2 1/2 pounds of pith. What does she do with it? Turn it into pectin for a jelly (it is the jelly-rific WJA, after all) (Strawberry and Orange Pectin Jelly). Most excellent, with some good lessons learned on making your own pectin.

There's a definite orange taste to the jelly, and a slight but noticeable bitter bite. But it's not overpowering at all. The set is firm and jammy, and it's not crystal clear even though I strained the pectin twice. The puree was dark and opaque, admittedly. I wonder if I stuck to pith only, or left out the pits, or peels, what the outcome would be.

The LA Times' Market Watch report by fruit detective David Karp spends some time at the Corona del Mar Farmers' Market (Market Watch: Corona del Mar Farmers Market is Small but Mighty). I haven't been to that market, but I'm intrigued by this description of a citrus:

Low acidity is not a defect in the fruit that Eli's Farm of De Luz is marketing, rather inventively, as "strawberry oranges." These are naturally acidless sweet oranges that have an odd mild flavor reminiscent of orange Creamsicle. Other farms also give this variety made-up names such as "mango orange," perhaps because its proper name, Vaniglia Sanguigno ("Vanilla Blood" in Italian), is a bit of a mouthful. It's not really a blood orange, anyway, since instead of being pigmented red with anthocyanins, like Moros and Taroccos, it derives its pink from lycopene, which colors pink grapefruit and tomatoes.

The Kitchn has a seasonal preparation for sauerkraut, the traditional Polish Easter dish Hunter's Stew or bigos, "a hearty stew filled with smoky sausage, tangy sauerkraut, and plenty of garlic" (Easter Diner: Make Bigos!).

Anarchy in a Jar is getting inspiration from cocktails nowadays - riffing off their flavor profiles. One experiment in the works is a pear-based version of an Aviation (Aviation Pickled Pears). Makes me want to run out and buy a bottle of crème de violette myself.

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune has an article on eating sustainably through the winter. Two of the recommendations incorporate two types of food preservation: Freezing and Canning (Eating Sustainably All Winter).

Go frozen – Yes, a freezer does use energy, but likely, you have a freezer already pulling power as part of your fridge. If you are ambitious in the summer and fall, freeze fruits and veggies from the Farmers Market when they are fresh. Or buy U.S. grown or better yet, locally-grown organic frozen produce to get you through the winter. Frozen goods are nutritious because they are picked and frozen at their seasonal best.

Have a canning party – Proper storage can ensure that fruits and vegetables will last through the winter months allowing you to take advantage of local goods when they are in season and inexpensive. Canning with family, friend or neighbors is a fun activity and many hands make it possible to can a winter’s worth in a weekend.

Healthy Green Kitchen made some lovely three-citrus marmalade, but is afraid to can it (Marmalade and My Fear of Canning). Does anyone have any suggestions for her to get over her fear of canning?

Finally, Prepared, Not Scared has a recipe for canning shepherd's pie (Preserve It ... Canning Corner: A Jar of Shepherd's Pie). You don't actually can the whole pie; the mashed potatoes and cheese are made just before the pie is baked. It is the ground meat filling that is canned. Sounds like some wonderfully convenient comfort food to me.

Preservation Link Roundup 3/25/10

The New York Times is starting a new series on certain "power" ingredients (Making a Foreign Staple Work Back Home).

This is only one of the many potent flavor boosters that can be appropriated from relatively unfamiliar cuisines. Over the next few months, we’ll check out a number of them, exploring how they are used traditionally and how they can be slipped into your daily cooking. The more you use them, the more uses you’ll find for them.

In other words, we’re going to exercise a little benign culinary imperialism, appropriating ingredients and adding them to our larder. No one gets hurt, and dinner becomes more interesting.

The first ingredient they note is pomegranate molasses, a thick syrup of pomegranates with some sugar and lemon. This versatile stuff you can make and can at home, if you access to a pomegranate tree. Last year I made and canned grenadine, which is basically a less-reduced version of pomegranate molasses.

As a matter of fact, I broke out a pint of my grenadine to make "pink" lemonade (lemons from my backyard tree) last night.

Know Whey has had a number of good food preservation posts over the past week or so.

