Marisa McClellan's Blog, page 127

Preserves in Action: Tomato Jam

I have fallen into something of a lunchtime routine. I start a couple slices of toast, pull out a jar of tomato jam, and then rummage around, looking for some leftover to add to bridge the toast and jam. Earlier today, I piled the toast high with some leftover braised collards and a little ricotta cheese before spooning on a little jam.

 

Last week, I spread my toast with a little fromage blanc and then added the the tomato goodness (I also had a giant salad of arugula, baby lettuce, and chopped apple). I’ve also used this same formula with leftover roast chicken, baked tofu, and even cold steamed broccoli.

How are you guys using your preserves these days?

Related Posts:

Preserves in Action: Fried Eggs, Avocado, and Tomato Jam
Classic Tomato Jam Sweetened With Honey
Spicy Peach and Yellow Tomato Jam

October Sponsors: Cuppow, Fillmore Container, Eat Boutique, and More

It’s the beginning of October and that means it’s time to mention and thank the current Food in Jars sponsors. These are the companies make it possible for me to spent time testing recipes, writing tutorials, and answering canning questions.

In the top spot is Cuppow. They are the maker of the original mason jar travel mug topper and, more recently, of the BNTO (they sponsored last week’s awesome giveaway). Their products are the best things ever for hitting the road with your precious canning jars.

Next up is Fillmore Container. They sell all manner of canning jars and lids, as well as a handful of books and jar accessories. They’re a family-owned business based in Lancaster, PA and they happily work with home canners and commercial producers alike. They sponsored last week’s Itty Bitty Jar giveaway!

New to the sponsorship round-up is Eat Boutique, an online magazine and market that discovers and celebrates the best small batch foods by boutique makers. They sell specialty gift boxes and regularly host tastings and pop-up markets.

I’m happy to welcome Preserving Now back for another month! Operated by Lyn Deardorff, Preserving Now is both a website and school dedicated to helping people expand their canning and preserving skills. If you’re in the Atlanta area, make sure to check out her schedule of upcoming classes and events!

Another sponsor that’s new this month is The Clay Studio. This Philadelphia-based non-profit was founded in 1974 and is dedicated to affirming the importance of the ceramic arts. They work to make clay an accessible medium to a broad range of people. They sell a number of pieces in their shop that are both lovely to look at and to hold.

I am always delighted to welcome new sponsors to the site. Ads start at $75 a month. More information can be found here.

Related Posts:

Sponsors: Fillmore Container and Cuppow

Giveaway: Big Mouth Flat Pack Funnels

In my years as a canner, I’ve tried nearly every available wide mouth funnel on the market. I own nearly a dozen different models made in materials ranging from plastic, to tempered glass, to stainless steel. One thing all these funnels have in common is that they’re bulky (much of my collection lives in a wicker basket in the living room, because there’s no room for them in the kitchen).

Happily, Robin Bristow, a designer based in Australia, has recently developed a funnel designed to fit in kitchens with even the most limited cabinet space. Called the Big Mouth Funnel, this tool comes in two sizes and packs absolutely flat for easy storage.

The small size is perfect for filling salt shakers, pepper mills, and spice jars, while the larger size can handle all manner of hefty jars. I’m planning on using one for trips to Whole Foods when I’m buying from the bulk section. I’ve often taken conventional wide mouth funnels with me to help dispense from bin to jar, but having a flat pack funnel in my kit will make the job even easier.

I will say that I’m a little wary of using these funnels when filled up hot jars with jam or chutney just off the boil. They make no claims that they’re heatproof and so I plan to continue to use my traditional funnels for anything that is piping hot. Even setting them aside for those tasks, I can see them becoming invaluable over time.

Thanks to Robin and Big Mouth Funnels, I have ten pairs of flat pack funnels to give away! Here’s how to enter.

Leave a comment on this post and share a kitchen or canning tool that you wish you could reinvent or redesign.
Comments will close at 5 pm east coast time on Saturday, October 5, 2013. Winners will be chosen at random (using random.org) and will be posted on Sunday, October 6, 2013.
Giveaway is open to US and Canadian residents.
One comment per person, please. Entries must be left on the blog, I cannot accept submissions via email.

Disclosure: Big Mouth Funnel sent me a set of their funnels to try and is also providing the ten for this giveaway. My opinions remain my own. 
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Upcoming Classes: Pressure Canning! Pie Filling! Fall Chutney!

 

We are well into the season for apples, pears, and quince, and cranberries should be arriving any day now. Come take a class with me and learn how to preserve some of this fall bounty!

