Two in One Barbecue Sauce

August 24, 2014August 29, 2014Caitlin 7 Comments

Oh Ball, you have out done yourself on this one. This recipe, from the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving, makes two awesome barbecue sauces, a stampede style sauce, and a sweet and sour sauce. Make both, or just make one. Left is the stampede style, and right is the sweet and sour.

Ingredients:
Base:
16 cups seeded, peeled, pureed tomatoes
2 1/4 cups seeded, pureed green bell peppers
2 cups pureed onions
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 tbsp mustard seeds, crushed
1 tbsp celery seeds
2 dried chili peppers, seeded and crushed

Stampede-Style ingredients:
3/4 cup mild flavored or fancy molasses
3/4 cup malt vinegar
1/3 cup Worcestershire sauce
2 tbsp chili powder
2 tsp freshly ground black pepper

Sweet and Sour Sauce:
1 tbsp finely chopped ginger root
3/4 cup honey
3/4 cup cider vinegar
1/2 cup soy sauce
2 cups canned crushed pineapple, with juice

Here’s how to make it. Just as a note, since I was slightly confused until I reach the sidebar. This recipe is designed to make 6 pints, 3 of each type of sauce. So, if you just want to make one of the sauces, you’ll want to make the base sauce, and then double the ingredients from the one that you want to make. Otherwise what we’ll be doing is making the base, then splitting it into two pots and making 3 pints of each sauce.

Step 1. Puree the tomatoes. Of course, this is much easier with a food strainer, like this Victorio Strainer pictured below. If you don’t have one though, never fear. Peel and seed your tomatoes, and them blend them to puree. Or just buy a strainer.

For this endeavor, Kiki had texted me that she had scored some tomatoes for dirt cheap, and asked if would I help her process them. I was thinking she’d probably have a small box we could just add to the sauce I was already making, but she showed up with a giant box that I now wish that I had weighed. We had a TON of puree when we finished, and through some ridiculous canning miracle it was actually almost exactly 32 cups, so we doubled the recipe.

While you prepare the rest of the ingredients you’ll want to get the tomato puree going on the stove so that it will reduce down to make you a nice thick sauce. Add some of it to a large stainless steel pot and bring it to a boil over high heat. Gradually add in more puree, maintaining the boil and stirring constantly, until it’s all in the pot. Continue to boil for at least an hour, or until reduced by about a half. If you are just doing a relaxing session, reduce the heat and let it simmer away for a while. If you want to reduce it faster, you could also divide it up into multiple pots for a while, and recombine it later.

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Meanwhile, puree the onions in the blender. The best way to get it going if you just have a normal old crappy blender is to cut some of them quite finely at the beginning, so that you can get some liquid onion. Once you’ve got a bit already pureed you can add pieces that are a bit bigger. Don’t mistake this concoction for a piña colada. It sure looks like one, but would certainly not go down so smooth.

Next you want to puree the peppers, following the same procedure. We used almost all green but had a small red one too you can see we threw in there. Looks pretty nasty at this stage.

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After the tomatoes are fairly well reduced, add in the pureed peppers and onions. You’ll want everything in one pot now if you had separated it into multiple pots. Add the rest of the ingredients for the sauce base, the garlic, mustard seeds, celery seeds and crushed chili pepper. We found it kind of difficult to crush the mustard seeds, so used some but then also topped it off with ground mustard. I feel like you’d want less ground, not a 1:1 change out, but ground is definitely an option.

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Cook this down for at least 10 more minutes, until the peppers and onions are cooked. When you are happy with the base sauce, it’s time to divide and conquer. Take out half and put it into a different pot.

Below is the stampede style sauce first. Add all the ingredients for it to one of your pots.

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The other sauce is the sweet and sour sauce. Add all the ingredients for this sauce to your second pot. Continue to boil both mixtures gently, stirring frequently. You want to achieve the consistency of a thin commercial sauce, which will take about 45 minutes. However, I always tend to reduce things longer than Ball suggests, so use your judgement for a barbecue sauce consistency.

