Canning tips passed down by my mom and my Italian grandmother

I now realize that I learned a lot about canning before I even attempted it by myself for the first time. And a lot of what I learned was practically through osmosis and has been handed down from one generation to the next starting with my Italian grandmother...and perhaps even before her.

These tips and tricks have been good to me and my preserves, so I thought I would share:

1) Quality ingredients really do count
Just because you are preserving the ingredients, doesn't mean that the quality of what you start with does not matter. I have heard people say that for preserving they ask their local supermarket for the bruised fruits and vegetables they can't sell because it reduces the cost of their preserve. If what you put in wasn't top quality, what you get in the end won't be either. In fact under ripe or over ripe fruits and vegetables can affect the flavour, colour and even texture. If you want an excellent preserve - use excellent product!

2) Brown sugar
I love brown sugar. I use it in my tea, on my porridge. In fact anywhere that I used to use white sugar, I now use brown. Everywhere that is except in my preserves. My nona would have thought it a sin...that was reason enough for me :). But the real reason is the ingredient that makes brown sugar brown. Molasses! Molasses can overpower some of the more delicate flavours of fresh fruit, etc.

3) Doubling up recipes
Want to make more of your favourite jam and don't feel like doing it in batches? Well suck it up! Why? The reason is simple, the ingredients have been measured carefully to ensure that the correct amount of liquids will evaporate. Double them up and the surface area won't be big enough to allow the required evaporation. This means a runny end product. Be patient. The end result will be well worth the price of patience

4) Never re-use jar lids
It sounds silly because sometimes they look like they are in perfect condition. But you want to seal out all the air and after even just one use the sealing compound may be imperfect and you can end up with product that spoils too quickly or worse - makes someone sick

5) Prepare everything beforehand
It will save you time and frustration if you get all your ingredients and supplies ready before you begin. Complete your prep work and review your recipe thoroughly so that you don't make mistakes mid way through because you are doing too many things at once. Chopping ingredients while something else is on a rolling bowl and needs to be stirred constantly is difficult to do with only 2 hands.

6) How old are those spices?
No - you can't use the spices the pickling spices in the back of your cupboard just because you shook that layer of dust off. Even though spices might not have a best before date, doesn't mean they last a lifetime. Replace them every year to ensure your preserves have the best chance of coming out tasting delicious. And make sure to use whole spices rather than ground if you want your liquids or syrups to remain clear and not get cloudy

7) No plastic please
You can use your plastic measuring cups elsewhere if you must. But keep to metal and glass for your preserves. Plastic measuring spoons or cups can keep the flavour from previous spices and taint your preserves. Do you really want the lingering flavour of mustard seeds in your raspberry jam? I think not.

8) Share the love
One of the joys you will get out of preserving is passing along the goodness. I make preserves to give as gifts at Christmas, birthdays, etc. It is a wonderful feeling to know that something you made (potentially from things you grew in your own garden) are being enjoyed by more than just yourself. I make up little ingredient cards so everyone knows what is inside the jar and each of the ingredients included in case of allergies. But I also include some tips on how to use the preserve. I have found that sometimes, something like a tomato jam which to me has a million different uses, can perplex someone else. Make it easy for them to enjoy!

Now go can something!

Rich Dark Chocolate Sauce - Oh my!

Recently I bought a new Preserving book called Blue Ribbon Preserves and I was flipping through it after a chocolate conversation with my friend Andi. Yes, we can have an entire conversation that touches on no other topic other than chocolate. After all she is a chocolate lover extraordinaire. I stumbled across a recipe titled 'Rich Dark Chocolate Sauce'. It sounded perfect and the name alone even got my mouth watering and I have always prefered savory to sweet myself. I decided to attempt it in her honour.

Now if there is one thing I know about preserving is that the better quality ingredient you put into it, the better the final result. But I decided as this was my first attempt that I would ignore my usual rule and just use regular bakers chocolate just to see how it turned out. Then on my second attempt I can invest a little more in the 'good stuff' and really blow Andi's socks off:).

The ingredient list is short and some of you might even find the majority of these ingredients tucked away in your cupboard already.

