Recent Preserving (Part 2)

It seems whenever Friday afternoon rolls around I become nostalgic in a way, for the way things were before I had my own family and the weekend loomed like a glittering jewel before me.  A good part of my single life, I held 2 jobs - and there were plenty of weekends spent working I'm sure, but in retrospect I had this miraculous thing called "free time" which seems to come with alarming infrequency lately.

Sunday afternoon, I got a couple of pounds of gooseberries from Klee's.  I made the time to work them into jam right away Monday morning since they were pink and soft.  They were mixed varieties, that when commingled with sugar transformed into a singular flavor that I still can't describe.  They are tropical I swear, a Midwestern answer to passionfruit.  My little tester jar of gooseberry jam the other week told me I should stop shy of the 220 degree gel point, so I boiled to 118 degrees and was rewarded with a softer set.  I'm going to write down the recipe, since it bears remembering my process. 

Gooseberries are naturally high in acid.  Green gooseberries higher of course than those that are picked and allowed to blush - but with the blush their tartness mellows just a bit and makes a "prettier" finished preserve.  There really aren't a whole lot of gooseberry jam recipes out there I noticed in my digging.  Even the county extension website was vague (and why don't those conventional sources use weights?? This plagues me:  I am a scaling addict.).  To be extra "safe", I added the juice of a half lemon.  There is definitely enough natural pectin that you should never dream of using a box of liquid or powder.

Gooseberry Jam 

yields about 4 half pints (I got 3 jars and one mostly full to eat now)

• 2 lbs. gooseberries, tops and tails trimmed
• 1/4 c. water
• 1 1/2 c. granulated sugar
• 1/2 lemon, juiced

Combine the gooseberries and water in a large preserving pot and smash casually with a masher to crush most of the gooseberries.  Heat over medium heat and cook until the gooseberries break down a little, about 10 minutes.  Then add the sugar and lemon juice, increase the heat to medium high and continue cooking, stirring regularly, until you reach your desired firmness - about 118 degrees as I mentioned above.  You'll feel the thickness of the jam increase as you stir, and the jam should sheet nicely off the spoon you are stirring with.

When the jam is ready, pour into sterilized jars, top with lids and rings, and process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes.

This week, I also did pickles.  My mother-in-law wanted a dozen jars and bought me a half bushel of cucumbers at the farmer's market on Tuesday.  By Tuesday evening, I had done 22 quarts (losing one to a broken jar).  I used my Gram's pickle recipe, misjudging the amount of brine I'd need two times, causing me to pause and make more.  That worked out all right, especially with a new baby walker anxious to try out his new skills at my feet in the kitchen.  Maybe I'll always associate his first steps with a mountain of pickles; that's kind of a nice thing.

This recipe is the only pickle that tastes like a real dill pickle to me.  The recipe is in my book! 

By late evening, I had the pickles mostly done.  I had about 5 pounds of cucumbers remaining and I was too tired to think about more pickles.  They sat for 2 days in the fridge before I put them to their final rest in jars.  I tried two kinds of refrigerator pickles that I'd not made before.  The first were these turmeric spiked whole dills that Ivy recommended.  I used the recipe as a template, since I was low on fresh dill.  I used Spice House pickling spice and extra dill seed.  I used Bragg's cider vinegar even though I "killed" it by heating it to a boil.  I love the taste of Bragg's so much that any other vinegar doesn't taste like vinegar to me.  A half recipe of the brine filled two quart sized jars just fine.

This Weck jar is slightly bigger than a quart though, I think... 

I sliced the remaining pickles to 1/8 inch on my mandoline and made a big jar of refrigerator pickles.  I got the recipe from my Parents, who had gotten it from someone in the '90's.  I remember the plastic pail of bread and butter pickles as being too sweet and kind of flabby, not really my favorite things 20 years ago.  But I modified the recipe and so far I think they are one of my favorite pickles ever!  In part, because I left out all traces of celery seed.  There aren't many things I dislike, but I've come to the realization that celery seed is kind of one of them. 

I can't seem to keep my fork out of this jar.  After 2 days, the cukes are still pretty crisp.  I kind of winged the recipe, making just 1/4 of the brine (which was simply equal parts sugar and white vinegar, with the addition of 1 tablespoon of kosher salt), and adding a  half onion and extra brown mustard seed.  This recipe is so quick, just mix everything and pack it into a jar.  I'll give the proportions for a whole batch - but keep in mind it's pretty forgiving.  The cukes give off their own liquid when allowed to rest in the salted vinegar brine, so after a few more hours the jar above was completely filled with liquid.

