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.

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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?

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