Marisa McClellan's Blog, page 40

Submit your June Mastery Challenge Projects!

June is nearly over, which means it’s time to get serious about completing this month’s jam making challenge! If you’ve already finished up your project for this month’s Mastery Challenge, please use the form below to record your information and be counted in the final tally. If the embedded form isn’t working for you, click here.

If you’ve not yet tackled a batch of jam yet this month, check out my jam archive for some recipe inspiration

To be counted in the final tally, please submit your projects no later than Friday, June 30.

Oh, and if you do post to social media, make sure to use the #fijchallenge tag to help spread the word of our preserving activities!

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Related Posts:

Jam Making for the June Mastery Challenge
Spicy Pickled Green Beans
Cold Pack Canning for the May Mastery Challenge

Early Summer Cooking with Blue Apron

Today’s post is sponsored by Blue Apron.

In my household, I do the vast majority of our grocery shopping and meal planning. Most of the time, this makes sense for my husband and me. I work from home. I like cook. I make a podcast about home cooking. And I write about food for a living, for goodness sakes.

However, there are times when I am tired. I run out of ideas and the very thought of coming up with a nutritious, relatively easy to make, and tasty meal feels like a mountain too high to climb. My husband’s answer to these periods is to order take-out. And while that’s an adequate answer in the short term, it’s not a good solution for more than a night or two.

In the last year, I’ve discovered that there is a really good solution to these times when I can’t dream up another hearty, healthy soup, stew, or casserole. Salvation, thy name is Blue Apron.

This is now my third go-round with Blue Apron and this most recent box could not have come at a better moment. Life has been busy. My teaching schedule has ramped up. And I’ve been doing some recipe development for a future project. Finding the mental energy to dream up dinner after spending half the day testing recipes is harder than you might think.

As I unpacked the ingredients for the Crispy Chicken Tenders, the Smoked Trout & Asparagus Salad, and Roast Beef & Farro Salad, I was really impressed by the food I found in the box. The quality of the ingredients was top notch. The portion sizes are perfect for two people. And the flavor combinations were outside my regular wheelhouse, which made the whole thing feel exciting.

Those unfamiliar flavor combinations are one of the things I like most about Blue Apron. I always take away some new culinary tidbit or new-to-me ingredient when I cook my way through a box. This go-round, I discovered that smoked trout is a delicious ingredient and that I always want to eat roasted squash when it is dressed with a couple spoonful of bright gremolata.

I was also impressed by how little packaging there was, particularly compared to my first Blue Apron experience last year. And, if packaging is a concern for you, know that if you can’t find ways to reuse or recycle the materials in your area, it can also be returned through the mail for reuse and recycling.

There’s one other thing that I love about Blue Apron and that’s the fact that the instructions are so approachable that anyone with some basic kitchen sense can tackle the recipe. This means that on nights when I’m simply too spent to cook, I can recruit my husband to handle dinner. Those step-by-step recipe cards give him all the confidence he needs to make a tasty meal.

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If you’re intrigued by my experience with Blue Apron, they’ve got an offer for you, too! The first fifty readers to use this link to sign up for the service will get three meals for free on their first Blue Apron order.

Oh, and if you want to take a peek at more of the possible meals you’ll get from Blue Apron, check out their recipe page.

Disclosure: This post is sponsored by Blue Apron. They sent me a 2-Person box, containing three meals for two people. They’ve also compensated me for my time and attention. However, all thoughts and opinions expressed are entirely mine.

Related Posts:

A Late Winter Cooking Reset with Blue Apron
Cooking Dinner with Blue Apron
Beeswax Food Wraps from Kentucky Home

Small Batch Strawberry Plum Jam

Looking for a preserve to bridge spring and summer? This small batch strawberry plum jam is just the thing to marry the seasons in delicious fashion.

Last week, I had lunch with a canning friend. After doing a quick check-in about the general state of our lives, we got down to the real business at hand – dishing about our summer preserving plans.

Lucia is planning on focusing on stonefruit this summer since they’re her favorite (and it was a terrible season for peaches and nectarines around these parts last year) and also hopes to do some classic strawberry jam to satisfy a plaintive request made by her partner.