Last fall, KW purchased a beautiful hand-thrown pickling crock. I have one of the same design, but from Germany. They're relatively expensive, but well-designed for their job. To justify the expense, though, they've been making a lot of sauerkraut (Sauerkraut and Vermont Choucroute Garni).

When you have sauerkraut a classic preparation from Alsace is choucroute garni. "Choucroute" is a Francophile version of the German word "sauerkraut." The dish is usually a braised sauerkraut served with various sausages and/or cured meats. WK recommends a good Riesling with the dish, but look for a dry one, which is more typical of the style of Alsace.

Bonus: they provide a homemade sausage recipe for the dish.

KW also has a recipe for Seville Orange Marmalade that is very similar to Kevin West's (Marmalade). There are some excellent photos of the process.

Technically, apparently, if you make a clafoutis with anything other than cherries, it is called a flaugnarde. KW passes along that tidbit of information, as well as a recipe for using frozen blackberries and her home canned peaches in a flaugnarde (Almost Spring: Peach and Blackberry Clafouti). What a great idea for using all sorts of home canned fruit.

The Kitchn uses Weck canning jars for dry storage. What is really interesting is that they use a white indelible ink marker to label the jars which, if you have good penmanship, looks like a pretty cool way to label jars in general (Pantry Style: Weck Canning Jars and a White Pen). The only problem?

The ink can easily be removed, but only by using solvent based removers (like nail polish remover) or by carefully scraping with a razor blade, both which require extra caution.

Food in Jars is inspired by the Passover Seder to make a jam based on the traditional dish, charoset (Charoses Inspired Jam for Passover). Brilliant! Sounds delicious!

There is some discussion as to whether this is a jam or conserve but, since charoset can contain various dried fruits, add some and you're definitely in conserve world.

The LA Weekly's food blog Squid Ink keeps you up-to-date on what is in season in Southern California in their Farmers Market Report. This week, the focus is on sorrel (What's in Season at the Farmers' Markets: Sorrel). Although the article focuses on sorrel's use as a leafy green, it is also frequently used as a flavoring herb. Sorrel jelly, anyone? It will lose some of its flavor when heated, but it has an affinity for grapes and mustard, and would certainly be good as a flavoring for vinegar. Taste some and consider some of the other flavors it would pair well with or enhance.

Speaking of flavored vinegars, the EpiLog fears canning, but will happily preserve the flavor of tarragon in vinegar (Flavored Vinegar: Saving Tarragon In A Bottle).

Need a t-shirt to show off pride in your canning? How about this one from JP Harris' shop on Etsy (YES WE CAN - Just Food - Green Print on Natural Organic Tee)? via The Kitchn

The Penny Pantry - "Recapturing the Old Fashion Art of Pantry Building While Drastically Reducing Your Grocery Bill!" - discusses growing and canning your own greenbeans (Canning Greenbeans in the Garden). Greenbeans alone must be pressure canned, but pickled dilly beans are always popular and can be waterbath canned.

Local Kitchen continues her exploration into canning pumpkin preserves (not recommended by the USDA) by trying a recipe from the lauded Mes Confitures (Christine Ferber’s Pumpkin Jam with Vanilla Bean). Not only is she disappointed in the tooth-achingly sweet results, the error in the recipe translation (700g ≠ 2.25lbs), and the recommended non-processing, and the fact that the acidity level is questionable (read her analysis). The USDA recommendations are conservative, of course, but do you really want non-conservative rules where potential botulism is involved?

Anarchy in a Jar is experimenting with apple jelly flavored by juniper berries (Apple Jelly with Juniper Berries). We'll have to wait to hear the results.

Preservation Link Roundup 3/23/10

Regrettably, marmalade canning season is past its peak. Though there is still great citrus in the markets, many of my favorite citruses are on the wane. The LA Times' Market Watch report by fruit detective David Karp can help you figure out which fruit is still good and which is not quite what it was just a couple of weeks ago (Market Watch: When Citrus is Past its Prime).

Of course, just because a fruit is a bit overmature doesn't mean it won't still make a great preserve. In fact, such fruit may be better in a preserve than for eating out of hand. Ideally, you want perfectly ripe fruit for preserving, but if the choice is whether an overmature fruit should be eaten out of hand or preserved, preserving might be the answer.

