Adventures in Canning!

I'm really excited to share our recent culinary adventure - canning! I can say beyond a shadow of a doubt that I would never have even CONSIDERED canning even a year ago! City living is amazing, and man I miss the Logan Square farmer's market more than I can express in words, but I wasn't looking to buy fruits and veggies to store for the winter! In retrospect, I had more organic produce available to me then than I do now, so I probably should have been, huh?! Oh well! I'm a convert NOW, and that counts for something, right?! RIGHT!

So how did this all start anyway? With a virtual book wish list on my Pinterest account of course! I spread the word about the wish list through the best networking tool ever- my mother! :) For my birthday I got three of the books I'd been coveting, and all our experiments came from the absolutely stunning "Food in Jars." (Thanks sister Erin!)

Check out her AWESOME website too: Food in Jars!

My mother's birthday is just six days after mine, and after I got this book I knew IMMEDIATELY that I wanted to try some recipes out and create her gift from our experiments! I poured over the book for over a week trying to figure out what I wanted to try, and ended up marking far more recipes than I could realistically make... but that's okay because it means that I will have more to try out later! 

The first recipe we tried was inspired by our back yard! Hey, remember when we waxed poetic about our rhubarb? Well add this recipe to the MUST MAKE for you rhubarb lovers (and non-lovers!) because it's amazing! Behold, the glory that IS Strawberry-Orange Rhubarb Jam! Holy Moly! The fantastic taste of strawberry and rhubarb with an awesome tart note from orange juice and zest! The flavors are so bright and fantastic - a serious summer in a jar winner! 

OKAY! Now that I've over sold it - here we go! 

My amazing sous-chef Martin chopped his heart out for me! 

Strawberry-Orange Rhubarb Jam

From "Food in Jars" by Marisa McClellan

(Makes 5 Pint Jars - Though we used some half pints for gift giving!)

6 cups chopped rhubarb (about 2.5 pounds)

4 cups chopped strawberries (about 2 pints) 

zest and juice of 2 oranges

5 cups granulated sugar

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

2 (3 oz) packets liquid pectin

Prepare a boiling water bath and the pint jars, place the lids in a small saucepan and simmer over very low heat. (If this is the first time you are canning, make sure you read up on this process! Also make sure you have all the tools you will want or need!) 

Combine the rhubarb, strawberries, orange zest, juice, sugar, and cinnamon in a large nonreactive pot and stir to incorporate. Bring to a boil then reduce heat to simmer and cook fruit over medium-high heat for 15-20 minutes or until the rhubarb breaks down and the jam has a glossy shine. 

Add the pectin and increase the heat to high, letting the jam boil for five minutes. Remove the pot from the heat and ladle the jam into the prepared jars. Wipe the rims, apply the lids and rings, and process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes. 

Testing the jam, filling the jars, and processing! 

Okay... seriously? I can't even tell you how worried I was that I was going to do something seriously wrong and that we wouldn't hear the POP! of the tops that we wanted to hear! BUT, soon after removing the jars from the water bath, we heard the awesome ping, ping, pings we were listening for! Hooray! 

I was looking for something fun and different to make, and I saw that there was a recipe for a Zesty Lime Curd included in "Food in Jars!" My mom and I share a lot of tea party, scone, and coffee shop memories, and I know she is a great fan of lemon curd, so I thought this sounded perfect! I have to be honest, Martin made the whole thing, start to finish, and all I did was process it! I was actually working on making the pear butter recipe we made, which we forgot to take any pictures of, but I DID get great pics of the curd! Away we go! 

Martin, hard at work!

Zesty Lime Curd

From "Food in Jars" by Marisa McClellan

(Makes 2 Half Pint Jars... ours made a BIT less than that!)

1/4 cup finely grated lime zest (about 4 limes)

1 1/4 cup granulated sugar

4 large egg yolks 

2 large eggs

1/2 cup freshly squeezed lime juice (about 6 limes)

6 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into cubes

Prepare a boiling water bath and 2 half pint jars; meanwhile, simmer the lids and rings in a saucepan.

Combine the lime zest and sugar in a bowl, rubbing the zest into the sugar until it is fragrant and combined. Set aside. 

Set up a double boiler (or... you know... two sauce pans that you hold over heat and stir constantly... you rock Martin!) with 2 inches of simmering water over medium heat. Keeping the top half of the double boiler off the stove, add the egg yolks and whole eggs to it and whisk them together. Add the zest and sugar combo and whisk in. Finally, add the lime juice and stir until blended. 

Put the double boiler back together and drop in the cubes of butter. Switch to a silicone spatula and stir continually as the lime curd cooks. Using a candy thermometer, monitor the temperature of the curd while you stire. As is approaches 190-200 F, it should start to thicken. It typically takes 6-9 minutes for a curd to cook (it took us a lot longer because we weren't using a double boiler!). When the curd has thickened to the consistency of sour cream, it is done! Remove the top half of the double boiler and stir off the heat, it will continue to thicken a bit. 

Strain the curd through a fine-mesh sieve into a measuring cup. The straining removes both the zest and any bits of scrambled egg! Pour the curd into the prepared jars, leaving a generous 1/2 inch of headspace. Wipe the rims, apply the lids and rings, and process in the boiling water bath for 25 minutes. 

When the time is up, remove the canning pot from the heat and remove the lid. Let the jars sit in the pot for another 5 minuts, this helps to prevent the curd from reacing to the rapid temperature change and bubbling out of the jars!

My contribution to the process!

