September 30, 2011: Sweet Hot Pickled Jalapenos Recipe

Over the summer my husband and I visited The Orchard at Charlie Clark’s Steakhouse in Pinetop. During the summer months, The Orchard – several acres of grass and trees and an outdoor dance floor and bar – hosts arts and crafts festivals as well as other events. We bought some canned goods from a company called Made by Bees, from Gilbert, AZ and absolutely fell in love with their sweet hot jalapenos.

This recipe is my attempt to recreate that one; I think I came pretty darn close!

Warning: These jalapenos are addictive!

Sweet Hot Pickled Jalapenos

1 pound fresh jalapeno peppers

2 cups vinegar

½ cup water

½ cup olive oil

3/4 cup honey

½ t. smoke flavoring

2 t. pickling spices

About 2 t. chili pequin (or Japanese hot chilis)

Wash jalapenos peppers and cut off stems. Slice the peppers on the diagonal. Remove excess seeds (that’s what makes them hot so remove as many as you wish depending on how hot you like them). Pack slices into clean canning jars (I used 5 half pints and four 4-ounce jars).

In a saucepan, heat the vinegar, water, oil, honey, smoke flavoring and pickling spices to boiling. Remove from heat and pour into jars, leaving about ½ inch head space. Add 2 chili pequin to each jar. Fasten lids and screw bands on jars.

Process in boiling water for 15 minutes (low elevations) to 25 minutes (high elevations). Time them from the moment the water starts boiling. Remember that the jars should be completely covered in water. When time is up, remove them from the boiling water bath with a jar vise. Let sit, undisturbed, for at least 12 hours. For best flavor, let the jalapenos sit for 3 weeks before eating.

September 16, 2011: Peach Butter Recipe

Recently my friend Kathy scored several boxes of peaches straight from Colorado. These were freshly picked, perfectly ripe, huge, beautiful and juicy peaches that you could never find at the grocery store. Of course I had to get some but I’m not a big fresh fruit eater. I made a peach cake, then decided to can the rest of them using a new recipe for peach butter.

I’ve shared with you the exact measurements I used but if you have more or less peaches, you can adjust the recipe accordingly.

Peach Butter

7 extra large peaches

1 cup granulated sugar

1 cup brown sugar

Pinch of salt

1 ½ t. pumpkin pie spice

Peel, pit and slice the peaches. Place them in a large saucepan and heat over medium low. Cook until the peaches are softened (this could take more than half an hour, depending on how ripe the peaches are). Let cool slightly and press through a sieve.

Place the peach juice (you should have 4 cups of it) back in the saucepan. Add remaining ingredients. Cook over low heat until reduced to a very thick paste. To determine if the butter is ready, spoon a small amount on a plate. If no liquid separates from the butter, it is ready to put into jars. Note: cooking down the peach juice could take longer than two hours.

When peach butter is ready, ladle into sterilized jars to within ¼ inch of top. Wipe off rims. Top jars with sterilized seals and rings. Store in refrigerator. The peach butter will keep for several months as long as it stays cold.

OR if you have a lot of peach butter, you might want to process it in a hot water bath. If so, use new seals when closing the jars. Place them in a large pot of gently boiling water; make sure the lids are covered by an inch of water. Boil jars for 10 minutes (below 1,000 feet above sea level) to 25 minutes (above 6,000 feet over sea level).

Makes 4 half pint jars.

September 7, 2011: Canned Potatoes Recipe

I took the opportunity over Labor Day weekend to… well, labor. I put up another dozen ears of wonderfully sweet Taylor corn, green beans from my pastor’s garden, and also some huge potatoes I’d bought earlier at the farmer’s market.

I don’t quite know what it is, but I absolutely love canned potatoes. Their texture is just so creamy and their flavor becomes richer when preserved in water. For once, my husband and I have found something we agree upon: canned potatoes are just darned good!

Although I couldn’t find a recipe in my pressure canner book for regular, white russet potatoes, I followed the one for new potatoes with a couple slight tweaks and they came out just great!

These are my very large taters before and after canning. I couldn't find plain citric acid so I used this fresh fruit preserver from Ball, which is mostly citric acid.

Canned Potatoes

About 8 – 10 pounds potatoes (to can 10 pint jars)

2 t. citric acid

Water

Dissolve the citric acid in a large bowl of water. Clean and peel the potatoes. Cut them into medium-sized chunks and immerse them in the bowl of water with citric acid (this prevents them from getting brown). Drain.

Using a large stock pot, add potato chunks and enough water to completely cover them; bring to a boil. Boil the potatoes for five minutes. Turn off the heat.

Carefully ladle the potatoes into 10 clean pint jars. Use the liquid from boiling them to cover the potatoes to within an inch of the top. Place lids and screw bands on top of the jars.

Process potatoes at 11 pounds pressure (below 2,000 feet altitude), 12 pounds (for 3,000 – 4,000 feet above sea level), 13 pounds (for 5 – 6,000 feet) or 14 pounds pressure (above 6,000 feet in altitude) for a total of 40 minutes after your pressure canner gets up to the correct pressure.

