Jam Lab: Cherry Lime Jelly

  Ever have a Sonic Cherry LimeAid?  Or’s  a cherry lime slushie?  That’s the taste I was going for in this Cherry Lime Jelly.

If I have fresh ingredients at hand, I’m happy to use them, but I’m not averse to haunting the frozen food section for fruits–or the juice section, for that matter.

Since my three apple and two cherry trees are just babies, I get the ingredients where I can find them.

Today’s came from bottles:  CheRefresh 100% cherry juice and the lime juice I always keep in the fridge.

So here’s the recipe:

1 quart (4 cups) unsweetened cherry juice

1 cup lime juice

3 2/3 cups sugar (remember the 2/3 rule I made up)

1 box no-sugar Sure Jell pectin

Sterilize the jars (about 5 or six half pints) in the boiling water bath you’ve prepared.  Mix the sugar and pectin together.

In a stainless steel 5 quart flat bottomed pan, mix the cherry juice, lime juice, and sugar/pectin mixture.  Set the temperature to med/high heat.

Stirring regularly, bring the mixture to a boil.  Set the timer for 8 minutes.  Lower the heat so that the mixture is at what I like to call The Edge of Boil.(sounds like a soap opera, doesn’t it?)

Keep stirring contiuously.  If it’s boiling too hard, reduce heat; if it’s not boiling, turn it up.

When the timer hits 2 minutes, turn the heat up so that it gets to a hard boil.  Hard boil it, stirring continuously until the time runs out.  If it’s spattering, turn it down a bit. Boil, but not spatter.

I grabbed my phone and captured a picture of the hard boil.  It looks like this:

Once the time is up, remove from heat and scoop into the sterilized jars.  Put lids and rings into the water bath for a few minutes.  Wipe the lip of each jar and put the lid on.  Finger tighten.

Put it boiling water bath for 8 minutes.

Now here’s a secret:  All the canning authorities (Ball, Mason, USDA, IRS) insist that you should NEVER re-use jar lids, as they might not re-seal.

Turns out, they usually will reseal.  Indeed, those nice Smucker’s jelly jars from the store–guess what, they’ll reseal too, if done right.

I sterilize the lids, just like I do the new lids and rings, and put onto the jars.  Finger tighten and put into the water bath for 8 minutes, just like the other jars.

The important part, especially with re-used lids and jars is to listen for the POP and CHECK TO MAKE SURE THE JAR IS SEALED.  That little pop up thingy in the middle of the lid MUST be back down.  If you can still pop it back and forth, your jar didn’t seal.  Put it in the refrigerator and eat it first.

But don’t tell anyone I do this, or the USDA will be hunting me down with DAWGS (or worse, IRS agents) and I’ll be put on some Subversive Canners Enemies list.

Here’s a picture of 1 standard jar and 3 non-standard jars I used.  They all sealed.

That third one was some sort of Italian pasta sauce jar I got, probably from my sister, because I wouldn’t waste my spaghetti on jarred sauce when real sauce is better with home canned tomatores (another subversive story or another day).  But I digress.

The jelly came out a warm burgundy color, and the flavor has a very tart lime mixed with the sweetness of the cherry.  Very tasty.

The Patient Husband played “Guess what flavor I made” with this jelly and couldn’t quite identify it but came up with cranberry as a guess.  It is cranberry-like, but more complex with both flavors vying for top spot.

It set up in the fridge in my overflow jar, and next day at room temp.

This one’s a keeper.

Recipe Of The Day

Reblogged from YouViewed/Editorial:

Paula Deen's Simply Delicious Strawberry Cake

Ingredients

1 (18.25-ounce) box white cake mix
1 (3-ounce) box strawberry-flavored instant gelatin
1 (15-ounce) package frozen strawberries in syrup, thawed and pureed
4 large eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup water
Strawberry cream cheese frosting, recipe follows
Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting
1/4 cup butter, softened
1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese, softened
1 (10-ounce) package frozen strawberries in syrup, thawed and pureed…

Read more… 28 more words

oh, man....

Jam Lab: Mom’s Special Chocolate Sauce

As I mentioned in my last post, my great-niece Sam is graduating this year, and they are throwing her a party May 19 in the form of an Ice Cream Sundae Bar.  I made up some tasty raspberry and strawberry sauces last week, and today’s sauce is Mom’s Famous Chocolate Sauce.

Mom showed me how to make it Tuesday morning–she doesn’t know I put pictures of food on the Internet and talk about it, so she was nonplussed when I took pictures of her sauce cooking.  Do me a favor and don’t tell her.

Mom made this sauce all the time when I was a kid, and it’s one of the reasons I wasn’t a skinny little kid who didn’t eat.  When breakfast consisted of freshly baked cornbread and chocolate gravy (a variant of this sauce), nobody had to be called twice to the breakfast table.

