Category: KVLT Canning

Debauchery Strawberry Jam

WFMH

Listening to: Slowly We Rot – Obituary

Two batches of jam and one batch of vinegar experiment, see bottom of post for details.

Strawberries are here for a few weeks, let’s make some tasty jams!

Save the tops! I’ll explain after the pics of alien-looking strawberries!

Strawberry Jam – Yields 9 half-pint jars

  • 3 lbs smashed strawberries, tops removed
  • 1 lemon, zested
  • 1/4 cup lemon juice
  • 6 Tbsp pectin, no/low sugar powdered form
  • 3 cups sugar (or 6 cups if using regular pectin)

Special Equipment: water bath canner/large stock pot with lid and rack for the bottom, jar lifter or tongs with rubber bands

0. Prepare the water bath canner, fill with enough water to cover the jars by at least 1″, bring to a boil. Put a small plate in the freezer, to check for jelling. Have the clean jars with lids and bands ready to go.

1. Combine strawberries, lemon zest, and lemon juice in a 6 qt heavy bottom saucepan or pot on high heat. This is usually when I smash the strawberries, I don’t mind if they’re a bit chunky. Add the pectin and bring to a boil, stirring frequently.

2. Dump all the sugar in and stir to combine. Bring it back to boiling. As tempting as it may be, don’t stick your finger into this molten lava. Boil hard for a minute or so. Bust out that plate you put in the freezer, drop some jam on it. Push it with your finger, if it wrinkles then it’s set. If not, put the plate back in the freezer and keep cooking the jam for another minute or two and check again. Worst case scenario your jam doesn’t set and it will be a great topping for waffles.

3. Ladle the jam into the jars, leaving 1/4″ headspace. Give them a lil rim job, place the lids and bands.

4. Process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes. Remove the jars and let them cool. Listen for the pings, they energize you as much as this Florida death metal.

Adapted from a USDA tested and approved source.

You’ll notice the fruit chunks float to the top of the jar. If you don’t like that for some reason, you could purée the fruit instead and that would help. You could go the extra mile and strain the seeds out with a fine mesh sieve to make jelly if you wanted to. You do you, bud.

We picked a flat of strawberries and enjoyed the carnage leftover.

I am privileged to live near some great farms. Enjoy these fucked up local, organic strawberries I canned:

I shrieked when I found this chungus.
Looks kinda Aborted, doesn’t it?
There’s a surprised face on the right side if you look closely.

What’s with the container with strawberry tops?

I’m attempting to make a fruit scrap vinegar with the tops. You know how you can find those boutique fruit vinegars and they’re expensive as hell? I’m trying to make some of that. This is essentially a low-cost and zero waste way to do that. The tops have a bit of fruit on them, and as long as there aren’t any moldy pieces, it should work.

I cut the tops off of 4 flats of strawberries and added them to my 4 qt container. I added water and 1/4 c sugar, and covered it with a piece of cloth and a rubber band. I’m going to keep an eye on this and stir it every day for a week or so until the water turns a bit dark. If it gets moldy I’ll pitch it, but if it doesn’t I’m going to strain it and let the mixture acidify for a month or two. Eventually it will form a scum layer that is known as a “mother of vinegar”, like the kind you see at the bottom of Bragg’s unfiltered apple cider vinegar. It’s different from a kombucha SCOBY, but kind of the same concept.

I’ll update either way. I’m hoping to make some strawberry vinegar to use as a base for salad dressing and for mixed drinks.

Pardon my basic bitch Snapchat photo, but I wanted to show you the comical amount of strawberries I processed. I ended up freezing most of them to process at a later date, more posts to follow.

Some Images From a Wholesome Outing to Pick Fruit

Picking berries is a nice activity, even for your local misanthropes.

Chopping Block Chicken or Turkey Stock

WFMH

Listening to: The Bees Made Honey in The Lion’s Skull- Earth

No two batches of turkey stock will look the same.

Whole turkey or chicken make for a few great meals and then gives the gift of bones for stock. Get in the habit of saving bones from your bird meals, including rotisserie chickens, but maybe not fried. It’s okay if there’s some meat or connective parts on the bone, it makes for a more flavorful stock.  

Make a whole bunch to pressure can for shelf stable goodness or freeze if you don’t have access to a pressure canner. 

