Marisa McClellan's Blog, page 106

Upcoming Events: Fayetteville Roots Festival & Williams-Sonoma in Rogers, AR

Friends, this summer has worn me down to the nubbin. I want to be posting more recipes and canning tutorials, but it seems that I can only summon the energy for giveaways and event reminders. Thank you for being patient with me. And remember, even though I’m not producing as many recipes as is my norm right now, there is a very deep archive of recipes appropriate for this time of year. I suggest the Lazy Peach Preserves and the Honey Sweetened Tomato Jam.

Now, for some event reminders. I’m on my way to Fayetteville, Arkansas right at the moment (I’m sitting in the Dallas/Ft. Worth airport as I type) and I’m doing a pair of events that are very much worth your time if you’re in the area.

Saturday, August 30

On Saturday morning, I’ll be at the Fayetteville Town Center from11 am – 1 pm, leading a massive pickle making workshop. No registration is required and the materials fee is just $5 per person. Show up and I’ll walk you through the steps of making your very own batch of refrigerator cucumber pickles. I’ll also have books for sale and signature, if you’re interested. Details here.

Sunday, August 31

I will be demonstrating my small batch jam making technique at the Williams-Sonoma in Pinnacle Hills. There is no fee for this event and it runs from 11 am – 1 pm. I hope to see some of you there!

Related Posts:

Jam Demo and Book Signing Today at Local in Brunswick, Maine
Upcoming Events: Vermont and Maine
Upcoming Events: Chicago!

Giveaway: Mrs. Wages Berry and Pie Mix Basket

Okay canners, time for our second Mrs. Wages giveaway for the summer. Last month, I got to show off a basket of their pickle mixes. This month, it’s all about pie filling and fruit mixes! This basket contains four packages of Spiced Apple Mix, three packages of Fruit Pie Filling, two packages of Forest Berry Pie Filling, and two shakers of Fresh Fruit Preserver.

Here’s how to enter!

Leave a comment on this post and tell me about something that’s still on your preserving list for this summer. In my world, I need to get some tomatoes in jar pronto.
Comments will close at 11:59 pm eastern time on Saturday, August 30, 2014. Winners will be chosen at random and will be posted to the blog on Sunday, August 31, 2014.
Giveaway open to United States residents only.
One comment per person, please. Entries must be left via the comment form on the blog at the bottom of this post.

Disclosure: Mrs. Wages is providing the basket for the giveaway. They are also a Food in Jars sponsor and so do help contribute to the running of this site. 

Related Posts:

Giveaway: Mrs. Wages Pickling Spices and Starters
Giveaway: Mrs. Wages Tomato Mix Basket
Mrs. Wages Gift Basket Giveaway Winner

Sponsored Post: Craftsy’s Free Class Creative Ways with Whole Grains

This post is the next installment in my sponsored content partnership with Craftsy. This time, I took Anna Bullett’s Creative Ways with Whole Grains. It was an entertaining and highly useful class that reminded me of how wonderful and easy whole grain cooking can be. Read on for more!

I believe that every home cook should have at least one hearty grain salad in his or her culinary repertoire. They keep well, are customizable to nearly every food allergy and preference, travel well, and they make really excellent leftovers.

Back in the days when I was working in an office full time, I would often make a big batch of barley, cucumber, red onion, parsley, and feta salad, and eat it for lunch all week. In addition to being a tasty and simple way to eat a good lunch, those bowls of grain salad really helped keep my grocery budget in check.

The only trouble I have with my beloved grain salads and side dishes is that I easily fall into a rut and make the same three dishes on repeat. To combat my tendency to combine the same flavors over and over again, my eyes are always peeled for fresh grain inspiration.

A few days ago, while on the road and far away from my kitchen, I took Craftsy’s free class, Creative Ways with Whole Grains. It offered up a wealth of fresh ideas and had me itching to get back home and into the kitchen to try some of Anna Bullett’s recipes.

She starts the class with an introduction to a variety of whole grains, offers tips on how to cook them, and then makes a wheatberry salad with goat cheese that looks positively delicious. Later, she shows how to make a wild rice pilaf that would work wonderfully on a potluck or holiday table, cooks up quinoa porridge for breakfast, and turns onions, mushrooms, and farro into a creamy risotto.

As we head into autumn (deny it all you want, it is coming), consider adding a couple of warm grain dishes to your regular rotation to help keep bellies full and satisfied.

If you want to take the Creative Ways with Whole Grains class, click here to register!

For more on my year-long partnership with Craftsy, head over to the first post in the series, all about my experience taking their free Knife Skills course.

Official disclosure statement: This post was sponsored by Craftsy. I was compensated for my time. However, all opinions remain entirely my own.



