Year of the strawberry!!

I swear this was the year of the berry.  Blueberries, raspberries, wild strawberries and strawberries went in over drive this year. I had a couple of weeks that I picked this bowl over flowing with berries. We ate strawberries galore. I made a lot of strawberry freezer jelly. I gave away strawberries to friends, neighbors and family. Hubby is busy trying to figure out a 101 ways to eat freezer jelly ( on pancakes, waffles, cheesecake, frozen like ice cream…).

I still have not picked any blue berries or raspberries. I had a neighbor who gave me some.

Strawberry freezer Jelly

Ingredients

Makes approximately 5 half pints.

8 cups of sliced strawberries (about 2 lbs).

2 tbls. lemon juice

3 1/2 tbls ball instant Pectin

1 1/2 cups of sugar

Instructions:

1). Crush strawberries to get about 4 cups of crushed fruit.

2).Add lemon juice and stir.

3).In a separate bowl add pectin and sugar and mix well.

4).Add sugar mixture to strawberries stirring for 3 minutes.

5). add to freezer safe jars let sit out uncovered for 30 minutes.

6): refrigerate and use within 2 weeks or freeze for up to one year.

 

Preserving Fall Apples

I am such a fan of Mother Earth News. This is a great article giving you all  a multitude of recipes to preserve your fall apples. I hope you like them as much as I do.

http://www.motherearthnews.com/real-food/preserving-fall-apples-zbcz1410.aspx?newsletter=1&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=SLCS%20eNews&utm_campaign=10.22.14%20SLCS%20eNews#axzz3GspViScf

Pickled mix vegetables

Our first 3 ripe bell-peppers of the year. I am pleased that they did so well. I am going to make stuffed red pepper with these tomorrow. There are 9 more bell-pepper almost ready to pick. We are going to freeze these for cooking later. Next year we will plant a few more plants.

I am going to use these half ripened tomatoes for pickling.

I think that they are very colorful and  will make the pickled vegetables look appealing.

This is all the ingredients for the pickled mixed vegetable that we are canning today. I don’t weight anything any more because I have made them so many times.

Don’t all the different color vegetables pop in those jars?

This is a double batch. We made 11 jars. This is our last pickles for the year. I eat these with my dinner. Just a small portion wíth my meal aides my digestion.

PICKLES

6 Small green tomatoes

200 g small green cucumbers

200 g green beans

200 g carrots

200 g cauliflower

50 g Horse-radish

SALT mixture:

1 liter water

1 dl salt

Vinegar mixture:

6 dl water

4 dl clear or white vinegar

6 dl sugar (ca 500 g)

1 bay leaf

1 tablespoon yellow mustard seeds

10 white pepper corn

( 2 dried red bell pepper)

Rinse and dry vegetables. Cut them in even pieces.

Mix ingredients for salt mixture and stir until salt is dissolved. Place vegetables in it except the horse-radish in the salt mixture for 24 hrs. Drain the salt water mixture out and rinse the vegetables off. Pour fresh water in the pan. Boil the vegetables with the Horse-radish 3-5 min. Drain the vegetables in a colander and rinse to quickly cool the vegetables off.

Make the vinegar mixture and make a cloth pouch with the bay leaf, gold mustard seeds, and 10 white pepper corns in it. I bring it to boil. Sanitize your jars and lids. Stuff the jars with the vegetables and pour the vinegar mixture in the jar leaving a 1/4 inch from the top. Place the lid on tight. Repeat until you have filled all your jars. Let them cool on a towel but make sure the jars do not touch.

My version of this recipe for one batch

The vegetables together should weight 1 kilo or about 2 lbs:

green tomatoes

cabbage

cucumbers

carrots

3 inch peeled piece of ginge

dill weed from 6-10 stalks using only crowns and leaves.

Vinegar mixture

6 dl water

4 dl vinegar

6 dl (500 g) sugar

2-3 bay leaf

4 cloves of peeled  and crushed garlic

1 tablespoon yellow mustard seeds

10 white peppercorn

100 g fresh ginger

Instructions:

I sanitize my jars and have them in the sink in boiling water. I pour the vinegar mixture and place bay leaf, the majority of the ginger, mustard seeds, garlic and white pepper corns in a cheesecloth pouch that I tie off with string. I place the pouch into the mixture. I stir it until it is mixed well and let it boil. I cover the bottom of  the jars first with dill, a thin slice of ginger,1/8 tsp of yellow mustard seeds  and one bay leaf in each jar. Then I pack it tightly with vegetables. I can not stress enough that you need to pack it tight. Otherwise once you fill the vinegar mixture over the vegetables , they will float to the top. There will be a gap in the bottom of the jar. You waste space and use a lot more jars un-necessarily. I pour the vinegar mixture in the jars and place the lid tightly on them. I place jars on a towel and let the jars set for 24 hours before I store them. I let these set for 3 weeks in our cellar, before we start eating them.

