canning – Planet B Gardens

garlic scapes

When rocambole or other hardneck garlic varieties start the flowering process, they shoot up a central stalk with a bud. If you want a good-sized bulb of garlic to form rather than the energy of the plant going into producing a flower, you need to harvest that stalk once it starts to curl around. The harvested part is called a “scape,” and it’s delicious. The scape has a mild green garlic flavor, and is great chopped fresh in salads, sauteed in butter, tossed into pasta and stir-fries. Some people like the buds fried in tempura batter like a squash blossom. You can also pickle the scapes if you’d like to

July 9, 2017

concord grape harvest

Feels good to be harvesting fresh grapes in early November. After a couple days of October snow, we’ve had mostly rain and not too cold with brief glimpses of sun in between allowing the grapes to ripen on the vine. These are from a friend’s orchard. Fresh off the vine they have that iconic “grapey” taste — delicious. I’m making Concord grape jelly. Concord Grape Jelly First I washed, de-stemmed, and ran the grapes though a juicer. My juicer left a lot of juicy-looking pulp, so I put the pulp through a manual food mill to ring out the rest of the juice. I poured the resulting juice through a cheesecloth-lined

November 4, 2016

good salsa from so-so tomatoes

With the early frost a couple weeks ago, I had to pick all my remaining tomatoes while they were still very green. The best way to ripen green tomatoes is keep them in a cardboard box in a cool area — basement, garage, or shop — that stays between 55F-60F degrees. Once the tomatoes just begin to turn color, bring them inside to ripen the rest of the way at room temperature — 70F-75F or so. While this will get you ripened tomatoes, they are nowhere near as good to eat sliced as those sun-ripened on the vine. They do, however, make good salsa. For this batch I peeled the ripe tomatoes and

September 29, 2016

preserving apricots

Apricots are in season! One of my favorite stone fruits both for eating fresh and preserving through the winter. Traditional Apricot Jam Apricot jam made the traditional way has so many uses. Chop fresh apricots into chunks. Add sugar and lemon juice to taste. You need enough sugar to create the jammy consistency, so err on the sweet side. Simmer until they’re a chunky jam consistency (don’t overcook or you’ll lose the fresh apricot essence). Put the cooked apricot mixture in mason jars, leaving 1/4″ headroom, put on the lids and rings Submerge in boiling water for 10 minutes. The resulting preserves are more runny than preserves made with added pectin. If you

August 17, 2016

apple butter

First time making apple butter. Apple butter has no dairy in it despite the name. The end result is supposed to spread like butter, but be made of only apples, sugar, a touch of salt, and spices. The recipe I used also called for apple cider vinegar during the simmering process. I started by washing and slicing the apples into quarters, keeping the skins and core attached. The quartered apples went into a large stock pot with 4 cups water and 2 cups apple cider vinegar. After bringing to a boil and simmering for 20 minutes or so, the apples were soft. I put them into a food mill a

October 4, 2015

fires out, cayennes in

Thankfully the wildfires in the area are out, and we’ve had a little rain over the last month to clear the air. During the height of the smoke we escaped to Colorado for 10 days for an impromptu visit with friends. After that I had to go to San Francisco on business for another 10 days, so most of September was spent traveling. I hated to leave the garden knowing it wouldn’t survive without daily watering, but with the smoke and lack of sunshine it wasn’t clear how well September would have produced anyway. I was able to harvest some ripe cayenne peppers and a couple of quarts of tomatoes

October 4, 2015

pickled tomatoes experiment

Smoke from the wildfires made for a change in plans from outdoor to indoor work today. The only place to be is indoors with windows closed and air filters running on high. Outside looks (and smells) like nuclear winter at the moment. Makes it hard to catch your breath. I had a couple of pints of fresh-picked cherry tomatoes, a few jalapeno and cayenne peppers, and a sweet onion that needed to be eaten or preserved, so decided to try pickling them. I’ve done pickled peppers before, but not sure how the fresh taste of tomatoes will hold up after time in the jar. Tomatoes tend to ripen a few

August 24, 2015

winter learnings

It’s been nine months since we moved here to Planet B. In that time, here are a few random things I’ve learned: You can successfully store cheese without refrigeration by painting it with cheese wax and hanging it in a climate controlled area. Mice, too, like climate controlled areas in winter, can jump really high, and think cheese is yummy. They are also industrious and like to nest in engine blocks — it doesn’t seem to matter that the car is being driven. Mine gathered its nesting material partly from the cheese wax and partly from the dried grass under the lawnmower — both of which are quite a distance in opposite directions

April 6, 2015

bison stew pressure canning

Keeping jars of stew in the pantry makes preparing a healthy quick meal easy and tastes much better than any canned stews you’d buy in at the supermarket. When I make a stew, I often set enough aside to can a few jars. Dice onions, yellow potatoes, and cube bison chuck roast for this stew, and put them in a pot separate from the main batch. Toss in a little oil and lightly brown the bison and vegetables. Bison is a naturally lean meat, so the extra fat doesn’t hurt. Add enough beef broth to almost cover the meat and vegetables, followed by a 1/2 cup or so of red

October 4, 2014

roasted hot salsa

I love salsas — the hotter the better. To make my own for canning, I cubed and seeded a couple pounds of heirloom tomatoes. I charred sweet peppers and tomatillos from my friend Nancy’s garden over an open flame, and sliced hot peppers — keeping the seeds of the fresh cayenne pepper in the mix. Chopped a cup of sweet onions. Tossed it

September 28, 2014