Related Posts:

Sponsored Post: Marcella Hazan’s Butter, Tomato, and Onion Pasta Sauce Recipe from Craftsy
Sponsored Post: Growing Heirloom Tomatoes Class Giveaway from Craftsy
Sponsored Post – Jam & Marmalade: The Blue Chair Way

Jam Demo and Book Signing Today at Local in Brunswick, Maine

Just wanted to remind folks that if you’re in the area of Brunswick, Maine, I’ll be at Local (148 Maine Street) today from 5-7 pm, making jam and signing books. It’s a lovely store, chock full of canning jars, Falcon Ware, regionally made preserves, wines, and other wonderful stuff.

Swing by, have a snack, see me make some jam, and pick up a book!

Related Posts:

Upcoming Events: Vermont and Maine
Upcoming Events: Chicago!
Book Tour: Eugene, Seattle, San Francisco, and LA

Canning 101: Can You Safely Can on a Glass Top Stove?

Obviously, this is not a flat top stove. I didn’t have a picture a picture of one, so this is standing in.

In the last two days, I’ve gotten three different questions about canning on glass top stoves. And so, I figured it was high time that I added a blog post to the Canning 101 archive to explain why it’s not recommended and how you can potentially work around those warnings. Read on for more!

If you are the owner or regular user of a glass top stove, you may have heard that you’re not supposed to do any canning on your smooth, easy-to-clean stovetop. For long time canners who find themselves with these stoves, this news can be quite a blow.

There are three primary reasons why manufacturers recommend against canning on a glass top stove. The first is that many older canners have concave bottoms. When you combine a concave bottom with a flat surface, heat, and water, there is a risk that a seal will form between the canner and the stovetop. It’s not a huge deal until you go to move a canner that has suctioned itself to the stove. The seal can be strong enough that attempting to move the canner can result in a cracked or shattered stove top (this can also happen if you put a lid on your flat surface).

The second reason that it’s not recommended is that a full canner load of seven quart jars can be heavier that the stove top can bear. Even if your pot has a flat bottom, if it ends up weighing more that the glass surface can bear, you can still end up with a broken range.

The third reason is that some glass top stoves cycle the heat on and off, and so aren’t able to hold a steady boil. If you can’t hold a canner at a constant boil, you cannot guarantee that you’re getting the full level of heat penetration necessary for your preserves to be sterilized and safely shelf stable.

Happily, not all is lost for potential canners with flat glass top stoves. You can eliminate the risk of breakage through suction by using a pot with a flat bottom. A light-weight stainless steel stock pot (like this one) works well as a canning pot and will never seal itself to your stove. It also has the added benefit of being light enough to prevent the surface from cracking or breaking due to too much weight.

There is the issue of maintaining a rolling boil. Some stoves can do it and others can’t. Test your stove by bringing a pot of water to a boil and tracking the temperature with a candy thermometer while it boils. Does it stay at or near to 212 degrees F? Or does the temperature fluctuate a great deal? If you can maintain a rolling boil, you should be good to go.

And, if all else fails, get yourself an induction burner and an induction capable pot and run that as your processing station. Where there is a canning will, there is always a way.

Related Posts:

Canning 101: The Easiest Way to Peel Tomatoes (Peaches Too!)
Canning 101: How to Use a Thermometer to Achieve Set
An Update on the Canning 101/New to Canning Plan

Low Sugar Spiced Peach Jam

For the last four summers, I’ve been invited by the folks at the Washington State Fruit Commission and Sweet Preservation to participate in their Canbassador program. Essentially, sometime around mid-summer, they drop me an email and ask if I want to make something tasty with their fruit. When I say yes, the ship a box of delicious Washington-grown cherries, peaches, plums, or apricots.

Some years, they send me a mix of fruit. Other years, it’s just a single variety. Here’s what I’ve made for this partnership since kicking things off in 2010.

Lazy Peach Preserves (2013)
Honey-Sweetened Peach Chutney (2013)
Oven-Roasted Nectarine Butter (2012)
Luisa Weiss’s Spiced Plum Butter (2012)
Italian Plum Jam with Star Anise (2011)
Honey-Sweetened Apricot Lavender Butter (2011)
Apricot-Blackberry Jam (2010)
Pickled Sweet Cherries (2010)

This year, they sent me a giant box of sweet, juicy peaches. About half the fruit was at the apex of ripeness upon arrival. I triaged the box, sorting the peaches that had to be used immediately from the ones that could stand a couple of days in the fridge. When I was done, I had six pounds of peaches that required immediate action.

And so I peeled them, roughly chopped them, and divided them between a couple of large jars. I added some sugar to help hold them (1/2 a cup for the quart jar and 1 cup for the half gallon), gave both jars a good shake to distribute everything, and plunked them in the fridge for 2 1/2 days while I went down to Washington, D.C. to teach some classes.

