Shishitos are hot. Not hot hot (only one in ten have enough capsaicin to read as spicy). But hot trendy, I guess. Over the past six or seven years, they’ve shown up in our sharebox just three or four times—total. But if last night’s “predicted contents” email from LFFC holds, tomorrow will be at least the third…
Tag: Canning
Concord Grape Jawn
This one’s a ‘tweener. Not really a jelly, since I’m too lazy to strain it a second time. And not really a jam, since I’m too lazy to pinch the skins off each berry so they don’t get filtered out with the pips when cranked through the food mill. Why’s that? Because I’m also too…
Blackberry-Fig Preserves
Besides mosquitos and morning glories, about the only thing thriving in my garden this hot, sticky summer is my fig tree. The cherries got 95% wiped out by ill-timed, early-June torrential rain and whipping winds; July’s grapes were all lost to the birds; and this month’s near-daily drenchings have left most of the tomatoes that…
Goosecherry Jam
This post, started one year ago today, was supposed to be a victory lap. The cherry-and-gooseberry jam I’d made after last year’s epic harvest had been my favorite jar in years, and I was looking forward to creating—and documenting—a second batch. Alas, in 2018 Mother Nature had other ideas. An extended verycoldsnap in March had delayed…
Small-Batch Fig Jam
That seems redundant, doesn’t it? Because if you find figs at the farmstand, they’re often upwards of $12-a-quart—or even a buck apiece for big ones. And if you grow them yourself, you likely eat as many as you can straight off the tree (or, say, with a little honey and yogurt . . . or…
Strawberry-Maple Jam
Time to rotate the berries. With a pint in yesterday’s LFFC sharebox, plus about a pint pulled from my own garden, plus a scruffy partial-quart leftover from the farmers market Sunday, I suddenly had a critical mass of berries, some of which were in that critical do-something-with-me-today stage. I hung onto most of my home-growns…
Alli-yum
I wasn’t keeping count until a croquet-ball-sized one landed on my little toe this morning when I opened the pantry door, but as of a couple hours ago, we had way too many onions on hand. And then I made this sweet onion marmalade. And now Sheila’s asking me to swap for more onions next week….
I packed a pint of pickled peppers
Yesterday’s sharebox included a bag of a dozen or so decent-sized jalapeños. That’s a lot. More than we can eat before they start to go hinky. So I skimmed off 4-5 larger peppers for a batch of roasted salsa this weekend, and the remaining half pound split perfectly into to two half-pint jars that’ll feed us over…
Blubarb Jam: A Sweet and Slippery Slope
If you’re new to making fruit preserves, blueberries are the perfect gateway. Widely available, rich in their own pectin, and relatively inexpensive, blues are a small-batch-friendly fruit. And with no hulling and no pitting, your prep is pretty much limited to a quick rinse and a scan for stray stems and bum berries. Lovely when sugared…
Swap-Box Hero: Hoagie Peppers
It was meant to be, I guess. The same bag of banana peppers I’d exchanged for a carton of mushrooms Tuesday morning was still in the swap box after everyone had picked up Tuesday night—along with a second bag of mixed wax peppers. By now, you probably know what that means: it’s time to prep…
Boxing Day 