August 23, 2011: Vegetable Canning Recipe

When it comes down to it, canning vegetables like green beans, peas, and corn is quite easy. You just need to have the right equipment and follow the formula for success.

Canned corn in half pint, pint and quart size jars; jar vise for placing filled jars in your pressure cooker and taking them out, and corn shucker device.

The first step is preparing the vegetables. This year I bought a corn shucker device, shown in the photo above. It makes the process of removing the kernels from the ears of corn a breeze and it was worth every penny (I bought this one locally from a kitchen supply store for $12). Green beans need to have the stem removed, as well as the tough vein along its length, if possible. Then snap the beans into pieces that will fit in your jars, no more than 2 inches in length. For peas, you simply need to remove them from the pods. Carrots should be peeled and cut into slices about half an inch thick.

Now is a good time to get your pressure cooker going. Place a canning rack in the bottom and fill the pot halfway with water. Bring it to a gentle boil. While you’re at it, start a teapot full of water to boiling because you’ll need it soon.

Now comes the fun part. Simply place your vegetables in sterilized Mason jars (use your dishwasher since the temperature gets higher than you can stand washing by hand). Make sure you leave a half inch head space, which is about at the bottom of the screw channels at the top of the jar.

Now it’s time to add a bit of salt; use one half teaspoon for pint jars, one teaspoon for quarts. If you want to cut down on your sodium intake, halve those measurements. Take the boiling water in your teapot and fill up each jar to within half an inch of the top. Make sure the contents of your jars are covered.

Place new lids on the top of each jar and screw on a band, tightening just to finger tight.

Use a jar vise to grab each jar and carefully place it in your pressure cooker. Leave at least a tiny amount of space in between each jar. If you’re using half pint jars, you can place one on top of another to make more room. Fasten the lid on your pressure cooker but don’t yet put the pressure regulator (I call this the “jigger”) on top yet. You need to let hot steam exhaust from the whole where the jigger goes for 10 minutes.

After 10 minutes of exhausting, place the pressure regulator on top. Now follow directions in your pressure cooker’s booklet for the amount of pressure required to cook at your altitude. Vegetables like those I described above shouldn’t take more than 20 to 30 minutes to process but since I live at a high elevation, I have to use 14 pounds of pressure; if you live below 2,000 feet in elevation you can use 11 pounds of pressure. After the pot gets up to the correct amount of pressure, reduce the heat to keep it steady.

Set a timer for the appropriate number of processing minutes. When the time is complete, turn the heat off and allow the cooker to reduce pressure to zero. You can slightly speed up this process by gently swishing a wet rag across the top of the pressure cooker. When no more pressure is left, remove the lid. Your jars of vegetables will still be boiling, so be very careful as you remove them with the jar vise. Place the jars on a cloth in an area where they won’t be disturbed for at least 12 hours.

August 22, 2011: Crunchy Kosher Style Dill Pickle Recipe

I just learned how to can foods last year. My dear friend Margaret patiently showed me how to do it. That one time was all it took for me to become passionate about canning fresh foods. I made pickles from some big, fat cucumbers our friend Darrell shared with us but they turned out awful! The flavor was good, but they weren’t crisp and the skin was tough.

So this year I decided I’d try again. Armed with the knowledge of what went wrong last time, I bought the proper type of cucumbers from the farmer’s market, and made sure that I processed the cans for the minimal amount of time in a boiling water bath. It’s going to be a few weeks before all the flavors are absorbed into the cukes, so I can’t tell you for sure whether these are better than last year’s batch, but they already look better and I’m sure they’re going to be flavorful thanks to all the extra spices I added.

Crunchy Kosher Style Dill Pickles

2 ½ pounds pickle cucumbers (the kind with spiny knobs on the skin)

3 cups water

2 ½ cups vinegar

2 ½ ounces kosher dill pickle spice mix (I used Ball brand and it contains salt so you don't need to add extra)

10 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed

20 black peppercorns

10 sprigs dill weed

10 small sprigs fennel

Clean and slice cucumbers into spears or chips. Place in a large bowl and cover with ice water. Put in the refrigerator overnight.

The next day, sterilize 10 pint-sized jars. Place the water, vinegar, dill pickle mix, and garlic cloves in a saucepan and bring to a boil.

In each jar, place as many of the cold cucumber spears as will fit. Add one garlic clove (strained from the vinegar mixture), two peppercorns, one sprig dill and one tiny sprig fennel. Pour in the boiled vinegar mixture to one-half inch from the top of the jars.

Prepare a large canning pot with bottom tray by adding water to the halfway mark and bringing to a boil.

Clean the rims of each jar and top with a lid; screw a band on each to finger tightness.

Using a jar vice, carefully place the jars of pickles in your canning pot. Make sure the boiling water covers the lids by half an inch; if necessary add more boiling water. Cover the pot and process for 10 to 20 minutes (10 minutes at low altitudes, 20 minutes for altitudes above 6,000 feet). When processing is complete, turn off the heat and uncover the canning pot. Use your jar vice to remove the pickle jars. Set them on a cloth on a table and let rest for at least 12 hours before moving.

Allow 3 to 4 weeks for flavors to penetrate the cucumbers before eating.