When I got home from the trip, I poured the macerated peaches into a low, wide pan (in fact, the one I wrote about here). I added a tablespoon of calcium water (Pomona’s Pectin), 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg, and the zest and juice from a lemon.

I brought it to a boil and cooked until the peaches where very soft and the syrup became to thicken. I whisked 1 tablespoon of Pomona’s Pectin into 1 1/2 cups of granulated sugar and after about 35 minutes of cooking, stirred it into the jam. A few more minutes of simmering to help everything combined and then the jam was done.

Funneled into eight half pint jars and processed for 10 minutes, this jam is lighter on sugar than many, but doesn’t sacrifice anything in terms of flavor. It’s a nice one for holiday gifts and eating with fat slices of angel food cake.

Print
Low Sugar Spiced Peach Jam

Yield: makes 8 half pints

Ingredients

6 pounds peaches
3 cups sugar, divided
1 tablespoon calcium water
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1 lemon, zested and juiced
1 tablespoon Pomona's Pectin

Instructions

Peel peaches and roughly chop them. Toss them with 1 1/2 cups of granulated sugar and let the peaches macerate at least two hours and up to 72 hours.
When you're ready to cook, combine the fruit and their juices with 1 tablespoon calcium water in a low, wide pan. Bring to a boil and cook until the fruit is tender and the syrup thickens. Add cinnamon, nutmeg, and lemon zest and juice.
Whisk the pectin into the remaining sugar and stir into the softened fruit. Cook for another 3 to 4 minutes, until the jam starts to thicken.
Funnel into prepared jars. Wipe rims, apply lids and rings, and process in a boiling water bath canner for 10 minutes.
When time is up, remove jars from the canner and set them to cool on a folded kitchen towel.
Once jars are cooled, check to ensure jars sealed. Any unsealed jars should be refrigerated and used promptly. Schema/Recipe SEO Data Markup by ZipList Recipe Plugin2.5http://foodinjars.com/2014/08/low-sugar-spiced-peach-jam/




Related Posts:

Honey-Sweetened Peach Vanilla Jam
Urban Preserving: Italian Plum Jam with Star Anise
Pickled Sweet Cherries

Links: Pickles, Hard Cider, and a Winner

Last week in Chicago went about as well as it possibly could. I taught a bunch of classes, did three TV segments, and caught up with some dear friends. I got home to Philadelphia on Friday evening, dashed up to New York yesterday, and spent all of today doing not much of anything beyond taking a walk around the city with Scott (it was a beautiful day). Tomorrow when it’s off to New England for four nights of classes, demos, and signings. Now, links!

Erin has been busy lately, making a tasty looking dill pickle relish and some luscious mint blue butter.
Or, how about some bread and butter pickles?
Spicy pickled watermelon rind for the fridge. Yes, please.
Watermelon hard cider. This one needs to age, so make it now for next summer!
Peach sriracha butter. Peach ketchup. So peachy!
The weather is cooling down a little, so turn on the oven and bake up a batch of whole wheat lavash.
Jam-filled crostata!
Packing the pantry with pickles!
Tomato base made in a slow cooker.
Concord grape jelly and wild blackberry preserves.

Last week, I wrote a series of posts for The Kitchn about preserving tomatoes. Check ‘em out!

Picking the best tomatoes for canning
A revamped recipe for homemade rotel-style tomatoes
Tips for making small batches of tomato sauce
How to make and can tomato paste
My favorite ways for using up your homemade tomato preserves

Thanks to everyone who took the time to enter the Anolon giveaway last week! The winner is #371/Deborah. She said, “We have an old, large enameled Dutch oven found at a flea market that gets heavy rotation for jam-making, roasting veggie, making stock, you name it. I love that it shows its age, but still does the job beautifully.” Here’s hoping you like your new cookware, Deborah! 

Related Posts:

Links: Rose Petal Preserves, Garlic Scape Vinegar, and Winners
Links: Grapefruit, Honey, and Maple + Jar Cozy Winners
Links: Citrus, Chiles, and Winter Soups

Upcoming Events: Vermont and Maine

As you might have noticed, I’ve been traveling a lot this summer. I’ve been up and down the west coast, spent two weeks driving around the south, and flew to Chicago twice. One portion of the country that I’ve pretty well neglected has been New England. However, all that changes this week. I’m going to be doing events in Vermont and Maine and I hope that those of you who live up there will come, bring your books (or buy one!) and say hi!

August 19 – Waterbury, VT

I’m kicking off this New England trip with a canning demo and book signing at Bridgeside Books. The event runs from 6-8 pm and is free and open to all.