Bread & Butter Pickles

• 3/4 of an ice cream pail of thinly sliced cucumbers (remember when everyone ate ice cream from a gallon pail??) (I'd slice about 1/8 inch thick) 
• 4 c. granulated sugar
• 4 c. white vinegar
• 1/4 c. salt
• 1 1/2 t. turmeric (I added extra)
• 1 1/2 t. mustard seed (I added extra)
• 1 1/2 t. celery seed (I omitted it)

Combine everything in a large bowl (the ice cream pail if you are following the '90's approach) and mix well.  Place in the fridge and let sit for 4-5 days before eating if you can.  The pickles will last at least 6 months under refrigeration.  (I prefer to store in glass of course, I just mixed everything in a bowl and packed into the more-than-quart glass jar seen below.  I love that jar, my Mom gave me some honey in it once and I can't bring myself to give it back to her...)

Part of the reason I might have a new-found love for these bread & butters is that I've been making single cucumber batches of James Peterson's Thai Cucumber Salad with Peanuts from his Kitchen Simple cookbook.  I am a voracious reader of cookbooks, and I think one of my favorite authors is James Peterson.  His books seem like friends to me, and the Kitchen Simple book in particular has become my trusted ally in quick summery eating.  His salad has equal parts sugar and rice wine vinegar (the unseasoned kind), some chile peppers and plenty of cilantro.  It's so good.  I'd imagine I could do up a quart similar to the bread and butters and munch on them for a month or so and I might just have to get more cukes to do that.

So what do I, "unemployed" for some 8 years already, do on a Friday evening now?  Afternoon has come and gone since I started writing this, and a spanakopita of sorts is just about to come from the oven, concocted of fresh chard and kale and some frozen spinach unearthed from the freezer.  The new baby walker opted out of a nap to practice his craft and is already asleep at 6 pm.  The window are flung wide open with the coolness of our most excellent summer weather ever.  I don't feel the pangs of sadness I once did that I don't do anything exciting come Friday night, instead I take pleasure in the hard work of the week and get ready for a country visit so I can hopefully bring some more work home with me.  It's really the best kind of life.

Recent Preserving.

I use the term "recent" loosely.  It was Monday when I finally got the jars I had my imagination set on completing, and it was Monday when I made the decision to ditch the second little batch of delicious honey-sweetened strawberry-thyme jam (from Food in Jars' latest book, Preserving by the Pint)  that had been waiting for me in my covered red leCreuset pot for 4 days.  (It smelled fermented, and sadly the berries did not have a pleasant flavor.)  Time with two little boys and summer and birthdays got the better of me; I remind myself that it's okay to let things go back to the Earth when time slips like that.  That's my Mom's quote, and I think of her each time I forget about some precious leftovers, or get too ambitious and forget to mind my real-life timing.

Last Saturday, we went to Klee's Out on a Limb.  I discovered them last year, and make no qualms about calling them my personal orchard now.  It's maybe a 20 minute drive, but feels more rural than that.  This was the second time I've gotten currants, and not being within days of giving birth as I was last year, I was able to pick them myself (with Candy's help).  I tried every variety and since the blackcurrants weren't quite ready, I got red and white.  White currants.  I think I mentioned 50 times how beautiful those things are, making up for the flavor I felt wasn't quite as good as the red seeing as they weren't as tart.  After 5 lbs. in my bucket, I tried some pink currants too - and those had quite a lovely flavor.  I have to rein myself in from a currant only preserving season.  I think I love them that much.

Transluscent, they look like pearls or fish eggs.  My eager baby-eater liked them very much.   

Last year, I made cordials out of them.  Both were great, though I probably preferred the shrub that turned viscous and thick, a mouth-coating thickness from all the pectin.  I actually just finished off the bottle, only tippling tiny cupfuls here and there because it was so sweet.  Aged a year, it was still wonderful.  I agonize over investing in good rum to make more, and as I do, the extracted red currant juice ages in my fridge.  I should decide to can it or freeze it before typing any more, so it doesn't succumb to going back to the Earth too.

