Ginger Plum Jam

In autumn I find myself drawn to the displays of fresh seasonal plums, adoring their shape and colors. Strawberries are my spring darlings, blueberries are our summer sweet, and plums are my fall favorite, a delight that my boys enjoy as much as I do. I brought home a few bags of plums last week with this ginger plum jam in mind, and I had a hard time protecting them from the boys for a couple days until I could make the jam. Top Gun especially is drawn to their deep color, and I would find him sneaking off with one every so often, and even discovered a plum pit under the living room sofa. He desperately wanted that plum all to himself. Fortunately there were plenty of plums leftover for him and his brothers. Read more

Tomato Jam (Doce de Tomate)

It’s rich and complex, not your average tomato jam. The cinnamon and cloves spice it up, but the ruby port makes all the difference between an average jam and a memorable jam. It’s good by itself on toast, crackers, or baguette slices, and even better with sheep or goat cheese.

The recipe comes from the newly released The New Portuguese Table (review) by award-winning author David Leite, a book combining culinary tradition with modern flavors. In his version, Leite reduced the sugar considerably, leaving plenty of room for the flavor of the tomatoes to shine. We used our homegrown Cherokee Purple tomatoes, a rich rose-purple colored heirloom. We had several of them ripen at once, giving us the perfect opportunity to try them in this jam. The tomatoes have a sweet, rich flavor that works perfectly with the spices and port. Read more

Mint Apple Jelly

The mint bush continues to thrive, even with some killing frosts in the past two weeks, which just amazes me. Supposedly the plants grow best in wet soil with partial sunlight, though this bush has grown in a south-facing garden with full sun and has far exceeded my expectations. I have to trim it frequently to keep it in check, but we’ve had so many uses for it that trimming is not a hardship. Because we want to keep some mint on hand during the winter, I’m rooting some stems in soil and some in water to see which ones root faster, then will transplant in a pot for our indoor garden. Most varieties of mint propagate easily with either method.

Today I sipped fresh mint tea with honey while canning the mint apple jelly. Though I like jelly made from fresh apples, I was short on time and chose a recipe that starts with apple juice. I chose a natural type that hasn’t strained all the flavor out and was rewarded with a golden amber jelly with an aroma that made me think of making apple mint tea.  The mint infused the apple juice quickly and permeated the air in the kitchen. I couldn’t resist the urge to stand over the pot and take in the wonderful aroma.

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Pickled Green Tomatoes

The more we grow our own food, the more I understand and appreciate farmers, especially how their lives can revolve around harvesting. As the cold temperatures creep in, I find myself pulled into the garden, collecting what is left of our summer herbs and vegetables, and then back into the kitchen as we preserve what we grew. We’re also busy getting the garden ready for the winter season. We planted tatsoi, which grows even under the snow, and put garlic in the ground last week and have now begun the long wait until it’s ready to harvest in July. I have less time for other things these days, but soon the garden will be in winter low-maintenance mode.

We had loads of tomatoes to pull off the vines before the frosts hit, and we ended up with about five pounds of ripe or nearly ripe and about the same amount of green tomatoes. We also had about three dozen jalapeños and about two dozen Hungarian wax peppers. Since our counters were overflowing with tomatoes and peppers, I wanted to try my sister’s recipe for pickled green tomatoes. I call her The Canning Queen, a title she has worked hard to earn. She’s been canning for about 20 years and making this pickle recipe for three years with great success. This year she put up 19 quarts of these delicious pickled tomatoes. They are good cut up in salads or as a snack right out of the jar.

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Jalapeno Jelly

The jalapeño plant is holding its own in a jungle of grape tomatoes, bell peppers, and tomatillos. Even caged, the plants around it spread so much they lay over it, and most of the time I have to go under the deck to reach the spicy little gems. The plant is about three feet tall and has been a prolific producer. Every time I glance at it, I see more little peppers sprouting or flowers in bloom, and we’ve had them overflowing in the kitchen. At first we tried to encourage more production, but now we think we have enough jalapeños to last us until next summer, so we’ve left the remaining peppers on the plant to encourage them to turn red, which is the first step in making chipotles. We looked into making our own chipotles, but once we learned the process takes several days of smoking and tending, we decided to continue buying them and freeze the rest of the jalapeño harvest. Supposedly there are short cuts, such as using a dehydrator prior to smoking, so we might give that a go if we get enough red peppers before the first frost.

Jalapeños, like any other chile pepper, has a range of heat based on the Scovill scale, and supposedly you can roughly determine the amount of heat the pepper has based on its appearance, though this method is very imprecise. Green jalapeños have less heat than red, and peppers with scars have more heat. The more scars, the higher the Scovill Heat Units (SHU).

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SHF #22: Sweet Red Pepper Jelly

This month’s Sugar High Friday is hosted by Delicious Days and the theme is canning. I enjoy canning fruit jellies and jams as well as hot pepper jelly, but this sweet pepper jelly has to be my favorite. It’s a little sweet and a little tart and has the consistency of honey, a nice combination. It makes a great party appetizer poured over a slab of cream cheese and served with wheat crackers or sliced toasted baguette, although I enjoy it for breakfast or brunch on top of english muffins smeared with cream cheese. The color of the jelly will be a nice amber with red flakes, or if you prefer you can make it bright red by adding the optional food coloring.

If this is your first experience with canning, then take the time to read about the boiling water canning method and check out the resources mentioned in the post, including the list of canning cookbooks.

Update: Check out the round up of all this month’s canned sweets at Delicious Days. Read more

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