August 20 – South Burlington, VT

On Wednesday night, I’ll be VT Food Swap at the Healthy Living Market in South Burlington from 6-8 pm. My demo will kick off the evening, and then the swap will take place immediately after. Registration is required to attend, but is free, so don’t let that stop you. Sign up here/a>.

August 21 – Falmouth, ME

On Thursday I head to Maine to teach a canning class at University of Maine Cooperative Extension Regional Learning Center. The class runs from 7-9 pm and just is $15 and you can sign up here.

August 22 – Brunswick, ME

I’ll be rounding out my trip up north with a canning demo and book signing at Local from 5-7 pm. This is another free event, so please come, hang out for the demo and pick up a book!

After the events are over, Scott and I are spending the weekend in Portland just to hang out and relax. If you’ve got any Portland, Maine must-sees, please let me know!

Related Posts:

Upcoming Events: Chicago!
Book Tour: Eugene, Seattle, San Francisco, and LA
Book Tour: Seattle, Portland, Eugene, San Francisco, & LA!

Livestream of the International Can-It-Forward Day

Saturday, August 16 is International Can-It-Forward Day. Canning events are taking place all across the globe in order to help more people discover the pleasures and practicalities of home preserving. I’m going to be at the main event at the Brooklyn Borough Hall in New York to demonstrate the Peach Sriracha Jam from Preserving by the Pint

If you’re in the greater New York region, you should come out and join the fun. If you’re a bit further flung, join us on the livestream!

Here’s the full schedule of events!

10:00am – Pepper Jelly demonstration by Chef Sara featuring the FreshTECH Automatic Jam & Jelly Maker

10:45am – Tips on urban gardening & herb preservation

11:00am – Peach Sriracha Jam demonstration by Marisa McClellan of Food in Jars

11:30am – Crafting in Ball jars with staff from Martha Stewart Living

11:45am – Hugh Acheson Preserving and Mixology demonstrations

1:15pm – Special Mixology demonstration with local mixologists

1:30pm – Salsa Verde demonstration by Chef Sarah featuring the FreshTECH Automatic Home Canning System

Related Posts:

Giveaway: New Blue and Green Lids From Ball
Giveaway: New Ball Heritage Collection Green Jars
FreshTech Jam and Jelly Maker Review

Plum Cardamom Jam and a Anolon Advanced 11-Piece Cookware Set Giveaway [sponsored]

The first homemade jam I ever tasted was made with homegrown plums. I was just four or five years old and the trees in our backyard were having a bumper year. My mom picked enough to fill her yellow enamel colander, gave them a good rinse under the tap, and turned them in sweet, slightly drippy preserves. We ate those plums over pancakes and with oatmeal every chance we got.

Though I will often tell people that blueberries are my foundational fruit (and they were the star in my very first solo batch of jam), there is something about the flavor of plum jam that makes my brain go, “ah yes, THIS is what homemade jam should taste like.”

I recently made my first batch of plum jam for this season (I was asked by Anolon gourmet cookware to develop this particular recipe), from the same kind of sturdy black plums that used to grow in our southern California yard. I added a little ground cardamom for extra depth and I cooked the whole thing in the 7.5 quart wide stock pot from the Anolon Advanced line. Though I don’t normally gravitate towards non-stick cookware for jam making, the width and low walls of the pan made it irresistible.

Get the recipe for Plum Cardamom Jam! 

Currently, Macy’s is offering 20% off all open stock of Anolon Advanced cookware through the month of August, so if the idea of a low, wide, large, non-stick stockpot floats your boat, make sure to check it out!

I also have one Anolon Advanced 11-Piece Cookware Set to give away to one Food in Jars reader. Anolon is hosting a number of giveaways this month, so make sure to follow them on social media (Twitter | Facebook | Pinterest) to stay in the know. Here’s how to enter my giveaway.

Leave a comment on this post and tell me about your favorite piece of cookware. Skillet? Dutch oven? Stock pot? Random fish pan you got at a garage sale?
Comments will close at 11:59 pm eastern time on Saturday, August 16, 2014. Winners will be chosen at random and will be posted to the blog on Sunday, August 17, 2014.
Giveaway open to United States residents only.
One comment per person, please. Entries must be left via the comment form on the blog at the bottom of this post.

Disclosure: This is a sponsored post (hopefully that was clear before you got to this disclosure statement). Anolon has compensated me for the creation of the plum jam recipe. They sent me the stockpot in which I made the jam (I did really like it, though), and they’re providing the cookware set for the giveaway. The thoughts and words are still all entire mine. 

 

Related Posts:

Giveaway: Anolon Tri-Ply 5 Quart Dutch Oven
A Pomona’s Pectin and Fillmore Container Giveaway
Sponsored Post: Marcella Hazan’s Butter, Tomato, and Onion Pasta Sauce Recipe from Craftsy