When she made the sauce this morning, Mom didn’t measure with regular cups, so I’m estimating.  But it should be pretty close.

Chocolate Sauce

3 and 1/2 cups sugar

3 heaping tablespoons cocoa (the big ones from your flatware set)

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 and 1/2 cups milk (more or less, depending on how thick you want it)

1/2 cup butter

Mix together.  No big deal if the butter is not chopped and mixed in.  It will melt.   Heat on medium until boiling.  Gently boil, about 6 minutes or until it starts to form drips on the spoon as you stir.  Make sure to stir continuously.

If it gets to the top of the pan, lower heat and stir until it’s not in danger of boiling over (see top picture).  Keep tasting it.  When the sugar is melted and the drips are drippy, it’s done.  Serve over ice cream, either hot or cold.  This made about 2 pints.

Since we’re serving it this Sunday, we didn’t bother canning it in a pressure canner.  We poured it into clean mason jars and have it waiting in the refrigerator.

We kept back 4 ounces in the pan and mixed in 3 spoons of chunky peanut butter.  That went in a small jar–it’s in the fridge and has the consistency of Nutella.  But dark chocolate peanut butter Nutella.  Yu-um!

Now the magic:

This recipe can be made with several variants:  chocolate gravy; chocolate oatmeal cookies, and homemade cocoa to name my favorite three.

Chocolate gravy

2 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoons flour

2 heaping tablespoons cocoa (the flatware kind of spoon)

3/4 cup sugar

1 and 1/2 to 2 cups of milk (depending on how thick you want it)

Melt the butter and let it brown a little.  Mix in the flour and stir while it thickens.  There’s your gravy roux.

When it’s thickened, add a little milk, then the cocoa, a little more milk, then the sugar.  Let it cook up a bit, keep stirring, and add milk until it’s the gravy consistency you like.

Serve hot over freshly baked cornbread.  Ah!  But hurry up!  The school bus is coming!

Homemade Cocoa

3/4 cup sugar

1-2 heaping tablespoons cocoa (the flatware kind)

1/2 cup water

Mix the ingredients together and get it boiling.  Boil gently for 4-5 minutes, stirring continuously.  When it tastes like the sugar is all dissolved, add milk, 4-5 cups of milk.  Heat until it’s hot enough that you want to drink it.  Enjoy!

Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup milk

2 and 1/2 cups sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

4 heaping Tablespoons (the flatware kind) of cocoa

2 cups Quick cook Oatmeal

Combine the butter, milk, sugar, and cocoa.  Bring to a boil, stirring constantly.  Cook 2 minutes after it comes to a rolling boil.

Remove from heat and and add vanilla.   Stir well and add the oatmeal.  Mix well and drop by teaspoon onto a greased cookie sheet.

Alternatives:  You can add some peanut butter or coconut to the mix.

Don’t eat too many or you’ll need some Tums!

Perre's Strawberry and Cream Cookies

Reblogged from OKRA Magazine:

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PERRE COLEMAN MAGNESS

The spring obsession with strawberries continues. As the season settles in, I look for other ways to enjoy the little red jewels, as I have almost eaten my fill of them plain from the bowl I keep in the fridge, filled every week at the famers market. And so I turn to baking to find as many ways to enjoy then as possible.

Read more… 447 more words

bygone summers and honeysuckle fizz

Reblogged from :

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• 

My first memory of honeysuckle is tied up in childhood. After a summer t-ball game we would wander back to the creekbed - sometimes me and a little boy with red hair and freckles, sometimes me and my best friend, whose complexion was so fair she was nearly translucent.

We'd pluck the blossoms, orange, yellow, white, pinch off the ends and suck the sweet nectar from the blooms.

Read more… 401 more words

A flowery summer drink from littledutchwife. Sounds wonderful.

Jam Lab: Raspberry & Strawberry Sundae Toppings

It’s May, and time for graduations.  My great-niece Sam is graduating this year.  Here in Flyover Country, graduation parties are a BIG DEAL.

Moms prepare detailed scrapbooks of the graduates’ achievements and the family goes all-out on a party, usually a BBQ or some sort of outdoor activity that will allow you to have 600 people in your yard.  On Sundays in May, the crowd can move between as many as 20 parties in a single day.

So if you want to be memorable, you have to have a theme.  That or offer free beer.

Sundae Bar

Sam’s graduation is being feted with an Ice Cream Sundae Bar.  Upon receiving the invitation,  I started thinking….hmmm…maybe I could make some strawberry sundae topping…and maybe raspberry….and maybe chocolate….

