Last year I set the most ambitious canning schedule ever for myself – at least two recipes, every other month, starting in February and ending in October.
(Every year I water-bath can jams, salsas, etc and sometime before the crush of the holidays I open my pantry to any and all who know me to request goodies. It is half-presents, half-pay-it-forward/good karma, and another imaginary half of keeping in touch with people who otherwise I might not.)
(Last year I also thought I was going to write more. Whoops. Better, more realistic goal this year.)
(Zero goals on using less parentheses.)
ANYWAY.
Despite the pandemic, despite weird shopping and weird outages, despite small research glitches where I was completely unaware of the brief window for fresh figs, I crushed it.
Cooking and canning are creative outlets for me. It was really fulfilling this year to embrace that. I love the satisfaction of seeing glass jars stack on top of each other, my pantry filling.
2020 was so successful that the actual giving away part became very difficult. Usually as requests come in, I make little piles of jars with name slips. It is technically first-come-first-served, but I wait for as many requests to come in as possible so that I can adjust people’s piles. If someone writes in requesting one of EVERYTHING, I try to honor that. But I may pilfer from their stash to fulfill the wish of someone later asking to try just one item.
In 2020, there were simply too many requests and too many items for me to keep it straight. Remember that mango chutney I blogged about? Well, I personally hated it. But in an effort to not waste food, it was an option for people to choose. When someone did, I wrote a note explaining my distaste and warning them/assuring them I would not be hurt if they disliked it.
Evidently I sent one such note to a friend who did not receive the chutney.
So the answer, for 2021, is to get organized. Get prepared. Get a spreadsheet.
And get some data. I put out a google form to get feedback on favorite recipes, not so favorite recipes, and possible interest in new stuff.
Here is my 2021 Canning Recipe List:
Old Recipes
- Carrot Cake Jam. By far what is requested the most. A jam of carrots, pear, pineapple, and spices. It may not taste exactly like carrot cake, but it is addictive. This is also the closest I have to “my own” recipe. I have tweaked a Ball recipe that calls for lots of sugar and regular pectin, using low-sugar pectin and – wait for it – less sugar.
- Cranberry Conserve. A marmalade is a jam where pieces of fruit rind are incorporated into the jam. A conserve is a marmalade where you also add nuts. This conserve using orange, and its rind, along with cranberries. We have lots of cranberry bogs in our area so I can get those locally and then I toast pecans from my father-in-law’s pecan groves.
- Blueberry Jam. This jam is a pain to make, but worth it. Before you even consider a berry, you first make a kind of applesauce, with some lemon or lime added in. The apples provide the pectin to firm up the jam (this type of jam is often called “natural” jam) and the citrus provides some acidity to make it extra safe for water-bath canning. I personally like to make it because you truly cannot taste the apple and it stretches the berries further than using commercial pectin. Side benefit is that it is 600 times tastier than berry jam made with pectin. I have had a request for Blackberry so maybe I will make some of both at the same time.
- Brandied Cherries. While lots of people love this, I can this recipe 100% for myself. I love cherries. I love brandy. My father enjoyed canning Brandied Peaches so I feel a connection to him when I make this. This year I went the extra mile and pitted the cherries. Again, not for anyone’s convenience but my own.
- Orange Rhubarb Jam. This is a recipe I usually make once every few years. I’ve made it because I received excess rhubarb in a CSA. I’ve made it because we received oranges as a present and couldn’t eat them in time. It did not make lots of people’s list of ultimate favorite jams, but it tied in 2nd place for “Please make this in 2021.” A simple recipe once you cut up the rhubarb, so sold.
- Spiced Apple Pie Jam. New in 2020, an apple jam with ginger and cardamom taking it to the next level. By far #1 on the “Please make this in 2021.” Funnily, I remember liking it when I made it, but I have not opened my actually preserved jar of it yet.
- Fig, Rosemary, & Red Wine Jam. Another new one for 2020. I was looking to play with flavors more sophisticated than a PB&J. I ended up soaking dried figs as I could not get my hands on fresh ones. Besides possibly needed to “mush” it up better so there were smaller “chunks” of fig, I really liked it. Not a huge crowd pleaser, but some of my favorite people who compliment my canning enthusiastically were fans and that’s enough for me.
Two other recipes new for 2020 that I will not be repeating are the mango chutney and a citrus wheat-ale jelly. As the jelly is made from commercial fruit juice and beer, I’m not surprised it wasn’t amazing. I personally hate jellies (why remove the FRUIT from a FRUIT FOOD??) so no love lost there.
But! I am excited to broaden my horizons in 2021 with several new recipes:
- Mango Chutney. Some people actually liked the 2020 mango chutney. And I’ll admit it tasted a lot better cooked with meat. But I found a more complex, more difficult, recipe that counts on citrus and onion and other ingredients to add flavor besides mango and spices. It will be my mango chutney redemption.
- Pickled Peppers & Onions. The lack of pickled products has more to do with availability of fresh ingredients than disinterest in pickles. I do find the idea of purchasing and processing 8 million cucumbers depressing, so I’m going with some other options than straight dill pickle spears.
- Quick Confetti Pickles. The “Confetti” refers to making pickles out of a bunch of vegetables, not just cucumbers. The “Quick” part means I can make it one day. (Lots of pickling is a multi-day process.)
- Cranberry Ketchup. A way to dip my toe into canning more condiments and source local products.
- Roasted Red Pepper Spread. I remember zero things about this recipe except that it isn’t a sweet, fruit jam and I can still make it using a water bath (vs pressure canning).
- Jalapeno/Habanero/Apricot Something. I got requests for hot peppers. I got a request of apricot. There is a pepper apricot jam recipe I might try. But fig-bitten, twice shy. This recipe STARTS with dried apricots that you rehydrate.
So that’s it! Barring outages, financial constraints, and time constraints, I have my 2021 canning goals written in, well, the internet and a spreadsheet. That’s close enough to stone for me.
Do you have any creative goals for 2021?
In Progress Jess 