Canning & Preserving

Easy Applesauce

Now that cool weather has arrived, it’s time to work on apples. Local orchards have bushels of fruit begging for my attention. I put up applesauce every year: it stores well, can be used in lots of ways, and is surprisingly easy.

Canning & Preserving, Food

Oven-Roasted Tomato Paste

I use tomato paste all the time. Sometimes I need up to half a cup, sometimes just a little bit. When I make my own, I can store it in the sizes I tend to need most, so I have no more partly used cans in the fridge.

Canning & Preserving, Local Harvest

Jam: Peach Melba

It was Auguste Escoffier who devised the now-famous dessert, Pêche Melba, in the early 1900s. It consisted of fresh peeled peaches, slightly sugared, with raspberry purée, served over vanilla ice cream in a swan carved of ice. The dish has become a classic,

Canning & Preserving, Food, Local Harvest

So much jam!

Okay, as you readers may already have noticed, I make a lot of jam. The season for fruit here in Michigan is just too darned short, and I want to preserve as much as I can of the local harvest.

Canning & Preserving, Food, Local Harvest

Peaches, Peaches Everywhere!

I prefer to eat local food, sourced as close to the farm as possible: I get fresher food, I help support the nearby farming community, and it tastes amazing. Sometimes, though, I make exceptions. Let me tell you about my experience with peaches.

Canning & Preserving, Food

How to Make Jam

I get asked this a lot: is making jam hard? People tend to assume it takes a lot of time; that every batch is unmanageably huge; that it’s scary and uses weird equipment. All this is so, so wrong. You can make jam in a skillet or saucepan in less than an hour.

Canning & Preserving, Food, Local Harvest

Chives In My Garden

We had snow and hail last week, but it’s in the 90s today: welcome to springtime in SE Michigan. I’m working on the garden this week – first setting the chives and all the other herbs to rights, and then planting my favorite tomatoes.

Canning & Preserving, Food, Local Harvest

Chocolate Pear Butter

Looking at my preserves cupboard, I can see it’s been a good year for jams. Let’s see … there’s cherry jam three ways, blueberry-ginger jam, spiced tomato jam, strawberry-vanilla butter, peach, and apricot jams. But there are still a few gaps!

Canning & Preserving, Food

Slow Cooker Tomato Paste

Necessity is the mother of invention. Sometimes you hit a roadblock; something knocks your plans horribly askew. So it was for me this week, when I planned to reduce a half-bushel (25-26 pounds) of tomatoes to thick tomato paste.

Canning & Preserving, Food, Local Harvest

Cherry Jam Three Ways

I’m lucky to live where some of my favorite fruit can grow. Recently I brought home half a peck of dark sweet cherries from a nearby orchard.

Cherries can stain your hands, clothing, and the kitchen counters, but they’re so worth making a mess!

Canning & Preserving, Food, Local Harvest

Blueberry-Ginger Jam

I love berries of all kinds, and am lucky to live where lots of them grow. Recently I bought some freshly picked blueberries at a farm stand: they were delicious! Some went into muffins, some on cereal, some were just eaten as a snack.

Canning & Preserving, Food, Local Harvest

Strawberry-Vanilla Butter

You don’t have to make huge batches of jams or pickles. Take this example: in a small batch, Strawberry-Vanilla Butter uses only 1½ quarts of berries, and yields 3 half-pint jars (plus a bit extra for toast or snacking.) You may double the recipe,

Canning & Preserving

Easy Applesauce

Oven-Roasted Tomato Paste

Jam: Peach Melba

So much jam!

Peaches, Peaches Everywhere!

How to Make Jam

Chives In My Garden

Chocolate Pear Butter

Slow Cooker Tomato Paste

Cherry Jam Three Ways

Blueberry-Ginger Jam

Strawberry-Vanilla Butter

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