Be assured though, that while some citrus is making its exit from the farmers markets, some citrus is just hitting its own peak. The Kitchn notes the wonderful (grapefruit or pomelo)/tangerine hybrid tangelos that are in markets right now (Farmers' Market Report: Tangelos).

Master Food Preserver candidate Kevin West and artisan preserve maker Valerie Gordon of Valerie Confections will be doing a series of preserving classes starting in April (Sign Up for Private Preserving Lessons!). Space is limited, so sign up now.

Can't get to the class? Try some self-instruction as Kevin also shares his favorite recipe for Seville Orange Marmalade (Recipe: Seville Orange Marmalade).

If you're looking for a more difficult marmalade recipe Leite's Culinaria has a recipe for blood orange marmalade from Mes Confitures (Blood Orange Marmalade). Blood oranges are reaching their peak of color about now, so they are a good choice for a spectacularly colored marmalade.

My friend Rachael Narins of the sustainable, private supper club Chicks with Knives is also holding some classes, one on pickling and the other on basic knife skills on April 17th (Cooking Classes).

If you have ever attended a CWK dinner, you know we love anything pickled. Join us for this event and learn to make your own! We will start with a brief lecture on the different types of preserving methods, equipment and safety. We will learn to make quick, brined and fermented pickles using seasonal, farmers market ingredients to create several treats for you to try. At the end of the class you will have samples to take home, along with some basic tools, ingredients and equipment.

Yummy Supper makes dandelion jelly (Dandelion Jelly). If a flower is edible, you can make jelly from it and capture that floral essence in a jar. Just be careful, however, since even if a flower is edible, the rest of the plant may not be.

Chickens in the Road is giving away a copy of the Ball Blue Book Guide to Preserving (Ball Blue Book Giveaway). Post a comment for the chance to win.

Rurally Screwed was having some difficulty getting good flavor from pickled eggplant (What is Up with Pickling Eggplant???).

The other day I made eight different versions of pickled eggplant, trying to find one worthy of the canning cookbook I’m writing with Brooklyn chef Kelly Geary. And the consensus was that all eight versions more or less sucked. That’s right, I’m touting myself as a canning pro and my pickled eggplant was no good. You won’t find any of these recipes in the cookbook, that’s for sure.

But pickle and all-around preserving guru Linda Ziedrich stepped in to comment on the difficulties of pickling eggplant. The result? A delicious garnish or addition to salads (Pickled Eggplant Postscript).

The National Center for Home Food Preservation has only one recommendation for canning pumpkin: cubed in a pressure canner (Resources for Home Preserving Pumpkins). Local Kitchen set out to prove to herself that at least some canning recipes featuring pumpkins are safe (Pumpkin Cascabel Marmalade).

Obviously, I can't say that this recipe is safe, but I do think that LK's analysis is interesting, informative and well worth reading. There are some tests that can be done with the resulting marmalade, for example, puréeing the canned marmalade in a couple of weeks and checking the pH level. Of course, I would be interested in seeing what data the NCHFP based their analysis on as well; to see if LK is missing anything in her analysis.

Smoking cheese isn't really about food preservation. But, if you already have a smoker for preservation, smoking cheese is a great way to add flavor to all sorts of things. Savory TV demonstrates this with a recipe for (Smoked Cheddar Grits). I smoke a lot of cheese: pepper jack, cheddar, gouda, mozzarella, etc. Anywhere you would normally use cheese, substitute in some smoked cheese and you've got some amazing flavor.

Nearing the last of the March Can Jam:

• Rufus and Clementine uses tarragon (a great idea) to flavor pickled pearl onions (Tigress’ Can Jam (March) | Pretty Pickled Pearls).
• Small Measure, who picked alliums for the can jam, makes an interesting seasonal relish, though she subs out tarragon in favor of thyme (Onion, Orange and Thyme Relish).
• The Cosmic Cowgirl makes cocktail onions, though not for their beverage prowess - she plans to use them when grilling season is in full swing (Pickled Pearls of Wisdom).
• Backyard Farms makes a red onion jelly - imagine how good that would be in all sorts of savory applications (It Must Be Jelly Because Alliums Don't Shake Like That! CanJam Episode 3).

Preservation Link Roundup 3/18/10

Well Preserved learns some lessons from something that will happen to every canner, eventually (I Coulda Been a Contenda…Broken Mason Jars…). There is only one common jar breakage scenario I would add ... processing in a boiling water bath without a rack to keep the jars off of direct heat. WP also has some great tips on what to do after you have a jar shatter.

