March Can Jam: Alliums

This month, the ingredient for the Tigress Can Jam is Alliums! Garlic and onions count among my favorite food items, so I couldn't be more excited.  I took a chance this month and made two recipes to fill up the larder.  I could have made a hundred and may still try.  I'd love to pickle garlic and I certainly was jealous of all the can jammers out there with fresh garlic or green garlic or garlic scapes, so I'm going to keep my eyes open and will be capturing loads more alliums in jars in the near future. 

For my first trick, I started simple with loads of beautiful red onions that I picked up at the Grand Army Plaza Farmers' Market.  The onions were so pretty that I didn't want to do much with them, but simmering them lightly in red wine vinegar (and a clove of garlic) made them even more attractive.  The onions still had a bit of crunch when they went into the jars, but had softened slightly.  I'm looking forward to using them in salads, or on barbecue sandwiches, and of course the vinegar itself will be amazing when it's all infused with great onion flavor.

My next trick was more complicated, for sure.  I decided that I wanted to do something with garlic since it ranks among my favorite foods.  I found Roasted Garlic Jelly in Ball's Complete Book of Home Preserving and was immediately interested in the sweet roasted garlic, balsamic vinegar and dry white wine.  Quite possibly perfect. 

I collected my ingredients and roasted the garlic.  Checking one more time while the garlic roasted, I realized that the recipe required liquid pectin.  Doh! I only had powdered.  I did some poking around the interwebs and contemplated a substitution, but I am way too green to go against the general guidance that advised against the attempt.  And so I waited another day or two to get the pectin.  But it was well worth it.  I haven't tried the jelly out of the jar, but I stuck a finger in the leftovers coating my saucepan and it was great.  The wine and garlic melded together nicely and the color can't be beat.

Allium month definitely wins the prize (so far) for yielding the most beautiful colors and the most recipes tucked away to try sometime soon.  Once garlic-related items are in the farmers' market this spring, kettle beware!

Red Onions in Vinegar (from Ball's Complete Book of Home Preserving)

• 4 cups red wine vinegar
• 1 clove garlic
• 10 cups sliced peeled red onions

1. Prepare canner, jars and lids.
2. In a large stainless steel saucepan, add vinegar.  Smash garlic lightly and add to vinegar.  Bring to a boil over medium-high heat.  Reduce heat and boil gently for 5 minutes, so that garlic can infuse the vinegar. 
3. Add onion rings.  Turn heat up to medium-high and bring to a boil.  Reduce and boil gently, covered, for 5 minutes and onions are completely heated. Discard garlic.
4. Pack hot onion rings into jars leaving generous 1/2 inch head space.  Ladle hot pickling liquid into jar to cover onions, maintaining head space.  Remove air bubbles and add more pickling liquid if necessary to maintain 1/2 inch space in jar.  Wipe rim.  Center lid on jar.  Screw band until tight.
5. Place jars in canner, ensuring they are completely covered with water. Bring to a boil and process for 10 minutes.  Remove canner lid.  Wait 5 minutes and then remove jars.  Allow to cool on the counter for 24 hours.  Store.
6. Makes about 7 8-ounce jars.

Roasted Garlic Jelly (more fun from Ball's Complete Book of Home Preserving)

• 3 medium heads garlic
• 1 tbsp olive oil, divided
• 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar, divided
• 1 cup dry white wine (I used Sauvignon Blanc)
• 2/3 cup water
• 1/2 cup white balsamic vinegar (regular is fine if you can't find white)
• 1 tsp crushed black peppercorns
• 3 tbsp lemon juice
• 3 cups granulated sugar
• 2 pouches liquid pectin

1. Cut off tops of garlic heads.  Drizzle olive oil and vinegar over heads.  Place in foil and scrunch ends closed.  Roast for 45-60 minutes at 425F or until garlic soft.  Once cool enough to handle, separate cloves and set aside.  Discard skins.
2. In a medium stainless steel saucepan, combine roasted garlic, wine, water, white balsasmic vinegar and peppercorns.  Bring to a boil over medium heat.  Reduce heat and boil gently for 5 minutes.  Cover, remove from heat and let steep for 15 minutes.
3. Transfer garlic mixture to dampened jelly bag or strainger lined with several layers of dampened cheese cloth set over a deep bowl.  Let drip, undisturbed, for about 30 minutes.  Measure 1 2/3 garlic juice.  If you do not get enough, add up to 1/4 cup dry white wine or water.
4. While waiting, prepare canners, jars and lids.
5. Transfer garlic juice to large deep stainless steel saucepan.  Stir in lemon juice and sugar.  Over high heat, stirring constantly, bring to a full rolling boil that cannot be stirred down.  Stir in pectin.  Boil hard, stirring constantly for 1 minute.  Remove from heat and quickly skim off foam.
6. Quickly pour hot jelly into hot jars, leaving 1/4 inch head space.  Wipe rim.  Center lid on jar.  Screw band until tight.
7. Place jars in canner, ensuring they are completely covered with water.  Bring to a boil and process for 10 minutes.  Remove canner lid.  Wait 5 minutes and remove jars.  Cool on counter for 24 hours. Store.
8. Makes about 9 4-ounce jars.

January Can Jam: Meyer Lemon and Cara Cara Orange Marmalade

In my ongoing endeavor to mix things up in the kitchen, I signed up for another monthly challenge.  The Tigress' Can Jam Food Blog Challenge! Each month, an ingredient will be posted and we have free reign to come up with interesting recipes to create and then can using a hot water bath canning method.  In general, the Tigress is committed to local, fresh foods which I, of course, am as well.  This seemed like a great opportunity to learn a new skill, make the most of local, fresh, in season foods (and not-so-local but in-season foods while we are in winter) and learn to be more self-sufficient. 