After spending so many seasons working on books and developing new recipes for various partnerships, my plan is to focus on restocking our beloved basics. Simple jams, plenty of fruit sauces (peach! nectarine! apple!), lots of tomatoes, and a triple batch of my beloved roasted corn salsa (the recipe is in the Food in Jars cookbook).

I am also hoping to get my hands on a goodly number of plums in the coming months. The local ones were almost entirely wiped out in the late freeze last year and so I’m totally out of plum jam and chutney (two of my favorites).

We had plum trees in our the backyard of my family’s LA house and so the flavor of plum preserves has the ability to instantly transport me to my early childhood. I need a little of that taste memory in my life.

I will confess that I have already dabbled with plums this year. They traveled many miles to reach my grocery store, and while they wouldn’t have been particularly delicious to eat out of hand, in combination with strawberries, sugar, and a little lemon juice, they brought texture and deliciousness to a small batch of strawberry plum jam.

And remember, the best pan for cooking up these small batches of jam isn’t always your beloved dutch oven or copper preserving pan. I like to use a wide pan with low sides because it means that the jam will reduce quickly and evenly. The pan pictured in this post is the Lagostina Martellata Tri-ply Copper 5-Qt. Casserole which they nicely sent me awhile back for review purposes. My review? It’s a lovely pan that’s good for jam making and so much more!

And now, for the recipe.

PrintSmall Batch Strawberry Plum Jam

Yield: Makes 3 half pints

Ingredients

1 pound strawberries, hulled and diced
1 pound plums, pitted and diced
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 lemon, juiced

Instructions

Prepare a boiling water bath canner and 3 half pint jars.
Combine the strawberries, plums, and sugar in a low, wide pan and let it sit for 10-15 minutes, until the sugar begins to draw liquid from the fruit.
Once the sugar has begun to dissolve and there's plenty of juice in the pan, place it on the stove over high heat.
Bring the fruit a boil and cook, stirring regularly, until the fruit has softened and the liquid and reduced.
Towards the end of cooking, use a potato masher to break up any large bits of fruit.
Add lemon juice and stir to combine.
When the jam has thickened sufficiently, remove the pan from the heat.
Funnel the jam into the prepared jars, leaving 1/2 inch headspace.
Wipe the rims, apply the lids and rings, and process in a boiling water bath canner for 10 minutes.
When the time is up, remove the jars from the canner and set them on a folded kitchen towel to cool. When the jars have cooled enough that you can comfortably handle them, check the seals. Sealed jars can be stored at room temperature for up to a year. Any unsealed jars should be refrigerated and used promptly. 3.1http://foodinjars.com/2017/06/small-batch-strawberry-plum-jam/
Related Posts:

Urban Preserving: Pear Vanilla Drizzle
Small Batch Tomato Jalapeño Jam
Tiny Batch Gooseberry Jam

Cookbooks: Savory Sweet

When I wrote my three preserving cookbooks, I spent a lot of time thinking about the best way to organize their content. For Food in Jars, we went with type of preserve. In Preserving by the Pint, the recipes are grouped by season. And I opted to group recipes by sweetener type in Naturally Sweet Food in Jars. During all that plotting and planning, it never occurred to me to group recipes by primary ingredient. However, having now spent some time with Savory Sweet by Beth Dooley and Mette Nielsen, I see how useful and approachable a structure it is.

This book, which focuses on simple, approachable preserving with a northern sensibility (both authors currently live in Minnesota, and Nielsen was raised in Denmark), is a lovely, thoughtful, and useful addition to our collective preservation library. It is guided by a principle the authors call The New Northern Approach, the tenets of which mirror my own approach to preserving. Here they are, in order:

Organized by ingredient
Small batch
No tricky preserving methods, everyday equipment
No artificial ingredients
Little sugar, big taste
Healthy preserved foods
Bright, interesting flavors
Year round
Quick ideas for using them up

When I read that list for the first time, I wanted to hop right up, book a plane ticket for Minnesota, and go off to meet the women who created this book. With such similar approaches to preserving, I believe we’d be quick friends. Plus, look at all the glorious food they make. I have no doubt that we’d eat well!

