BYOV: bring your own vegetables: preserving

Showing posts with label preserving. Show all posts

Dried Flowers and Herbs

Sunday, June 8, 2025

Just me becoming the garden witch I always knew I was.

As a gardener, you end up drying lotsa handy things. For me, that means things to turn into "tea", either for consuming, or for making handmade soaps. These jars are a mix: dandelion petals, mint leaves, violet leaves, and dill. I have a mesh 4-layered drying rack in the basement that is very handy for this process. Just throw the items in there in a single layer and forget about them for a month, then jar 'em up!

Success: Violet Flower Jelly

Sunday, July 17, 2022

Continuing on with our Violet Foraging theme from early May this year, I turned 1/3 of those 6 cups of loose violet flowers into this very pink Homemade Violet Jelly from TheNerdyFarmwife. It tastes...florally grape-y? It's an interesting flavor, and a nice addition to sparking water and cocktails.

The recipe made about 1.25 pints of jelly, although I think I spilled a good 0.25-0.5 cups, so maybe if you're more careful you'll have more! I also didn't add the lemon juice until after boiling, so maybe that explains the pink rather than purple color? No matter, tastes fine!

Success: Honey-sweetened Raspberry Jam

Sunday, May 23, 2021

A new preserve, Food in Jars' Honey-sweetened raspberry preserves. I had 3/5 the rapsberries, so with that reduced quantity, I was able to get it to thicken up to the jam consistency. So this is likely jam rather than preserves. The leftovers tasted pretty delicious! I've never preserved raspberries as they're usually pretty pricey. But a modest sale let me buy a handful of packages (2 of the big ones).

Food in Jars' honey-sweetened raspberry preserves and whole strawberries in vanilla syrup

I made the raspberry preserves at the same time as a new, double batch of Food in Jars' whole strawberries in vanilla syrup. I LOOOOOOVE these preserves in plain yogurt. And the syrup in sparkling water...Very good, and I'm happy to be restocked for the next year now!

Success? Fermenting Garlic

Sunday, April 18, 2021

I was intrigued by FoodInJArs' Seer Torshi, or longterm fermented garlic. The description sounds ?good? So, anyways, several months later here we are! I ended up using a large portion of my hardneck garlic harvest here, maybe about 12 heads of garlic! The cloves that weren't a good size got thrown into a mini batch of hot water bath pickled garlic.

First, the garlic must ferment in the vinegar, honey, salt solution for ~2 weeks.

Garlic fermenting in vinegar, honey, salt for 2 weeks

And then the garlic must age on the shelf for 1+ years, without any hot water bath canning. The vinegar + fermentation process should keep the bacteria at bay. I also like to wipe off some of the salt from the rim of the jars at this stage so it doesn't corrode the plastic lid.

When done fermenting, Seer Torshi sits for 1+ years (not hot water bath canned!)

A few months later, this stuff smells potent when opened! Here's to hoping in 7 months it all turns out well!

Success? Diced Tomatoes

Friday, December 18, 2020

Saved up 6lbs of Little Mama Tomatoes for FoodInJars' Diced Tomatoes recipe. Super simple. Just peeled, chopped tomatoes with a bit of lemon juice. I fekt like this format was the most versatile and easy as they can just be plopped right into a veggie sautee, or can be simmered on their own with spices to make more of a sauce. Easy peasy. Let's hope they taste as good as they look! (I actually snuck in 1-2 Cherokee Purple tomatoes that were super ripe as well, but you don't want to add too much slicing tomato as it increases the water content considerably over paste tomatoes).

If these go well, I think I might consider growing 2 paste tomato plants next year!

I actually made this recipe twice, once in late summer, once in early autumn. So now there's 11 pints of diced tomatoes!

Success: Saurkraut & Vegan Kimchi

Sunday, May 3, 2020

It's been awhile since I've fermented any sauerkraut or kimchi. At the start of the social distancing phenomenon, we purchased 9lbs of cabbage, and I went to town shredding.

Sauerkraut, Sauerruben, and kimchi fermenting.

I used my 'pickle pipes' and even used the glass 'pickle stones' I had for regular mouthed mason jars. For the non-mason jars, I just stuck a large cabbage leaf on top, a plate (for the crock), and then a clean bottle full of water. I really packed the shredded cabbage in there as I went, so the liquid easily came up and covered the produce with a bit of a push from the bottles.

Sauerkraut shown above with the rest of last season's chive butter as the chives are already growing in again!

Sauerkraut and sauerruben recipe from 'Wild Fermentation' by Katz. Vegan Kimchi from Simple Veganista.

I am yet to try to sauerruben (fermented turnips). Everything else came out really nicely. I had left the fermentation crock in the basement for a month, and when I brought it up, it still tasted like salty cabbage! A few days on the counter fixed that, but I was really surprised to see how very well and very long you can preserve cabbage in just a cool room!

