Category: Food

Small Scale Canning

“The food that we canned from last summer is gone and I’m busted.”

-Song Busted (sung by various but I’m listening to Ray Charles)

Last year I ran out of strawberry and cherry preserves. I tend to use them to flavor yogurt and top ice cream. So this year I’m trying to make sure I’m well stocked. When I do visit the farmer’s markets I’ll go for the cheaper seconds and the nice pints to turn the produce into a simple fruit sauce.

I do have the big canning operation with the large black pot and the rack and all the fun tools. However, when working with smaller batches I turn to the 4 ½ quart pot I cook rice in and ½ pint jars,which hold about 8 oz. It uses less water and is less of a hassle. This week I picked up even smaller jars at 5th St Hardware that hold only 4 ounces. Now I don’t know the official stance on using a smaller pot, but I have used the small pot for dealing with small batches 2 or 3 cans of tomatoes and other things. I’ve gotten some mixed results. Some things sealed nicely, some other things, no so much and I just put them in the fridge.

Cherries are coming into season and I will can a bunch and toss a bunch into a jar of vodka. Yes, my other form of preservation.

This page contains a single entry by Mari published on June 10, 2010 7:57 AM.

Making Ice Cream

This has nothing to do with anything, but last night I felt like I just discovered fire or that cold vodka is useful in making pie crust.

I like to make my own ice cream. I have a hand cranked thing that uses a cylinder that I set in the freezer a day or so before. Some of my neighbors have had my creations. I tend to make chocolate and BAM!Vanilla! (as my cousin calls it) and I tend to like it more than anything I’ve had elsewhere. However, the new gelato place on 7th St in Penn Quarter is pretty darned good too. Anyway, the only problem, if you consider it a problem, is my ice cream is typically too dense. The chocolate is like eating a frozen brownie sometimes. Or it bends spoons. I figure I’m just not churning it enough.

But last night, I made a Strawberry Sage ice cream using a recipe from an Irish Ice Cream store and it called for whipping the cream. I’ve never whipped the cream when making ice cream and this whipped concoction is lighter in texture. The whipping I see makes it less dense and easier to scoop.

Now the whole fruit herb combo makes me wonder if I can make a Twizzler’s sorbet with strawberry and tarragon.

As I said, this has nothing to do with anything.