Tomatillo Marmalade

As mentioned earlier, we had so many tomatillos this year, I had to come up with some way to use them (although, it turns out that I could probably have made twice as much tomatillo salsa verde and not had too much for the year). We are not huge fans of preserves generally, but we do love marmalade. This is one recipe with a couple of variations:

Tomatillo Marmalade (kind of similar to Tomato Marmalade, at least for processing!)

10 cups tomatillos, outer husks removed, washed and chopped
1/2 cup bottled lemon juice
3 cups mild-flavoured honey (e.g. wild flower or fireweed)

either:

1 orange, seeded and finely chopped (I used sweet honey tangerines)
1/2 lemon, seeded and finely chopped

or:

2 limes, mostly peeled (but leave a little peel for flavour), seeded and finely chopped
1 1/2 lemons, seeded and finely chopped

optional:

1/3 cup finely chopped (peeled) fresh ginger)

Bring ingredients to a boil in a heavy bottomed saucepan (Lee Valley's maslin pan is perfect for making preserves). Reduce heat and simmer briskly, stirring often, until thickened sufficiently (about three hours). Ladle hot into clean, sterile hot half-pint jars, leaving 1/4-inch headspace. Remove air bubbles and adjust headspace if needed. Wipe rims of jars with a dampened, clean paper towel; apply two-piece metal canning lids. Process in a boiling water canner according to the recommendations below.

Recommended process time for Tomatillo Marmalade in a boiling water canner.
		Process Time at Altitudes of
Style of Pack	Jar Size	0 - 1,000 ft	1,001 - 6,000 ft	Above 6,000 ft
Hot	Half-pints or Pints	5 min	10	15

Sea of Cranberries

Our friend works at the Richmond Nature Park, where they have an annual cranberry sale in the fall as a fundraiser for the park. We ended up with a windfall of cranberries, and had to figure out some way to use them. Some we juiced - the hard way: pile lots of cranberries into a stock pot & cook until most of the berries burst, then strain through a jelly bag. We brought the resulting juice up to a boil then canned into sterilized, hot jars and let the cooling process form a seal. If we'd had a steam juicer, the end result would have been easier to obtain and much clearer (ours is more of a syrup than a juice, but not sweet as syrup might imply!). But our result is great as a cordial with ginger ale; very refreshing and such a gorgeous colour.

I tried a couple of other recipes, one of which was candied cranberries. As we've not cracked those open to taste yet, I'll wait to post that one. Here are the ones that we have tasted, and they're great. I recommend the salsa on poultry, sausages or pork.

Cranberry Marmalade (sort of similar recipe here)

10 cups fresh whole cranberries, washed & sorted
2 tangerines, seeded & finely chopped
1/2 lemon, seeded & finely chopped
3 cups honey
1/2 cup peeled & finely diced ginger (optional, if you're not a fan of ginger)

Yield: about 6 pints

Hot Pack: Combine all ingredients in a large saucepan and stir frequently over high heat until mixture begins to boil, then reduce heat and simmer until mixture thickens to marmalade consistency, stirring often to prevent scorching. Ladle hot into clean, sterile hot half-pint jars, leaving 1/4-inch headspace. Remove air bubbles and adjust headspace if needed. Wipe rims of jars with a dampened, clean paper towel; apply two-piece metal canning lids. Process in a boiling water canner according to the recommendations below.

Recommended process time for Cranberry Marmalade in a boiling water canner.
		Process Time at Altitudes of
Style of Pack	Jar Size	0 - 1,000 ft	1,001 - 6,000 ft	Above 6,000 ft
Hot	Half-pints or Pints	5 min	10	15

Cranberry Salsa (original recipe here)

14 cups whole, fresh cranberries, washed & sorted
3 large red bell peppers, seeded & chopped
6 cups sweet red onions, chopped
1/2 cup jalapeño peppers, seeded & chopped
1 1/2 cup apple juice
1/2 cup bottled lemon juice
1 cup cider vinegar
1 tbsp pickling salt
1 1/3 cup honey

Yield: about 6 pints

Caution: Wear plastic or rubber gloves and do not touch your face while handling or cutting hot peppers. If you do not wear gloves, wash hands thoroughly with soap and water before touching your face or eyes.