Turkey or Chicken Stock- Yields 7 qts

  • 3-5 ziplock bags of bones you’ve saved up in the freezer
  • 1-2 ziplock bags of vegetable scraps you’ve saved in the freezer (onion peels, carrot peels and butts, celery butts, non-cruciferous odds and ends). If you didn’t save scraps, use a few whole veggies like onions, carrots, and celery.
  • Aromatic herbs of your choice: a small handfull of peppercorns, bay leaves, a bouquet of thyme or sage. Whatever you have on hand will be okay.

Special Equipment: Large stock pot, pressure canner (or lots of tupperware for freezing), chinois or other kind of strainer.

0. Have the foresight to save bones from turkey or chicken. Any meat or fatty bits on there add more flavor. Like in the Vegetable Stock recipe, save some veggies too. If you don’t have freezer space to hold your would-be compost, you can scale this down significantly. 

1. Roast the bones in the oven at 400F for an hour or two. Break the smaller bones for bonus points. This is an optional step, but deepens the flavor of your stock. 

2. Place the bones and veggies in the stock pot, cover with water. Set it on medium-high or high setting to get it simmering. It shouldn’t boil, get that sucker on low and slow to keep the temp just right. Simmer that stock for at least 6 hours, some people go for as long as 48 hours. I usually find a happy medium at 12-16 hours for my stock. 

3. Strain the stock into heat-resistant containers. Discard the veggies and herbs into your compost pile, and bones in trash. Skim some of the fat off the top of the stock. Save that shit, that’s shmaltz! Use instead of butter or lard in other recipes. If you wanted to get all of it off, refrigerate the stock for a few hours or overnight. The fat comes right off. The broth should be gelatinous and wiggly when it’s chilled, that means you did it right. All of that collagen is what the hipsters pay up the ass for in their expensive little bottles of “bone broth”. 
At this stage you can freeze the broth into pint containers or in ice cube trays for a tablespoon at a time. It keeps in the fridge for about a week, any longer and it gets fizzy in my experience. Continue on if you want to learn to can your magical fluids.

4. Prepare the pressure canner according to manufacturer instructions. Bring the fat-skimmed stock to a boil. Ladle the stock into the clean jars , leaving 1 in of headspace. Give them a lil rim job with a towel and place the two piece lid. One full canner load is usually 7 quarts or 10 pints, use whichever jars will work better for your needs. Pressure can for 20 minutes for pints, or 25 minutes if using quarts. The clock starts when you hit the psi needed for your elevation, 0-1000 ft is 11 psi. Let the canner depressurize on its own and remove the jars. Listen to those beautiful lids ping, it makes your bits tingly. 

Adapted from a test and USDA approved recipe. Normally when you can vegetables, peels are removed to prevent bacteria from growing, but since these peels are strained out, they are safe to use.

Well it’s been a long goddamn time since I’ve posted anything, my b. It’s a snowy day here in WA, so enjoy and make Turkey Soup or something with this recipe.

Turkey Soup- Carcass and all!

WFMH

Listening to: Necroticism- Carcass

Turkey soup ready for the dark winter nights when you’re too lazy to make lunch or dinner.

Turkey is cheap right now, so grab a few if you can and freeze until you’re ready to can. Canning soup is easy to do if you prep your vegetables ahead of time and assembly-line your process. Pressure can for 75 min for pints, 90 min for quarts at 11psi (or higher depending on your elevation). If you don’t have a pressure canner, DO NOT try to make these shelf-stable, just freeze them instead. 

Turkey Soup- Scale up or down as needed

Veggies: celery cut 1/4″ thick, peeled carrots in thin rounds, diced onions. I think those should be a part of almost every soup. You could add just about any vegetable you want, including peeled potatoes, peeled turnips, frozen peas, corn etc. just about whatever floats your little grindcore boat.

Seasonings: 1/2 tsp to 1 tsp per jar depending on how salty your stock is. I added 1/2 t thyme and half a bay leaf in each jar. 

Meat: Meat for soup can be either raw or cooked about 2/3 of the way. It’s all going to be pressure canned for the same time anyway, so I just do it all raw and some cooked meat I have on hand. If you’re going to be freezing the soup, obviously cook it all the way through so you don’t give extra offerings to the porcelain gods. Use leftover Thanksgiving meat for this if you’d like

Broth: I used chicken broth I had canned previously. You’re going to need at least 1/2 of the volume of soup to be broth. Store bought is sacrilege, if you need to wait until the turkey broth is ready, please do so. The raw turkey will make a little bit of its own broth in here, but if you need to use store bought, go for turkey. Keep it simmering while you fill the jars so it’s ready to go. 