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While they continue to cook down, prepare the canner, jars and lids. you will likely get a bit more of the sweet and sour sauce, since it has more added ingredients. Probably close to 3 pints for the stampede and 4 for the sweet and sour, depending of course how long you reduce it for. Once it’s ready, fill your hot jars with hot sauce, leaving a half inch head space. Wipe rims, apply lids, and tighten bands finger tip tight. Place the jars in a boiling water bath canner covered by at least 1-2 inches of water. Process for 20 minutes, starting the time when a full rolling boil is reached.

After 20 minutes, turn off heat, remove canner lid, wait 5 minutes and remove jars to a hot pad or towel. Cool 12-24 hours, remove bands, check seals, wipe clean, label and store.

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Two beautiful and delicious sauces. Stampede on the left in the Ball jar. A slightly spicy, peppery sauce, and sweet and sour on the right in the Kerr. I must admit I was much more excited for the stampede style, but that sweet and sour is also to die for. I highly recommend making both. If you are also looking for an awesome ketchup recipe, check out my country western ketchup post from last summer. Happy canning!

*this post contains affiliate links, please see the “About the Blogger” page for more information

And the winner is……

August 23, 2014August 23, 2014Caitlin Leave a comment

Emily! The random number gods have chosen you as the winner of my can it forward day giveaway. I will email you momentarily with details for claiming your prize. Thanks so much to everyone who entered, and to those of you who didn’t win, make sure you pick up your own copy of So Easy to Preserve when it comes out, it’s an awesome resource! And we’ll have another giveaway some day soon. Happy canning!

In other news, check out these sweet antique jars my sister gave me for my birthday! Starting my antique jar collection 🙂

Quick Dill Pickles – low temperature pasteurization and an experiment

August 20, 2014September 11, 2014Caitlin 32 Comments

Oh the dill pickle. The pickled cucumber is a special enough pickle that we simply call it a pickle. A pickled beet is a pickled beet, and a carrot that has been pickled is a pickled carrot, but a pickled cucumber, well that is just a pickle. Where was I going with this? Oh now I’m in a pickle. Anyways, is there anything better than biting into a pickle and hearing that crunch… aww this is a good one. On the flip side, isn’t it awful to bite into a pickle and find that it’s completely soft? So dissatisfying. I actually was never a huge fan of pickles until recently, but I can remember my grandpa always having a pickle on the side of a grilled cheese sandwich. I wish he was here today to judge in this pickle experiment I am about to tell you about. So how do you achieve the perfect pickle? Well, there are a few options I sought to test.

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One way to make pickles is through the process of fermentation, but this type of pickling will be addressed in a later post. The reason for that is because they produce a different product in many ways than making a quick pickle, so for this experiment I wanted to test two of the most common methods of crisping quick pickles – those that are placed in vinegar and processed immediately.

Pickle Crisp
Pickle crisp is a product put out by ball, but I’m sure other brands sell it as well. All it contains is calcium chloride, which is supposed to help maintain the firmness of pickles. You simply add a very small amount to each jar when you are packing them. Quick, easy, and just calcium chloride.

Low temperature pasteurization
Generally, when we process foods in jars to make them shelf stable, we do so in a boiling water bath canner, with the water at a full rolling boil (or of course in a pressure canner for low acid foods). Quick pickles of all types are traditionally made this way, and most canning book instructions will tell you to do it that way. However, when some extension service or food science folks somewhere (I forget the exact details of Janice’s anecdote) started digging deeper into how pickles are processed industrially, they discovered something very interesting. Pickles were being processed at lower temperatures, which can help maintain that crispy, crunchy texture that we all love about pickles. So, it was time for some science! Can we safely process at lower temperatures at home? Yes, it turns out we can. Maintaining the temperature between 180-185F for 30 minutes is a safe way to process certain tested recipes, all of which can be found in PNW 355. To process your pickles at low temperatures, there are a few things that are a bit different. First, you pack them as you would normally, then place the jars in a half filled canner with warm water (120-140F). Then add hot water, until an inch above the jars, and heat the canner to 180F and start the timer. Try not to exceed 185F or it sort of defeats the purpose of low temperature pasteurization. The frustrating part can be that you have to watch it a bit more closely than when you are processing in boiling water, because you don’t want to drop below 180F or go above 185F. Unless you have a sweet electric canner with set temperatures, like the one that OSU extension has for classes (which by the way is impossible to find on sale anywhere), you need a thermometer, like this long one to check the temperature, or this sweet one with an alarm that goes off when you reach the set temperature. Then all you do is process them for 30 minutes, removing them right at the end of 30 minutes will no additional wait time like in boiling water.