There are so many things in this book that I’ve marked to try. The Roasted Beet and Tomato Relish speaks to me (and I’ve got beets in the crisper as I type). The Danish Pickled Carrots call out my name (perhaps I could even convince my husband to eat them, since he loves both carrots and caraway). Eggplant Chutney! Indian-Spiced Garlic Chutney! Squash and Apricot Chutney! It’s a glorious time to be a chutney lover.

There is one thing to be aware of with this book. They don’t preserve anything for shelf stability. The recipes are designed to be stored in the fridge or freezer. This will be a boon to some preservers who like to skip the boiling water bath step. However, if you’re like me and find yourself really short on cold storage at the best of times, this might make you curse the authors’ names and toss the book across the room.

There are things that COULD be processed for shelf stability (many of the fruit preserves appear to be plenty high in acid), but if that kind of gray zone makes you uncomfortable, this may not be the book for you.

Personally, I really like this book and plan to borrow plenty of inspiration from its pages. The design and the culinary sensibility speak to me. It just makes me wish I had more freezer space!

Related Posts:

Cookbooks: Fiery Ferments
Cookbooks: Green Plate Special by Christine Burns Rudalevige
Giveaway: Will It Skillet by Daniel Shumski

Links: Strawberries, Rhubarb, Mulberries, and Winners

Every so often, I forget how to blog. I realize that that might sound like a strange statement from someone who has been writing on the internet on a near-daily basis since 2005, but it’s true. It most often happens when I go out of town, when I go through a really busy period of working on other projects, or when I stop cooking on a regular basis. Recently, it’s been a combination of all three.

But I’m home for at least a month now, the pace of my other work feels manageable, and recent trips to the farmers market have me feeling inspired to cook. My head feels clear and the words are flowing. Let’s read through some links!

Sakura strawberry jam (for those not in the know, sakura are cherry blossoms. They’re used in their pickled form in this recipe, which simply doubles the pleasure for an avid preserver).
 Tiny batch strawberry rhubarb jam (just a little batch for the fridge!)
Mulberry and lime jam (the trees are dripping with mulberries right now)
Jammy rhubarb with ginger (get the pink stalks for a pretty color)
Dill relish (July 4th IS just a couple weeks away)
Garlic scape relish (for those times when your relish needs to do more than go on hot dogs)
Quick pickled peppers (I’m hearing good things about this year’s pepper harvest)
Pickled spruce tips (chances are good that I’ll never make these, but I love the idea of them)
Celery shrub (sounds just weird enough to make me think it must be delicious)
Dorie’s marmalade loaf cake (because you probably have some kicking around after the January challenge)
Jam cocktails (a very delicious way to put your preserves to work)
Chocolate nut butter (click through to watch the video. It’s charming)

Last week, I offered up a copy of Fiery Ferments for giveaway. The winner of this fabulous book is #5/Ryan G. Congratulations Ryan! And for those of you who didn’t win, check back in soon. I have a number of terrific giveaways coming up in the next few weeks.

Related Posts:

Links: Grapefruit Jam, Soup Class, and a Winner
Links: Cranberries, Marmalade Pie, and a Winner
Links: Peach Butter, Pickled Okra, and Winners

Cookbooks: Fiery Ferments

When it comes to cultured pickles and preserved, Fermented Vegetables by Kristen and Christopher Shockey is one of my most-referenced cookbooks. I take a peek at it any time I want guidance on how to put together a new-to-me a batch of fermented veg, and my beloved fermented dilly bean recipe is simply a scaled down version of theirs.

Their second book, called Fiery Ferments, was released a couple weeks ago and it is just as good and useful as their first volume. It opens with an introduction to basic vegetable fermentation and includes a really useful discussion of the many airlocks and fermentation accessories that are out there (as well as advice on how to ferment without investing in any gear beyond a jar and a ziptop bag).

From there, the book shifts to explaining the skills necessary to make the recipes in the book. You get step-by-step guide to building a basic pepper mash, brine-based sauces and pickles, pastes and mustards, and kimchis, relishes, and salads. For those of you looking to build your confidence in these techniques, this part of the book is worth the price of admission alone.

Then, because Fiery Ferments is focused on building pickles, sauces, and condiments that walk on the spicy side, you’ll find an in-depth section on the ingredients that bring the heat. Ginger, galangal, and turmeric get equal billing with peppercorns and chiles.