I also have a small amount of non-juiced currants left which I need to get into vinegar.  Red currant drinking vinegar was my favorite flavored vinegar last year, it barely lasted me a month!  I might try it with the white currants and see how I like it.  (Note to self: must also invest in another SodaStream seltzer cartridge.)

Seedy currant jam.

Last year, I only made currant jelly - which is so easy I'm not sure there is an easier preserve to tackle.  Only slightly more work was currant jam, which uses mostly currant juice (I used red) and a pound of whole, stemmed currants.  For juice, you don't need to remove the stems so the process is truly efforless.  The 20 minutes spent gingerly plucking the white currants from their tiny green stems was worth it - and I thought the color contrast was beautiful even though I knew it would fade with the cooking.

The jam itself is nicely seedy, tasting tart like the currant jelly, but more interesting and maybe kind of nutty with the seeds.  I read that currant seeds are quite healthful too (especially in the blackcurrants, but I figure the other colors must be as well), so it seems like a worthy offset for a sugary preserve.

Nearly a week before the currants, I split a case of peaches with a neighbor.  It's the 3rd year I've had "peach truck" peaches, which come from Georgia and are dropped nearby at a number of locations locally.  (The service is Tree-Ripe.)  I feel like we hit the jackpot, since they harvested Berta peaches for the first trucks of the season.  They were some of the best peaches I've had in years, true "drip-down-your-wrist" fruits, with excellent flavor and color.  I made a half batch of Marisa's Honey Sweetened Peach Chutney, which I altered slightly to account for my extra spice addiction.  A friend gave me a jar of dried Piri Piri chiles last year, and I hadn't used too many of them.  I added 15 to the pot - which turned out to be pretty spicy.  I fished 4 of them out as I was tasting, but boy those have some good flavor.    I also added extra brown mustard seed, and probably more fresh ginger.

Another great thing about this recipe is Marisa's trick of removing peach skins.  Simply cut the peaches in quarters, remove the pit of course, and cover with boiling water for 3 minutes.  Drain, and the skins slip right off.  Amazing!  I used the same method to make some fresh peach salsa for our tacos last night, I don't think I'll ever blanch a peach traditionally ever again.

This stuff is so good that I might use the last of the peaches to make another batch - maybe less spicy for gift giving.  I'm definitely hoarding the 4 jars for myself.

In with my currants from Klee's, I had a handful (literally, 58 g.) of gooseberry.  I have never tried gooseberry.  I can't describe how excited I get to try new things, and at the orchard, I nibbled a bunch of different varities.  (I need to remember to bring a notepad and pen there, I can only remember choice things: like that the Newtown Pippen apple was Thomas Jefferson's favorite, and which tree was the mammoth Wolf River variety...)  The gooseberries will be on more by this weekend, so I made the tiniest batch of jam ever to see what I could expect.

I used a 6 inch stainless saucepan for this jam.

On some reading, I let them sit around until they were pretty soft and had turned from their bright green to a more rosy color.  Then I topped and tailed them (that's a Linda Ziedrich term that seems to really stick in my brain), and weighed them in at a mere 56 g.  I added a tablespoon or so of water and steamed them a minute or two to get them softened before adding the same amount of sugar and cooking them down.  It was such a small batch that the whole process took less than 10 minutes.  The color and flavor were incredible.  I'll have to make time to get down there for more!

I really just couldn't get over the color, which I figured was about as close to watermelon-colored as I could describe.  The tiny seeds even look like melon seeds too - which I thought was interesting.  The flavor of gooseberry jam was different than I expected, though I'm not sure at all what I was expecting.  It has a tropical nuance to it, nicely tart but not as tart as the currant it seemed.  It feels pectin rich, and has a very firm set - I could have probably simmered it a little less.  My tiny batch filled half of a 4 oz. pimento jar, more than I expected, but definitely not enough to satisfy my new gooseberry obsession.

It's a good start to the season, which I have to remind myself is actually here.  It's a pleasantly cool summer,  with only a handful of 80 degree days so far.  It's filled with walks and bike rides (my older son just discovered how fun his first bike can be, and has developed an obsession of his own), fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants meal planning, and yet another year of a struggling garden.  I remind myself that it's not important right now to be cataloging what I do.  But, still I love the photographing, and if I seem quiet here, there are still notable things going up on my Facebook page and Flickr.  If you have some gooseberry ideas for me, shoot them my way.  We'll see what comes of them!