Category Archives: preserving

Red, White & Black

8 July 2009 by local kitchen

One last recipe for the last days of strawberry season here in the Northeast. This strawberry, white balsamic vinegar and black pepper jam has a fantastic flavor profile; almost savory, with the balsamic vinegar kick, yet sweet enough to enjoy on a muffin or scone. Lovely flecks of crushed black pepper give it added zing and visual appeal. The set was very loose, almost a thick sauce more than a jam, likely due to my overly ripe strawberries and limited sugar. But even […]

Categories: berries, canning, condiments, jams, preserving, spring, summer • Tags: balsamic, canning, cooking, food, jam, local, preserving, recipes, savory, strawberries

Sweet Cherry Chutney

7 July 2009 by local kitchen

We enjoyed this tangy, flavorful chutney while picnicing in the park at Kensico Dam on July 3rd, listening to the Westchester Philharmonic and enjoying, in succession, a rainbow, a nearly full moon rising, and fireworks. As if the non-rainy weather, good company, and music were not enough, we also enjoyed Curried Apple Chutney, Flageolet and Roasted Garlic Spread, sugar snap peas from Alison’s CSA as well as some carrots, hummus, salsa, tortilla chips, and crackers. Quite the feast, rounded out by two local […]

Categories: apples, canning, cherries, chutneys, preserving, raisins, summer • Tags: canning, cherries, cooking, food, local, preserving, recipes

Homemade Berry Cordial

6 July 2009 by local kitchen

With the last two quarts of strawberries from the weekend’s picking, I decided to make some cordial. Last year I made a wild raspberry cordial (shown in the picture, mixed with seltzer), based on Leda Meredith’s recipe, that came out quite nicely. It’s a bit too sweet for me to drink on it’s own (one friend said that it tasted just like Manischewitz wine!), but it’s delightfully refreshing when mixed with seltzer or sparkling water and it adds a lovely berry […]

Categories: berries, fall, fermenting, preserving, spring, summer, wine, beer & liquor, year round • Tags: berries, cooking, food, local, preserving, recipes

Preserving Cherries

5 July 2009 by local kitchen

At last, the overdue post on preserving cherries; hopefully, here in time before the end of cherry season! After having picked 40 pounds of sweet black cherries, and then Googling about and looking in my many cookbooks for things to do with 40 lbs of cherries, I am convinced that sweet cherries get a bad rap. Everywhere you look it’s sour cherry-this and sour cherry-that; a few recipes call for “tart” cherries; other than clafouti, it seems that the world […]

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

Cherry Vanilla Preserves

2 July 2009 by local kitchen

Rollin, rollin, rollin, keep them cherries rollin, Rawhide! I’ve spent the week preserving cherries for all I’m worth; frozen cherries, dried cherries, cherry rhubarb pie filling, drunken cherries, cherry chutney, lemon cherry muffins and cherry vanilla preserves. I feel like a cherry-pitting machine. I’m whipping up cherry recipes so fast that I don’t have time to post them. It’s just the teeniest bit possible that 40 lbs of cherries was a wee bit ambitious. Shut up, you did not tell me so. […]

Categories: apples, breakfast, canning, cherries, citrus, dessert, jams, preserving, summer • Tags: canning, cherries, cooking, food, local, preserving, recipes

Drunken Cherries

1 July 2009 by local kitchen

Two of my favorite things: local, sustainably-grown fruit, that I get to pick myself, while spending quality time with my sweetie, on a rare and gorgeous sunny summer day, and… booze. A match made in heaven! Adapted from Brandied Cherries in The Glass Pantry by Georgeanne Brennan ———————————————————- Drunken Cherries INGREDIENTS 4 lbs cherries (sweet, tart or sour) 1 cup sugar (organic evaporated cane juice) 1/4 cup filtered water 4 cups brandy, rum, Cointreau, or other liquor METHODS Sterilize 4 glass […]

Categories: canning, cherries, dessert, preserving, summer, wine, beer & liquor • Tags: booze, canning, cherries, cooking, food, liquor, local, preserving, recipes

Sweet Cherry Rhubarb Pie Filling

27 June 2009 by local kitchen

The first in a long list of cherry preserving recipes. My fingernails may be permanently dyed purple, but I’ve got 11 pounds queued up for the dehydrator, 3 pounds pitted and in the new freezer, and 3 batches of cherry rhubarb pie filling. I’ve also thanked various deities for this amazingly handy and effective cherry pitter – and thanked Amazon for cheap-o, overnight, Saturday delivery! More recipes to follow! Adapted from Cherry Rhubarb Lattice Pie in The Pie and Pastry Bible by […]

Categories: 100% local, canning, cherries, dessert, freezing, pie, rhubarb, summer • Tags: canning, cherries, cooking, food, local, preserving, recipes, rhubarb