Rufus and Clementine provide another lesson for cannners - label those jars (CurseWorthy Cooking | That Mystery Marmalade).

I made a peanut butter and spiced citrus marm sandwich. I got so excited and angry to the point of letting the expletives fly mid-bite. It was ecstasy in my mouth and I still don’t know how to get it back again.

The minimum you should put on a label is the name of the preserve and the date. I make a habit of putting the ingredients (in order of weight) and the processing time. Recently, I've also taken to add the source of the produce ... such as "Mud Creek Ranch Citrumelo Marmalade." Keeping a preserving journal (paper or electronic) is also a very good idea, especially if you are experimenting with recipes.

Rhubarb is sometimes called "pie plant." I think it should be called "preserving plant."

The LA Weekly's food blog, Squid Ink, notes that some beautiful rhubarb is showing up at the local markets in their weekly Farmers Market Report (What's in Season at the Farmers Markets: Rhubarb). I saw some amazing looking rhubarb at the Santa Monica market yesterday. By itself, with a variety of fruits (not simply strawberry) in a jam, or in a compote (sublime), rhubarb is an excellent addition to your preserving repertoire. Its tartness is a great match for the high sugar content of many preserves.

The New York Times' Minimalist Cook explains, simply, how to thicken yogurt into any consistency from Greek to cheese (A Recipe Secret Wrapped in a Towel). Save that whey! Use it for fermentation or drink it (high in protein and probiotics).

Food in Jars has opened an Open Sky store (Find Food in Jars at Open Sky). Her store is here: OpenSky: Food in Jars.

Tigress in a Jam is excited to soon receive Ashley English's new preserving book Homemade Living: Canning & Preserving with Ashley English: All You Need to Know to Make Jams, Jellies, Pickles, Chutneys & More. Tigress also lists a bookshelf worth of new preserving books coming soon (A Lot O' New Preserving Books!). Which ones are worth getting? Who knows at this point.

Preservation Link Roundup 3/17/10

Another great March Can Jam update:

Local Kitchen adds alliums to a classic sweet jam and finds that it has "a depth of flavor that must be tasted to be believed" (Strawberry Rhubarb & Caramelized Onion Jam). If onions were as rare as truffles, onions would be more expensive. They are savory, yet work surprisingly well with sweet. Perhaps it is all their inherent sugars that only come out through long, slow cooking.

I just noticed citrumelos for the first time at last Sunday's Hollywood Farmers' Market and, apparently, so did The Kitchn (Citrus Spotlight: Citrumelos). Check out the nice photos and description (and find out why they're also called "marmalade fruit").

Delightful Country Cookin' has a photo-rich description of making a berry-citrus jam, excellent for those just getting started in canning (Blueberry-Lime Jam). And, hey, plenty of blueberries and limes in our farmers' markets right now.

Put a Lid On It is in the process of making classic pickled eggs, pickled in beet brine. Of course, that means first you have to pickle some beets. To keep her husband happy, she also pickles some okra (Pickled Okra and Pickled Beets). Here in Los Angeles, if you want some classic pickled eggs and don't want to have to pickle beets first ... you can find the purplish delicacies at Philippes; they go great with the French Dips.

On her blog for the Denver Post, Well Preserved, preserving guru Eugenia Bone pickles that underutilized aromatic, fennel (Pickled Fennel). I use fennel whenever I have the option. There is hardly a dish that uses mirepoix that I don't think can be improved with fennel. Pickling provides even more options for me to use fennel.

Cooking in Someone Else's Kitchen makes a chile jam from chiles they froze last fall (A Little Summer Heat). The recipe they used was a British recipe and called for "jam sugar," which is sugar combined with pectin. They made the recipe with regular granulated sugar and, of course, it failed to set. They reprocessed with pectin and it worked.

The conversations started by Sara Dickerson's Slate article continue.

The Art of the Rural agrees with the Dickerson (Putting Up).

I often make pâté and have cured different meats (duck prosciutto, bresaola, etc.) and I like having a cabinet full of pickled onions, green beans or bread and butter pickles to have on hand for the occasions when I can slice open a new celebration of pork fat. But last fall I went to Whole Foods to buy 5 lbs of cucumbers for my pickles only to discover that conventional cucumbers were $2.50 each! There was nothing frugal or practical in pickling these and, in fact, it was an expensive little project.