 

 

Canned Salt Brine Pickles

  Last year I experimented with different pickle recipes. Each recipe has a little different flavor. All of them were delicious in their own way. The Salt brine pickles were a real surprise how well they turned out. I found in Sweden the only place that you can buy these are usually in a Deli here. They are a treat for us. I thought why not try to make them myself. I made only one batch of them last year. Hubby couldn’t get enough of them. I used table salt instead of pickling salt. The recipe didn’t specify it just said salt. I later found a recipe  using pickling salt. I realized the woman who wrote the recipe assumed that I would know that. I am a newbie  on canning. I didn’t know that. luckily the pickles were delicious. I thought they would be even better if they were a little less salty. That is not to say that I didn’t like them or eat them. He guarded them like they were gold.  I just wanted to tweak the recipe to improve on it for our taste. I could not find pickling salt any where. That is why I cut the salt in half, when using table salt.  Hubby agreed that they would be even better if I cut the salt in half. These were really popular with family and friends. I made these over the weekend. I figure I have one or two more batches left in my cucumber patch, before the patch is done for the season. I will be using pickling them with this recipe.   Canned Salt brine Pickle; 1 cups water 1 cup salt ( I couldn’t find pickling salt, used 1/2 cup table salt) 2 cups vinegar Dill Bring above mixture to a boil. Cool and pour over the pickles packed in jars. Seal. Can boil this and let it stand over night before using. I sterilize jars in boiling water and apple cider vinegar. I stuff a hot jar with pickles and fresh dill while mixture is boiling on the stove. I pour the hot mixture in the jar. I wipe off outside of jars and seal. I continue until all the jars are done. I place hot jars on a towel to cool slowly. I make sure the jars do not touch one another. I then place them in the food cellar for two weeks. They are ready to eat.  

Garden grown onion marmalade

This looks delicious. I know my husband is going to love this.

Garden grown onion marmalade.

Canning Pickles

The picture above is the first batch of pickles we have
made this season. They were made last week.

These cucumbers have been cut in sandwich thin wafers, whole gherkin size and pickle slices. We like the variety. We use a cheese cutter to make thin wafer slices. I stack everything I need to make it an assembly line process. The pickling juice is boiling on the stove. Jars are soaking in boiling water. The towels are laid down to keep the hot jars from breaking,because of cooling too fast.

This is a triple recipe batch, that made this many jars of pickles. I just need to label them, with date and batch number. Hubby will carry them down stair into the cellar after the lids have popped and they are cooled.

Swedish “Good Friends Pickles”

Ingredients
4 lbs cucumbers  (whatever kind you want)
2 white or yellow onions  (red onions will bleed red into the pickle juice)
1 small package mustard seeds
1 small package bayleave
10-12 fresh dill crowns  (dried dill or dill tops will also work)

The Pickle Juice
1 1/2 cups white vinegar 12%
2 1/2 cups water
4 3/4 cups sugar
1/3 cup salt

Directions
I kinda mix it up when I slice them. Some I slice very thin and some I slice thick slivers. I leave the gherkin size cucumber whole and pickle them as they are. The thin sliced ones will be ready to eat in only 24 hours and I give the thick ones at least a week.Next get your onions cut into chunky pieces and set aside.

Another tip is that I add all the ingredients below in the jar before I had the cucumbers.
2 tbsp mustard seeds
2-3 bay leaves
2 fresh dill crowns (or 2 tbsp dried dill or 2 dill tops)

Now fill (pack) mustard seeds, dill, bay leaf and onions into the jars and then pack the cucumbers in and the pour in pickling mixture. Pack the jars as tightly as you can. Leave an empty space at the top of the jar so the pickles nor mixture don’t touch the lid. Wipe down jars and put lids on. Do not allow jars to touch each other, while cooling.You will hear the lids pop as they cool which means they have sealed properly.Allow them to cool for several hours before storage.