Summer Time And The Living Is Easy

I don't know that it's easy, but it's not cold. That's about all I'll give it for now. LOL

I am in the process of canning a bushel of peaches. I've gotten 14 pints finished thus far, and probably about that again in the next few days. Plus, a batch of peach nectar jelly and peach jam.

Am going to try a new way of canning. It's the same method, just a different syrup. Since I boil the skins, pits and bruised areas for jelly anyway, I thought I'd use part of a batch of that as the syrup base, rather than plain water. Add the sugar at the concentration I'd like - usually a light syrup - heat it to boiling and add it to the jars just like regular syrup.

The peaches should be a nicer color, and have a far better flavor than being watered down by plain syrup. I'll try it for the rest of this bushel, but no more than that since, if it doesn't work, that's an awful lot of mediocre peaches to eat.

And yes, the whole process is time consuming. And HOT. But it's enjoyable. And when you see an entire shelf of peaches glowing at you, it is SO worth it!

This year, the savings will be double that of last year. A bushel last year was $50. This year, only $20. They were smaller ones - well, I don't need huge peaches just to can and make jam! I don't care! I'm not canning for the state fair, and slice them up anyway. Why use the huge dinner peaches?

And the savings to the environment - HUGE. Less than 100 miles to get them here. Virtually no chemicals used in growing them. And my processing, which uses the microwave as much as possible to cut down on the heat in the kitchen. Process as much as you can at once to take advantage of the water already boiling and you're using even less. I would guess we're no worse than even - 1 calorie of energy to produce for 1 calorie of eating. Standard energy consumption for industrial food in the US is 10-20 calories of energy to produce 1 calorie for eating.

I'm liking life. It may not be Porgy and Bess easy, but it could be a whole lot worse.

Make Your Own Jam

All my life, we have made our own jam. We rarely make jelly, since it wastes good fruit, but utilizes overripe and bruised fruit. I truly can't remember a time in my life that we bought jam or jelly, unless for a very specific flavor that we didn't usually make. And in our house, if it isn't easy, it doesn't get done. So you know it must be relatively easy to make!

Because I've had home made jam all my life, I've begun making it to sell at a local farmer's market. Doing this made me do some research and reading of my cookbooks to make sure I have a consistent gel, but otherwise, it's business as usual. Everyone who has bought, just raves that it tastes so much better than store bought. Of course it does! It has fruit in it!

This post is going to discuss why you should make your own more than how to make your own. To do that, just pick up a box of pectin at the store and read the directions. Read the jam and jelly making process in any one of your dozen or so cookbooks lining a shelf in your house. Between the two, you will learn all you need to make your own.

Taste

This is probably the best reason for making your own jam. Store-bought jam/s and jellies are mostly water, corn syrup or apple juice, or a combination of all 3 with some fruit thrown in for color and a hint of flavor. Using the standard pectin recipes, your jam will have the same amount of sugar as store bought, but will have twice the fruit! Hence, the better flavor.

Nutrition

Most fruits are high in fiber and manganese, with vitamin K tagging along because it can. They're also high in other vitamins, but these tend to be damaged or destroyed during the heating process. And once you get good at making jam, you can reduce the sugar further, making it less stressful on your insulin levels, plus be more flavorful in the process.

Cost

Believe it or not, you save money making your own. A quart of chopped fruit, 4-5 cups of sugar and a pack of pectin should make 6-7 cups of jam. Your sugar will cost 80 cents, your fruit will be around $5 and the pectin will be just over $2. If you reuse jars from other foods - like store bought jam - you have no cost. Otherwise, you'll spend about $8 for a dozen 1-cup jars, lids and rings. This comes out to about $13 for 6-7 jars of jam. Not bad! Again, if you don't have to buy jars, that price drops to about $8 for the batch.

Sustainability

The food industry would like you to believe you do nothing good for the environment by preserving your own foods. They're lying. They expend at least 5 times the energy in the transport of the ingredients, production of the final product, and transport and storage of the final product until it hits your hot little hands than what you would expend in making your own

You can either grow your own fruits, or buy locally grown fruit. Transport is significantly reduced or negated completely.