Special Equipment: Pressure canner. I repeat, Do Not Attempt to Can Low Acid Foods Without A PRESSURE CANNER <3 

     0a. Buy a whole turkey and get the meat off of it. You can roast it and pick the meat off or just break down the bird raw. Either way, save the bones and fat for the broth you’re definitely making with the carrot peels, onion tops, etc. you’re saving for this. 

 0b. Get the pressure canner ready per manufacturer instructions

  1. Chop up the vegetables and separate them in their own containers. It’s Pinterest AF and sucks for the amount of dishes, but I promise it helps this whole process go faster. Cube the meat into 1″ portions as best as possible. You can separate the dark and white meat if you’re picky. Save extra meat for canning on its own some other time soon.
  2.  Layer the jars: salt and seasonings first, then 1/4 full of meat, then a few tablespoons of each vegetable. Fill each jar up to 1 in from the top. 
  3. Fill each jar with hot broth, leaving 1″ of headroom. Debubble with a rubber spatula or something that won’t hurt the jars, adjust headroom if needed. Fit the two piece lid on there.
  4. Pressure can for 75 minutes for pints, 90 minutes for quarts at 11 psi. The clock starts when it comes to the indicated pressure. Turn the heat off when the timer is done, let the canner depressurize on its own. Do not try to “help it”. Keep the lid on for 10 more minutes when it’s depressurized. This helps prevent “siphoning” or when the jars spit hot broth everywhere because of a sudden temperature change.
Assembly line!

One project I’m working on as I write this is pressure canning an entire frozen turkey. The idea is to cook it just long enough so the meat is cooked, the skin won’t be crispy like oven roasted, but if it’s done right the meat should be nearly falling off the bone. I’m planning on making a bunch more soup, another batch of broth to reuse the bones, and rendering the fat for schmaltz. 

Cherries to Demolish Your Adversaries

WFMH

Listening to: Fate of Norns – Amon Amarth

Bing and Rainier cherries to be enjoyed in the colder months of the year. 

Cherries have lots of vitamins and minerals in them, so let’s beef them up with a bunch of sugar to preserve them. Open a can up before you plan on bludgeoning your foes so you have extra strength. You could also make a pie if you’re not into battling. 

Cherry season is short, usually in the early summer, so stock up for the rest of the year. You’ll be happy you did. I only can sweet cherries, but sour cherries are good to can, too. 

Cherries in Light Syrup- Yields 9 pints

  • 12 lbs sweet cherries, pitted- I have access to Bing and Rainier cherries here in WA. 
  • 2 cups sugar 

Special equipment: water bath canner/large stock pot with lid and rack for the bottom, cherry pitter OR paring knife and pastry tip

0. Prepare the water bath canner, fill with enough water to cover the jars by at least 1″, bring to a boil.

1. Take the stems off and pit the cherries. It’s not *crucial* to do so, but it’s nicer when you open the jar. This is a pain in the ass to do without a cherry/olive pitter, but I found that using a paring knife held in the forefinger and thumb to cut and a round pastry tip wedged on the middle or ring finger to scoop the pit out works too. Use gloves either way, or be prepared to have sticky hands. It’s not that bad if you’re going for an intimidating blood-stained look!
Keep the cherries in water once they’re cut so they don’t start to oxidize. Once the cherries are purchased, try not to move them around too much or they will become bruised. This doesn’t affect their safety as far as canning goes, but if they’re lighter colored Rainier cherries, they might not look as pretty.

2. Prepare syrup: I prefer to can fruit in light syrup. You could use organic fancy juice, water, or heavier syrups, but I feel those affect the flavor of the fruit too much. Just using water sucks any sweetness out of the fruit, which totally blows. Bring 6 cups of water to a boil with the sugar until it is dissolved.  

3. Add the cherries to the boiling syrup. Boil for 5 minutes. Listen to The Pursuit of Vikings during the step, you won’t regret it. 

4. Ladle the cherries into the  clean jars with the syrup, fill to 1/2 in from the top. use a thin spatula or knife to de-bubble the jars. Adjust the headspace if needed. Apply the two-piece lid and ring on gently. 
You’ll probably have extra syrup that’s now flavored with cherries, don’t throw that away! 

