Runaway October

It’s time for my par­tic­i­pa­tion blog post for Tigress’ Can Jam. I actu­ally have two recipes to share with you.

Our theme for Jan­u­ary was Cit­rus, which is awe­some because Cit­rus is so abun­dant here in Ari­zona this time of year.

Ari­zona Citrus

This first recipe was just a standby while I waited for my vanilla beans to arrive for my REAL recipe for the can jam.

Cit­rus Marmalade

Makes 6 half-pint jars

Ingre­di­ents:

• 4 meduim oranges
• 2 medium lemons
• 2 1⁄2 cups water
• 1⁄8 tea­spoon bak­ing soda
• 61⁄2 cups sugar
• 1 pack­age pow­ered pectin
• 1⁄4 tea­spoon butter

Prepa­ra­tion:

1. Wash your hands, uten­sils, and work sur­faces, and then pre­pare the ingredients.
2. Ster­il­ize empty can­ning jars by plac­ing them upright on rack in water bath can­ner and cov­er­ing them with hot water to 1 inch above the tops of the jars. Boil 10 min­utes. At alti­tudes higher than 1000 ft, boil the jars an addi­tional 1 minute for each addi­tional 1000 ft ele­va­tion. Keep the jars hot and drain just prior to filling.
3. Wash the oranges and lemons throughly, I use a scrub brush. Remove the rind in quar­ters from oranges and lemons. Trim and dis­card half of the albedo (white flesh attached to the rind). Or all of it if you don’t want all the bit­ter­ness asso­ci­ated with it.
4. Thinly slice the rinds and place in a 4-quart (4 L) saucepan.
5. Mix the rinds with water and bak­ing soda. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover, and sim­mer for 20 min­utes, stir­ring occasionally.
   

   Cit­rus segments

6. While the rinds are cook­ing, remove seeds from the peeled oranges and lemons, and finely chop the fruit, sav­ing the juice. Set aside.
7. Add reserved fruit and juice to the cooked rind mix­ture. Cover, bring to a boil, reduce heat, and sim­mer 10 minutes.
8. Mea­sure exactly 4 cups of cooked fruit and rind mix­ture (a box of pectin is suf­fi­cient to gel this much liq­uid). Use a slot­ted spoon to make sure you get all of the fruit and rind, and then use the juice to bring the total vol­ume up to 4 cups. Dis­card any left­over juice or use it in another recipe that calls for orange juice.
9. Add pectin and but­ter or mar­garine to the mea­sured fruit. The but­ter or mar­garine reduces foam­ing dur­ing the cook­ing process.
10. Bring the mix­ture to a vig­or­ous boil that can­not be stirred down, stir­ring con­stantly. Boil for 1 minute.
11. Add sugar to the mix­ture. Return to a boil that can­not be stirred down, stir­ring con­stantly. Boil for 1 minute.
12. Remove from heat and let stand 5 min­utes, stir­ring occasionally.
13. Pre­pare two-piece can­ning lids accord­ing to manufacturer’s recommendations.
14. Ladle hot mar­malade into hot, ster­ile jars, leav­ing 1⁄4 inch of headspace.
15. Wipe the jars and the rim with a clean cloth or towel, place a clean pre­pared lid on the rim, and screw the ring band on finger-tight.
16. Process in a boil­ing water­bath can­ner for 5 min­utes (alti­tudes of up to 1000 ft). (Increase pro­cess­ing time by 1 minute for every addi­tional 1000 ft in altitude.)
17. Let jars cool undis­turbed for 12 to 24 hours, then check seals by press­ing the mid­dle of the lid with your fin­ger. If the lid springs back, then the jar is not sealed and must be refrig­er­ated. Prop­erly sealed jars can be stored in a dark, cool place.

—

Now on to my offi­cial Cit­rus Can Jam entry.

This recipe is adapted from a recipe I found on Epicurious.com. It’s one of my very favorite mar­malades to date. It starts as a sweet lemon­ade taste , end­ing as a warm bac­knote of vanilla.