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OK, so on to the making of the pickles. These are the ingredients I used in every jar. Then my experiment consisted of processing some of the jars using the traditional boiling water method, and some using low temperature pasteurization. Then some of those jars had pickle crisp and some did not. Finally, I made a jar also of whole pickles to see if they stay crisper than slices.

Ingredients:
4 lbs pickling cucumbers
14 cloves of garlic
14 heads of dill
28 peppercorns
hot pepper flakes to taste or a dried pepper
3 cups water
3 cups vinegar (5%)
1/4 cup pickling/canning salt

Here’s what I did:

Make the brine by combining the water, salt and vinegar in a saucepan and bringing it to a boil to dissolve the salt. I like to either do this after I see how many jars I filled, or just make a bit extra since I always seem to need more. Place 2 cloves of garlic, 2 heads of dill, 4 or so peppercorns and the red pepper flakes in each jar. To prepare your cucumbers, cut a little slice off the blossom end. This is important for firmness as well, as there is an enzyme in the blossom end that can soften the pickles. Cut them how you like, or leave them whole. Spears, coins, slicers, you decide. I also am doing a comparison with ones that were processed whole versus sliced to see if that makes a difference for crispness. Pack the cucumbers into the jars. Cover with brine, leaving a half inch head space. Remove air bubbles with a plastic or wooden utensil and adjust head space as needed. If adding calcium chloride, add 1/8 tsp per pint jar, or 1/4 tsp per quart jar.

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Wipe the rims, apply the lids and bands, and process either for 10 minutes (pints) or 15 minutes (quarts) in a boiling water bath, or for 30 minutes using low temperature pasteurization as described above. After removing the jars from the canner, let them cool 12-24 hours, remove bands, wipe them down, and store for a few weeks before eating them. I took them to canning class a few weeks later and had the students do a blind taste test – read on for the results! Which pickle was the ultimate pickle!?

Have you ever tried low temperature pasteurization? Do you have a different secret to super cripsy pickles? Let us know! Or if you’ve had trouble getting your pickles to stay crispy I’d love to hear stories if any one else wants to replicate this experiment. Make some pickles, have a tasting party in a few weeks, and let us know what your friends liked best. Happy pickling!

September update – experiment results!

So, I know you’ve been on the edge of your seat wondering what the results of this experiment would show, so here they are. As a reminder, what I did was 5 different pickles. The pickles were all the same spices and brine, it was the processing that differed. The first 4 were all canned as slices, the fifth was canned whole and sliced for the taste test so people couldn’t tell which one was canned whole. I randomly assigned them to a number 1 though 5 for people to taste test.

1. Boiling water bath, no pickle crisp
2. Low temperature pasteurization, no pickle crisp
3. Low temperature pasteurization with pickle crisp
4. Boiling water bath with pickle crisp
5. Low temperature pasteurization with pickle crisp canned whole

For this taste test I had 17 people test the pickles and rate them from least to most crisp. I wasn’t entirely sure how to analyze the data from the taste test, but some of the results are pretty obvious and exciting. I am going to just give you a few summary statistics that I really think give a pretty clear answer, and I’ve also included all the ratings in case you are really that interested. First off, I wanted to show a picture of the four sliced ones, because even visually some of them looked more crisp, at least to me. Below the jars are in the order listed above, so the two ends were boiled, and the middle two were processed at low temperatures. Can you see a difference? This picture was taken 5 weeks after processing. I think that even visually the boiled ones look soggier. They are a different colour and more translucent.