Most local growers use few, if any, chemicals on their produce since it costs more to use them than to manually take care of the fruit plants. Since most chemicals are used as a preventative measure (in industrial farming), rather than as a true cure for a specific issue, you are eliminating this portion of the environmental cost completely.

The energy required to make their specific jar shapes and sizes costs them significant energy in production and transportation. If you reuse your jars, you completely negate this energy expenditure.

Summary
There are a few tricks to making jams and jellies, but a little reading in one of your cookbooks, along with the directions that are included in the pectin - or on one of their websites - will provide you with all the information you need to make incredible jam! People may think you're a magician, but it's all a matter of being able to read and follow directions! Seriously!

Give the jam as gifts, keep and savor for yourself, or do both. Just do it! Save yourself some money, make your tastebuds happy and help the earth out. How is this a bad thing?

If you'd like to read about the ones I make and enjoy eating, please click here.

Jam I Make

To go with the post about making your own jam, I thought I'd add to it. These jams are for sale, so if you'd like any, please contact me at BloomsBaker @ gmail.com for prices and availability. The most sugar I use is 1:1 fruit to sugar ratio. I also do a 3:1 ratio for the diabetics among us. It costs more to make, and therefore to sell, but is worth it. I try to keep my prices lower so folks can buy it and enjoy it for themselves. It's difficult when prices of fruit are very high and I have to add my labor in, but I do my best.

Rhubarb Jam I have few that I could eat exclusively, but rhubarb is one of them. The flavor holds its own against any amount of sugar. I love the stuff.

The picture is of young rhubarb, just emerging in the spring. The leaves are incredible looking.







Rose Jelly

I know, it sounds odd, but truly, it is delicious! I tell guys it's a girl thing. It tastes just like a rose smells and the flavor lasts so much longer than any breath could possibly try.
It's wonderful on biscuits, thumbprint cookies, or as a filling between layors of angel food cake.






Strawberry Jam

I'm not the fondest of strawberry jam, but it does epitomize the flavor of spring. It's best on a homemade white bread toasted for breakfast!

Strawberry Rhubarb Jam Yes, with rhubarb, I'm liking it. It's good for a change of pace for me, but many people consider this the ultimate jam. It's not quite as robust as just rhubarb, so I wouldn't try this on sourdough rye bread, but will do well on oat or whole wheat.

Raspberry Jam or Jelly

I tell people that if they pick the berries, I'll make the jam. I hate picking, I hate growing or buying them. This year, the price was $4.50 a PINT. I'd need a full 3 pints for a batch of jam, so this is a very cost prohibitive jam to make.
However, it is delicious and will hold it's own on any bread other than a sourdough. I'm not a fan of the two flavors mixing. And the dutch had it right - raspberry and chocolate are a match made in heaven!


Blueberry Jam or Jelly
Blueberry jelly ends up being a very delicate flavor, and should be reserved for biscuits, but will hold up to a white bread toasted.
Blueberry jam, made with the reduced amounts of sugar I use, is far more robust, allowing you to really know you're eating blueberry! I'd not pair it with anything stronger than an oat bread or a half and half whole/white wheat bread, but that's for you to decide.

Blueberry Rhubarb or Bluebarb
This is another I could eat exclusively. For some reason, the pairing of these 2 flavors is nearly potentiating - where adding gives you a multiple for a total. It will add to any bread, and is also incredible heated a bit and put on ice cream. Divine!

Peach Jam and Jelly
Peach is unique, I must say. I prefer it as a fruit butter, because it can be just too sweet as a jam. However, if you get them at just the right time and are willing to play just a little with your sugar - which is an experience thing - it is absolutely delicious on anything from biscuits to sourdough rye bread.
Peach jelly is very delicate, and makes you think of what a peach blossom must smell like. This is made when you are canning your peaches for the winter, using all of the over ripe, or bruised peaches and the skins/pits that are discarded. The color is a beautiful blush of peach, and the flavor is wonderful on a white bread toasted or on biscuits. I've not tried it in thumb print cookies, but would imagine it's very good.