Alas, I started off by scouring the interwebs for citrus canning recipes.  There isn't a ton of variety out there and rather than get creative on the first month, I decided to play it safe.  The bulk of recipes available seem to be preserved lemons of a sort and marmalades.  The interesting part is the opportunity to play with the various kinds of citrus that are available this time of year - your basic run-of-the-mill citrus fruits and new-to-me varieties such as Cara Cara oranges, tangelos, pomelos and more.

I decided to go with a Meyer Lemon and Cara Cara Orange Marmalade that I found in the Washington Post (the same recipe is replicated on a few other sites as well I believe including a Pittsburgh paper whose link kept disappearing on me).  Trader Joe's, my chief supplier these days, happened to have both Meyer lemons and Cara Cara oranges this week which was perfect.

The first step was to wash and cut up the fruit.  First lesson learned: if you can avoid fruit with seeds, do.  The oranges were seedless, but the lemons had lots of seeds and seedlets that kept popping up everywhere.  Of course, fruit is supposed to have seeds and I'm generally against fruit that's engineered to be more convenient, so alas, there we are.

The pieces of fruit got chopped up in the food processor next, although the recipe calls for 1/4 inch pieces and I'm fairly sure my chopping job was more thorough.  This was fine with me since I'm not really a traditional marmalade girl, but I'll see the effects once the jam is tasted.  Next, the fruit bits are mixed with water and left at room temperature overnight. 

Things got much more exciting the next morning.  I heated the fruit mixture along with three cups of sugar until boiling and simmered away for about an hour.  The recipe calls for 45 minutes, but I was a little bit timid with the heat at first and it took awhile for the fruit to thicken up. 

While the fruit was cooking, the canning process got underway.  I have to say that this project made me feel more successful than I have in awhile and it was very fun in a nerdy homesteader sort of way.  I washed and dried three pint (16 ounce) glass mason jars and set them in very hot water using both my canning kettle (found here on Amazon) and a small dutch oven to sterilize them. 

Once the marmalade (so called as it had now finally thickened to something resembling marmalade) was ready, I used my sweet canning funnel (the 5-piece canning set available on Amazon had everything I needed and was such a great help - I get no money for that recommendation.  I'm just a happy customer.) to fill the jars.  As the recipe claimed, it makes just enough (with a small bit extra) for 6 8 ounce jars or 3 16 ounce jars.

Jam jars and dummy jars ready for processingIn order to make sure I was canning properly, I consulted both the directions to the canning kettle and my new bible, Putting Food By, which alerted me to the need to use dummy jars to fill out the rack in my kettle and protect the filled jars from underwater crashes.  I also followed their process for the Boiling Water Bath and the timing from their Classic Orange Marmalade.

The processing of the jars is actually the easiest part of the whole process.  Once the jars were filled and lids placed on tightly, I filled the rack (don't make my mistake and fill the rack outside the kettle - there was no disaster but apparently carrying jars in the rack is not a good idea) and submerged in near boiling water.  As the water reached a boil, I set the timer for 5 minutes.  And then, voila! My jars of marmalade were complete!

I haven't tried them yet as diving right in seemed to defeat the purpose of sealing them in jars that will keep for up to 3 years, and cooling them for 12-24 hours was suggested by the canning kettle instructions.  I assure you, though, that I will have a post coming when I take my first taste!  

Meyer Lemon-Cara Cara Orange Marmalade

Stored in a cool, dark place, unopened jars of this marmalade can last up to 3 years. Once the sealed jars have been opened, they can be refrigerated (with lids on) for up to 6 months.

Makes six 8-ounce jars or three 16-ounce jars

Ingredients:

• 9 medium Meyer lemons, washed, cut into 16ths and seeded
• 3 medium (seedless) Cara Cara oranges, washed and cut into quarters (may substitute Valencia or thin-skinned oranges; see headnote)
• 1 cup water
• 3 cups sugar

Directions:

1. Wash jars, lids and bands in hot soapy water.  Rinse well and set aside.
2. Place lemon and orange pieces in the food processor. Pulse until they have been reduced to 1/4-inch pieces or preferred size.
3. Transfer to a non-reactive bowl.  Add 1 cup water and mix well. Cover and let stand at room temperature overnight or up to 12 hours.
4. Transfer the fruit mixture to a large pot; bring to a boil over high heat, then reduce the heat to medium-high and add the sugar, stirring to combine. Cook, stirring occasionally, for about 40 minutes, until thickened to a jam-like consistency.  (Original author notes: the mixture will start off quite wet, then begin to thicken after 25 minutes or so.)
5. While marmalade is cooking, place jars in hot water in a large pot or canning kettle and lids and bands in another pot of hot water.  Keep them over medium heat, just before boiling, to sterilize.  Note: both recipes I checked called for separate pots.  I'm not sure if this is required or a vestige of not having enough room in pots.  Seems like a good idea to me to just go with it.
6. Pour marmalade evenly among the jars, leaving about 1/4 inch of head space at the top, using your canning funnel if you have one.  Seal tightly.
7. For canning, follow the instructions on your kettle/recipe.  My canning kettle should have about four inches of hot, not boiling, water in the bottom.  Place the jars in the rack using dummy jars of hot water to fill all empty spaces. Cover jars with more hot water.  Boil for 5 minutes to process the jar.  Time starts when the water is boiling.
8. Remove jars and let sit on a towel to cool for 12-24 hours. As noted, these will last for up to 3 years if kept in a cool, dark place and will last for up to 6 months in the refrigerator after opening.

Adapted from Bonnie Shershow, of Bonnie's Jams in Cambridge, Mass. via The Washington Post, link above.