Preserving Chives

Sunday, October 6, 2019

A frost was predicted for the night, so I hurried up and lopped off a bunch of chives and ended up with a few different preservation techniques:

1. Flash frozen (jar)
2. Chive Butter
3. Frozen whole
4. Frozen in olive oil (not shown)
5. Air-dried (not shown)

Frozen Whole. Cut the chives off the plant, leaving about 4" on the plant. Placed into a Ziploc bag and all the air sucked out. Then frozen.

Flash Frozen. Chopped up, laid out on a silicone mat on a cookie sheet, and then frozen for an hour. Quickly placed into a jar and stored in the freezer.

Frozen in Olive Oil. Chopped up, placed into an ice cube tray, topped off with olive oil, and then frozen.

Chive Butter. 1/4 cup of chopped chives, mixed in with a stick of salted butter. Rolled back in plastic and frozen.

Air Dried. This is an experiment that probably won't turn out. This is the process I use for drying my basil. Hang it up in a dark, dry closet and let it air dry for weeks.

Success: Another Cherry Preserves Season

Sunday, September 1, 2019

In July, cherries went on sale for $1.50/lb, which around here means CANNING. Time to stock-up on cherry preserves for the year. They make the best housewarming/thanks/birthday gift. And they're just delicious. This year I avoided the red wine and brandy because I just don't like them that much...and went for a cheap bottle of bourbon. That works so much nicer (for me, anyways). So I have 'manhattan cherries', some non-alcoholic maraschino cherries, and cherry preserves in rosemary honey syrup.

15lbs of cherries into ~19 pints of preserves.

Vanilla Bourbon Cherries

4.75pts Vanilla Bourbon Soaked Cherries: sheeats.ca. I used some organic tart cherry juice in the place of the water, to amp up the cherry-ness.

Chai-spiced Bourbon Cherries

6pts from sheeats.ca, but with a teaball full of mulling spices + cardamom steeped in the syrup instead of the vanilla. Some of the water was replaced with tart cherry juice. I always run out of syrup and end up scrambling to make more. Reminder to make more than enough syrup. The worst that happens is you have leftover for your sparkling water!

Cocktail Cherries

5.5pts Cocktail/Maraschino Cherries: Living Homegrown. Maraschino cherries, but without the liqueur, so really just cherries preserved in sugar syrup. I also used tart cherry juice instead of water for these jars. I have some bottles of black cherry juice for the future, and am interested in its impact on flavor.

I had a pint of these explode when I put them into the hot water bath. I suspect this was due to a temperature difference (i.e., letting the jars cool too much while filling them). Something to remember for next time!

Cherry Preserves in Rosemary Honey Syrup

2.5pts Cherries in Honey Rosemary Syrup: FoodInJars. I've made these before. They are fantastic. This time I remembered to keep the rosemary in a teaball, so no one has to consume rosemary leaves!

Canning: Honey Strawberry Butter

Sunday, August 4, 2019

Fruit butters, sooooo good, but so costly. 'Turns out that cooking fruit liquid down for an hour or two greatly reduces its volume. Who'd a thunk?

I followed this recipe for Strawberry Honey Butter from Ball Canning, which I found through Food in Jars. I dropped the vanilla, because I have so much strawberry vanilla in the [over-flowing] jam cabinet a the moment. Instead of 4 half pints, I got 3 half pints --> 1 pound of strawberries per half pint! Which I suppose is still only about $2 in produce, lol. There's one dollar's worth of strawberries in the little jars.

Honey Strawberry Butter - one pound of strawberries per half pint!

Success: Blueberry Maple Jam

Friday, July 12, 2019

The first week of July, blueberries went on sale for a reasonable-ish price. This pretty much never happens (or I never see it happening), so that makes this only the second blueberry preserve I've ever made.

This is the blueberry jam from Marisa McClellan's Preserving by the Pint, which is itself adapted from something like this recipe from House and Home and is called "blueberry crack." So, it has that going for it. I doubled the recipe, which you should never do, and ended up cooking it for twice as long as the recipe says, plus adding a tablespoon of powdered pectin (and an little extra splash of bottled lemon juice just in case). Maybe it'll set, maybe it'll just be blueberry preserves, doesn't really matter much!

I had one jar not seal (this is almost a pattern), so I get to enjoy its sugary goodness over the next few days. Maybe I'll find out if it actually sets. Or not. Who knows!

Success: Peach Slices with Bourbon

Sunday, July 7, 2019

Around June 7 eastern peaches went on sale for 88 cents/pound, so naturally, I purchased 6lbs and made Marisa McClellan's Peach Slices with Bourbon from Naturally Sweet Food in Jars. The bourbon (and maple syrup, the natural sweetener) are very, very subtle, so it's mostly just peaches in their flavor.

I typically don't preserve peaches because I dislike the extra step of removing the skins. But the poaching + ice water method worked very smoothly for only 6lbs of quite ripe peaches. The Eastern peaches ripen quite quickly, and apparently the ripeness is the key to getting the skins off. I'd say this approach was easier than all the cherry-pitting I have to do for those recipes.

I had one pint not seal. This is very unusual for me! So I got to eat a whole pint of peach slices stored in the fridge. I can vouch for their tastiness.