Then we get to the recipes. They are small batch (smaller than the recipes in Fermented Vegetables, which I appreciate), varied in flavor and construction, and are illustrated with glorious, appealing pictures. Best of all, in addition to lots of ferments, they also included a handful of recipes designed to help you make good use of the things you’ve made (those fermented jalapeno poppers above look darn tasty).

Thanks to the folks at Storey, I have a copy of this book to give away. Follow the instructions below to enter.

Leave a comment on this post and tell me about your fermented food to eat, drink, or share.
Comments will close at 12 noon eastern time on Sunday, June 19, 2017. A winner will be chosen at random and will be posted to the blog later that day.
Giveaway open to US residents only. Void where prohibited.
One comment per person, please. Entries must be left via the comment form on the blog at the bottom of this post.

Disclosure: Storey sent me sent me a review copy of this book and is providing the giveaway unit, both at no cost to me. All opinions expressed here are entirely my own. 

Related Posts:

Books to Take You Further on the Salt Preserving Path
Cookbooks: Green Plate Special by Christine Burns Rudalevige
Giveaway: Will It Skillet by Daniel Shumski

Quick Pickled Apple Matchsticks & OXO Chef’s Mandoline

I got my first CSA share of the season a week ago, and in addition to the other spring vegetables like snap peas and breakfast radishes, it came with an enormous head of red butter lettuce, an unwieldy bunch of kale, dandelion greens, and bags of spicy arugula and mixed salad greens. You will not be at all surprised to hear that we’ve been eating a lot of salads lately.

Thought I eat salads all year round, I think of this time of year as the true salad season, and as such, I like to outfit my fridge accordingly. I work up a few easy things that can enhance all those greens and make it simple to shake together tasty little batches of vinaigrettes.

This spring, I’m particularly digging these quick pickled apple matchsticks. The are bright, tangy, and crunchy. In combination with a tangle of greens, some soft goat cheese, a few toasted walnuts, and a drizzle of olive oil, they make an incredibly pleasing salad.

The nice folks from OXO recently sent me one of their new Chef’s Mandoline Slicers to try out and it makes slicing apples for this quick pickle such a pleasure. Unlike other mandolines, where you have to manually change out different blades in order to create matchsticks, you simply turn a knob to dial up the julienne blade. What’s more, the guard is designed to wrap around the piece of food that you’re slicing, making the whole slicing act feel safer than any other mandoline I’ve used.

The same knob that allows you to move the julienne tines into place also adjusts the thickness of the cut. This means that you can select thickness settings in 0.5-mm intervals, which is an unusual amount of control for a mandoline that is priced under $100 (this one sells for $79.99). You can also select straight and wavy blades, and a French fry blade. There’s not much in the slicing realm that this mandoline can’t do.

If you’re still making bread and butter pickles with your grandmother’s rusty wavy slicer, consider giving yourself an upgrade this year. Your pickles will be more consistent and will come together in record time!

PrintQuick Pickled Apple Matchsticks

Ingredients

1 medium apple
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
1 tablespoon honey
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
2-3 turns of a pepper grinder

Instructions

Slice the apples into matchsticks and toss them with the vinegar, honey, salt, and pepper. Use immediately or stash them in a jar and put them in the fridge. They'll keep well for 2-3 weeks in the refrigerator. 3.1http://foodinjars.com/2017/06/quick-pickled-apple-matchsticks-oxo-chefs-mandoline/
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Strawberry Meyer Lemon Jam

This weekend, cook up a small batch of strawberry jam. I use Meyer lemons here, but any flavor enhancer is welcome!

Earlier this week, I hosted an hour-long Facebook livestream on the topic of jam making. I used a small batch of Strawberry Meyer Lemon Jam to demonstrate the no-additional-pectin approach.

I started with just two pounds of berries, used a scant two cups of sugar and flavored the whole thing with the zest and juice from two Meyer lemons. When the jam was finished cooking, the yield was two pints (you may be sensing a theme here). I canned up the finished jam in these cute half pint Anchor Hocking jars I got from Fillmore Container.