5. Process in the water bath for 15 minutes for half-pints or pints, or 20 minutes for quarts. You COULD use a pressure canner for this, but it would probably be best to raw pack them because of the higher temps. Cherries are acidic enough to be processed in the water bath safely. 
Remove from the hot water with tongs with rubber bands or a jar lifter if you’re fancy. Listen for the pings, they’re as beautiful as that melodic death metal you’ve been jamming out to. 

Adapted from a USDA tested and approved source.

Bask in the glory of your hard work. 

These will brighten up your canning closet. You need to hide these from anyone living with you (including yourself), because these are so good you’ll want to just snack on them right away. Save some for the winter to have an out-of-season cherry pie, or on top of ice cream. For the cherry pie, use some of the liquid in the jar with the thickener of your choice (corn starch, Clear Jel, flour, etc.). I believe in you. It’s only about a billion times better than store-bought canned cherries in the off-season, like this one I made for my metalhead buddy Jesse for his 21st birthday four years ago:

Make your friends a birthday pie, with a pie dough you cut-outs of your stenciled hand. This was a hit, even though I used store-bought canned cherries in April. It’s the thought that counts. 

Like I mentioned earlier, you could use any kind of sugar/sweetener solution, but I prefer light syrup. It helps the fruit retain their color and flavor without it being liquid diabetes. I might look into steam juicing cherries in the future and canning them in their own liquid, but only if I found a good deal on cherries or found a tree to pick.  Here is a guide I follow for ratios. 

This summer my canning habit really took off with cherries. In Washington we get good quality Bing, Rainier, and sour cherries in particular, they’re a really good deal at ethnic markets and at the stands scattered around, usually run by Native women. I realized how I don’t really care for them too much during the short season they’re available, but I always want them in the winter and spring. They’ll laugh at you for buying and processing a goofy amount of cherries, but will be silent as you pull out your little jars of sunshine when it’s cold out. 

Future pie material for pals made with superior, canned-with-love cherries. 

Woah Black Berry! Bramble Jam

WFMH

Listening to: Salt- Khôrada

Ignore the dumb “Elizabeth Sylvester” name on there, Well Fed Metalhead made this!

Here in the Pacific Northwest, Himalayan blackberries are invasive and every summer we need to do our part to prevent their prickly take-over by stealing their fruit, mashing them up with sugar and lemon juice and making condiments for your toast. 

Blackberry Jam- Yields 12 ea 1/2 pint jars

  • 9 cups of raw whole blackberries, mashed should yield 5.5 cups of fruit. Pick these yourself or you’ll be paying an arm and a leg at the store.
  • 1 package of Sure Jell pectin 
  • 1/4 cup lemon juice, from a bottle. Heresy, I know. The pH is more consistent store-bought. This is optional, but it’s recommended for additional acidity and preserves the beautiful color.
  • 7 cups of sugar, less if using no-sugar pectin

Special Equipment: Heavy bottomed stock pot for the jam, stock pot with a rack on the bottom or canner.

1a. Gather your metalhead buddies, arrange for a nice wholesome outing to gather the fruiting bodies of the pest plants. Compare your battle vests and do your best to not get the berry blood on there or it might stain, alternatively you could stain the vests to look more badass than you already are. Be sure to wash the berries thoroughly and remove any stems. Take turns punching the berries until they’re a mash.
1b. Fill the canner with water, 1 in higher than the top of the jam jars, bring to a boil. Put a plate in the freezer. Sounds weird, but stick with me here.
1. Deicide if you want to de-seed the jam or not, thus turning it into jelly. I choose not to. If you do, heat the berries until they’re nearly boiling and run them through a food mill or fine mesh sieve. Discard the seeds. 
2. Bring the fruit blood to a boil with the lemon juice and pectin, stir them vigorously to make sure the pectin doesn’t clump. Use a wooden flat-bottom spoon or a rubber spatula to stir, making sure there are no spots to burn. Cook for a few minutes.
3. Dump all of the sugar in at once and stir it until it’s all combined. Bring it to a hard boil for 3 minutes. Remove from the heat.
4. Skim off the foam and save it in a side dish for snacks. It’s harmless, but is not A E S T H E T I C when opening a jar. If you’re going this far, might as well do it right. 
5. Test for jell. Remove the plate from the freezer and drip some of the jam on there. If the jam wrinkles when you push your finger through it, it’s good to go. If not, cook for a few more minutes and try again. Worst case scenario it will be a bit runny and still make your waffles taste great. 
6. Fill the jars using a funnel (if you have one), leaving 1/4″ headspace from the top. Give those jars a quick rim job to ensure a good seal. Place the two part lid on there and place them in the canner. Process for 10 minutes in the boiling water. Remove them and listen to that sweet song of the lids popping, it’s what keeps you going.