Meyer Lemon and Vanilla Bean Mar­malade
Makes 6 half-pint jars

Ingre­di­ents:

• 1 1/4 pounds Meyer lemons
• 5 cups water
• 5 1/2 cups (about) sugar
• 1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise
• Pinch of salt

Prepa­ra­tion:

1. Wash your hands, uten­sils, and work sur­faces, and then pre­pare the ingredients.
2. Ster­il­ize empty can­ning jars by plac­ing them upright on rack in water bath can­ner and cov­er­ing them with hot water to 1 inch above the tops of the jars. Boil 10 min­utes. At alti­tudes higher than 1000 ft, boil the jars an addi­tional 1 minute for each addi­tional 1000 ft ele­va­tion. Keep the jars hot and drain just prior to filling.
3. Wash the lemons throughly, I use a scrub brush.
4. Zest lemons. The more pith you zest, the more bit­ter your mar­malade will be.
5. Peel and dis­card unwanted pith. While work­ing on a plate to catch juices, chop lemons finely. Dis­card seeds.
6. Pack enough lemons, zest and any juice to mea­sure 2 1/2 cups. Trans­fer to large non­re­ac­tive pot.
7. Add 5 cups water; bring to boil. Reduce heat to medium; sim­mer 10 min­utes. Remove from heat; let stand uncov­ered overnight.
8. Mea­sure lemon mix­ture (there should be about 5 1/2 cups). Return to same pot.
9. Add equal amount of sugar (about 5 1/2 cups).
10. Scrape in seeds from vanilla bean; add bean. Add pinch of salt.
11. Bring to boil, stir­ring until sugar dis­solves. Attach clip-on candy thermometer.
12. Main­tain­ing active boil and adjust­ing heat to pre­vent boil­ing over, cook until tem­per­a­ture reaches 230°F, stir­ring occa­sion­ally, about 30 minutes.
13. Remove from heat and let stand 5 min­utes, stir­ring occasionally.
14. Pre­pare two-piece can­ning lids accord­ing to manufacturer’s recommendations.
15. Ladle hot mar­malade into hot, ster­ile jars, leav­ing 1⁄4 inch of headspace.
16. Wipe the jars and the rim with a clean cloth or towel, place a clean pre­pared lid on the rim, and screw the ring band on finger-tight.
17. Process in a boil­ing water­bath can­ner for 5 min­utes (alti­tudes of up to 1000 ft). (Increase pro­cess­ing time by 1 minute for every addi­tional 1000 ft in altitude.)
18. Let jars cool undis­turbed for 12 to 24 hours, then check seals by press­ing the mid­dle of the lid with your fin­ger. If the lid springs back, then the jar is not sealed and must be refrig­er­ated. Prop­erly sealed jars can be stored in a dark, cool place.

—

Now… Who’s bring the fresh home­made bread so we can eat up all this mar­malade?

Sorry, I haven’t posted lately. Things have been more hec­tic than usual around here and the late win­ter light is bad for decent pictures.

I did put together a new list of tuto­ri­als and inspi­ra­tions for myself, though. Proud of that.

Check it out here, or in the side bar.

Good thing I proof­read or the title of this post would have been Mange Habanero Jam, and I don’t think that would sound nearly as appetizing.

I was recently reac­quainted with a local source of pro­duce, by my friend Niki. Lemme back up, actu­ally. My boys — Matt included — can go through fruit like it’s going out of  style. (As a mat­ter of fact, my 2 year old just snuck out of bed, came down stairs, snatched a tan­ger­ine and asked me to peel it. At 10:30pm.) On just about any given day, I have to start telling them no or I have to face the, uh, bio­log­i­cal after­math. Not fun. So one of my com­mon quests is to find the best deal for us on pro­duce. We’ve tried local co-ops, we’ve begrudg­ingly paid super high prices at health food stores, we’ve gone for the cheap­est pos­si­ble ala Wal­Fart. But it seems you always end up where you started.

Mango Jalapeño and Mango Habanero Jam

The Super­sti­tion Ranch Mar­ket on Apache Trail always has one good deal or another. Some of you non-Arizonians have to real­ize that not much grows here, so 4 pounds of pears for $1 is a smok­ing deal. Or Honey Crisp apples at $1/pound. Or a quart of black­ber­ries for $.69. We’re pretty much in heaven every time we go in. Some­times we go a lit­tle too crazy and we can’t eat our spoils fast enough. So Niki and I have turned to jam. But I’m not gonna lie. We’re kinda test­ing the waters to see if we’d make it with our own Farmer’s Mar­ket booth.