8 oz chopped bittersweet chocolate
1 1/3 cups superfine sugar *
2/3 cup light corn syrup
1 cup water **
6 tbsp unsalted butter
2 tsp pure vanilla extract

* Now if your local supermarket is anything like mine, they might not carry superfine sugar. Don't sweat it. There is no need to drive all over looking for it. I found that by throwing my regular granulated sugar in the blender, the end result was nice and fine and did the trick.
** You may think that using regular tap water or bottled water would be fine in a preserve recipe that calls for it, such as this one does. But both bottled and tap water contain minerals which can effect the final product. Whenever possible I use distilled water. It makes a bigger difference with vegetables as the colour can be impacted. I am not sure if the end result would have been impacted here, but I had the distilled water on hand, so chose to use it. You decide if you want to be this anal retentive or not.

Combine the chocolate, sugar, corn syrup, water and butter in medium sauce pan. Over low heat, stirring constantly heat until the sugar is completely dissolved and the chocolate and butter are thoroughly melted.

Increase hit to med-low and continue cooking, stirring constantly until the sauce starts to thicken and becomes glossy. Do not allow it to boil or it could taste burnt. About 10 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the vanilla. The sauce thickens as it cools.

Ladle the chocolate sauce into hot jars, leaving 1/2 inch headspace. Using a plastic knife, remove any trapped air bubbles. Wipe the jar rims and threads with a clean, damp cloth. Cover and process in a 200F water bath for 15 minutes. For best result use within 4 months.

Almost as soon as it was done I wanted to taste it. But for me an extremely important ingredient was missing - Vanilla ice cream. My question is this? Isn't vanilla ice cream the reason chocolate sauce was invented?

So I had to wait patiently til the next day when I could buy some ice cream. I chose to boil some water and pour it into a bowl that I could then set the jar of chocolate sauce to warm it up nicely. Popped off the lid, gave it a stir and poured the silky goodness on my ice cream. hmmmm....delicious. Not too sickly sweet. But I could see how buying better quality chocolate would take it up a notch and really bump up the oohing and aahing as you eat it.

Raspberry and Blueberry Prosecco Jelly and Girls Night

On Friday I spent the afternoon downtown doing some social media consulting work with an old colleague of mine who has his own agency, so when I got home I decided to get my 'preserve' on in preparation for my Saturday night girl's night and clothing swap.

With the holiday season approaching I had been thinking about a red pepper jelly but then I spied a bottle of Prosecco in our cupboard that I knew James and I had not yet gotten around to drinking and started to think about it's possibilities. I had some frozen raspberries from the summer when I went picking at Whittamore Farms and the combination started to intrigue me. I decided almost at the last minute to include some blueberries completely based on wanting to get the jelly to a really rich colour. The recipe is simple and the result is fantastic. We have already used the jelly on pancakes, shortbread cookies and a simple toasted english muffin with a little melted butter and I gave a small 125ml jar to each of my 9 dinner guests.

I have to apologize that for the most part you are going to need to use your imagination this post. I took some fabulous shots of the candy floss pink that the jelly goes through when the prosecco is bubbling, and the rich colour the blueberries made the jelly but my memory card suddenly became corrupted and all my images on it were lost :(. It is definitely on my rotation and I will be making it again, so I will post photos when I do.

Ingredients
1cup raspberry puree (this took me 2.5 cups of rasperries)
1/4 cup frozen blueberries
3.5 cups sugar
2 cups Prosecco

I didn't thaw my raspberries prior to starting because it was a spur of the moment decision to make this jelly, so I put the 2.5 cups of rasperries in a medium sized saucepan with the 1/4 cup of frozen blueberries on medium heat and stirred them until they started to release all of their fabulous juices. I removed them from heat and let them sit a few minutes before I began to pour them into my small but very fine sieve. I used the back of a wooden spoon to push down. Now be patient because this will take some time. You want to make sure to get as much of the juice as possible. All that should be left in the sieve at the end are the raspberry seeds and the skin of the blueberries.

I then put the puree into a medium sized pot, added the sugar and the prosecco and brought to a boil. Don't be surprised at the amount of bubbling that occurs. You are using a sparkling wine after all. It took about 15 minutes for the bubbles to disappear and for the jelly to be ready to pour into my sterilized jars

I knew that my dinner guests would be using their jelly right away so decided to skip the final stage where you boil the full jars in water and fell back on the method I watched my nona and mom use when I was younger. I flipped the jars upside down for about 15 minutes and then flipped them back right side up and double checked to make sure they had all sealed properly.