Preserving Strawberries

23 June 2009 by local kitchen

Twenty-five pounds of strawberries came and went pretty quickly; after tonight’s strawberry tart I’ve got less than a quart left. I think I might actually have to go picking again! Final totals: About 5 quarts frozen, 2 pints dried, 2 and 1/2 ice cube trays of purée, plus about 1 cup in the fridge, 3 and 1/2 pints of strawberry-rhubarb jam, one glazed strawberry tart and lots of random strawberry snacking – over ice cream, on granola, in salads, and out of the box. […]

Categories: 100% local, berries, canning, freezing, fruit, preserving, spring, summer • Tags: canning, cooking, food, local, preserving, recipes, strawberries

Strawberry Rhubarb Jam, Two Ways

20 June 2009 by local kitchen

This year marks my third season of canning to preserve the harvest, but only my second year of making jam. Since I am no longer a jam-newbie, I decided that this summer I would experiment with trying to make some completely local jams & preserves, using no refined sugar or commercial pectin. Due to the metric ass-load of strawberries I picked on Wednesday, and getting some more rhubarb in our CSA, I had enough to make two batches of strawberry rhubarb jam, and […]

Categories: 100% local, berries, breakfast, canning, condiments, dessert, jams, preserving, rhubarb, spring, summer • Tags: berries, canning, cooking, food, local, preserving, recipes, rhubarb

Rose’s Strawberry Puree

19 June 2009 by local kitchen

Rose Levy Beranbaum developed a method for berry puree that involves extracting the juice, concentrating it down to one-fifth it’s original volume, pureeing the berry flesh and then adding back in the juice/syrup. This gives the puree maximum berry flavor without cooking the pulp, which tends to lead to a caramelized, sugary flavor rather than a pure berry flavor. While you could just puree fresh berries and call it a day, berries, and strawberries especially, contain so much water that the […]

Categories: 100% local, berries, canning, citrus, dessert, preserving, sauces, spring, summer, year round • Tags: cooking, food, local, recipes, strawberries

Tai’s Rhubarb Ginger Jam

26 May 2009 by local kitchen

As we’ve discussed before, Tai, although a pastry chef by training, almost never cooks. We have an agreement that he will cook dinner once a week, which, at this time of year is usually sausages on the grill, with some grilled asparagus or kale, and he is an awesome sous chef, especially when I am preserving the harvest. He stirs, chops, lifts, pours and does dishes with the best of them, but as for pulling out a cookbook and actually combining […]

Categories: jams, preserving, rhubarb, spring • Tags: canning, cooking, food, ginger, jam, local, preserving, rhubarb

Rhubarb Barbecue Sauce

21 May 2009 by local kitchen

Yes, yes, I know – who the hell makes barbecue sauce when it’s 85 degrees out? I the hell do, thank you very much. When you’ve had a seriously crazy couple of weeks, you worked last night until 1:00 am, and you still have 5 lbs of rhubarb wilting in the fridge, you make barbecue sauce when the sun shines. Despite the fact that it’s about 95 degrees in my kitchen right now, this sauce was a delightful surprise. Kind […]

Categories: canning, condiments, preserving, raisins, rhubarb, sauces, spring • Tags: BBQ, canning, cooking, food, local, preserving, recipes, rhubarb

Homemade Vinegar

10 March 2009 by local kitchen

Vinegar translates from the French as “sour wine” and in fact, if you leave a decent bottle of red wine open for a couple of days, it does start to turn to vinegar. Don’t throw it out! All you need to do to make red wine vinegar is to literally let the wine sit around – preferably in a larger, more open container than the wine bottle, but given enough time, it will turn to vinegar in the bottle as […]

Categories: 100% local, canning, preserving, vinegar, wine, beer & liquor • Tags: cooking, local, recipes

Curried Apple Chutney

27 February 2009 by local kitchen

Great on pork chops or pot roast, excellent with goat cheese on crackers, and a nice surprise on a turkey sandwich, this spicy, complex chutney is the first thing to disappear at parties. It even makes unique and flavorful mini-tarts, and when served with real vanilla ice cream, is an unforgettable dessert. I find endless uses for this chutney so I make several batches each Fall. Make up a batch or two now, while apples are still at the farmer’s markets, […]

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

Applesauce

20 February 2009 by local kitchen

10 April 2013: Below is my classic applesauce recipe, the one that I put up specifically for chunky, cinnamon-rich applesauce. When I am feeling lazy, or have a basket of tiny & misshapen wild apples that resist peeling, I will often simply halve the apples, simmer, then run through a food mill and cook down to a saucy consistency. Also, over the course of the preserving season, I often find that I need the pectin boost of fresh apple juice […]

Categories: 100% local, apples, canning, fall, preserving, sauces, vegetarian, winter • Tags: apples, canning, cooking, fall, food, local, preserving, recipes