Apple Jem
It's not quite jelly and not quite jam. Therefore, it's jem.
I began thinking that, with all industrial jams/jellies being watered down to half-strength, I'm guessing apply jam or jelly is pretty good. It, like all of the others in the store, is pretty flavorless, so I decided to try making some.
It's great! My first batch was made of green apples and I'd liken it to an apple pie. It's wonderful! From there, life was easy and GREAT. It does have a more delicate flavor, so it may not hold up to sourdough, but will be very good on anything else.



Quince Jam

Most people don't even know what quince is. That's sad since it's quite a cool plant and and even more cool fruit to cook. It starts out as this yellow/green, and as it cooks, it becomes a wonderful deep red. I would eat this exclusively, given the chance.
Unlike apple, it will hold up to any bread, and is also incredible in thumbprint cookies.

Go To Your Famers Markets And Buy Something

(Photo from CountryBlooms.org of a vender at Otsiningo's Market in Broome County, NY)

Many countries actually don't understand the US farmer's markets. They have local markets where they buy their food nearly every day, so of course the food is local, of course it's organic!

A college room mate of mine talked of life back in South Korea where an apple weighed a pound and the family would share it as dessert after dinner. The size of the apple is as foreign as the concept of sharing. But that is how the American culture has evolved. Even apples are mass produced and thinned to achieve the ideal single servince size. The big, small or "ugly" ones are tossed aside to be processed into something similar to apples.

Did you know "Ugly" tomatoes can not be shipped out of the state of FL? It's law! They taste the best, but don't conform to modern standards, so can only be used within the state. Go figure!

And yet, we wonder why our nutrition is poor and we dislike vegetables. How many children have had truly fresh vegetables? Or nearly grown in their own back yard? They think vegetables are found in cans, jars, pouches thrown into the microwave or as dried bits in instant soups. We have more than 1 generation of people in this ocuntry that has no gardening experience. How sad is that?

Well, rather than starting a garden, go to a local market. Go to Local Harvest - to find a Farmer's Market near you. Start buying some of your vegetables there. You will discover what spinach or beets or string beans or tomatoes are really supposed to taste like! The vegetables will be far more nutritious than anything you find in the stores - even Whole Foods! Remember - the deeper the color, the more nutritious it is.

When you discover the flavor and the nutrition - you *will* feel better - you'll not want the compost they sell as vegetables in the frozen food aisle at the grocery. You'll want this quality all year. That means you just might have to preserve them for yourself! It's easy, we've been doing it for generations. All you need to do is talk to the growers and negotiate for a bulk price. It will end up costing you less than grocery store prices, will use less energy to preserve than the industrial vegetables, and will be better for you.

You will discover what a bean looks like, what a beet looks like, what a *real* tomato looks like.

You will discover different ways of using those vegetables and fruits. If you ask the growers, they'll share their favorite recipes with you.

I had no clue summer squash was so versatile until I had a bumper crop beyond compare. A little research online and I froze 3 gallons to use throughout the winter - it was delicious!

Here's one my family loves! It's good old fashioned farm food - using ingredients common to most farms from pre WWII. It's the perfect spring and summer dinner.

Peas, Potatoes and Milk

Dice your potatoes to the size of peas. Cook with equal amount peas until almost soft. Drain.
Add milk. Heat to boiling. Add butter, salt, pepper.

Spoon over fresh white bread, enough so the milk soaks the bread - usually in a shallow soup bowl. Eat with fork or spoon.

You can do this with chopped string beans as well, for an equally delicious and nutritious meal.
If you want, add some chopped summer squash to the mix, after the beans and potatoes have cooked about half way.

You won't find this simple, yet delicious recipe in any cookbook. Which is why you must get to know the sellers at the farmers market. Go! Shop! Eat well! Support local farmers! It's a no-lose situation.

Jam Making

I've been making jam. A lot of jam. For the farmer's market, which gives me a little cash flow, which is always nice. I can make jam - versus other far more perishable goods - when I have a little extra energy, rather than forcing the issue the day before the market. Like today!