Adapted from a tested and USDA approved source
I happen to like processing my jars a little longer than the recommended 5 minutes, I’m a bit more conservative that way.

This is why I look forward to August: blackberry picking season. When I first moved to the PNW in 2011, one of my relatives who lives on the Washington peninsula introduced canning to me via applesauce, pears in syrup, and blackberry jam. Canning seemed like such an intimidating process, but I took home some of her jam and plotted how I could do it with limited resources. I made 72 ea 1/2 pint containers of blackberry jam this year, and is how I got sucked into the hobby. Most of these are given away as gifts, but my spouse definitely has a good supply for a while.

I started canning as a way to give my friends and relatives inexpensive homemade gifts, and I’ll admit I didn’t really know what I was doing for the first year or so. This is a fascinating hobby for me, as it’s a whole different style of cooking than I’m used to. My Xmas list is all set this year. I’m happy to share my hoard and would like to monetize it at some point in the future with a license and all that.

Water bath canning is a great way to get introduced to the hobby. Jam, jellies, and acidified foods like tomato sauce are good starting points. Pressure canning isn’t necessarily “advanced” as much as it is getting over the fear of blowing up your kitchen. That literally won’t happen unless you leave the heat on full blast and go take a walk.

Follow tested and approved recipes from NCFHP.edu, pickyourown.org, Ball Canning Book, etc. Don’t bother with Pinterest and mommy blogs unless they site a source for their recipes. There’s a lot of bad advice out there. If you want to go “off book”, make sure you understand the science behind canning and learn WHY there are rules. I agree to some extent about the “gubbment” trying to destroy grandma’s recipes, and things that are not approved for canning probably just haven’t been tested for safety. I choose not to fuck with it too much. I’ll clearly mark  my “rebel canning” things here the rare times I do. Your kitchen, your rules, but if you’re a first timer listen to the tried and true recipes first.

Edit: It’s only fitting that I was listening to Khôrada while making this jam, because I have celebrity endorsement from Don Anderson (guitarist for Agalloch, Khôrada). Here is his breakfast after I gave him a jar at the Seattle show. He had previously helped me with a paper for an English class in 2015 and I promised him a thank you gift, I’m glad I was able to meet him to do so.

Chopping Block Vegetable Stock

WFMH

Listening to: By The Light of the Northen Star- Týr

No two batches will look or taste the same. 

Vegetable stock is a staple in any pantry. This is made for pennies, unless you monetize your time like a capitalist pig. Save your vegetable scraps in ziplock bags in the freezer until you have enough to fill the stock pot, simmer, strain, can. No two batches will taste the same.

Do not water bath this recipe, non-acidic products need to be pressure canned. This holds up well in the freezer if canning is not an option for you. 

Scrap Vegetable Stock- Yields 6 qts

  • 3-5 ziplock bags of veggie scraps
  • salt to taste
    Special equipment: Large stock pot, Pressure Canner (or lots of pint containers for the freezer), sieve or strainer

