Category Archives: preserving

Can Jam: Lime Curd for Water Bath Canning

19 January 2010 by local kitchen

Apparently it is Citrus Curd Week on the Interwebs – and no one told me! I’ve been thinking for a couple of weeks now about what I was going to make for Tigress’ January Can Jam; citrus is a lovely and broad category and there are so many choices! There are a couple of marmalades that I make each winter that Tai loves; one a pink grapefruit version with bourbon vanilla bean, the other a spicy orange marmalade with Arbol chiles. […]

Categories: Can Jam, canning, citrus, dessert, eggs, winter, year round • Tags: cooking, dessert, food, local, preserving, recipes

Cranberry Sauce with Rosemary & Juniper Berry

12 December 2009 by local kitchen

This is a beautiful sauce, a gorgeous cranberry color flecked with deep purple bits of juniper berry. The juniper gives a hint of piney bite to the sauce while the rosemary adds a mellow, savory note. And I got to use the oh-so-cute, short & squat Ball Elite jars that I found up in Maine (they are impossible to find near me). The recipe is an amalgamation of several cranberry sauce recipes I’ve tried in the last couple of years, but was mainly inspired by this […]

Categories: 100% local, canning, cranberries, fall, holiday, preserving, rosemary, sauces, wine, beer & liquor, winter • Tags: canning, condiments, cooking, cranberry, food, local, preserving, recipes

Apple Pectin Stock

8 December 2009 by local kitchen

When you are busy making all of those holiday apple pies, butters and desserts, don’t throw out the apple peels! Make apple pectin stock instead, and next summer you’ll be able to make 100% local jam with your homemade pectin. Sweet. Adapted (barely) from Homemade Pectin at Fig Jam and Lime Cordial ————————————————————- Apple Pectin Stock INGREDIENTS apple “leavings” (peels, cores and leftover bits from pie, jam or apple butter making, frozen is fine) filtered water METHODS Put apple leavings […]

Categories: 100% local, apples, canning, jams, preserving, stock • Tags: canning, cooking, food, homesteading, local, preserving, recipes

Mission Fig and Port Wine Mustard

3 December 2009 by local kitchen

Seems like it’s been All Mustard All the Time around here lately, but I have had all of these interesting mustard ideas floating around in my head and I want to try to them out before they disappear. And yes, I do realize that it’s more than a bit strange to be obsessing over mustard flavors when, a) I don’t like mustard and, b) I don’t eat mustard. But other people do, including my mustardophile husband, and a pretty little jar of […]

Categories: canning, condiments, fruit, mustard, wine, beer & liquor, year round • Tags: canning, condiments, cooking, figs, food, local, mustard, port wine, recipes

Fiery Habanero Mustard

28 November 2009 by local kitchen

At its simplest, prepared mustard is a basic mix of mustard seed and water, ground into a paste, and as such, could hardly be easier for the home cook. Mustard lovers may tell you, however, that the devil is in the details: which mustard seeds to use? which soaking liquid to use? Which vegetables, fruits, herbs or spices will flavor the mustard? This simple mustard gets its punch from fiery habanero chile peppers: yellow mustard seeds are soaked in habanero-infused […]

Categories: canning, condiments, hot chile peppers, mustard, wine, beer & liquor, year round • Tags: canning, condiments, cooking, food, local, recipes

Cranberry Apple Butter

19 November 2009 by local kitchen

Really, I promise this is the last apple butter recipe. At least for this year. (It’s possible, just possible, that 110 lbs of apples was a wee bit insane ludicrous ambitious.) But this is an apple butter recipe I can get behind. It’s really a cranberry butter recipe; very tangy cranberry flavor with the apples lending their pectin and texture and a hint of sweetness. Again I dispensed with the cinnamon (lest I have to buy stock in Penzey’s), but […]

Categories: apples, canning, citrus, cranberries, fall, preserving, spreads, winter • Tags: canning, cooking, food, local, preserving, recipes

Apple Rhubarb Chutney with Fennel & Cardamom

17 November 2009 by local kitchen

Yet another in the long line of apple recipes, I know, but this one is a definite keeper. This chutney is delicious, and that comes from someone who doesn’t like cooked apples. Not even apple pie, apple butter, applesauce or apple jam. Nope, I only seem to like apple chutney and I think I’ve found my new favorite: apple rhubarb chutney with fennel & cardamom. The sweetness of apples, the tang of rhubarb, the licoricey bite of fennel and the subtle, […]

Categories: apples, canning, cherries, chutneys, condiments, fall, preserving, rhubarb, spring, winter • Tags: canning, cooking, food, local, preserving, recipes, rhubarb

