Tag: home 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.

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. 

Cowboy Candy From Hell

WFMH

Listening to: Cowboys From Hell- Pantera

Cowboy candy is pickled candied jalapenos, but you could use any chilies that float your boat, like serranos, habaneros, or bird’s eye chilies. They’re a great snack and the syrup makes a great meat marinade. Any time you feel like overwhelming your sense of smell and water your eyes, give this a try.

Cowboy Candy- Yields 8 half-pint containers

  • 3 lbs firm fresh chilies
  • 2 cups apple cider vinegar (5% acidity)
  • 6 cups sugar
  • 1/2 t turmeric
  • 1/2 t celery seed
  • 1 T minced garlic
  • 1 t cayenne pepper (optional)

0. Get your water bath ready: In a large stock pot or canner, boil enough water to cover your jars by at least 1 inch.  
1. Slap on some gloves for this activity unless you’re feeling particularly brutal and don’t mind burning your bits. Remove and discard the stems from all the chilies.  Slice them into 1/8-1/4 in rounds as uniformly as possible and set them aside. Knock the seeds out if you want, but I like them. 
2. In a large pot, bring the rest of the ingredients to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 5 minutes.
3. Add the peppers and simmer for 4 minutes. At this point in the album it’s probably going to be Heresy, listen to most of that track for this step, if it doesn’t make you want to jump out of a window. 
4. Use a slotted spoon to transfer them into the the clean jars, fill leaving 1/4 in headspace. 
5. Bring the syrup to a hard boil for 6 minutes. Do some air guitar while you wait and make your best Phil face. 
6. Ladle the boiling liquid into the jars. Knock air bubbles out of the chilies and adjust the headspace if needed. Give those guys a lil’ rim job and fix the two piece lids to finger tightness. Process in the rolling boiling water for 10 minutes for half-pints, or 15 minutes if you’re using pints. Lift them out of the water and listen to those sweet pings of glory. 

You can eat them right away or wait a few weeks for the flavor to settle, they become milder over time. Adapted from a mommy blog, but apparently has the best recipe out there. 

I’m on a few canning groups and forums and everyone is always posting this recipe. I was skeptical of the hype, but it’s pretty good. They’re great as snacks or as a condiment in whatever dish you feel like. 

Cowboys From Hell was my first Pantera album, if I could relive listening to that album for the first time again, I’d probably cry. It was one of the most magical moments of my adolescence. It was a time of many first listens to classic heavy metal albums and this one in particular energized me and made me want to tear through the house breaking things, which I definitely did not act on. 

I don’t support Phil Anselmo and his shitty views, I always make sure it’s a non-affiliated Youtube link when I do partake. Metal has historically had some unsavory folks make a bad name for us, but we don’t let those people take over the genre. Let’s not be dicks to each other and keep metal inclusive for everyone. That shouldn’t be a controversial stance. RIP the Abbott brothers.

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.