0. Have the foresight to save your vegetable scraps from your regular cooking activities. Washed and not-moldy: potato peels, onion/garlic papers and butts, carrot peels and butts, celery butts, discarded bay leaves, etc.; basically anything that would normally be a candidate for the compost pile. I don’t add squishy veggies like tomatoes and try to limit the amount of cruciferous veggies that end up in the bags. Depending on what is in your scrap bags, add some bay leaves or peppercorns. 
1. Dump the ziplock bags into the large stock pot and fill with water. Bring to a boil with lid closed, as this helps it heat up faster. Bring the heat down to a simmer for 4-6 hrs. 
2. Strain the stock, using a fine-mesh sieve or strainer. Most importantly, get the big chunks out of the stock, if you want it more clear don’t push the excess liquid out of the veggies. There will be some sediment, but that shit is delicious, don’t worry about it. Discard the cadavers of the vegetables. I wash and reuse the ziplocks and store them in the freezer for future batches, I’m a bit crunchy like that.  You may reduce the stock further by simmering for another hour or so, but do not add more water to dilute it. It’s wonderful as it is and so are you <3.
3. Salt the stock. This is important, folks. The stock is *okay* on its own, but it needs a bit of salt. Start with 1/4 cup for 6 qts of stock and go from there. You don’t want to go overboard here because when you open the jar or defrost the stock for cooking with it, you want it as neutral as possible. 
4. Store the stock: 
a) Portion the stock into food-grade pint containers and let cool for a little while before putting the lids on and placing them in the freezer. Stores well for up to a year.
Pro: No canning required. Con: Plastic container, defrosting required, and takes up freezer space.
b) Prepare pressure canner per your manual, in the last 1/2 hour of cooking the stock before straining. Pour broth in sterilized jars leaving 1 in headspace. The top left jar has just a little bit too much space. Process at 11lbs psi at altitudes less than 1000′: Pints 30 min, Quarts 35 min. Let the canner de-pressurize on it’s own, do not attempt to open it or “help it” go faster. This could break the glass. Listen to the sound of your people, those lids popping is your ultimate goal. Store for up to a year, but I bet it won’t last that long. 
Pro: Shelf stable, no need for defrosting. Con: Must be kept in cool, dark place for maximum shelf life, requires pressure canning which is not feasible/accessible for everyone.

Use within a week or so of opening the container. Boil grains in it instead of water, add to one-pot dishes for flavor, make a gravy, you’ve got a brain to Google what else to do with it.

This is the well-versed cook’s secret to making any dish better. A good stock will make even the congealed brains of your enemies taste pretty good.

I started making veggie scrap stock after reading a post on Reddit. I have always made chicken stock, but I don’t go through carcasses \m/ often enough to make it frequently. I have always used fresh vegetables, which is a perfectly valid way to make flavorful stock, but I realized how much life is left in the scraps when other people mentioned this method. I cook nearly everything from scratch, so most of my household waste is compostable. Unfortunately we don’t have commercial composting services here and I live in a condo where I don’t really have space or a yard to take care of it, so I do what I can to reuse the scraps once before discarding them.

Living a lower waste lifestyle has been crucial in my personal development over the past year. Rethinking what we throw away, looking at alternatives to individually wrapped everything and packaging in general has developed my home cooking into more labor intensive, but more fulfilling food. The more you cook from scratch, more fuel for your veggie stock! Chicken stock will be a separate post because I have a different method for that. 

Finally a post without a shitload of sugar. Diabetes isn’t metal. 

Grape Jelly

WFMH

Listening to: Surgical Steel – Carcass

Find a vineyard to pillage to make some condiments for your morning toast.


Grape Jelly- Yields eight 1/2 pint jars

  • 5 lbs grapes, green or red, make sure they’re good
    OR 5 cups of grape juice (fuck Welch’s, get the flavorful organic bullshit). I’m gonna assume you’re using fresh grapes, learn a little bit ya dig?
  • 7 cups of sugar (less if you use the no-sugar pectin)
  • 1 package of Sure Jell pectin, regular or reduced sugar. Keep a second package on hand in case your jelly doesn’t set in the allotted time.
    Special equipment: sieve or jelly bag, heavy bottom stock pot, stock pot or water bath canner

0. Get the water bath ready: Fill the stock pot or canner with enough water to cover the tops of the half pint jars with at least 1 in of water.
1. Prepare the grape juice: a) Pick the grapes from the stem. If there are little pieces left, that’s okay because they’ll be strained out later. b) Mash the grapes in the heavy bottomed stock pot with the blunt end of your favorite battle axe. Add a little water to cover the grapes and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to a simmer for about 20 minutes. This softens the skins to release more juice. c) Strain with a sieve or jelly bag. Get something to catch the juice, even better if it holds the strainer by itself. Mush most of the juice out, but don’t go crazy. Discard the leftover solids, throw them at an ex or neighbor you don’t like. Wash out that stock pot you just used, you’re about to use it again.
2. You should have about 5 cups of fruit blood, any more and you’ll have to scale up the amount of pectin and sugar you use. Not my problem bud, figure that out yourself. Bring the juice to a boil and add the pectin, mix that for a few minutes. 
3. Add all of the sugar to the pot and bring it to a hard boil. It should look like the most barbarous mosh pit of your life. Cook for about 5 minutes, carefully use a rubber spatula to scrape the bottom and sides to prevent any scorching. It should start jelling at this point,keep a metal \m/ spoon in the freezer in little dish of water to see if it sticks to the spoon. If not, add more pectin, or accept that you’ll have grape pancake syrup. Skim the foam off. It won’t hurt anyone to keep it on, but if you’re doing all this work, might as well do it right. It’s not A E S T H E T I C to open a jelly jar with foam. 
4. Ladle the hot jelly into the clean jars, leaving 1/4 in headroom. Give them a quick rim job before placing the two part lids on, securing them finger tight. Process in the boiling water bath for 10 minutes. Listen to the song of the lids popping, it’s your new anthem. Store with the rings off in a temperate, dark spot. 