Mango Habanero Jam

We came across this recipe at 28 cooks and knew we had to try it. It was sim­ple, took only a few ingre­di­ents and sounded pos­i­tively deli­cious. The prep was sim­ple and there was hardly any work involved. Just blend it up, boil it and pour it into jars. It set up beau­ti­fully. 28 Cooks says it’s not as hot as you may think, but don’t be fooled. It has a kick, albeit a very deli­cious one. I’ve tried it on sharp ched­dar (yum), cot­tage cheese (yum), bread (yum) and a soft goat cheese spread (yum). It’ll make a deli­cious glaze for roasts. I’ve heard it’s deli­cious on grilled cheese sand­wiches? I’ll  have to try that too.

It very much reminds me of the spicysweet tamarind mex­i­can candy as well, and I can see myself eat­ing this straight out of the jar… Wait, Niki, my mom and I have all already done that…

Niki opted to use half jalapeños and half habaneros in her batch, hence the very green jam instead of orange like mine. It’s def­i­nitely more kid friendly that way, but still has a nice bit of spice and an amaz­ing taste.

So if it sounds like some­thing you’d like to try, drop on by and see Niki or myself, or just make it your­self! It’s easy! Head over to 28 Cooks. The recipe is right here.

Mango Jalapeño Jam

Okay, so after a 7 month hia­tus, I am back. If you ever want to get com­ments on your blog, just stop blog­ging for a really long time. I hope to be back blog­ging reg­u­larly now. I over­hauled the whole blog, got rid of unnec­es­sary “fea­tures” and setup a new gallery tool. Be sure to check out the pic­tures, by click­ing on the links either above or to the right. I update with pic­tures of the boys reg­u­larly.

New Year by *Sally M*

On another note, 2009 has come to a close. It was a year of ups and downs for us, like I’m sure it was for most other fam­i­lies. We were taken to court by one of my day­care clients, and nice guys always fin­ish last. My hus­band bought me a won­der­ful new home! He also plowed through mas­sive lay­offs at his work and even ended up with a pro­mo­tion. We were sur­prised with an unex­pected preg­nancy and sub­se­quent mis­car­riage. We made new friends, lost fam­ily mem­bers, and all in all I think we weath­ered the storm nicely. We can only hope 2010 is as good… Well, maybe with a lit­tle less of the downs, of course.

As is typ­i­cal for me, I hope that I can use my blog to stick to my New Years res­o­lu­tions, which are pretty typ­i­cal for me, just look at the one’s from years past. But this time I have a whole house to dec­o­rate and make homey. On a bud­get. I also con­vinced Matt to buy this lit­tle pretty for my Christ­mas present…in pink of course.

Cav­allini 2010 Daily Planner

My hope is that I’ll have plenty of space to sched­ule things ahead of time, so that I don’t end up scram­bling the day before a birth­day or 4 weeks before Christ­mas again. My plan is to make Christ­mas presents through­out the year, and maybe setup a cou­ple craft­ing get-togethers. So if any of you are inter­ested in meet­ing to have some good food, a few drinks and make batches of Christ­mas presents with friends, let me know.

I have lots of new recipes to try, crafts to make, sewing to do and I hope to do a bit of can­ning. And by a bit, I mean I think I’ve been bit­ten by a can­ning bug. I found a new source for cheap, fresh pro­duce and home­made jam and jel­lies has never sounded bet­ter. I still need to set up and dec­o­rate my “craft room”. I’m kinda ignor­ing the fact that half of it is sup­posed to be for Matt’s com­puter stuff. We debate over the name of it con­stantly. Matt orig­i­nally named it the S.O.R. — Server Oper­a­tions Room. I’ve decided it’s the Sewing Machine Oper­a­tions Room — S.M.O.R. That’s a  much nicer name, don’t you think?

So those are a few of the things I’ll be work­ing on this year. Wont you join me?

And remem­ber, a blog­ger lives for com­ments. Please don’t be shy. If you drop by, lemme know you were here! To do so, just click on the link below that says “Leave a comment/# of com­ments” and type in what­ever your heart desires.

Thanks for read­ing!

I have a hard time cook­ing for my brood some most days. Some don’t like mush­rooms, some don’t like any­thing spicy, some don’t like food that requires work (such as chicken wings), some just don’t like any­thing like lit­tle Rowan. It can get frus­trat­ing when you’re flip­ping through a cook­book list­ing off deli­cious recipes and every­thing gets vetoed by one per­son or another. It’s also frus­trat­ing when you give up and choose some­thing and it doesn’t get­ting eaten quickly enough to not grow slimy in the fridge. I know. It’s hard to believe that hap­pens in this house.