(Virtually) No Stir Apple Butter

14 November 2009 by local kitchen

As I mentioned in the previous apple butter post, I was looking to try a “no-stir” oven version of apple butter. I’ve heard good things about Crock Pot (sorry, “slow cooker” would be the PC terminology of the day, but I prefer the old-fashioned Crock Pot) apple butter, but as I do not own one, I had to try it out in the oven. There are a few recipes out there on the Interwebs for apple butter reduced in the oven; oven […]

Categories: apples, canning, fall, preserving, spreads, winter • Tags: canning, cooking, food, local, preserving, recipes

No Peel ‘Em Apple Butter

10 November 2009 by local kitchen

I’ve made apple butter each autumn for three years in a row now. It’s truly a labor of love, as I don’t really like cooked apples (with one notable exception) of any variety. I make applesauce, for my friend Christina, for the many, many babies in my life, and for baking. I make apple pies for friends, holidays and for Tai. Apple butter is definitely the most labor-intensive of all of my apple-preserving tricks, due to the seemingly endless stirring, […]

Categories: apples, breakfast, canning, condiments, dessert, fall, preserving, spreads, winter • Tags: canning, condiments, cooking, food, local, recipes

Canned Apple Pie Filling

6 November 2009 by local kitchen

Updated 08 October 2011. The original recipe was a modified version of the Ball Book apple pie filling; this version reflects more closely how I make a fresh apple pie, with some added apple cider and ClearJel canning starch to provide the necessary liquid for canning. There are 2 pounds of apples packed into each quart of pie filling in this version, making this a very apply, not overly sweet, and not overly goopy filling. If you like a sweeter […]

Categories: apples, canning, dessert, fall, pie, preserving • Tags: apples, canning, cooking, dessert, food, local, pie filling, preserving, recipes

Apple Ginger Jam

4 November 2009 by local kitchen

Tai and I managed to squeak in an afternoon of end-of-season apple picking last week at Fishkill Farms in Fishkill, NY. For the very end of October, they still had plenty of apples in the trees; Red Delicious, IdaRed, Rome, Macoun and Mutsu were all plentiful. With a little bit more effort, we collected a bushel of Stayman Winesap apples, even though the orchard said that they were “done.” It’s also a lovely orchard with organically grown apples at $20/half bushel […]

Categories: apples, canning, fall, jams, preserving, winter • Tags: canning, cooking, food, local, preserving, recipes

Chile Verde Base

29 September 2009 by local kitchen

Throughout the year, I make a kick-ass chile verde, a Mexican stew of roasted tomatillos, jalapeño peppers, cilantro, garlic and slow-cooked pork shoulder. My recipe is only slightly adapted from Elise’s version on Simply Recipes, courtesy of her friend Arturo Vargas, and it’s a staple over the long, cold months of winter. Tomatillos, however, the main ingredient in the vegetable base, have a short season here in the Northeast: they ripen at the tail end of tomato season and, if […]

Categories: 100% local, cilantro, fall, freezing, hot chile peppers, preserving, summer, tomatillos • Tags: cooking, food, local, Mexican, preserving, recipes, tomatillos

Dried Nectarines

23 September 2009 by local kitchen

I know, lame right? How many times can I tell you how to dry fruit? Yes, yes, Kaela, we get it; slice it and stick it in the dehydrator. Wait awhile. Eat. But if you were flying to Calgary in 3 days (3 days!!) to get married, and spend a month honeymooning in British Columbia, and subsequently had 7,000,000,000,000 things left to do before you left… you’d not find a lot of time for making nectarine chutney either. So, yes, this is […]

Categories: 100% local, drying, peaches, preserving, summer • Tags: cooking, food, local, preserving, recipes

Honey-Spiced Peaches

18 September 2009 by local kitchen

Even as orchards are filling up with early-season apples, peaches are still coming off the trees, and are in abundance at local farmer’s markets. Check out a local orchard this weekend, enjoy a peep at the early-season foliage, and stock up on some of the last of the year’s summer fruit. This is an easy way to preserve the bounty and enjoy the delicious flavor of peaches all year long. Not the peach recipe you’re looking for? Click here for more things to do with peaches. Adapted […]

Categories: 100% local, canning, fruit, peaches, preserving, summer • Tags: canning, cooking, food, local, preserving, recipes

Peach Cascabel BBQ Sauce

11 September 2009 by local kitchen

Cascabel peppers, also known as chile bola or rattle chiles, because of the way the seeds rattle around inside the small round dried pepper, grow wild on the Pacific coast of Central America and Mexico. In this country, you generally only find the dried peppers, or sometimes the ground powder. Last winter I bought a bag from Penzey’s, intent on making some recipe or other, which I apparently never made, so I had a mostly full bag of these little […]

Categories: 100% local, canning, hot chile peppers, peaches, preserving, sauces, summer • Tags: canning, cooking, food, local, preserving, recipes