So how did it break out in terms of numbers? The first obvious result was that 16/17 people put sample 5 as the most crisp sample. So, by canning your pickles whole, with low temperature pasteurization, you get a very crunchy, firm product. Great! Now let’s ignore number 5 for a second since it had an additional variable of being canned whole. 10/17 people chose sample 1 as the softest, and 6/17 chose sample 4 as the softest. This totals to 16/17 people chosing one of the boiled ones as the soggiest. Additionally, of the sliced ones, 13/17 people selected sample 3 as the most crisp, which was the low temperature with pickle crisp sample. Now, I didn’t run any actual stats, but I feel pretty confident saying this: Low temperature pasteurization for the win!! There was not one person that had sample 1 (boiled, no pickle crisp) as anything other than the soggiest or second soggiest. I also thought it was really interesting that Janice, our canning teacher, rated them in the exact order that I would predict. From soggiest to crispest: boiled without pickle crisp, boiled with pickle crisp, low temperature without pickle crisp, low temperature with pickle crisp, low temp with pickle crisp canned whole. Pretty fun! So the method of processing, low temp versus boiling, was detectable by most people. Some people could detect a difference with the pickle crisp, but this result was not as ground breaking. I’d like to test it again, with more people and try doing a boiled one canned whole and a few other things, but I think for now it’s safe to say I will be canning the rest of my pickling cucs at low temps and using pickle crisp. They still turn out well if you don’t can them whole, even though most people picked that for ultimate crispness, but you can also fit less in a jar. So there ya have it! Go can some pickles at 180 F!!

In case you’re crazy like me, here’s everyone’s ratings (least to most crunchy/crisp):

1 4 2 3 5
4 1 2 3 5
4 1 3 2 5
1 2 4 5 3
2 1 3 4 5
1 2 4 3 5
1 2 4 3 5
4 1 2 3 5
4 1 2 3 5
1 2 4 3 5
4 1 2 3 5
1 3 2 4 5
1 4 2 3 5
1 4 2 3 5
1 4 2 3 5
4 1 2 3 5
1 2 4 3 5

*this post contains affiliate links, please see the “About the Blogger” page for more information

Quick pickles- low temperature pasteurization on Punk Domestics

Can it forward day. A giveaway!

August 16, 2014August 23, 2014Caitlin 16 Comments

Happy international can it forward day! I hope that you all canned something today and/or ate something that you had canned to celebrate. To me, can it forward day is basically everyday, as I love to get others on to the canning train. I didn’t actually can today, because I just got home from a conference late last night, but zucchini relish and tomato sauce are on the roster for tomorrow. But anyways that brings me to the reason for this post. A can it forward day giveaway!! Pictured below are my giveaway items. I’ve decide to include 4 canned goodies, the zesty zucchini relish and tomato sauce are the two pint size jars, and you will get the fresh stuff I make tomorrow. The half pints are strawberry jam and Victorian barbecue sauce. Yum yum yum. The other exciting thing is that I will be giving away a copy of So Easy to Preserve, which is written by the University of Georgia extension service. This book is an amazing resource with many scientifically tested and trusted recipes. The one caveat, however, is that they are coming out with a new edition at the end of the month so I don’t yet have this book in my possession. What that means is I will likely ship (or give to in person depending who wins) the winner the other prizes first, followed by the book when it comes out. But what this does mean is you’ll be getting the most up to date awesome recipes!

OK here is how to enter. There are going to actually be multiple ways that you can enter this contest. First you will receive one entry for commenting on this page and telling us who first introduced you to canning. Was it a parent or grandparent, a friend, or something you just started doing on your own? I love to hear how people got started, so that will earn you an entry. You can also earn an entry by liking the babbling botanist Facebook page and inviting others to do so. In the spirit of canning it forward I’d like to be able to reach more people and Facebook is a great way to do so. This is going to get complicated for me to tally up, but this is my plan. Anyone you invite gets an entry, but it also earns you an entry if they post the name of the person that invited them like my page on my Facebook wall. I hope this doesn’t get too confusing for everyone involved, but I’m going to give it a shot! The contest will close on the one year anniversary of me starting this blog, August 22 2014 at 9pm Pacific time.

Happy canning! And sorry, but I can ship to Canada and USA only.

Thanks y’all, this giveaway is now CLOSED.

