Our home city recently lost a culinary institution. One of their specials was to serve their grilled cheese sandwich with what they called “balsamic jam”. I never had their grilled cheese, and their “balsamic jam” was actually “balsamic jelly” made by adding balsamic vinegar to grape jelly in a 1:3 ratio of vinegar to jelly. […]

For Mother’s Day, I asked my wife to choose a pudding we’d never had before. To be extra mean I handed her a book with over 140 classic British Pudding recipes – how horrible I am! She chose Queen of Puddings. I have had this once before in my whole life. It’s one I felt […]

Here in Alabama, u-pick is really coming into its own. Today we picked nearly 2 gallons of blueberries at an awesome local farm (Bear Mountain) that grows its berries according to organic principles (that means, they haven’t paid the federal government for the privilege of the “certified organic” label!) But you only really get the […]

I am loving the results I get with Pomona’s Pectin. The jam tastes like fruit gently stewed in honey. Wonderful. 4 cups, mashed or chopped, pitted cherries 1/4 cup lemon or lime juice 4 tsp calcium water Place these ingredients in a large saucepan and start to gently heat. 1 cup honey (or, if you […]

Having picked a lot of delicious blackberries at Holmestead Farm as part of my fun U-Pick experience, I set out to create some awesome low added sugar blackberry jam, using Pomona’s Universal Pectin. Yield: about 5 cups (5 jelly jars) Thoroughly rinse and pick through your blackberries 4 cups blackberries 1 cup honey 2 teaspoons […]

Pomona’s Pectin is an alternative to conventional pectin, which allows you to make jams with reduced, or no, sugar. Due to the very mild winter we have had this year, strawberries have come into season early and very sweet. What else could I do apart from make some jam? And as I have Pomona’s Pectin, […]

The whole reason I make canned/preserved foods is to be able to eat them when they are out of season and thus expensive and shipped in over long distances. But once you’ve got them, what do you do with them? Last year I made a couple of different pie fillings while the fruits were in […]

If you want to know how to preserve food by pressure canning, this article is what you need. You may want to check out my boiling water bath article as well. First, what foods must you pressure can? Low-acid foods. In this context, low acid is defined as “pH 4.7 or higher”. Vegetables, meat, fish, […]

This article should serve as a handy reference point for anyone who is unsure how to can by using the Boiling Water Bath, or Hot Water Bath, method. You might want to have a read of my article on setup costs as well. The technique I am describing here is only for products that can […]

I am in the lucky position where the farmer’s market comes to our office once a week. This is a great way to get people to eat more fruit and veg (put it right in front of them!) so I bought some pluots* and proceeded to make jam with them! 4 pints of sorted, scrubbed, […]