Ummmm ... duh? What did you think would happen if you buy all your produce at Whole Paycheck? Try this for an experiment ... buy some all-beef patties, special sauce (mayo and thousand island), lettuce, tomato, pickles, onions and a sesame seed bun at Whole Foods and you'll (surprise, surprise) discover that Big Macs are less expensive.

Well, I guess that it's it for the food revolution. Back to fast food it is.

Amazon blog Al Dente is a little less gullible when it comes frugal canning (The Inevitable Canning Backlash).

Now, the author here is a generally fabulous food writer. I normally nod my head at her sharp and astute articles, but this one had me shaking it the other way. I can't argue with the assertion that buying a slew of new canning equipment and jamming up a ribbon-wrapped collection of $5/lb heirloom tomatoes isn't particularly frugal. The process does pencil out nicely, though, if you re-use those cans year after year, and choose tomatoes from the cheapie seconds bins, or grab 20 pounds of inexpensive fruit from the U-Pick, or if you do belong to that not-particularly-endangered category of zealous gardeners with too many cucumbers.

On the other hand, Dining@Large, the Baltimore Sun's dining blog, joins Dickerson's canning backlash trend (Top Ten Retro Foods We Wish Would Stay in the Past).

2. Home-canned anything

I love the whole locavore logic behind canning and, honestly, I'd like to try it. But Sara Dickerman in Slate nails what's wrong with this homespun hobby's becoming "ridiculously trendy." She calls it "showy industriousness." "These culinary trophies are emblematic of a project-based food relationship that we urban food junkies are prone to indulge these days: athletic all-weekend bouts of cheesemaking or bacon curing or jam and pickle making are so much more bloggable and boastworthy than making a decent brown-bag lunch five days in a row." And then there's the botulism thing.

I'm beginning to think that pampered food writers only know "showy industriousness" and are unaware that many people are actually industrious. Being writers, the concept of industriousness is probably foreign to them. For example, instead of writing lame and lazy top ten lists (really, how bereft of ideas do you have to be in order to resort to a 1990s-style top ten list?), perhaps salaried food writers could share what brown bag lunch they're bringing to work five days in a row, since they seem to be so hot on the concept.

Oh, and speaking of retro things that should stay in the past, perhaps you could get rid of the "@" in your blog name? Those were cool back when modems were.

Plate to Plate lets one of the commentators on the Slate piece do the speaking for them (Much Ado About Canning).

Dickerson thinks canning $5/lb tomatoes is not very frugal. I agree, but finding inexpensive canning tomatoes is not that difficult. For example, one CSA has a good bargain for those who join by the ides of April: free canning tomatoes (Join our CSA by April 15. Receive Free Canning Tomatoes).

No matter how efficient we get as a farm, there will always be "extra" tomatoes at the end of the day between mid-August and the end of October. Some are too ripe. Some are seconds that got bruised or damaged in the picking process. Some have a bug bite or two. Some are just not quite right for selling. Our breeding rows are also the source of tomatoes that don't fit into our markets.

Preservation Link Roundup 3/8/10

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about an LA Times article on the food aspects of Purim (Preservation Supplement to LA Times Food Section 2/25/10). I suggested using homemade preserves when making Hamantaschen and, although Purim is over, Food in Jars had the same idea (Jam-Filled Hamantaschen). As FiJ says, although Purim "has already come and gone for this year ... there’s no need to wait for next year before making these cookies."

If you're not familiar with "Little Homestead in the City," it is worth checking out. In their own words, they are "Eco-pioneers living a homegrown revolution on a sustainable, real-life original urban homestead in Pasadena, California." Their progress is nothing less than very, very impressive.

They grow most of their own food. Every week (mostly) they provide a complete report of their meals, noting the few foods that didn't come from their homestead. Their latest report covers the past two weeks (Urban Homestead's Weekly Meal Wrap x2). What is interesting to me is the amount of preserved foods that make it into their meals. Fruit preserves, pickled squash, dried tomatoes, pickled garlic, tomato sauce (I'm assuming it is canned from summer), and beans (I assume were dried), were just some of the preserved foods that made into their meals over the past couple of weeks. It's inspirational.