So here goes…I started with twelve bucks worth of raspberries purchased from Sam’s when we went to the big city of Des Moines earlier this week.

Two boxes raspberries:

Rinse & drain and measure.  It’s six cups.  Using the 2/3 rule (I made up in my Strawberry Jam recipe), add 4 cups of sugar and a half cup of lemon juice.  I wanted the brew to be thinner than jam, so I also added a half cup of apple juice.  (We’ll revisit that decision later.)  Dang.  These are pretty.

Here they are all mashed up with the sugar added.

Turns out the sauce is very easy.  Just mash the raspberry mixture to a pulp, and heat.

When it starts boiling, set the timer for 8 minutes and reduce the heat just enough to keep it boiling, but not enough to burn.  Stir continuously.  Looks like this:

Meanwhile, back at the boiling water bath, I’m sterilizing pint jars (I normally use half-pints for jam, so these guys look ENORMOUS to me.)

I boil these about five minutes.

After the eight minutes boiling the raspberry mixture are up, remove from heat and stir.  Scoop into pint jars.  Put lids & rings into the boiling water bath to sterilize.

Wipe lips of jars; put a lid on, press to ensure a good seal, then put the ring on and finger tighten.

Put the jars into the boiling water bath and set the timer for 12 minutes.  Remove from bath, and Voila!  They’re done.

When they seal, you’ll hear a distinctive “Pop.”  Love that sound.  Sounds like victory.

Here’s what the sauce looks like:  The raspberry fruit has all but disappeared into the sauce, and the seeds remain suspended.  It’s weird.  But tasty.  Very very tasty.

Now about the apple juice:  I didn’t really need it–the sauce is just a dab thinner than I wanted.  So next batch, I’ll probably leave it out, but add if it’s too thick right before I jar the sauce.

Now as to strawberries.  I used the same recipe and got 4 pints instead of 3.5.  I may leave the apple juice out of it next time too.  Will update this blog as to how they turned out.  Right now, after sitting for 24 hours, the jars look like the sauce is plenty thick.

Next up:  Tuesday Mom and I are going to cook up her famous chocolate sauce.  We’ll either refrigerate it or I’ll learn how to use my pressure canner.

Recipe for Raspberry Sundae Topping:

6 cups raspberries

4 cups sugar

1/2 cup lemon juice

1/2 cup unsweetened apple juice (if you want thinner sauce)

1.5 Tablespoons pectin

Mash berries; add sugar, apple juice, lemon juice & pectin.  Heat to boiling.  Cook 8 minutes.  Jar, wipe lids, seal.  Put in hot water bath for 12 minutes.

It’s Peanut Blossom (Cookie) Time

I spent a little time with Mom this morning; she wanted to make cookies to send to her granddaughter K, who lives in Michigan.

Mom’s go-to cookie recipe is Peanut Blossom cookies.  You know, the ones where you take them out half way through baking and smoosh them down with a chocolate star.  Dang.  Nuthin’ better.

But we’d already made a batch last week for a retirement party, so we were a little low on chocolate stars.  The last nine or ten wound up being Peanut Butter & Strawberry Jam cookies.  Instead of the star, we smooshed a little depression with a spoon and added about a half teaspoon of strawberry jam.  One word, two syllables: YU-UM.

In the past, I’ve used this same recipe, without the chocolate stars to make Peanut Butter Snaps (snappy like gingersnaps, only peanut buttery).  These are darned good too–Mom likes these because they stand up to a dunking in coffee, which is the test of a good cookie.

It’s just a good thing that we’re giving most of these away.

The recipe:

Peanut Blossom Cookies

1 & 3/4 cup flour

1 tsp soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup sugar

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup oleo (margarine), softened a bit but not melted.

Sift first three ingredients and cream the rest.  Add the flour mix to the creamed mix and stir until combined.  Roll into small balls (quarter to half dollar size, depending on your preference.)   Roll balls in sugar and place on baking sheet.

Bake 8 minutes in 375 degree (F) oven.  Remove from oven and push a chocolate star into the center of each cookie.  Bake 3-8 minutes longer.

(For jelly alternative:  smoosh a small depression into the cookie and add a half teaspoon of your favorite jelly.  Bake 3-8 minutes longer, until lightly browned.)

(For the peanut butter snaps alternative:  before baking, after placing each ball on the baking sheet, smoosh it to about a half inch flat, either with your palm or with a fork.  That will cause it to spread thinner than the traditional Peanut Blossom.  Bake for about 12-15 minutes or until barely golden brown.)

Note that you will NOT want to substitute butter for margarine in this recipe, or the cookies will not turn out snappy.  You will probably have peanut butter chewies instead, which, on second thought, might not be too bad.

Hmm….something to experiment with….