I went and picked rhubarb at my aunt and uncles since my 2 clumps need a little time to recover. I've got enough for at least 8 batches, and probably more than that, if I really pushed the issue.

Since I hate regular store-bought jam, and since we've always made our own anyway, it seemed a natural thing for me to make to sell at the market. Sales are just starting to pick up, so I'm getting more hopeful about continuing to make it.

I always get angry when the jam doesn't set. Well, I have done a ton of research on the topic and have come to many conclusions...

Sugar is cheap. Fruit is expensive. Make jam with as much sugar as possible.

Pectin is a sugar, and needs regular sugar to help it set - it's a loose crystaline structure.

Pectin needs different cooking times with different fruits - whether you're using what's in the fruit only or supplementing with store-bought.

The sugar helps decrease cooking time as well as unify cooking times.

Rhubarb just coming up this spring.

By reading Meta Given's Modern Encyclopedia of Cooking, I was able to see that longer cooking times might be needed - and won't ruin the setting. It gave the perfect visual que that the jam is ready - when the drops on the spoon suddenly congeal into one before they drop off the spoon. Ha! And that you can cook it too hotly. So if you have a longer cooking time, turn the heat down.

This also works with lower sugar amounts.

And while there are different types of pectin that will work better with high or low sugar or no sugar batches, you can putz around with it and make it work with just about any pectin. Which is why I bought a huge bag (10#) through Pacific Pectin. That'll be enough for roughly 80 batches of jam. LOL - I think I'll have enough. But still - at .80 v. 2.30 per batch, that's a huge price difference that I'd rather have in my pocket than sure jell's.

Last year's blueberries.

So right now, it's rhubarb jam and blueberry rhubarb jam. Very soon, the blubarb will be replaced with strawberry rhubarb, and strawberry. And very very soon, I'll be able to make a batch or two of rose petal jelly. The 7 sister's is getting ready to bloom, and so will use that. It's an old heritage rose that has gorgeous scent and color - perfect for jelly!

If you have a problem with your jam - cook it longer and at a lower temperature. It'll come together for you!

Jam Making

I make a lot of jam. I tend to know when it will set, when it won't, the different recipes you can fudge, the ones you can't. And rarely have problems with it not setting.

Of course, until I started making to sell.

I made 4 batches yesterday - 2 rhubarb and 2 rhubarb/blueberry mix (aka blubarb). I decided I'd make them all on the same day and really watch how I made them - being precise in my repetition to see if they'd all jell the same or not. The results I got were NOT expected.

There were jars in each *batch* that didn't set. What?! How can you have the exact same jars that were prepared at the exact same time in the same manner not set with the same batch of jam? It blows my mind. So, I have some jam, and some syrup. I'll probably try again with the syrup, just to see if I can get it to set, but WOW, who'd have guess THAT?

It's not me. It's not the pectin. It's not the weather. So what is it?

Apple Sauce

I think making applesauce is my absolute favorite of all preserves.

It all started last Sunday when I was walking my cat. Yes, I walk my cat. Twice a day even.

We were taking our normal route, when I noticed a squirrel had discovered the MacIntosh tree! Ooo - this means war! I hadn't planned on picking that day, but obviously plans changed.

I got my trusty new apple picker,

a couple of boxes and my garden cart to proceed with the apple picking..

I picked about a bushel and a half of apples from the tree - missing one branch entirely. Ooo! That makes me so mad!

Since the picking itself got my vertigo up, I chose to wait a day or so before making the applesauce. I mean, if an apple can be stored for months, it can wait another few days.

The next morning, after our walk, I was sitting on the deck with my cat, enjoying my coffee and the birds singing while they ate their breakfast, when I noticed a squirrel coming across the roof of our garage. He came right to the front left corner - closest to the house, and just stared down. There are no trees around it. So I *know* he's staring at me, and at the apples. LOL I was getting the tink eye from a squirrel!

What I'm finding even more funny is the fact that he hasn't gone back to the tree - to find out there's a branch FULL of fruit! I'll be going for that next.