Adapted from a tested and USDA approved source

I have never had grape juice or grape jelly that I enjoyed until I finished this recipe. I’m thinking more and more of either jury rigging or buying a steam juicer for next year, so I can make all sorts of juice and expand my scope of projects.

My jelly didn’t set until the next day when th jar were all the way cool, but I should have kept more pectin on hand for times like these. I was willing to accept grape waffle spread, and not the perfect jelly texture. I live a charmed life, I picked my grapes for free from my day job so I wasn’t too worried overall about wasting money on this project. I was also ever-so-slightly blazed and kept focusing on Jeff Walker’s tasty jams, not on the jelly.

Pictures don’t do the color of this grape juice justice. This was one of the best homemade items I’ve made to date.

Seriously though, try this out. Find some nice grape juice or go the whole nine yards with making the juice and make yourself some jelly. Gotta have something to eat before your photo shoot in the woods with your favorite black metal buddies, right?

Don’t Wince at Quince, Pt. 2

WFMH

Listening to: Terminal- Bongripper

Last time we had a look at quinces, and made some jelly. Maybe you don’t have all the equipment, time, space, balls, or patience to deal with that. I get it. My feelings aren’t hurt. You can still enjoy this gnarly fruit ovary even if you’re a lazy butt. This is easy as shit to make: chop fruit, make syrup, boil. Read the recipe, though. 

Quince Pieces in Light Syrup- Yields 9 pint jars

  • 11 lbs quince, washed and de-fuzzed.
  • 2 cups sugar
    Special Equipment: Large pot, large stock pot or water bath canner.

0. Prepare the water bath canner or large stock pot with a rock on the bottom to prevent the jars from having direct contact with the heat source. Add enough water to cover the jars plus one inch. 
1. Prepare the light syrup in the large pot: add the sugar and 6 cups (1.5 qts for your math challenged ass) and bring to a boil. You could make medium or heavy syrup or even nice fancy organic fruit juice to pack the fruit in, but Dio’s unholy spirit (RIP) told me directly that quince is better in light syrup. 
2. Peel the quince. This is a bitch and a half because the fruit is so damn dry and stupid shaped, but hang in there. Slice those suckers in half and scoop out the core with a metal \m/ spoon. Cut that into slices however thick you want, I prefer them about 1/4 in. Keep these in a bowl of water with a bit of lemon juice to prevent them from browning while you finish your task.
3. Hot pack the quince: Drain the quince slices, and add them to the boiling light syrup, cook them for about 4-5 minutes. It’s handy to use a jar funnel to shove the slices in the jars when they’re done cooking, pack them tight. If you think you have too much for the nine jars, you’re probably not packing them tight enough. 
4. Ladle the hot syrup into each jar, leaving 1/2 in headroom. Use a small rubber spatula or butter knife down the sides of the jar to get air bubbles out. At this point you’ll find you can probably cram more fruit into the jars and add more syrup, minding the headroom.
5. Place the two piece lid on, and set those jars in the water bath. Boil for 20 minutes.  Alternatively you could pressure can these at 6 psi for 10 minutes. 
6. Remove from the canner and listen for the beautiful sound of the lids popping. The color might have changed during processing, I generally get pink hues. That’s perfectly fine and normal.

Adapted from a tested and USDA approved source .

You saw this last time, now you know what both are.

I hope you like sliced quinces in light syrup because you now have a metric dick ton of them. “BuT wHaT dO I dO wItH ThEm??”, you might ask yourself. You could arrange the pieces in a tart or pie, have some with roasted pork, top some ice cream, sacrifice some to your favorite fallen metal hero, or maybe you could fucking Google it.

Like I mentioned, I prefer light syrup to juice or heavier syrups, because I have more flexibility when I’ll eventually open up the jars. Some people pack their fruit in water, which is technically okay, but it steals the sweetness of the fruit and generally sucks to eat. If you’re concerned about calories, use the pickyourown.org link above to find out how to convert Stevia or other kinds of sweeteners for the syrup.

