Runaway October

Our theme for this month was Alli­ums, cour­tesy of Small Mea­sure. Leeks, Onions, Shal­lots, Gar­lic, Ramps, Rakkyo, Scal­lions, Chives, etc. My first thought was ‘What the heck can I can that will actu­ally get eaten?’ I remem­bered try­ing an onion jelly a few years back, warmed and poured over melted Brie cheese, which was deli­cious. I had thought at the time that it would be yummy over pork­chops. So, I set­tled on an old standby — Jam.

I found the recipe on Michelle’s blog, Big Black Dog, and fol­lowed it to a “T”, no adap­ta­tions. Well, I did add one kitchen helper, since he was very sad that Big Brud­der got to go to Grandma’s house with­out him today.

Ignore the Oreo schmutz on his face. He’s hav­ing a rough day.

Zesty Red Onion Jelly*

Gen­er­ously shared by Michelle of Big Black Dog.

Makes 3 half-pint jars

Ingre­di­ents:

• 1 cup diced red onion
• 2 tsp lemon zest
• 3/4 cup white vinegar
• 3 cups gran­u­lated sugar
• 1 pouch (85 ml [3 fl oz]) liq­uid pectin

Prepa­ra­tion:

1. Cut red onion into 1/8 inch slices; cut slices into 1/4 inch dice.
2. Mea­sure 1 cup into a large, deep stain­less steel saucepan.
3. Zest lemon and mea­sure 2 tsp into saucepan.
4. Stir in vine­gar and sugar.
5. Over high heat, bring mix­ture to a full, roil­ing boil. Stir­ring con­stantly, boil hard 1 minute. Remove from heat.
6. Imme­di­ately stir in one pouch Liq­uid Pectin, mix­ing well.
7. Pour jelly into a hot jar, divid­ing solids equally among jars and fill­ing each jar to within 1/4 inch of top rim (head space). Wipe jar rims. Cen­ter lids on jars & screw on bands till fingertight.
8. Process in Hot Water Bath for 10 minutes.
9. Cool for about 30 min­utes, then, when lids are con­cave but jelly is still hot, care­fully invert & twist jars to dis­trib­ute solids through­out jelly. (Do not let them remain upside down for long peri­ods. It is said that doing so can cause food par­ti­cles to creep into the threads and cause spoilage.) Repeat as needed dur­ing the cooling/setting time, until solids are nicely suspended.

* I think this is con­sid­ered a jam because the onions have not been strained out, but I could be wrong!

It was a sim­ple quick recipe, the longest part was the 10 minute Hot Water Bath.

The color is gor­geous. I used Michelle’s trick of heat­ing the onion skins in the required vine­gar to get the dye out of them. Onions are rare at Farmer’s Mar­kets here and I had no clue how old the ones I bought were, but I’d imag­ine the color from fresh onions would be more vibrant.

She also spec­i­fied that short inver­sion times or twist­ing were nec­es­sary to dis­trib­ute the solids, but mine seemed to have no trou­bles at all. I just made sure to lis­ten for the “schick” of the lids seal­ing (onions have low ph so good can­ning prac­tices are vital) and called it done!

Lessons learned:

• Don’t try to smell onions cook­ing in vine­gar. Burns the sinuses. LOL
• I’ve had a few peo­ple frown when I invert my jars while they cool. It was just what I’ve been told and have seen done. Appar­ently this is a no-no because food par­ti­cles can work their way into the threads and pos­si­bly cause spoilage. Thank­fully I’ve never had issues before, but now I know.

What did you make for the Can Jam? Or what have you canned lately?

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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.

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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.

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