I've wanted to learn to can for a long time. Growing up we had apple trees, pear trees, and a plum tree that always produced way too many plums. Every fall my mom would make applesauce, apple crisp, apple pie, and one time we rented a cider press and made cider. But every year fruit would go to waste and it always seemed like such a shame.
As a grown up I now go to farmers markets and see tons of beautiful produce and I always wished I had a way to preserve it. Yes, you can buy canned pears on the cheap at the supermarket, but there's a certain allure to doing it yourself. If I can my pears then I know where they came from, I've talked to the farmers at the market, and I know what's been done to preserve them.
Instead of just wishing, this year I decided to do something about it. I bought a couple of books on canning, read about a zillion websites and watched several video demonstrations on youTube. Today my canning kit arrived and I got started.
I did two different recipes. The first recipe was Pear, Port, and Thyme Conserve from Well-Preserved. I got some nice looking bosc pears from the farmer's market and the thyme from my garden and figured that would be a good start for this year's Eat Local Challenge. I followed the recipe exactly and I think it turned out pretty well. You simmer the corsely chopped pears in brown sugar, vinegar, orange juice, lemon juice, lemon zest, and spices. I'm not sure my pears were quite ripe enough because I ended up with a sort of chutney texture, rather than the mush I was expecting. I put it in sterilized jars and boiled them for twenty minutes. When I took them out all the lids popped, indicating that a proper vacuum had formed. I want to let these mature for a week or two to let the flavors meld before I open the first jar.
The second recipe I made was Blueberry Pepper Jam. I used some frozen blueberries that I happened to have in the freezer and fresh peppers from the market. This recipe tastes fantastic, but I'm not sure if it gelled properly. I followed the instructions quite carefully and put in the amount of pectin that was called for, but I think there might have been a greater volume of peppers in my batch than in the batch that was tested with this recipe. I think the jam might have needed another 3-5 minutes on the boil. It's still cooling, so I'll have to wait and see.
As a grown up I now go to farmers markets and see tons of beautiful produce and I always wished I had a way to preserve it. Yes, you can buy canned pears on the cheap at the supermarket, but there's a certain allure to doing it yourself. If I can my pears then I know where they came from, I've talked to the farmers at the market, and I know what's been done to preserve them.
Instead of just wishing, this year I decided to do something about it. I bought a couple of books on canning, read about a zillion websites and watched several video demonstrations on youTube. Today my canning kit arrived and I got started.
I did two different recipes. The first recipe was Pear, Port, and Thyme Conserve from Well-Preserved. I got some nice looking bosc pears from the farmer's market and the thyme from my garden and figured that would be a good start for this year's Eat Local Challenge. I followed the recipe exactly and I think it turned out pretty well. You simmer the corsely chopped pears in brown sugar, vinegar, orange juice, lemon juice, lemon zest, and spices. I'm not sure my pears were quite ripe enough because I ended up with a sort of chutney texture, rather than the mush I was expecting. I put it in sterilized jars and boiled them for twenty minutes. When I took them out all the lids popped, indicating that a proper vacuum had formed. I want to let these mature for a week or two to let the flavors meld before I open the first jar.
The second recipe I made was Blueberry Pepper Jam. I used some frozen blueberries that I happened to have in the freezer and fresh peppers from the market. This recipe tastes fantastic, but I'm not sure if it gelled properly. I followed the instructions quite carefully and put in the amount of pectin that was called for, but I think there might have been a greater volume of peppers in my batch than in the batch that was tested with this recipe. I think the jam might have needed another 3-5 minutes on the boil. It's still cooling, so I'll have to wait and see.
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