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A New Love: Jacques Pépin's Fast Food
Talking Him Into It - Feeding The Guy
Another Change, and Two Summer Shortcakes
« Review: Creamy Potato-Cheese Soup | Main | Canning Without Equipment »
Now that apple, pear and pomegranate season are in full force and some days are cold enough that you want to stay indoors, it's the perfect time to do some canning. Okay, so canning seems like a very domestic diva kind of activity, but it's actually much easier than most cooking projects: throw fruit, sugar and pectin into a pot, stir for a while, ladle the mixture into jars and boil them for a few minutes. What's easier than that?
Alright, so to do a lot of canning you have to buy a some equipment -- a canning pot or pot insert, the round tongs and magnetic wand, etc -- but once you start making jars of homemade jams and applesauce, the equipment pays for itself. In fact, if you give everyone on your Christmas/Chanukah list a couple jars of homemade preserves this year, you'll end up saving a ton of money (and you'll probably save time too, since everything will be done in just a couple afternoons).
In the past I've made the Chunky Lemon Applesauce from Epicurious (good, but too sweet-tart to eat much of), Persimmon Jam (not as good as I'd hoped, but I think I'll give it another try this year with even riper persimmons), and Pomegranate Jelly (one of my favorites, but hard to make right - I ended up with a couple batches of pomegranate syrup, which were good too). So far, my favorite recipe has been Pear Butter, which I made with red Bartlett Pears (maybe a little too much sugar in the recipe, but really yummy!) This year, in addition to going back to some of my favorites, I think I'm going to try Pumpkin Butter and, if I can find the right roses, Rhubarb, Rose and Strawberry Jam, though missing strawberry season might make that impossible. I also picked up a recipe for Rhubarb-Pear Chutney at the Greenmarket.
So in a few weeks, after a couple weekend afternoons in the kitchen, I expect to have some lovely presents to take to people this Christmas and some yummy applesauce to give to hostesses come Chanukah.
(PS, to make your jams look really professional, check out the custom labels at MyOwnLabels.com)
Posted by georgia to Kitchen and Cooking on November 6, 2005 01:00 AM | permalink | Email this post
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You've re-inspired me. I tried my hand at apple butter a couple of weeks ago and ended up with apple sauce, which wasn't so bad anyway. I want to try some pomegranate and pear stuff. Thanks for the links.
Posted by: Jennfier at November 11, 2005 02:47 PM
Glad to help -- let me know if you come across any good recipes; I'll let you know how the pumpkin butter recipe works out.
Posted by: Georgia at November 11, 2005 03:06 PM