Matt, the boys and I stopped by a Half-Price Book store the other night, and I res­cued a cou­ple beat up low­fat cook books for a dol­lar a piece. Can you imag­ine the groans that caused? “Low­fat? You mean ‘Fla­vor Free’ right?” Etc etc. But there are actu­ally quite a few recipes that I think will end up being keep­ers. This recipe is one of them.

Seafood is not some­thing we nor­mally eat. I’ve never been huge fan, Matt doesn’t see what the hype is about, and kids will be kids, right? My brother on the other hand… We made a dou­ble batch and picked up a pound of shrimp on sale for less than 5 dol­lars. Every­thing else I pretty much had on hand.

Even a large serv­ing of the dish comes in under 350 calo­ries. The pasta makes it very fill­ing, and the broc­coli gives you lots of good vit­a­mins. Am I the only mama blessed with kids that gen­er­ally love vegetables?

Par­don my bad pic­tures. The sun had gone down before I started din­ner. Oops!

Pasta in Gar­lic Sauce with Shrimp and Broccoli

Adapted from The 99% Fat-Free Cookbook

This clear, thin gar­lic sauce is a note­wor­thy change from the heavy mound under which pasta typ­i­cally is buried. It lends both a per­me­at­ing fla­vor and a gloss to the pasta, set off by flecks of seafood and veg­eta­bles.

Yield: 4 servings

Ingre­di­ents:

• 10 gloves garlic
• 1 cup 99% fat free, reduced sodium Chicken Stock
• 8 ounces uncooked thin-strand spaghetti
• 2 table­spoons water
• 1 pound broc­coli flo­rets (About 1 large head)
• 1/2 cup sliced white onion (About 1 small onion)
• 1/2 pound cooked medium shrimp (About 24) peeled, deveined, and halved
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh dill
• 1/8 tea­spoon red pep­per flakes
• Salt and Pep­per to taste

Direc­tions:

• Put the gar­lic and stock in a small non­re­ac­tive sauce pan and bring to a boil over medium heat. Reduce the heat to low and cover. Sim­mer for about 20 min­utes, until the gar­lic is soft and eas­ily smashed with a fork. Trans­fer the con­tents of the pan to a food proces­sor or blender, and purée until smooth. Set aside.
• Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add the pasta, stir­ring to make sure the strands don’t stick together, and cook over high heat to desired ten­der­ness. (3 to 4 min­utes for home­made or other fresh pasta, 8 to 10 min­utes for dry pasta.)
• Mean­while, put 1 table­spoon of water in a non­stick fry­ing pan and bring to boil over medium heat. Add the broc­coli and onion and reduce the heat to low. Cover and cook for 3 min­utes. Add the shrimp, dill and the remain­ing table­spoon of water. Stir, recover and cook for 4 to 5 min­utes more. Remove from the heat.
• When the pasta in done, drain it in a colan­der and return it to the pot over very low heat. Add the gar­lic purée then mix well to coat the pasta. Add the broccoli-shrimp mix­ture and the sea­son­ings. Toss together until well blended and serve immediately.

Nutri­tion info:

• Calo­ries  316.1
• Total Fat 2.5 g
  • Sat­u­rated Fat 0.2 g
  • Polyun­sat­u­rated Fat 0.9 g
• Monoun­sat­u­rated Fat 0.2 g
• Cho­les­terol     110.5 mg
• Sodium     613.3 mg
• Potas­sium     416.4 mg
• Total Car­bo­hy­drate     49.7 g
  • Dietary Fiber 4.8 g
  • Sug­ars 2.1 g
• Pro­tein     22.2 g
• Vit­a­min A 30.0 %
• Vit­a­min B-12 14.1 %
• Vit­a­min B-6 15.8 %
• Vit­a­min C 115.2 %
• Vit­a­min D 0.0 %
• Vit­a­min E 7.2 %
• Cal­cium 7.8 %
• Cop­per 9.1 %
• Folate     39.6 %
• Iron     25.0 %
• Mag­ne­sium 10.6 %
• Man­ganese     18.5 %
• Niacin     30.3 %
• Pan­tothenic Acid         6.3 %
• Phos­pho­rus         14.5 %
• Riboflavin     22.1 %
• Sele­nium 36.7 %
• Thi­amin 36.0 %
• Zinc     8.8 %