So - back to the applesauce. Put some duct tape on my index finger of my knife hand and get to work. Wash the apples, cut the apples away from the core, throw them in a big sauce pan with some water so it doesn't scorch and cut them hot and fast.

Put through the foley food mill and hope it doesn't splop on you. Repeat until your done.

23 pints the first day, 27 pints the second day.

Trust me, if you ever make your own applesauce, you will never eat store-bought again. It has no flavor. Sugar is cheaper than fruit, so what you get is mushy sugar water. And probably corn syrup at that. Making your own allows you to use as much or as little sugar as you want, and it can all be pure cane sugar. It can be brown sugar, it can be molasses. I wouldn't advise honey, even with it being canned. I wouldn't trust that would kill all of the enzymes, unless you used a pressure cooker.

So, we now have virtually enough to have a pint a week for the entire year.

And if I go back for that final branch, we will have enough!

And normally when I make sauce, I like using at least 2 different types of apples, but this year we haven't had frost yet and this was my one opportunity to make it.

August Update

Wow, what a whirlwind the last few weeks have been!

Our freezer is stuffed!

Besides the 3 bags of bought veggies on the top shelf, it's all corn. 50 pints and 2 quarts.

Second shelf is summer squash, string beans and Swiss chard.

The third shelf is stuff that wouldn't fit on the second shelf, along with home made broths, spaghetti sauce, soup and the ice cream.

The bottom shelf is about 20 quarts of blueberries from our 5 bushes (about 16 quarts have been given away this year), plus 1 quart of peaches, in case we need to make a pie. The rest of the peaches have been canned. The door is blueberries and veggies for my sister to take with her each time she comes to visit.

I even have a little space on the third shelf! Woo!

These shelves aren't complete yet. I still have tomatoes and applesauce to can. I'll be finished with them by mid October.

First shelf is pickles - 2 kinds of sweet, and jam.

Second shelf is allllll peaches.

Third shelf is a mix of peaches (that didn't fit on the second shelf), B&B pickles, and kosher dill pickles.

Fourth shelf will be allll tomatoes.

Bottom shelf - apple sauce most likely.

Or, I'll rearrange. We'll see. The shelf unit is 4' wide x12"deep x5'high. We also have shelves in our laundry room that will hold a few jars of each as a pantry.

I've also made a lot more jam than what's on these shelves. By making it and selling it very cheaply to friends, I was able to completely pay for the bushel of peaches I bought. Hopefully I'll be able to continue this each year to pay for small things.

Now, if we had to survive on what I'm putting up this fall, we'd live about 3 months. We have another refrigerator freezer full of meat, and the fridge is filling with dried beans, flour, rice, barley, corn meal, etc. It might as well live in there and keep the fridge from running as much, as live on a shelf taking up space for no reason.

I know we wouldn't live very long, but I'm not that much of a pessimist about life. At least not yet. I may get to the point of truly homesteading and preserve all of my own food. But for now, this is what I can handle. A very full freezer, a filling fridge, a filling shelf unit and a full pantry.

I do have to say, living like this certainly isn't the worst life has to offer, and is something I'm truly enjoying. Definitely there are worse ways to live than to stay physically busy growing and preserving your own food, cutting your own heat, and making do with what you have. I've always preferred a simpler way of life, and so this isn't a difficult adjustment for me to make from having worked full time to being disabled with constant vertigo.

Peach Pit Jelly

I have finally finished working with a bushel of peaches. It was only 2 days worth of effort really, so I'm not going to argue. Last year it was close to a week.

Peaches were gorgeous this year! PA peaches - FYI. Few bruises, wonderful flavor and texture. It was just a great year.

I had hoped for 26 pints of peaches, plus a batch of jam. Well, I got 38 pints canned, 4 frozen and the batch of jam. Life is good!

Every year, when we do peaches, my mom speaks of when her mother canned them. She was newly married, and now doing the canning with mother in law and sister in law, who had never heard of scalding the peaches to peel more easily. They asked her what she did with the skins - make jelly, just like you. Oh!

So, I got thinking about it this year. I went online and started searching. What I found was called Peach Pit Jelly. Sounds just so wonderful, huh? LOL - I thought the same thing. But, read the directions and the ingredients and decided this is basically what Grammy made. So - I gave it a try.