October 9 – Pressure canning class at Cooking Spotlight in Phoenixville, PA. I’ll demonstration how to make a batch of onion and rosemary jam, and will show you how to preserve it for shelf stability with a pressure canner. The class is from 6:30 – 9 pm and costs $55. Click here to sign up.

October 12 – Spiced Apple Pie Filling at Indy Hall! Get a jump on your holiday pies by helping peel, chop and process 10 pounds of apples down into a batch of fragrant, spicy apple pie filling. Class is from 11 am to 1 pm and costs $50 per person. Leave a comment or email me to sign up.

October 19 – Canning at the United States Botanic Garden in Washington, D.C. The morning class will be a jam making session, featuring a batch of pear vanilla jam. The afternoon class will be a make your own pickle party, starring water bath processed pickled carrots. Call the USBG to sign up.

October 26 – Canning demo and book signing at the Williams-Sonoma at the Bellevue in Center City Philadelphia. Demo starts at 1 pm and I’ll be onsite, selling and signing books until 5 pm.

October 29 – Chutney making class with the Fair Food Farmstand at Reading Terminal Market. We’ll make a batch of apple pear chutney (using all local fruit) from 6-8 pm in the Rick Nichols Room. Click here to sign up.

October 30 – A hands on pickling workshop with the Lower Merion Conservancy. We’ll make cauliflower pickles, taste a few things from my pantry, and dig into the basics of the boiling water bath canning. Class runs from 7 – 8:30 pm and costs $35 for LMC members and $45 for non-members. Click here to register.

November 1 to 3 – Join me in Western Mass. for a weekend-long canning class at the Rowe Center. More details can be found here.

November 16 – Spiced applesauce class at the Tyler Arboretum. We’ll cover the basics of boiling water bath canning and walk through the steps necessary to make a batch of delicious, low sugar applesauce. Class is from 10 am – 12 noon and costs $60 for Arboretum Members, $70 for non-members. For more details, click here and select the “Health and Wellness” drop down.

November 17 – Mulled Cider Jelly class at Wyebrook Farm in Chester County, PA. Class runs from 2 – 4 pm and a registration link is coming soon!

November 18 – Prep for Thanksgiving and make cranberry preserves with me at the Fair Food Farmstand in Reading Terminal Market. Class is from 6-8 pm in the Rick Nichols Room.Click here to sign up.

 

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Upcoming Classes: Philly! Phoenixville! Greensgrow!
Canning Classes: Brooklyn! Portland! Boston!
Upcoming Classes: Boston! Brooklyn! Bucks County!

Links: Plums, Gingersnap Granola, and a Winner

Fall is here, things are slowing down for me a little, and I am feeling grateful. I turned in one of the final rounds of edits for the next book last week, which feels both entirely liberating and just a bit surreal. This new book, which now is now officially called Preserving by the Pint: Quick Seasonal Canning for Small Spaces, will be out on March 25 and is even now available for pre-order. The promotional dance will be here before I know it, so I’m enjoying the relative peace of these early fall days all the more.

It’s been a couple years now since I’ve been able to get damson plums in my area and this damson and gin jam makes me miss them all the more.
Speaking of plums, right now I want nothing more than this cake and this pie filling.
Could there be a salad any more perfect for this time of year than this one, featuring sautéed pears and plums? I think not.
The many summer squashes are finally starting to slow their roll around here, but if you’ve still got ‘em, I say make relish!
Pickled blackberries? Oh yes.
Tomato bacon jam. I must make this!
Pretty pictures of an abundant September.
Curious how to preserve ground cherries. Rebecca shows you how to do it imperfectly, but deliciously.
Hello apple jalapeño jam! You are on my to-make list for certain.
Two takes on gingersnap granola. Version one. Version two.

So many thanks to everyone who took the time to enter the Itty Bitty Jar and cookbook giveaway that Fillmore Container sponsored last week. The winner is commenter #624, left by Letty. She said, “These jars are so stinkin’ cute! I would obviously have to purchase more, so I could make some type of pepper jelly, a marmalade, and some pear jams. Nothing like giving recipients a choice!” So true, Letty!

For those of you who didn’t win, make sure to check back tomorrow, because I’ll have another giveaway to share with you then!

Related Posts:

Links: Crabapples, Salsa, and Winners
Links: Pickles, Salsas, Dill Heads, and a Winner
Links: Plum Preserves, Tomatoes, and Winners

Small Batch Roasted Tomatillo Salsa

Back when this blog was a wee fledgling, just finding its feet, I posted a recipe for oven roasted tomatillo salsa. It was one I learned to make by watching a woman named Teresa (for a handful of months, we were co-workers of sorts). Most of the time, when I find myself in possession of a small amount of tomatillos, I make some variation on this salsa and remember those days when I was fresh out of college and still trying to figure out what the heck I was going to do with myself.