An obsolete tool due to new recommendations

August 4, 2014Caitlin 19 Comments

There is big news in the canning world people, hot off the presses! This comes straight from my Master Food Preserver meeting this month, and you’ll start to see the recommendations coming out on the packaging soon. What packaging? Your canning lids! The tool you are looking at pictured below will never be needed again. Yep, that fun lid magnet that is either barely magnetic enough to pick up a hot lid, or so magnetic it picks up 4 (like the one in MFP class) is no longer a necessary tool in your canning kit. We no longer need to preheat our jar lids people!

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According to new recommendations by the makers of Ball and Kerr lids, there is no need to heat your lids anymore. This is the last picture you’ll see on my blog of jar lids warming before they are put on the jars. They’ve been testing the lids, and with the sealing compound they make these days, they don’t seal any better if they are heated before going on the jar. So, you can start skipping that step. Wooohoooo 15 seconds saved! But really, I am quite happy to hear this because it always seemed unnecessary to me, but being a good little rule follower I usually remembered to do it. Or at least remembered at the last second and dipped my lids for a second into the canner that was warming up and figured that was good enough. Hopefully none of you bought this ridiculous tool recently or you’ll be looking for some other use for it. Good luck. That’s $9.14 well wasted. I guess if you ever needed to sterilize the lids for another purpose you could still use it?? Ha. But anyways, the official ruling is to just wash the lids as you would the jars, and use them. Remember, as always, they are still meant for single use. Happy canning!

Watermelon Jelly

July 25, 2014July 28, 2014Caitlin Leave a comment

Watermelons are a classic summer treat that we usually only get to enjoy for a few months while they are in season. These two delightful jelly recipes will allow you to preserve that taste of summer so that you can enjoy it all year long.

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I made two versions of this recipe, one is the zesty watermelon jelly from the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving, and the other is my own creation, where I simply subbed lemon juice in for the vinegar and omitted the lemongrass. Remember, lemon and lime juice are both better acidifiers than vinegar, which is why it is safe to sub it here. However, that extra acid is mandatory, watermelon is not acidic enough, and therefore not safe to waterbath can without it.

Ingredients:
6 cups crushed watermelon (enough to make 2 cups juice)
1/2 cup vinegar (use white balsamic, white wine or apple cider – I used apple cider here)
4 tablespoons lemon juice
5 cups sugar
1 stem lemongrass, finely chopped
2 pouches liquid pectin

6 cups crushed watermelon (enough to make 2 cups juice)
3/4 cups lemon juice
5 cups sugar
2 pouches liquid pectin

Here’s how to make it:

Crush up the watermelon and heat it gently for about 5 minutes.

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Mash it up some more and strain through a dampened jelly bag, or cheesecloth/muslin with some sort of strainer or funnel like below. I don’t have a legit jelly bag setup, so I just used the hopper from the Victorio strainer and some muslin and strained it into a half gallon jar. This actually strained amazingly quickly, unlike some other juice for jellies. I guess they are called watermelons for a good reason.

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Measure out two cups of the juice. If it’s been sitting a while and some of the sediment has settled out, you can stir it up a bit if you like, so that you get that pink colour. If you pour off the top with a lot of the sediment settled out your jelly will be much lighter.

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Prepare the canner, jars and lids. This recipe yields about 5-6 half pints.

Combine all the ingredients except for the pectin in a deep stainless steel pot. Bring to a full rolling boil over high heat, stirring constantly. When the boil is reached, stir in the two packets of pectin quickly and return to a boil. Maintain a hard boil for 1 minute.

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Remove from heat and quickly skim any foam.

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This jelly starts to set up really quickly, so you need to work fast filling the jars. If you have a helper when you are making this, have them get the hot jars ready as you are stirring so you can fill quick like a bunny. Fill the jars leaving a 1/4 inch head space. Wipe the rims, apply the lids, and tighten the bands finger tip tight.

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Process the jars in a boiling water bath canner for 10 minutes, ensuring the jars are covered by at least 1-2 inches of water, and beginning the time when a full rolling boil is acheived. After the ten minutes, turn off the heat, remove the canner lid, wait 5 minutes, and remove the jars to a hot pad or towel. Cool 12-24 hours, remove bands, check seals, wipe down, label and store.