Hot Pack: Combine all ingredients in a large saucepan and stir frequently over high heat until mixture begins to boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 2O minutes, stirring often to prevent scorching. Ladle hot into clean, hot pint jars, leaving 1/2-inch headspace. Remove air bubbles and adjust headspace if needed. Wipe rims of jars with a dampened, clean paper towel; apply two-piece metal canning lids. Process in a boiling water canner as follows.

Recommended process time for Cranberry Salsa in a boiling water canner.
		Process Time at Altitudes of
Style of Pack	Jar Size	0 - 1,000 ft	1,001 - 6,000 ft	Above 6,000 ft
Hot	Half-pints or Pints	10 min	15	20

Want some more cranberry recipes? Check out:

Blood Orange Marmalade

As I've mentioned previously, I love blood oranges. When Thrifty's in Mill Bay had Buck Brand organic ones for sale, I knew I had to do something interesting with them.

My trusty, recently purchased food preservation bible Stocking Up: The Third Edition of America's Classic Preserving Guide
has a wonderful marmalade recipe, but I didn't even think to look there first! I found a blood orange marmalade recipe on the web, and decided to kind of merge the two together. I know, you're supposed to follow jam and preserve recipes exactly, but what the heck! But I did follow the boiling-water bath processing instructions in Stocking Up. I am lucky enough to have two enormous enameled metal water bath pots, each with racks, one that's Mom's and one from Dave's uncle Steve. As a result, I was able to process two layers of jars simultaneously. Bonus!

Blood Orange Marmalade

This recipe here resulted in seven (7) 250mL/half pint jars of somewhat loose marmalade. I'm sure that I'd have better results exclusively following the Stocking Up recipe, but I really liked elements of both that I wished to incorporate.

10 blood oranges (two were larger ones, 8 were very small - the online recipe calls for 7)
1 lemon
12 cups of water
approximately 1 cup of chopped fresh rosemary per two cups water (we have LOTS leftover in the freezer from a couple of years ago)
3 cups mild-flavoured honey (yes, honey - Stocking Up uses honey in all its jam & jelly recipes)

Bring water to boil (I did this in 4 cup stages), and pour over appropriate measure of chopped fresh rosemary (e.g. for 4 cups water, use 2 cups rosemary). Let steep for at least 20 minutes. Repeat until you've got 12 cups of rosemary infusion.

Slice citrus very thinly, and place into non-reactive (e.g. stainless steel, enameled metal) pot large enough to hold the mixture and allow for boiling, together with the rosemary infusion. Bring to a full boil, then reduce heat and cook at a simmer for one hour, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat, and let sit, covered, overnight (we placed the pot outside on the veranda to keep cool).

Bring fruit mixture to a boil. Stir in honey. Return to a full rolling boil, stirring constantly, until mixture resembles a thick syrup (keep at a full rolling boil or it will take longer to reach the gel stage). In Stocking Up, this is supposed to take about 30 minutes. I think that we boiled for closer to 45 minutes altogether, and it probably still could have stood to be reduced a little further.

Pour into sterilized half-pint jars, leaving 1/4" headspace, and seal. Process for 10 minutes in boiling-water bath. Stocking Up recommends allowing the marmalade to "age" two weeks before tasting or it might be too bitter. We couldn't wait, and yes, it's bitter, but it's SO GOOD! If you're not familiar with the "modern" method of boiling-water bath processing, I highly recommend that you learn about it before proceeding. Many sites/books don't usually suggest it for jellies, but the Rodale Stocking Up recommends this processing method for all preserves, jellies included. It's a sure-fire way to sterilize everything and have it last.

Crunchy Banana Breakfast Muffins - This morning I discovered that using 1/2 cup of no-fat vanilla yoghurt instead of 1/2 cup milk really makes these fluffy and moist, so I recommend the substitution. Also, I just purchased some silicone cupcake cups (12 of those were cheaper than a silicone muffin tin yielding only 6), which seem to work really well for baking muffins. Yes, they're somewhat annoying and futzy to clean, but they are easier to clean well than a metal muffin tin, and so much easier to decant the muffins from!