Key Learnings while making Garlic and Onion Jam

James and I fell in love last summer with a Garlic and Onion Jam that we bought at Whittamore Farm's last summer when we went up there to pick Raspberries. It was made by Stonewall Kitchen and it is a heavenly spread on crackers or bread with cheese. Ever since then I have wanted to try making it and this morning at 8am when I went into the kitchen and saw the pile of onions staring at me, I thought...why not make it now. So now that the jars are cooling on the rack upstairs, I thought I would share some key learnings with you.

1) If you are going to chop onions, especially in the quantity that you require to make jam, you are going to want to have a box of kleenex nearby or you will want to wear a pair of these. I just used a pair of my safety goggles, but I know you can buy glasses that are specifically for chopping onions. Burning eyes at 8am are less than pleasant.














2) Always make sure that your knives are nice and sharp. We have a great ceramic knife sharpener made by Wusthof in Germany. Simple to use, takes seconds to sharpen your knives and does a fantastic job. There is nothing worse than having to finely chop onion and garlic and having it feel like your knife is chewing through inside of slicing through the onion. Takes more time and ends up in more tears :)

3) When a recipe calls for 2 cups of white wine, consider making it in the afternoon so that you can enjoy that glass of wine still left in the bottle. It is a shame to have to put it back in the fridge but even I recognize that a glass of wine at 9am is really not the best way to wake up and start the day. So into the fridge it went with a mental note that the next time I make a batch of garlic and onion jam that it will happen after lunch!
















4) Always use the freshest of ingredients. You don't want to use the garlic that has been sitting on your cupboard for a week and has green shoots growing out the ends. (I didn't do this...I'm just saying) and you want to finely chop your garlic and not use a press. Using a press just sprays all the good juice out on your cutting board and not into the jam where you want it




5) Don't let the onions brown. Keep a close eye on them and stir them regularly. You may think the browning will add nice colour once in the jar, but it just make the onions tough, which no one will appreciate.









And finally...and for me this was the MOST important learning this morning. When posting to your blog, don't accidentally open up the file folder with the photos from your honeymoon in Croatia. It's NOVEMBER stupid and the shots of the sea and the sun are only going to make your already grey and dreary day that much drearier even if you have amazing garlic onion jam to put on your sandwich at lunch!

Tomato Jam - duelling recipes

Until last week I had never even heard of Tomato Jam, but when I stumbled across a recipe for it during a Google search, it sounded too good to pass up. When I posted my intentions on my facebook page it received a variety of responses from "Yum" right down to my favourite comment from my Uncle Rudy which was simple and to the point "Yuck". I wondered which way it would turn out. The recipe called for 8 cups of sugar which seemed like a lot to me.

Now if you are like me and anywhere near approaching the Big 40, you realize that things like 8 cups of sugar tend to stick in places it never used to :). With this in mind I decided right out of the gate to reduce it to 6 cups and forged ahead. The end product is delicious but still a touch to sweet for my liking. So the search was on to find a recipe that maintained the deliciousness of my first attempt but that reduced the sweetness.

I settled on this Tomato Jam recipe because it called for 3 cups of sugar...and on top of that it is a great blog that you can spend hours cruising around for ideas and recipes. So I suggest you check it out.

I followed the recipe in every way except for the tomatoes. There were some great ripe Ontario tomatoes on special for 99 cents a pound and with my friend Andi's recent addiction to couponing fresh in mind decided to go with the less expensive and might I add 'locally grown' tomatoes instead. Keeping the tomatoes on a boil for 30 minutes concerned me at first because I am used to the slower reduction...but I love the time it saved and the end flavour wasn't impacted negatively in the least. And I love anything that saves time.

More than half of the sugar called for in the first recipe I tried and the end product is fantastic. Spoiler alert for friends and family - I will be giving jars of this stuff out as Christmas gifts.

Drum roll please - my Branston Pickle gets judged

James has a love for all things British; from Marmite, Yorkshire Gold looseleaf tea to Branston pickle. As fall descends and the weather gets cooler I start to crave comfort foods, so I decided to make an old favourite - Steak and Guinness Pie, so that we could test the Branston pickle I made earlier this week.