Pictured here is the zesty watermelon jelly on the left, and on the right is the version with just lemon juice. I think the colour difference is in part due to the cider vinegar, but also because I made the right one second and I think had more of the sediment in that batch. They are both pretty, but I was hoping for pinker, and think I might need to experiment with using less sugar to achieve that. But the flavour is certainly delicious!

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*this post contains affiliate links, please see the “About the Blogger” page for more information

Blueberry Lime Jam

July 21, 2014July 21, 2014Caitlin 8 Comments

I do love blueberries on their own, but sometimes you just need a little something extra to really bring out the flavour of a berry. If you are looking for a jam that really kicks it up a notch, you’ve come to the right place. Adding the juice and zest of a lime or two really enhances the flavour of the blueberries and makes a delicious jam. This recipe is from the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving. The only change that I make is to use a lower sugar pectin and less sugar, and two limes rather than one, but here it’s written as in Ball.

Ingredients:
4.5 cups crushed blueberries
5 cups sugar
Zest and juice of 1-2 large limes
1 package of regular pectin (or use low sugar pectin and adjust sugar accordingly)

Here’s what we did:

Prepare the canner, jars and lids. This yields around 6 half pints unless you reduce the sugar.

In a stainless steel pot, combine the crushed berries, lime juice, lime zest, and pectin. Mix well to combine all the ingredients.

Bring the jam to a full rolling boil over high heat, stirring constantly.

Add the sugar all at once when the boil is reached, and return to a boil. Boil hard for 1 minute, then remove from heat and skim off any foam.

Fill the hot jars leaving a 1/4 inch head space. Wipe rims, apply lids, and tighten the bands finger tip tight.

Process the jars in a boiling water bath canner, covered by at least 1-2 inches of water for 10 minutes, starting the time when the water reaches a full rolling boil. After the 10 minutes, turn off the heat, remove the canner lid, wait 5 minutes and remove the jars to a hot pad or towel. Cool the jars 12-24 hours, remove bands, check seals, wipe clean, label and store.

*this post contains affiliate links, please see the “About the Blogger” page for more information

Master Food Preserver Class – Week 7

July 12, 2014July 12, 2014Caitlin 2 Comments

Week 7 of the Master Food Preserver class was a big old meat fest. We made jerky, smoked fish, pickled fish, and cooked up some summer sausage. This post will be the last in the Master Food Preserver series (I know, so sad), as week 8 was just our presentations and planning for the epic events of this summer. But don’t worry, there is still much more knowledge in that massive notebook of mine that I will continue to share with you all.

The first thing we did in class was make beef jerky. Beef jerky can be made safely at home, but there are just a couple of precautions that you need to take to ensure it is safe. The PNW 632 publication (click it for the link) is full of excellent information for making jerky, but I’ll give you the summary version here.

Bacterial contamination is a concern when making jerky, which is why it needs to be sufficiently heated to ensure any pathogens are destroyed. Three methods can be used to do this: post-drying heating, precooking the meat, and a vinegar soak. The post drying heating is perhaps the easiest, all you do is cook the jerky in the oven at 275F for 10 minutes after it is done. This is the method I tend to use. Preheating is done either by cooking the jerky strips in hot brine for about 1.5-2 minutes, which obviously doesn’t really work for ground meat jerky, or by cooking in the oven at 325F until an internal temperature of 160F (165F for poultry) is reached. You need a nice thin tipped thermometer for this. Lastly, soaking the meat in vinegar has been shown to be effective as well, but of course gives the jerky a very vinegary flavour. It’s also not been tested for game meats. And that’s basically all there is to it for safety. Jerky can be dried at the highest setting in a dehydrator (145-155F) or in an oven. But for the oven you really need to test if it can maintain those temperatures first.