SippitySup goes to the Hollywood Farmers' Market weekly (though, to my knowledge, he's never stopped by my table), and creates some of the most interesting and delicious dishes from what he finds at the market. This week he came across a different variety of kumquat, the mandarinquat (a cross between mandarins and kumquats, of course) and decided to turn it into marmalade (Market Matters- Mandarinquat Marmalade My Newest Quat to Quaff). I'll have to track some down myself, just to taste.

The New York Times has a weekly series called Recipes for Health. Every week they "present recipes around a particular type of produce or a pantry item. This is food that is vibrant and light, full of nutrients but by no means ascetic, fun to cook and a pleasure to eat." This week they make a frittata that features canned tuna (Baked Tunisian Carrot, Potato and Tuna Frittata). I couldn't help but think of All Types of Cooking, and a Whole Lot of Canning Here!'s homemade pressure canned tuna.

I have a passion for preserved citrus and so does Tigress in a Pickle, who shares two differently spiced versions (Persian and Maghreb) of the eminently versatile flavor enhancer (Preserved Lemons Spiced 2 Ways).

What Julia Ate is playing with marmalade before she gets too busy with her garden and raising chickens (Marm: Orange Fig and Orange Earl Grey). One marmalade she added figs to, and the other an infusion of Earl Grey tea (which is one way to get bergamot into your marmalade).

We often thing of adding herbs and spices to change the flavor of jams or jellies, but it is easy to forget that non-traditional infusions are another way of creating new and interesting flavors. Other teas, of course. Green, black and chai are all good ideas. It may sound sort of cheesy, but "Chinese Restaurant Tea" works as a flavor for me, since it brings fond memories whenever I smell it. Coffee and espresso can also make surprisingly good additions to certain flavors. And don't be afraid to go off the beaten path. Consider, for example, kombu. You might get a little sea flavor, but you'll also be getting a lot of glutamic acid, which is a major flavor enhancer you might know as umami.

To make a kombu infusion, also known as kombu dashi, wipe the kombu leaves (easily found in Japanese and Korean groceries) with a dry cloth (do not wash them), place in a pot of room temperature water and bring the pot to a simmer. When it reaches a simmer, turn off the heat and allow the kombu to infuse for ten minutes. Remove the kombu (it can be used in other dishes) and you're done.

The Frugal Fraulein is looking for someone to help her pretty up her blog (now that you mention it ... this blog could use a makeover as well), and she is willing to barter for services (sounds like someone could get some nice preserves if they have some free time and talent) (Blog).

Preservation Link Roundup 3/6/10

Stony Run Farm provides some very simple instructions for making a solar dehydrator from scraps (An Afternoon in the Garage). It requires a little woodshop skill, an old window and some wood scraps but not that much. If you check around the interwebs, you can find a number of different ways of making solar dehydrators. Just be careful that in our summer sun and heat your dehydrator isn't actually an oven.
via Two Frog Home

The Atlantic's Food Channel has some good suggestions for pantry staples that, when you need to cook out of your pantry, make life a good deal easier (A Southern Pantry for Stress-Free Meals).

The LA Weekly's Squid Ink keeps us up-to-date on seasonal produce, this week highlighting that most delicious of thistles, the artichoke (What's in Season at the Farmers Markets: Artichokes). There is some nice history and a brief discussion of the various varieties.

Artichokes can be pickled. The best artichokes for pickling are the small "baby" artichokes that you can eat whole, usually they are cut in half for pickling, pretty easy. You can pickle just the hearts, but trimming artichokes down to the heart is an awful lot of effort.

For more on what's fresh in the markets, check out Good Food every week (What's Fresh at the Farmers Market This Week). That rhubarb looks darn good.

Wisteria - Wisteria - Wisteria
It's that time of year again! Sierra Madre is hosting their annual wisteria festival Sunday, March 14th (2010 Sierra Madre Wisteria Festival). The Huntington Library also has some fine wisteria as well. The food preservation take? Wisteria makes a fine, delicately floral scented jelly. The violet color is lovely as well. CAUTION: Only the violet wisteria flowers are edible. Not the leaves, vines, roots, and ESPECIALLY not the seeds.

