I've been slow to get into the canning kitchen this year. Between all the nitty gritty details of finishing the school year and jumping right into Summer Camp counsellor duty, the weekends provided barely enough time for me to get to the gym, shop for groceries and prepare for the next week! I knew that August (which I booked off of work) would be my great "catch up" month, letting me tend the garden, clean my closets, travel out to my dad's trailer and get preserving!
Canning in the height of Summer is a bit of a catch-22, especially this year where we've had some ridiculously warm weeks. I was finally driven to drag out the beast of a water bath canner after having not one, but two bags of fruit leap out of the freezer onto the floor when I went to grab some bread. I had carefully prepped and measured peaches, plumcots, strawberries and mangoes as I picked them up from farmers markets or supermarket sales, and eventually the freezer just got too full - a fact which was accompanied by a somewhat insistent nagging poking from Mother Dearest to "please do something with all that stuff in the freezer!". Given that I had bags of local wild blueberries (scored at an excellent price from the market) that I had IQF'ed recently and a seemingly neverending supply of rhubarb in the backyard (my stepfather bought two - yes, two - new plants this year to add to the three we already had), I figured bluebarb would be my first canning foray.
Of course, I could never just make blueberry-rhubarb jam. Not the traditional way. The first thing I did was choose a no-sugar-needed pectin as my thickener, allowing me to slash the sugar and allow the true fruity flavour of the berries to come through. I had a little jar of decadent, local honey in my pantry that I had bought from the Brickworks Farmers' Market downtown and used that to add a flavourful, bitter-sweet note to the mixture, and completed the sweetness trifecta with a few packets of Truvia. For kicks (and because I was canning some of this for holiday gift giving), I sprinkled in some gold flakes, lending an opulence to the jars as they sat on the counter, cooling.
The two jars I didn't process went into the fridge - where, upon being discovered by Mom and Grandma, they met an untimely demise on home baked bread. The only thing that made this better was a smear of creamy peanut butter underneath!
This week, #SundaySupper is sharing recipes for canning, freezing and all types of preserving the goodness of our gardens and markets this Summer season. Our hosts this week are Stacy of Food Lust People Love and Heather at Hezzi-D's Books and Cooks
- thanks ladies!
Check out what we're saving up below:
Canning
Blackberry Chia Seed Jam from Books n' Cooks
Cherry Lemon Jam from Food Lust People Love
Chocolate Blackberry Preserves from The Redhead Baker
Gilded Bluebarb Jam from What Smells So Good?
Hamburger Dill Chips from A Day in the Life on the Farm
Homemade Spiced Peach Jam from Cosmopolitan Cornbread
Pickled Black Radish from A Kitchen Hoor's Adventures
Piri Piri Hot Sauce from Curious Cuisiniere
Rhubarb Vanilla Jam from Hezzi-D's Books and Cooks
Southwestern Salsa from The Freshman Cook
Strawberry Balsamic Syrup from Cindy's Recipes and Writings
Watermelon Butter from Palatable Pastime
Dehydrating
Blueberry Peach Fruit Roll-Ups from Cupcakes & Kale Chips
Dried Pineapple from Take A Bite Out of Boca
Fermentation
Fermented Spicy Daikon Spears + A Cocktail from Culinary Adventures with Camilla
Freezing
Blackberry Freezer Jam from Rhubarb and Honey
How to Freeze Blueberries from Pies and Plots
Peach Crisp from That Skinny Chick Can Bake
Roast Tomato Soup with Basil-Butter Croutons from Caroline's Cooking
Summer Veggies from Momma's Meals
Infusing
Raspberry Vinegar from Magnolia Days
Pickling
Bread & Butter Pickles from Adventures in All Things Food
Homemade Bread and Butter Pickles from Life Tastes Good
Mustard Pickles from Jane's Adventures in Dinner
Pickled Cherries with Five Spices from Nosh My Way
Simple Pickled Red Cabbage from Simply Healthy Family
Preserving in oil or butter
Herb Butter from An Appealing Plan
Spinach and Pistachio Pesto from Bobbi's Kozy Kitchen
And for even more help and support: 5 Food Preservation Tips from Sunday Supper Movement
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Gilded Blueberry Rhubarb Jam
Makes 7 (8-oz) jars, 56 (2-tbsp) servings
5 ½ cups (~24 oz) rhubarb, washed and chopped into ½” dice
1 cup sugar, divided
½ tsp salt
¼ cup wildflower honey (local if you can find it)
12 packets Truvia
1 ¼ cups water
2 ½ tbsp no-sugar needed pectin (I used Ball RealFruit Low or No-Sugar-Needed Pectin)
2 cups (~10.5 oz) blueberries, washed and stemmed
¼ cup lime juice
½ tsp edible gold dust or "cake glitter", optional
In a medium nonreactive bowl, combine rhubarb, 1/2 cup sugar, salt, honey and Truvia. Cover with plastic wrap and let sit on the counter overnight.
In a large saucepan or pot, combine water, pectin and remaining sugar.
Stir in blueberries, rhubarb mixture and its juices, lime juice and gold dust.
Bring to a full rolling boil over high heat, stirring constantly, 1 minute.
Can 10 minutes in a water bath or refrigerate up to 2 weeks.
Amount Per Serving
Calories: 23.9
Total Fat: 0.0 g
Cholesterol: 0.0 mg
Sodium: 3.6 mg
Total Carbs: 6.2 g
Dietary Fiber: 0.4 g
Protein: 0.2 g
Find all the goodies on the full site: yummysmells.blogspot.com