No more talking, Bongripper is on. Feel the devastation run through you and report back with how you did.

Don’t Wince at Quince

WFMH

Listening to: Ashes Against the Grain- Agalloch

Quinces are apples’ and pears’ hideous cousin. They’re the strange “old world” fruit that’s so awful raw you’ll spit it out no matter how metal you are. Cook them for even a few minutes and you’ll unlock their delicate flavor for use in savory or sweet dishes.

Quince Jelly- Yields eight 1/2 pint jelly jars

  • 7 lbs quince, stem and flower side discarded, chopped into small cubes. Do not peel or core, or Satan will not bless you with the glorious pectin locked within.
  • 1/2 cup lemon juice, store-bought to maintain known pH levels. Heresy, I know.
  • 6 cups sugar
    Special Equipment: Heavy bottomed stock pot, sieve or food mill, large stock pot with rack for water bath. Optional: Candy thermometer
  1.  Prepare water bath: Fill large stock pot with a rack placed on the bottom, fill with water until it covers the top of the jelly jars by at least 1 inch. The rack is to prevent the jars from having direct contact from the heat source to avoid cracking. Get that sucker to a rolling boil.
  2. Prepare quince juice: Fill the heavy bottomed stock pot  with quince, add 14 cups of water (that’s 3.5 qts for your math challenged ass). Bring to a boil and let that shit simmer for 25 minutes. Smash that through a fine mesh sieve or a food mill if you have one. Don’t have either one? Shit outta luck, you filthy casual. You should have about 7.5 cups of this liquid gold. Any more and you’ve got to sacrifice it to your favorite fallen metal hero. Clean out that stock pot, you’re about to use it again.
  3. Add 7.5 cups of the quince juice, lemon juice, and sugar and bring it to a boil. This needs to come up to 220ºF for it to set all the way. If you don’t have a candy thermometer keep a plate in the freezer before starting this recipe and once it’s boiling drop some of the jelly on the plate, if it wrinkles when you push your finger through it’s ready to go. You did read the recipe all the way through before starting, right?
  4. Remove jelly from heat. Skim foam into a side container for snacks. Pour into sterile jars while the jelly is piping hot, leaving 1/4 in headspace from th top of the jar. Wipe the top of the jars clean and place the two piece lid on, finger tight. Don’t force it. 
  5. Place in boiling water bath with rubber-ended tongs or a jar lifter if you’re bougie like that. Process with the lid on for 5 minutes, clear a space for them to come out  with a towel. Take the jars out, hear the beautiful noise of the popping lids one by one. This sound is as beautiful as Kirk Hammett’s sexual solos on Ride the Lightning, savor it. 

Adapted from a tested and USDA approved source. Canning is an exact science, unlike regular cooking and must be followed exactly. You could add dry spices in there if you wanted to, but the jelly really doesn’t need it. Don’t fuck with the ratios of anything else. Know the rules (and science) behind canning before you break them. 

Fuck, quince jelly is so fucking good. Kinda makes you wanna ride a nimbus cloud into the gates of Valhalla. Coming soon is a Pt. 2 to this post to make the slices in light syrup, pictured left above.

When I think of quinces, I think of my friend Mallory from the restaurant who would poach slices in champagne to serve with a bread pudding. I had only tasted quinces in membrillo form. These fugly fruits light up my life and are a pleasure to process in the early fall. These grew in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle from a friend’s tree. Though many rotted before I had a chance to use them, I was able to process about 50lbs of quince this year. 

Today is the 2 year anniversary of my lung surgery and the official launch of this blog. Two years ago, I couldn’t imagine the life I have now, my future looked bleak. It was a traumatic time in my life I didn’t think I could pull myself out of. I could barely put away the laundry without losing my breath, let alone lifting full stock pots, moving quickly about the kitchen and leading a moderately active lifestyle. I’m grateful for everyone who had helped me along the way: understanding bosses who held my job for 2.5 months while I was gone, my parents who helped take care of me and my cats, my husband whose patience knows no end, and friends who kept my spirits up in a dark time of my life. These days I don’t worry so much about my breathing, but more about when my oven is going to arrive on time and what I want to can next. 

I hope you enjoyed this post and have a chance to try these grotesquely shaped, fuzzy friends soon. Let me know how your batch turned out!