LampGoods' shop on Etsy has a cool looking hanging lamp made from a vintage Mason jar (Orono. Vintage BALL CANNING Jar PENDANT made NEW).

What is it with fermented cabbage and soups? Why do they work so well? Serious Eats publishes a Momfuku recipe for kimchi stew (The Momofuku Cookbook's Kimchi Stew with Rice Cakes).

All Types of Cooking, and a Whole Lot of Canning Here! always keeps a supply of home canned tuna on hand. She shares her technique and some good photos (Canning Tuna). I haven't canned tuna myself, but I definitely have it on my list of things I want to can.

I doubt canned tuna is the recipe Creative Canning is excited about canning when her new All American canner arrives soon (All American Canner). But she's right to be excited. The All American is, IMHO, the best pressure canner out there.

Nutrition Know How has a good list of things to do in order to get ready for canning season (Gear Up for Canning Season).

And, last but not least I take the time to go through my canned items. I check for any change in the canned items, and when the item was processed. I try to use all the items canned from the previous year before my next season starts. So if I have items that I have not used from the previous year, I know that I need to plan some menu’s that will include those canned goods before I start canning again.

Finally, it is a bit late in the season, but Slow Food USA has declared 2010 the year of the heirloom apple (Let 2010 be the Year of the Heirloom Apple). So, later this year, let's all can some heirloom varietal apple products. We might find that some of these heirlooms, which aren't great for out of hand eating, are very well-suited to particular canning recipes.

Preservation Link Roundup 2/27/10

Fruit Detective David Karp's Market Watch report this week in the LA Times is all about two wonderfully preservable items: Minneola tangelos and cauliflower (Market Watch: At Ventura Downtown Farmers Market, Minneola Tangelos and Cauliflower). The purple cauliflower is beautiful, but remember when pickling it, that the blue color will enter the water a bit.

Chile Chews makes potato-based CSA soup and discusses potato cultivation (Potatoes for Soup). What I found interesting is that she paired the soup with pickled onions and apples (hello, March Can Jam).

Trash to Treasure Decorating has some interesting ideas for decorating canning jars by filling the jars with something interesting and topping it with a votive candle holder, so it is both decorative and a candle (Ideas for Canning Jars & a Friday Blog Hop).

She was too late to join the Can Jam, but Sidewalk Shoes made some pickled carrots anyway (Pickled Rosemary Carrots). I'd be very interested in seeing how they come out. The rosemary would be very savory and there would be some heat from the chile peppers.

Marisa McClellan of Food in Jars guest blogs at The Kitchn with some ideas on making your own canning equipment (How To Make Your Own Canning Equipment). Since canning kits can easily be found for less than $15, the most useful aspect is on how to make a canning rack for your canning pot.

Preservation Link Roundup 2/26/10

Small Measure has announced the ingredient for March's Can Jam (March Can Jam: Alliums!).

From tender, green scallions, chives, scapes, ramps, and leeks to papery, husky onions, shallots, and garlic, the Allium family is the vegetable world equivalent of the guest who shows up at 6:50 p.m. for the cocktail party that begins at 7:00-by showing up early and as motivated as possible, they get the party started. Alliums are ready for the good times to begin again.

As noted in the announcement, be sure to use a tested recipe or properly acidify your alliums for water bath canning as they aren't acidic enough on their own.

Kevin West discovers the awe-inducing fragrant properties of bergamot a little too late (Bergamot: What Not To Do).

While cutting the fruit, I got an inkling of its strength and added only one of the two [bergamots to six pounds of oranges]. But after the heat of cooking unleashed its full fury, even that one fruit proved to be 99 parts too much. Its intensity burned the lips, and its smell—so alluring in the infinite dilution of eau de cologne—caused me the same panicky, suffocating feeling as do certain industrial cleaning products.

Read the whole thing.

The Paupered Chef hates vodka. It isn't my favorite, but the Paupered Chef despises it. So, when he ended up stuck with a partial bottle of the stuff, he turned it into an infused, or compound gin (Homemade Compound Gin (No Bathtub Required)). The results aren't the equivalent of a high-quality distilled gin, but good enough that the vodka-hating chef may actually buy some vodka just to make more homemade gin. Might I also suggest making some homemade aquavit as well?