If you find yourself in possession of a couple of pounds of berries this weekend (there’s no shame in using a clamshell from the grocery store), consider making something similar. Oh, and if you can’t get Meyer lemons, try flavoring the jam with vanilla bean paste, grated ginger, a splash of balsamic vinegar, or even the juice and zest from some regular lemons or limes.

PrintStrawberry Meyer Lemon Jam

Yield: makes 2 pints

Ingredients

2 pounds strawberries, hulled and chopped
2 cups granulated sugar
2 Meyer lemons, zested and juiced

Instructions

Prepare a boiling water bath canner and enough jars to hold two pints.
Combine the berries and sugar in a low, wide non-reactive pot. Stir to combine and let it sit until the sugar begins to dissolve.
Put the pot on the stove over high heat. Bring the jam to a boil and reduce the heat to medium-high. Cook, stirring regularly, for 12-20 minutes.
Towards the end of cooking, add the lemon zest and juice.
Check for set using your favorite method.
When you've deemed that the jam is thick enough, remove the pot from the heat.
Funnel the finished jam into the prepared jars, leaving 1/2 inch headspace.
Wipe the rims, apply the lids and rings, and process in a boiling water bath canner for 10 minutes.
When the time is up, remove the jars and set them on a folded kitchen towel to cool. When the jars have cooled enough that you can comfortably handle them, check the seals. Sealed jars can be stored at room temperature for up to a year. Any unsealed jars should be refrigerated and used promptly. 3.1http://foodinjars.com/2017/06/strawberry-meyer-lemon-jam/
Related Posts:

Small Batch Strawberry Balsamic Jam
Honey Sweetened Rhubarb Meyer Lemon Cordial
Small Batch Tomato Jalapeño Jam

Jam Making for the June Mastery Challenge

Hello Mastery Challenge participants! June is passing with alarming speed and so it’s well past time for this monthly introductory blog post. This time, we’re focusing on jam making, which is probably going to be one of the most familiar skills we dig into this year. After all, the majority of canners start their food preservation career with a batch of jam.

What is Jam?

For our purposes, we’re going to define jam as a fruit-based preserve that is sweetened. Sugar is the most traditional sweetener, but you can also use honey, maple, agave, coconut sugar, fruit juice concentrates, or non-sugar sweeteners (just remember that jam made without any true sugar will not hold its color or quality for long). And, if you’re curious about making jam with these alternative sweeteners, make sure to check out my book, Naturally Sweet Food in Jars!

What Style of Jam to Make?

There are no rules as to the style of jam you make. You can go large batch or small, conventionally sweetened or low sugar, added pectin or pectin free, and sweet or savory. If there’s a style you’ve been wanting to try and you’ve thus far avoided it in your preserving life, consider taking it for a spin.

The Recipes

There are more jam recipes in the archives of this site than I have time to count and there are yet still more in my cookbooks. Beyond that, there are hundreds of jam recipes online and in the many canning cookbooks out there. However, you really don’t need a recipe to make jam. Prep some fruit. Measure out approximately half as much sugar. Combine them until the sugar dissolves. Add a little lemon juice and perhaps some cinnamon or vanilla paste. Cook it in a low, wide pan until it thickens.

However, if you want to work with a more proper recipe, here are some of my recent favorites.

Low sugar apricot strawberry jam
Honey sweetened strawberry vanilla jam
Low sugar strawberry vanilla jam
Simple apricot jam
Tomato jalapeno jam
Yellow plum apricot jam
Tiny batch gooseberry jam
Strawberry ginger jam
Low sugar blackberry rhubarb jam
Small batch vanilla rhubarb jam
Small batch strawberry balsamic jam
Sweet cherry rhubarb jam

This month, the deadline for submitting your projects to be counted in the monthly tally is Wednesday, June 28. I’ll have the form up next week for submissions. And don’t forget to use the hashtag #fijchallenge if you post your project to social media!

Related Posts:

Spicy Pickled Green Beans
Cold Pack Canning for the May Mastery Challenge
April Mastery Challenge Round-Up: Quick Pickles

May Mastery Challenge Round-Up: Cold Pack Preserving

A post shared by Laurie Kane (@lauriehkane) on May 26, 2017 at 7:07pm PDT

The May cold pack challenge is over and it’s time to round-up our results. This challenge wasn’t as popular as those in past months, which I sort of expected. Cold pack preserving isn’t as exciting as some of the other skills we’ve tackled, and for lots of you, it was hard to find good seasonal produce which was appropriate for cold packing. Perhaps it wasn’t the best choice for May. Live and learn!