Other notes about jerky:
– Yes, you can use other meats like poultry, fish and game meats.
– Just recently the recommendations have changed and it is okay to use ground meat, so long as you post dry heat it. Get the leanest meat possible, 93% lean or greater. The concern with ground meat is that the bacteria that could have been on the surface is distributed throughout by grinding, so use extra caution when making ground meat jerky.
– A jerky gun can be useful for shaping ground meat into strips.
– To easily cut jerky from steaks, partially freeze it so you can cut even strips; aim for about 1/8-1/4 inch thick.
– To test for doneness, cool the jerky slightly and try bending it. If it bends and cracks it is done. You don’t want it to snap right in half or it’s over done but if it is bendy but still doesn’t really break it’s not done. Ya, it sounds a bit wishy washy, but you get the feel for it pretty quickly.
– When the jerky is done, condition it in a jar or other container, loosely packed. Conditioning basically just means they sit there for a couple says and equalize in moisture content. Shake it occasionally. If you see moisture collect in your container, they are not dry enough.
– Store jerky in a cool dark place. I like to just store it in a quart jar. It will keep for 2 weeks at room temperature, 3-6 months in the refrigerator, and up to a year in the freezer.
– Nom nom nom

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The next thing we did for meat week was to learn about smoking fish. As with jerky, this can be done safely at home, but there are precautions you should follow to ensure a safe product. Additionally, products need to be refrigerated or frozen when made at home as a precaution, even though you can find commercial products that are safely stored at room temperature. This is due to us not being 100% certain of the salt and moisture content when making it at home. Canning your smoked fish is also an option.

If you want more information beyond what I provide here, the publication for this one is PNW 238 (again click for the link).

In summary:
– Smoked fish must reach an internal temperature of 150F (preferably 160F) and hold at that temperature for 30 minutes. This is important to kill bacteria such as Clostridium botulinum.
– Fish must be salted or brined, and since at home it is difficult to measure salt content, this is why as an added precaution the product must be refrigerated.
– Salt fish in a solution of 1 part table salt to 7 parts water, by volume. Brine for about an hour, although fatty or larger pieces of fish need 2 hours. Less fat = less brine time. Experiment with your fish – it should taste salty, but not unpleasantly so.
– After brining, fish is air dried until a pellicle (shiny, tacky skin) forms. This is usually at least 1 hour. After it forms it is ready to be smoked.
– Fish should be smoked then cooked. Smoke at 90F for up to 2 hours, then increase the temperature until the internal temperature of 150F is reached and maintained. This means the smoker temperature needs to be around 220-225F. If this cannot be achieved in your smoker, heat the fish in the oven after it’s smoked.
– Use hardwood for smoking, soft woods make unpleasant fish.
– If canning your smoked fish, just smoke the fish lightly, for up to 2 hours, then can immediately. Pints will need to be canned for 110 minutes. For full instructions follow the PNW 450 publication.
– Don’t store longer than 2 weeks in the fridge, freeze or can if you want to store it longer.

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I wish this were full and I got to take it alllllllll home with me.

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Mmmm smoked salmon. Makes me want to take a fishing trip to Alaska so badly!

Honestly, I didn’t even taste the pickled fish because it seemed gross, but I promise I will, so for now I’m just going to provide you that publication, PNW 183, because I can’t really claim any insight here.

The last and meatiest product we made was summer sausage. In contrast with jerky, for summer sausage you want fatty fatty fattiness. It tastes pretty good, but I have to admit that I was a little bit grossed out making it. Honestly I don’t think it’s something I will really try making at home, but it was interesting to learn about. The extension service publication that you can refer to is SP 50-735. My only real original thought on the subject, since this was the one and only time I’ve experienced homemade sausage, is that I preferred the texture when we cooked it in the oven, as opposed to a pressure cooker. Both tasted very similar, but it was the texture that I found I preferred. So, that’s all I really have to say on that…check out those sausages.

So! If you’re a meat lover, get out there and make some meaty meaty products!

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Kiwi Daiquiri Jam

June 30, 2014July 2, 2014Caitlin 7 Comments

The other day they had local kiwis for sale at one of my favourite farm stands just outside of town. “Local Kiwis! Whaaat. Don’t mind if I do,” I thought to myself. So of course, despite having any idea what I might do with them, other then eat a few, I bought a box. Luckily, I found this recipe for Kiwi Daiquiri Jam in my Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving.

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Kiwis are so pretty! Doesn’t it look like eyes with really long lashes?

