preserves – Harmonious Belly

This season I’ve been preserving often, and that makes me very happy. The processes are fun, and I love the idea of having food on the shelves/in the fridge that I can enjoy when the food in its natural state would be past its prime. I plan to continue preserving food throughout the summer – my next big project will be canning tomatoes in August or September.

Earlier this year, I was taken by this DIY handbook published by the NY Times. I ended up making Vin d’Orange and Maple Vinegar. I’ve been enjoying the Vin d’Orange all summer, and it really just screams “warm weather” to me. I drink it mixed with sparkling water and it’s very refreshing.

vin d'orange brewing — Vin d'Orange brewing

I also made the maple vinegar, which is pretty good. It’s made of raw cider vinegar, maple syrup, and rum. It still has a bit of an alcohol kick to it, which is a bit odd. Still, it’s fantastic as part of a vinaigrette on salad. That’s my favorite way to use it.

As far as this DIY handbook, I still have plans to make the tomato chili jam and the kimchi. I’ve used up most of my preserved lemons, so I’ll need to make some of those again soon.

Apart from that, I’ve made apricot jam from the apricots off the backyard tree. I used a very basic jam recipe, and added some organic orange zest to it. I love that addition. I think in a lot of jams and preserves, the addition of orange is a wonderful flavor contribution.

As I wrote before, strawberry lemon preserves were made at my home, as part of an event put together by my CSA. I was fortunate to be the recipient of a jar of these preserves by AJ.

The spicy cherry preserves I made are simply amazing. I love the combination of sweet-tart-spicy, and these cherries really deliver on this. I liked the half pint I made so much that I bought more sour cherries at the greenmarket and made another pints’s worth of sour cherry preserves! The cherries with some syrup mixed with sparkling water make for a nice, barely sweet soda.

I also used some of the sour cherries for a liqueur, which is coming along quite well.

I’ve started experimenting with simple syrups and made a very tasty mint simple syrup with the mint on my back deck.

With the last of the first yellow plums of the season, I made plum shrub syrup, which turned out beautifully. I like it in sparkling water, though it could be added to a wheat beer with pleasant results, especially if you like sour beers (I do).

If it’s not evident in this post, I’ll just say it – I love vinegar. So, I’ve made some vinegar pickles out of snap peas. They are very good, but I think next time I’ll make them spicier.

I even did some short term preservation with the peaches and nectarines that were really ripe – sorbet! I sweetened it with sucanat and used a bit of the maturing sour cherry liqueur, and it turned out just so well. Sucanat – an unrefined sweetener – turns things a bit dark, but I’ll sacrifice a little bit of aesthetic beauty for something sweet that doesn’t mess so intensely with my blood sugar.

Lacto-fermented dilly beans are on the schedule for this week, which I’m really looking forward to making.

So, that’s a run down of my preserving activities! What have you been preserving this season?

This post is participating in Fight Back Friday, hosted by Food Renegade.

jars of fig jam

This summer I was fortunate enough to have access to plenty of fresh figs from the two overhanging fig trees in the backyard. This time last year I lived elsewhere, a place without fruit trees. It was a lot of fun picking all those figs, especially since no one else in the neighboring apartments seemed interested in them. They were all mine!

figs

I went for a run that morning, then picked the figs; they filled up my largest bowl. My landlord stores ladders in the backyard, so I had one of them at my disposal, and boy was it useful. A lot of the figs were way up high and I would never have gotten them without a ladder. Most of them were perfectly ripe, and oozing a little nectar at the blossom end. Some were slightly underripe, but that was ok with me – I didn’t want an overly sweet jam, so the tangier figs helped with that.

oranges

orange juice

zest

I love, love, love the taste of orange and figs together. I first tasted the combination in this Dalmatian fig-orange jam, and thought it was just amazing. The sweet figs and tangy orange are a perfect combination.

I also wanted to try making a jam with honey instead of sugar, in part because I wanted to avoid using an overly refined sweetener. Figs and honey seem to go together, too, so it seemed like a natural, logical combination.

At first the honey flavor was pretty prominent, but after the jam had a chance to sit for a while (like overnight), it had mellowed and balanced with the fig and orange flavors. It also seemed less sweet, which was fine with me.

stewing figs

figs cooking

fig orange honey puree

This is a wonderful fruit preserve, and I will absolutely make it again. I think it will be good as a sauce with chicken, perhaps with a little bit of spiciness added to it!

Fig Orange Honey Jam

5 cups figs
1/4 cup water
1 3/4 – 2 cups honey
1 cup orange juice
1/2 cup lemon juice
zest of two oranges

Wash and quarter figs, and place them in a large pot (I used an 8 qt. stock pot). Heat the figs with 1/4 cup water just to get them started. Cook the figs on medium-low until they start to break down, stirring and smashing them with the back of a wooden spoon to help break them down further. They will start to thicken.

Add the honey, orange juice, lemon juice, and zest, and stir to combine. Keep stirring so that the mixture won’t burn on the bottom. Since you are working with honey and not sugar, the tendency to stick and/or burn might be a little higher than usual.

Cook the figs to your desired consistency; the longer you cook the mixture, the thicker it will be. Puree it some with a stick blender if you want the figs to have a more even, smooth consistency (this is what I prefer).

Immediately pour the mixture into hot, sterilized 1/2 pint jars, leaving 1/2-inch head space. Adjust caps. Process 20 minutes in boiling water bath.

This jam tastes better after the flavors have had time to marry.

Tag: preserves

My Preserving Adventures

Summer Preserving – Fig Orange Honey Jam