The one problem with that first recipe was that it wasn’t designed for canning. I’ve gotten more emails than I can count over the years, asking me whether it could be canned and I always had to say no. However, it feels like a hole not to have a recipe on this site for a water bath safe tomatillo salsa (happily, there’s one in the cookbook, so I’ve not entirely neglected my duties).

When I found myself in the kitchen with a pound and a half of tomatillos earlier today, I determined that it was the perfect moment to come up with a very small batch of water bath safe tomatillo salsa. I used the tomatillo salsa recipe on the National Center for Home Food Preservation website as a starting point and then adapted.

In the end, I essentially divided the recipe by five and omitted a few low acid ingredients. I skipped the green chiles and hot peppers with a single jalapeño that had been sitting in the fruit basket so long that it had turned red. I increased the volume of tomatillos a little to replace the missing chiles. I added a tablespoon of minced cilantro. And I kept the levels of additional acid constant.

For those of you who feel uncomfortable with me altering a tested tomatillo recipe in this manner, I point you in the direction of this abstract. It details pH testing of tomatillos and reveals that their pH was found to be consistently below 4.1. That is well below the cut-off of 4.6 pH. What’s more, that study also found that pH levels remained in the safe zone when tomatillos and onions were combined and at least 50% of the volume of the jar consisted of tomatillos.

After roasting the tomatillos, I had approximately 1 3/4 cups of pulp. To make this salsa, I combined that acidic tomatillo pulp with approximately 3/4 cup of low acid ingredients (onions, garlic, cilantro, 1 jalapeno, and a little ground cumin) and the acidified with three tablespoons of bottled lime juice (my starting recipe used 1 cup and yielded 5 pints. My recipe was appearing to yield about 1 pint. There are 16 tablespoons in a cup, so I divided that by 5 to arrive at 3 tablespoons). My single pint of yield was more than 50% tomatillos by volume and contains a great deal of additional acid.

The combination of the tomatillo concentration and the added acid makes me feel entirely comfortable processing this salsa in a boiling water bath. However, the recipe makes just a pint (with a few spoonfuls leftover for immediate eating). If you’d prefer, you can always just pop it in the fridge and eat it up over the course of the next week or two. Up to you.

Print

Small Batch Roasted Tomatillo Salsa

Ingredients

1 1/2 pounds tomatillos
3 garlic cloves
1/2 cup minced onion
1 jalapeño, seeded and roughly chopped
3 tablespoons bottled lime juice
1 tablespoon minced cilantro
1 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

Instructions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
Remove husks from tomatillos and rinse to remove their natural sticky residue.
Cut the tomatillos in half and place them face-down on a rimmed roasting pan. Add unpeeled garlic cloves to the pan and place in the oven. Roast for 15 to 20 minutes, until they release a goodly amount of liquid and the tops are developing light brown spots.
Remove pan from the oven. Collect the roasted garlic cloves and set aside.
Scrape the tomatillos and their juice into a blender carafe. Peel the garlic cloves and add them to the blender, along with the onions, jalapeño, lime juice, cilantro, salt, and cumin.
Blend at a moderate speed, until the tomatillos are broken down and the other ingredients are just integrated (you should still be able to see small specks of green from the cilantro).
Pour the smooth-ish salsa into a small saucepan and bring to a boil.
When salsa is pipping hot all the way through, pour it into a prepared pint jar (or two half pints, if you prefer).
Wipe rims, apply lids and rings, and process in a boiling water bath canner for 15 minutes at sea level (adjust your processing time if you live at higher elevations).
When time is up, remove jar(s) from canner and set on a folded kitchen towel to cool.
Wait 24 hours and test the seal(s). If the seal(s) are good, jars are shelf stable for up to one year. Schema/Recipe SEO Data Markup by ZipList Recipe Plugin2.2http://foodinjars.com/2013/09/small-batch-roasted-tomatillo-salsa/


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Small Batch Honey-Sweetened White Peach Jam
Urban Preserving: Pickled Fairy Tale Eggplant
Small Batch Strawberry Fig Jam

Giveaway: Itty Bitty Jars and Food in Jars from Fillmore Container

Dear friends, let us rejoice! The weekly giveaway is back! Today, we have a fun prize pack from our friends at Fillmore Container. They are giving one lucky FiJ reader a copy of my book and two dozen itty bitty jars (the winner gets to choose which ones they want). The book you know about, so let’s talk just a little bit about these cute little jars.