This month, just 92 people submitted their finished projects. Asparagus was the most popular ingredient to cold pack (which is appropriate since it was in season in many parts of the country in May). Other popular varieties of produce last month were Brussels sprouts, carrots, cauliflower, cucumbers, green beans, jalapeños, okra, red onion, and tomatoes.

From the data that you all reported this month, it looks like most of you weren’t moved to make more than one batch. However, from the optional comments, it sounds like a lot of you are looking forward to trying out this skill later in the season when there’s more that’s appropriate for cold packing.

One thing that I found interesting was that many of the participants felt mixed towards cold packing at the start of the challenge. Which I get. It’s not one of the sexier food preservation skills.

Happily, those of you who tried it seemed to shift to the more positive end of the spectrum by the end of the month. Which is always what I’m hoping for!

Here’s hoping that the June jam challenge will appeal to a larger swath of folks and that our participation numbers will be back up in the next month!

A post shared by Heidi Graham (@socks2go) on May 24, 2017 at 7:38pm PDT

Veg

Pickled Brussels Sprouts – BLDRNRPDX
Two Pints of Pickled Brussels Sprouts – Knit at Nite
Spicy Pickled Green Beans – Thoughts and Reflections
Single Pint Spicy Pickled Green Beans – First Things First
Pickled Asparagus (and some cold pack berries) – KT Cool
Cocktail Onions & Pickled Asparagus – Merry Meeting Menus
Dilly Beans – My Bit of Earth
Pickled Fiddlehead Ferns – Sustainable Maine
Pickled Garlic – Brit in the South
Crunchy Dill Pickles – Cooking with Mary and Friends
Carrot Cauliflower Pickles – My Imperfect Kitchen
Pickled Pearl Onions – The Pit Stop BBQ
Spicy Pickled Asparagus – East of Eden Cooking
Pickled Radishes and Fennel – Jarla!
Pickled Pink Turnips – Bubble Tea for Dinner
Serrano Dilly Beans – Grace Lee

A post shared by Southern Fried Yankees (@southernfriedyankees) on May 27, 2017 at 5:59pm PDT

Pickled Lemon Cukes – Casula Mellita
Home Grown Pickled Asparagus – Subcultural Farmgirl
Dilly Beans – Jeanne-Marie Hagan
Spicy Garlic Dill Pickles – Heidi Graham
Pickled Rhubarb – Uncanny Preserves
Small Batch Cucumber Pickles – Laurie Kane
Bread and Butter Pickles – KelKerr
Pickled Asparagus Spears – Jersey Knitter
Hot Garlic Asparagus Pickles – Lynne Curry
Pickled Asparagus with Toasted Curry Spices – Prospect the Pantry
Cold Pack Pickled Green Tomatoes – Maura Sharp
Pickled Purple Asparagus – Ikebana Girl
Pickled Carrots and Asparagus – Victory Canning
Honey Pilsner Pickles – Purlewe An
Dilly Beans – Raya Samet
Honey, Garlic, and Cumin Pickled Peppers – Jen Carr
Carrot and Daikon Slices and Spears – Will Graves
Spicy Garlic Dilly Beans – Southern Fried Yankees

A post shared by Lindsay Murray (@uncanny_preserves) on May 26, 2017 at 11:09am PDT

Fruit

Bottled Guavas – Tandy Sinclair
Portioned Tomato Sauce – The Scholarly Redneck
Cherries in Red Wine Syrup – Morsels & Sauce
Cold Packed Clementines – Muffin Lady
Anti-Gravity Apricots – Cathy Kempf
Pickled Cherries – Stephanie Beauchamp
Sweet Pickled Cherries – Susie Bares
Pickled Pineapple Two Ways – My Savory Spoon
Cinnamon and Clove Pickled Asian Pears – Celeste

Related Posts:

Cold Pack Canning for the May Mastery Challenge
Mastery Challenge January Round-up: Marmalade
Quick Pickles for the April Mastery Challenge