The Recipe
Skins and pits from 1 bushel of peaches
Water enough to cover skins/pits in pot by 2"
Bring to boil and simmer for 20 minutes
Place in 3 layers of cheese cloth
Hang and let drip until dripping stops - 2 hours
Measure 3 1/2 C of juice - boil down to make 3 1/2 or add water, as necessary
Add 4 1/2 C sugar
Bring to boil
Add liquid pectin - boil 1 minute at sea level
Skim foam, ladle into jars, process as you would any other jam/jelly.

What I did
I skinned and pitted the peaches over a bowl, to catch any juice as well as the skins/pits.
I only boiled 2/3 of the stuff since that's all I had that day. I also only added about a half cup water - just to make sure it didn't stick to the pan.
Boiled for about 15 minutes (I did the boiling before I found the recipe!)
I didn't boil the juice down - it looked pretty thick already, and had 5 1/2 C of juice.
I used the clearest of the juice to make the jelly
From here I followed the directions.

Very interesting flavor! I don't know that you could say it was peach if you had to do a blind taste test, but very light, very floral almost. It's hard to explain.

It's way too sweet for me - as most jams and jellies are, but it's worth trying if you work with peaches at all. Very good! Mom likes it, so I'll make a batch a year.

Today, when I finished up the peaches, I decided to make some more of the juice and added it to the syrup for the peaches, rather than water. I ended up making too much syrup again, so will use it as the base for my bread and butter pickles. LOL I don't think it'll add much to their flavor, but it may. And these peaches have a much nicer pink/peach look to them, rather than the yellow/peach they usually are. Will comment on the flavor when we open a jar.

Process Your Own Food

Mother Earth News did an article on this very subject sometime this year - will get the link and post it here. August/September 2007

I was amazed at the numbers I found - first, I didn't think the numbers existed. And for current production, they don't fully. BUT, Household technology has probably outpaced manufacturers, so the numbers are probably even better than what I found.

So, not only are you doing the Earth a favor by buying locally and processing your own foods, you also get MUCH better flavor, the sugar and salt content is controlled by YOU and there's little need for recycling anything such as labels, cans, jars, bottles, plastic wrapping, etc.

This will most likely seem more than a little disjointed, and I may come back to fix it, but if I don't, just follow the links. I think you'll be able to extrapolate the general savings...

Graphs showing current energy used by U.S. ONLY food processing plants.
This does not include transport of food stuff to and from the plants - another major factor for buying locally...

Key paragraphs pulled from article :

Energy requirements for commercial canning of tomatoes, fruits and vegetables in 1974 were calculated at about 1,600, 1,800 and 2,150 Btu per pound of fresh weight, respectively. Vegetables require longer processing than fruit and tomatoes to assure sterilization, and the longer food must be processed, the more energy is required.

However, for canning 7 quarts of tomatoes by the water bath method, 2.43 kWh of electrical energy were estimated by one source to be needed to bring the water bath and jars of food to a boil and to process them for 45 minutes. The energy input for this part of the canning job would amount to about 545 Btu per pound of canned tomatoes

Average energy consumption for food freezer operation per day — disregarding size, type and other factors — is reported to be about 3.3 kWh in cold months and 4.1 kWh in warm months. If a family kept 100 pounds of frozen food in the freezer on the average, the energy cost would amount to about 102 to 130 Btu per day per pound. The longer a package of food is held in the freezer, the higher would be the energy cost for its storage.

A book regarding this subject: Eating Fossil Fuels_, Dale Pfeiffer

Energy consumed in growing foods commercially:
Growing Practices
The biggest culprit of fossil fuel usage in industrial farming is not transporting food or fueling machinery; it’s chemicals. As much as forty percent of energy used in the food system goes towards the production of artificial fertilizers and pesticides. xii Fertilizers are synthesized from atmospheric nitrogen and natural gas, a process that takes a significant amount of energy. Producing and distributing them requires an average of 5.5 gallons of fossil fuels per acre. xiii