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Ingredients:
2 cups crushed, peeled kiwifruit
2/3 cups unsweetened pineapple juice
1/3 cup lime juice
1 package regular powdered pectin
3 cups granulated sugar
1/4 cup rum (plus a shot for yourself)

Here’s how we made it:
Prepare the canner, jars and lids. This yields about 4-5 half pint jars.

Peel and crush the kiwi. Combine in a stainless steal pot with the pineapple juice, lime juice and pectin. Premeasure the sugar into another bowl for later, the rum into a measuring cup, and a shot for yourself into a shot glass (and one for your helper if you have one).

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Heat the jam to a boil over high heat, while stirring frequently. Once you reach a boil that can’t be stirred down, add the sugar all at once. Return to a boil, and boil for one minute, starting the time once a full boil is reached. After the one minute, pour the 1/4 cup of rum into the jam, and take your shot. Stir it in, and remove from heat.

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Fill the jars, leaving a quarter inch head space. Wipe rims, apply lids, and tighten bands finger tip tight. Process in a boiling water bath canner for 10 minutes covered by at least 1-2 inches of water, starting the time when a full rolling boil is reached.

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After 10 minutes, turn off the heat, remove canner lid, wait 5 minutes and remove the jars to a hot pad or towel. Cool 12-24 hours, check seals, remove bands, and wipe clean. Label and store.

Gosh dang that’s a pretty jam. This one would make a really pretty gift. And the combo of pineapple, lime and kiwifruit makes for a lovely, tropical flavour.

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Strawberry Lemonade Concentrate

June 28, 2014June 28, 2014Caitlin 7 Comments

This recipe is one I’ve made every year since I started canning, from the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving. I’ve never made the rhubarb drink on the next page, but am really excited to try that one too. Stay tuned. When I got really excited to make the rhubarb one as well, saying it would be excellent with gin, Kiki called me out, saying we can’t make things just because they taste good with gin. Or can we? My favourite way to use this concentrate is actually with just a couple tablespoons in my gin and tonic. I swear, I really don’t drink that much gin. Of course you can just drink it as lemonade by adding water, tonic water, or ginger ale. I bet this would be amazing if you used a soda stream for some carbonation! Mix 1:1 or 2:1 water to concentrate, although I usually make it even weaker since it is really quite flavourful.

Ingredients:
6 cups hulled strawberries
4 cups freshly squeezed lemon juice
6 cups granulated sugar (or much less if you like it the way I do!)

Here’s how we made it:

First, prepare the berries. Ball tells you to simply puree the strawberries in a blender. By all means you can totally do it that way if you like, and I have made this 3 or 4 times that way, but this year I decided to try and get rid of some of the seeds. To make the lemonade seedless, and partially because I just love an excuse to use it, I cracked out the Victorio food strainer. I ran my 6 cups of berries through multiple times, to get rid of the seeds. It’s kind of nice not having those pesky seeds in a beverage. I don’t mind them in jam, which is why we just used the extra poop you see coming out the left there in the jam we were making.

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Next juice a bagillion lemons. OK maybe not a bagillion. We found that 4 large lemons were pretty close to a cup of juice. A fun tip to get more juice out of them is to microwave them for 20-30 seconds. It really did seem to help.

Combine your lemon juice, strawberry puree and sugar. We actually decided to do 1/4 of the sugar in this recipe. You can certainly adjust it to taste, or maybe try sweetening with honey or something. That could be really good. It definitely decreased the yield quite a bit, but this actually means you use less jars and lids, and if you decide it’s not sweet enough you can always add more sweetener when you open up the jar later. Heat the lemonade over medium high heat. Don’t boil though, bring it up to 190F.

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Remove from the heat, and fill your jars, leaving a quarter inch head space. Wipe the rims, apply the lids, and tighten the bands finger tip tight.

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Process in a boiling water bath canner for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes, turn off the heat, remove the canner lid, wait 5 minutes and remove the jars to a hot pad or towel. Cool 12-24 hours, check seals, remove bands, clean, label, and store. Enjoy a nice summer treat all winter long! Or just make it and consume immediately!

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