I knew the pie would be a hit but how would the pickle measure up to his old favourite. I didn't use the browning so I knew the appearance would be much different...but it was the flavour I was most interested in. So if you have someone in your home who loves the Branston and you are wondering if the end result is worth the time it takes, here is his verdict.

Not as sweet and sticky as his store bought
You can taste the individual flavours more (which is not a bad thing)
Can taste the freshness

We made it through almost a half a jar already, so I think he has given it a thumbs up which at the end of the day was what I was going for :).

Preserve madness

Recently I have been digging up old family preserve recipes and doing a lot of research online for recipes. But what generally happens is that I end up stockpiling all these great recipes and then spending one full day turning my kitchen completely upside down and canning, chopping and cleaning up after the mess I make for a good 6-8 hour shift. Yesterday was one of those days. I decided that I was going to make pickled Cauliflower, Branston pickle (for James who loves it) and Tomato Jam.

The cauliflower recipe called for Coriander and I didn't realize that I had missed that on the shopping list til things were already on a boil and well on their way. So I decided to do the neighbourly thing and see if I could borrow some from next door.

Well when I knocked on the door and my neighbour came to the door, I told her it was probably a strange request but did she have Coriander. She scrunched up her nose and said 'Do I have Coriander?'. The way she said it made it seem like perhaps I had offended her. Then she followed it up with "Do you forget what I do for a living' and she proceeded to take me down into her basement where she had a wall full of every spice imaginable. She is in the spice business. She gave me a new product being released by McCormick's called Roasted Ground Coriander. I decided seeing as the recipe called for me to roast the seeds that I would substitute this ingredient into the mix for one batch and test it out. It has a lovely roasted scent and I can't wait til I can try the pickles in about a week.

The tomato jam recipe has a pretty simple list of ingredients:

• 8 large or 12 medium ripe tomatoes
• 3 lemons
• 8 cups white sugar
• 3 tablespoons preserved ginger, chopped

I reduced the sugar to 6 cups and put ginger in half the batch and fresh chopped basil in the other half. It simmered for about 2 hours til it was reduced to the setting point and came out a perfect spreadable consistency. My personal vote is for the basil. But then it is one of my favourite flavours. But the ginger is still pretty wonderful as well.

At first I was intimidated at the ingredient list for the Branston Pickle. I researched several recipes online and settled on this recipe http://www.canadianliving.com/food/english_brown_pickle.php. I chose not to use the 'browning" and other than the fact that it took 2 hours to reduce, it was relatively easy and I learned a few things. I had no idea there were dates in Branston pickle. I am going to make steak and guiness pie on the weekend so we can give it a taste test and see how it compares to the store bought.

Ginger Pears

I fell in love over the summer - with my garden. The fact that the carrots from my garden actually taste like 'carrots'. I think I had forgotten how full their flavour could be when they aren't from a bag. From there, things kind of steam rolled. I had made some home made jam last year; raspberry, peach and concorde grape jelly. But this year it has almost turned into an obsession. Pickled green beans, apple tomato chutney, pickled green tomatoes, raspberry jam, ginger pears, preserved peaches and the list just seems to be going on and on. James is my official taster and so far I have been hearing a lot of 'hmmmm's' which is good news.

I love to cook and the process of canning and preserving is really enjoyable and peaceful to me. It is bringing my tastebuds to life and now I find I struggle buying anything canned. I always think that I can make it better and will know where the food has come from and that there have been no pesticides used.

I think I am turning into my mother...and that is not a bad thing ;)

Been a long time

The saying time really flies is so true and I can hardly believe that the last time I posted anything here was literally years ago. Did I just run out of things to say? Not likely if you know me. A shortage of words is not what I am known for. Did I just get too busy with life? Let's recap what has happened since I last posted.
- returned from my year long trip
- got a job at Sequentia as Account Director
- got promoted to Vice President
- fell in love (ahhhh how cute)
- lived in sin
- bought a new house
- rented out my old house
- rescued a dog
- got engaged
- got married
- got packaged out
- my sister got diagnosed with breast cancer
- learned how to tile
- lived through some renovations
etc.

So things have been busy and now that things are settling down, I realized it was time to revisit this blog of mine. I am not sure I will continue for long here...we might need a fresh start to say some new things. But I needed to get over the hurdle and just put something out there.