They typically hold just an ounce or two and are just the thing for gifts and holiday sampler packs. Fillmore carries them in both round and hex shaped. They seal with one-piece lids, which though not approved by the USDA, can be safely used if you follow a few simple instructions (here’s my tutorial on how to use the continuous thread one-piece lids, and here’s the lug version).

If you’re starting to plot out your holiday giving (yes, I know it seems impossible to be talking about it, but we’re closing in on the end of September), consider adding some wider variety to your gifts by canning some of them up in these little jars. I’m thinking a super rich jam like this pear chocolate one might be a good candidate for such things.

Here’s how to enter:

Leave a comment on this post and share what you’d put in these itty bitty jars.
Comments will close at 5 pm east coast time on Friday, September 27, 2013. Winners will be chosen at random (using random.org) and will be posted on Sunday, September 29, 2013.
Giveaway is open to US residents.
One comment per person, please. Entries must be left on the blog, I cannot accept submissions via email.

Disclosure: Fillmore Container is a paid sponsor of this blog. They are providing the prize for this giveaway as part of that promotional agreement. However, all opinions expressed here remain my own. 
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Classic Tomato Jam Sweetened With Honey

It’s Monday morning and I’m just getting to the recipe I promised for Friday afternoon. I apologize to those of you who’ve been holding onto tomatoes all weekend in the hopes that this honey-sweetened tomato jam would appear. I have a bad habit of widely underestimating how long things are going to take me to accomplish and sadly, this post was delayed because of my poor estimation skills.

Every since it first appeared on this blog, my friend Amy’s recipe for tomato jam has been one of the most popular things I’ve posted. The original post has hundreds of comments and nearly every time I teach a class or do a book event, someone comes up to me raving about the wonders of tomato jam.

It’s one of my favorite things as well. I smear it on turkey burgers, serve it with goat cheese, and use it as a dipping sauce for roasted sweet potatoes. Essentially, it’s a very fancy, chunky ketchup-substitute that can be used in all manner of both sweet and savory applications.

All summer long, I’ve been pulling out the sugar in many of my favorite recipes and dropping in honey instead. This recipe is the latest to undergo the conversion and I think it might be the most successful swap to date. The slightly honey flavor pairs beautifully with the tomatoes. The spices continue to sing and the yield is comparable to the sugared version. Truly, the only difference I’ve noticed is that this honey sweetened version isn’t as glossy as its counterpart. Happily, the sheen is the only thing that’s missing. The flavor is there in spades.

A couple of things to note. The length of time this jam can spend cooking varies widely. Stay close to the stove, stir regularly, and use a stainless steel pan in case it scorches. Towards the end of cooking, you should be stirring near constantly. You know this jam is finished when there’s no visible water separating out from the fruit. You’ll also hear a slightly sizzling noise as you stir towards the end of cooking. That’s a sign that the sugars have concentrated that the temperature in the pan is elevated beyond the boiling point of water. When you hear that, you are mere moments away from completion. Keep stirring for a moment or two longer and then pull the pan off the heat.

Print

Honey-Sweetened Tomato Jam

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Cook Time: 2 hours

Yield: 5 to 7 half pints

Ingredients

5 pounds tomatoes, finely chopped
2 1/2 cups honey
1/2 cup bottled lime juice
1 tablespoon sea salt
1 tablespoon freshly grated ginger
1 tablespoon red chili flakes
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

Instructions

Combine all ingredients in a low, wide, non-reactive pot (stainless steel is best, because if you experience any scorching or burning, you can scrub it easily). Bring to a boil over high heat and then reduce temperature to medium high.
Stirring regularly, cook the jam at a low boil until it reduces to a sticky, jammy mess. This takes anywhere from 1 to 2 hours, depending on the heat of your stove, the width of your pan, and the water content of your tomatoes.
Towards the end of cooking, as the jam begins to thicken, reduce the heat to medium and continue to stir. This jam has a tendency to burn at the very end of cooking time, as the sugars concentrate and the temperature level in the pan increase.
When you're 15 or 20 minutes out from the jam being finished, prepare a boiling water bath canner and 6 or 7 half pint jars (the yield will be between 5 and 7 half pints). Place lids in a small pan of water and bring to a bare simmer.
Once the jam is thick and there is no visible water separating out from the fruit, it is done. Remove the pan from the heat and stir for 2 to 3 minutes. This helps evaporate out the last of the water and will give you a better set when the jam cools.
Funnel jam into prepared jars, leaving 1/2 inch headspace. Wipe rims, apply lids and rings, and process in a boiling water bath canner for 15 minutes.
When time is up, remove jars and place them on a folded kitchen towel to cool. When jars are fully cool, remove rings and test seals. Sealed jars are shelf stable. Any unsealed jars should be refrigerated and used promptly. Schema/Recipe SEO Data Markup by ZipList Recipe Plugin2.2http://foodinjars.com/2013/09/classic-tomato-jam-sweetened-honey/


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A Harvest Giveaway at Kaufmann Mercantile

Friends, I’m dropping in briefly this morning to share a giveaway partnership I’m participating in (I’ll be back later in the day with a honey-sweetened version of my beloved tomato jam). A few weeks back, the nice folks at Kaufmann Mercantile came to me and asked if I’d contribute a copy of my book to their Harvest Giveaway.