Preserve Status: The Jam Cabinet

Friday, June 7, 2019

On the left is the jam cabinet after fall/winter gifting. Getting a little light on goodies. Still some strawberry jams left, a pint of cherries here or there, and a decent supply of autumn's apple butters and apple sauces.

Jam Cabinet after Dandelion Jelly, Vanilla Pear Jam, and Strawberries in Vanilla Syrup

I really like giving preserves as small thank you gifts. A jar of brandied cherries work great at parties, bread & apple butter for pot-lucks, other preserves for housewarmings, vanilla pear jam to complement a recent gift of homemade bread, etc. And so, after ~9 months of these type of events, the jam cabinet thins out a bit. But now getting into spring again, the supply is getting replenished (see photo on the right).

Below is the jam cabinet at November 2018 (the end of last year's preserving season), and then some photos of a recent batch of 3lbs of strawberries in vanilla syrup when they went on sale for $1.50/lb. Really fills out the cabinet!

Preserving: Vanilla Pear Jam (or sauce?)

Wednesday, June 5, 2019

My first-ish experience with liquid pectin (right after my first experiment with powdered pectin), and I have real doubts about the setting of this Pear Vanilla Jam from Food In Jars. Perhaps it's because I let the chopped pears sit in sugar overnight, and then food processed before cooking? I don't know. However, the leftovers I have in the fridge are set fine, and go absolutely brilliantly with croissants, or other jam-delivery-mechanisms. This is a definite make again, assuming the jam sets.

Set or no set, this jam will make a tasty syrup for some yogurt or ice cream. It's so good. Possibly better than strawberries in vanilla syrup. Will make again. Someday.

Preserving: Dandelion Jelly

Sunday, June 2, 2019

I'm pretty sure we have the highest dandelion per square foot in all of our hamlet. Which means...dandelion jelly! The whole dandelion is edible, stems, buds, and all. So why not.

I followed this recipe from CreativeHomeMaking, and it's looking pretty well set. Like the author says "Jelly can take several hours or even several days to completely set, so it’s important not to disturb the jars after you remove them from the canner. Moving them can cause the jelly not to set properly." I let the jars sit for a week over Memorial Day weekend. There's little bubbles suspended in the jelly and everything! If it doesn't set, you can apparently just treat the dandelion syrup like honey.

It has an interesting floral taste. I removed as much of the green bits of the flowers as possible, giving the sweetest floral taste. It is quite pleasant. And interesting.

This is my first use of powdered pectin! And my first jelly, despite having made ~40 previous recipes!

Preserving by the Pound

Sunday, December 23, 2018

My Homemade Preserves Collection as of 6/21/14

I've made about 40 recipes from Marisa McClellan's blog, Food in Jars and books, Food in Jars and Preserving By The Pint. I mostly follow the book recipes, but much of them can be scrounged up on random bits of the Internet. My general list of recipes to remake:

Dilly Beans (FiJ) and Garlic Dill Zucchini Pickles (FiJ)- the garlic dill effect is just the best.
Pickled Smoked Paprika Okra (FiJ, adapted)- These are different and very good. Okra isn't slimy when pickled!
Pickled Brussel Sprouts (FiJ)- Can smell a little funky, but are pretty tasty.
Zucchini Pepper Sweet Relish (FiJ)- Taste an awful lot like standard pickle relish, but better.
Pickled Zucchini with Lime & Cumin (FiJ)- Maybe. Vinegar taste is a bit strong with these, but they're good.
Small Batch Strawberry Vanilla Jam x3 (FiJ)- Already made thrice, despite overcooking slightly both times. This is the best of fruit jams.
White Nectarine Jam with Rose Essence (FiJ)- Interesting and tasty. You don't need too much of it, but I still have a lot of it.
Simple Apricot Jam (FiJ)- No peeling necessary!
Maple Bourbon Apple Butter, made in the slow cooker, (FiJ). When bruised apples go on sale in December for $.50/lb, this recipe is a fancy winner that tastes good, and also makes people jealous. Easy to make a ton of it and a fantastic little gift.
Strawberry Applesauce x2 (FiJ)- The strawberries taste like strawberries!
Brandied Cherries or Chai-Spiced Brandied Cherries (modified FiJ) or its brother, Cherries in Red Wine Syrup (FiJ)- Both very good for cocktails and ice cream, if you can get over pitting a few pounds of cherries.
Pickled Plums (FiJ)- No peeling required! Rather mild brine, tastes pretty much just like plums!
Note there's no peach recipes in this list. They're always delicious, but the peeling process is a pain.

Here's the rest of the collection of canned produce I've attempted, below. It's weird, I sort of enjoy them more in the jars than in my stomach. They are the ultimate {thank-you-for-the-free-bed-frame, welcome-to-the-neighborhood, thanks-for-dealing-with-all-my-administrivia, I'm-sorry-your-cat-passed-away} gifts, though. Best within a year or two, but still perfectly edible after that point provided the seal holds.