Of course, this is only for home use. Unfortunately, according to Grubstreet San Francisco, the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control is cracking down on housemade infused spirits - tarragon-infused vodka one of the victims (Bars Running Scared as Alcohol Board Cracks Down on Infused Booze). Apparently, the law was meant to prevent bars from increasing the alcohol content of distilled spirits, but is now being interpreted, broadly, to prohibit altering the spirits in any way. Heaven forbid bars make good, interesting drinks.

Anarchy in a Jar alters a blood orange marmalade recipe they posted last year - removing the meyer lemons, since they were overwhelmed by the flavor of the blood oranges (Blood Oranges Zest My World).

Put a Lid on It makes a "real jam" for her honey with strawberries from the market. I'll note that last week was the first time since last season that the strawberries at the market started tasting like strawberries again, instead of pretty, but tart and fairly flavorless berries. Still, being a chef and all, there has to be a twist, and PaLoI turns to a chef's not-so-secret helper, Culinary Artistry. Everyone should have this book. It is an encyclopedia of flavor pairings. Look up an ingredient and the book will let you know what flavors go well with it. From this, PaLoI gets the idea of pairing the strawberries with balsamic vinegar (Strawberry Balsamic Jam).

The sequel, The Flavor Bible, is also a must have. When you want to change up a jam with an additional flavor, consult one (or both) of these books for some flavor ideas. I also use these books to cook from the pantry. When I have an ingredient and I'm not sure what to do with it, I look it up in one of these books and I am usually inspired to make something with it.

The New York Times continues coverage of the tomato bribery scandal - and the details keep getting worse (Bribes Let Tomato Vendor Sell Tainted Food):

In addition, prosecutors say that for years, SK Foods shipped its customers millions of pounds of bulk tomato paste and puree that fell short of basic quality standards — with falsified documentation to mask the problems. Often that meant mold counts so high the sale should have been prohibited under federal law; at other times it involved breaching specifications in the sales contracts, such as acidity levels or the age of the product.

The scope of the tainted shipments was much broader than the bribery scheme, touching more than 55 companies. In some cases, companies detected problems and sent the products back — but in many cases, according to prosecutors, they did not, and the tainted ingredients wound up in food sold to consumers.

The prosecutors say the product wasn't a health risk, but read the whole article. Seriously, read the whole thing.

Preservation Link Roundup 2/19/10

First, a Can Jam update:

Tigress in a Jam had a difficult time finding local carrots for her Can Jam (California carrots were available, natch), so she decided to add a local ingredient to make a Carrot-Apple Butter (w/ Cardamom). Later, however, she did get some local carrots and match them with some ingredients from her freezer (a good way to do things) for Carrot-Rhubarb Jam (w/ Rosemary) (Carrots: Buttered & Jammed). Using ingredients from the freezer is a great way to match flavors out of season.

Well Preserved make a better carrot cake jam and a great way to use it: over a campfire between two pieces of bread in a pie iron (Can Jam - Carrot Cake Campfire Toast Pie).

Delicious Potager - love the name! - unfortunately used up the last of her own garden's carrots just before the ingredient for this month's Can Jam was announced (Tigress' Can Jam: Classic Pickled Carrots). Hers was a basic recipe, but she'll have some experience for her next crop.

Kevin West was on a shopping spree for rare citrus at the Wednesday Santa Monica Farmers' Market and discusses his finds (Rare Citrus: Bergamots, Kaffir Limes, Seville Oranges). For more information, you should know that Southern California is home to one of the greatest citrus research collections in the world: the University of California Riverside
Citrus Variety Collection. And if you want a great day trip to see over 70 varieties of citrus, be sure to visit California Citrus State Historic Park - in Riverside, of course. Definitely worth a trip, especially now, during peak citrus season.

Two Frog Home has a good piece on how you can stock your pantry with home preserved foods (Pantry Stocking :: Food Preservation). The article is short, but it is a good look at how one family approaches food preservation.

I'm so envious. Chickens in the Road received a gift from a reader: a collection of vintage canning books and catalogs (Treasure Trove). If you like vintage canning jars and recipe books, you definitely have to check out her photo-rich post.

Last summer, Cold Cereal & Toast canned some summer peaches from their CSA share. Now, in February, they are using local peaches to bake some delicious-sounding muffins (Channeling Summer: Peach Muffins).