They’ve teamed up with a few food and preserving-minded folks, to offer a lovely assortment of harvest-themed gifts to a lucky winner. The giveaway includes a set of New England Ash Picking Baskets, a collection of jams from Cristina’s at Sun Valley, a signed copy of my book (I’m happy to personalize it for the winner), a one-year subscription to Bon Appetit, and a pair of Cherry Birch Jam & Butter Knives from KM. Just click on the image above and you’ll find yourself on the entry page.

And just one more thing! Kaufmann Mercantile also has an interview with both Cristina and me on their blog right now. It’s a fun read, particularly if you’re curious about how my canning habits shift when fall arrives.

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Canning 101: Understanding Acid and pH in Boiling Water Bath Canning

Today’s post is inspired by a rash of questions I’ve gotten recently in regard to my recipe for Honey-Sweetened Peach Vanilla Jam. A number of you are concerned because while that recipe contents lemon zest, it doesn’t contain any lemon juice. That jam is safe as written, but we need to dig a little deeper into canning science to understand why. Read on! 

If you’ve been canning for any length of time, you’ve probably heard mention of acid levels in relation to safe boiling water bath canning. Anything that is preserved in a boiling water bath must have a high acid content. The reason that high acid levels are important is that the presence of acid inhibits the germination of botulism spores into the botulism toxin. Botulism spores can only develop into the botulism toxin in low acid, oxygen-free environments.

When you preserve something in a boiling water bath canner, you heat the jars and their contents to the boiling point (that temperature varies depending on your elevation, but at sea level the boiling point is 212 degrees F). That heat is enough to kill off the micro-organisms that can cause spoilage, mold, or fermentation, but it’s not enough to kill botulism spores (they require far higher temperatures). The process of boiling the jars also helps to drive the oxygen out of the jars, creating a vacuum seal. For jars that have sufficient acid content, the result is a jar of food that is safely preserved and shelf stable.

The way food scientists (and home canners) determine whether something is high or low in acid is by pH. If something has a pH of 4.6 or below, it is deemed high in acid and is safe for boiling water bath canning. If the pH is 4.7 or above, it is considered low in acid. We’ll talk more about how to preserve those foods that are low in acid and have a pH of 4.7 or above another day, but to give you just a hint, that’s often where a pressure canner comes in.

If a food is close to the 4.6 pH point, you can often add enough acid to bring that product into the necessary safe zone. Fruits like tomatoes, figs, asian pears, melons, persimmons, papaya, white peaches and white nectarines, and bananas are often just a bit too low in acid in their natural state for safe canning. So in order to lower the pH to a safe level, we add either bottled lemon or lime juice, or powdered citric acid to products featuring those ingredients. Once the acid levels are high enough to inhibit the botulism spore’s ability to germinate into a deadly toxin, that product is safe for boiling water bath canning.

However, there are a world of foods out that naturally have a pH that is well within the zone for safe preservation in a boiling water bath canner. Here’s where we come around to the peach jam I mentioned in the introduction to this post. That recipe specifically calls for yellow peaches, which typically have a pH of 3.4 to 3.6. I know the general pH range for yellow peaches because the FDA provides a handy reference page on their website that lists the general pH range of most common fruits and vegetables.

You could certainly add lemon juice to my jam in order to balance the flavor and add a little extra pectin (citrus fruit is naturally high in pectin), but it’s not necessary for safety.

Updated to add: One last thing! It’s important to remember the pH of the entire jar counts here. This is why it’s so vital to follow tested, reliable recipes for things like tomato sauce or salsa. Sure, you can add bottled lemon juice to your tomatoes to lower the acidity, but if you’ve also added onions, garlic, and basil to your sauce, you’re not just balancing the acid of the tomatoes, you’re also taking the rest of the ingredients into account. That’s why salsa recipes designed for canning contain so much bottled lemon or lime juice, or vinegar.

 

Related Posts:

Canning 101: How to Substitute Pectin
New to Canning? Start Here: Boiling Water Bath Canning
Canning 101: Tall Jars for Asparagus, Green Beans, and More