Wowza - way more complex that we expected! Martin and I were sweating bullets in our over heated kitchen, and we were NOT expecting to be standing over boiling water for as long as we did! We already have plans to make more of this.... but maybe when the weather is a little cooler since citrus is in season (um... in Florida!) in the winter! 

Want to see the gift we crafted? Here it is!

Happy Birthday Mom!

Of COURSE Martin whipped up a batch of bread to go with our spreads, what else?! All three were big hits, and GUESS WHAT?! We got to bring home my great grandmother's double boiler! I am so excited to try making more curds - oh boy!

Do you can? What are your favorite recipes? Share! :) 

UP Living: Bridge Fest

Ooooohhhh everybody - get ready! You're about to enter one of the most unique seasons in the Yooper year - summer! It seems like there is a parade or celebration just about every other week up here at this time of the year. You know we have to celebrate the nice weather before it runs away again! :) 

Last year Martin and I were smack dab in the middle of moving me up here and out of Chicago. I distinctly remember driving out of town just as signs for "Bridge Fest" and "Seafood Fest" started to go up. I told Martin I was determine to attend the festivities the next time they came around, and I did! 

You might think that Bridge Fest is a festival celebrating the bridge that connects Houghton to Hancock, as I thought. And while that might be the roots, I didn't see much celebration of the actual bridge! The festivities are kicked off on a Friday evening with a parade that does in fact, go over the bridge! It is just absolutely typically small town, and I dig it! Flags everywhere, marching bands, local businesses with poster board signs, and to finish it off, a line of fire trucks from EVERY SINGLE DISTRICT AROUND! I happened to be working, and had handed my camera off to one of my girls, and it wasn't until I looked at them later that I realized some shots I WOULD have taken didn't make it, and many shots I wouldn't have bothered with did make it! C'est la vie! Let's watch a parade! 

Oh how patriotic!

The parade had many flags, many armed forces, and of course, some tanks! I'm not sure HOW this celebrates the bridge, but my goodness, I can't imagine a parade up here without this line up!

Music, music, music! Bands and flasks, oh my!

 There were bands of all size, talent, and professionalism at this parade! There was a bag pipe man drinking straight from his flask in front of us, and the Michigan Tech pep band (the goofs in the overalls) sang a song about drinking beer. Just want I want my 15 year old charges to see and hear, haha!

Hometown heros

Throughout the whole shindig there were trucks, sports teams, kids, and...well... trucks! I know I've lived here for a while when I actually KNOW people I see in the parade! Hooray! I'm a noob no longer! 

Bridge Fest is REALLY a celebration of (of all things) SEAFOOD. Now, when someone says "Hey, let's go to seafood fest!" I think that it will be a festival of SEAfood. Not QUITE how we roll up here! However, since it is indeed a fund raiser for the Rotary Club and not a gastronomic, epicurean festival, I guess I'll let it slide. I have to say though, that it's a bit sad when you can see the Sysco truck parked behind the food pavilion! But hey, it's live music, beautiful views, and good company! 

Check out the menu (if you can!)

I had to get a good picture of the bridge in here at some point, now didn't I?? The fest is right on Houghton beach, and it's quite lovely! I was sad to realize that I didn't get a good picture (okay, ANY pictures) of the live music. People were dancing and having a dandy time! I would have just LOVED to throw back a brew and listen to the music, but alas, I WAS at work! Next year maybe! 

I'm officially on vacation for a few days, so I hope I can get a few more posts up before I have to go back to work! How are you celebrating summer in YOUR neck of the woods? We have construction going on literally outside our door, so I'm pretty excited to escape a shaking house for a hot minute! Fingers crossed it will be done by the time we are back! 

Using Whatcha Got. And make.

Every once in a while I am suddenly struck by how DIFFERENT my life is now compared to a year ago. Just moments ago I was chatting with a friend about how much of a struggle it is for me to get up and to work by 8AM now. Less than a year ago I was out of bed and at Curves by 6AM most mornings, and on the bus by 7:25AM or I was late! My current jobs offer me very little consistency, but one thing that has happened is that I'm now used to work second shifts. I am a counselor at a 24 hour residential community for teenagers, and the majority of my shifts are 3:30PM-12:30AM. When we switch shifts, I often end up donating 15-30 minutes (or more) to get the next worker caught up on what is going on with the students, and since I live about 15 minutes outside of Houghton, I consider it a job well done if I'm in bed and sleeping before 2. On the other hand, I work in infant/toddler and preschool classrooms that are open from 8-6. Whenever I am scheduled to be in at 8 (or the super painful 7:45!) I inwardly cringe JUST a bit. But I've become a machine, and I can work almost any shift without much trouble now, so huzzah. This week I happen to be tapped to work Tuesday through Friday at 8, and even though I am able to get to bed earlier on the days I'm not working with the teenagers, I find it's very difficult for me to fall asleep, which is a bummer.

I've found that having something to look forward to can help me get out of bed, and my new favorite breakfast is overnight oatmeal, sometimes called summer porridge. I've mentioned that Martin and I have started to make greek yogurt at home, and this recipe is the main reason we looked into making it ourselves in the first place! This is the recipe for greek yogurt that we have been using, but there are a lot of great recipes out there! I liked this one the most because I'm obsessed with my slow cooker, and also because I don't have a candy thermometer and I'm not confident that I will know what 200 degrees looks like by sight! :) 

Our first batch was a total bust in terms of thickness. We managed to make yogurt, but it was quite thin and never got thicker. We are not sure if it is because we used skim milk or if the yogurt that was used as starter cultures wasn't fresh enough, so we tried a slightly different approach the second time. I know that there are a LOT of yogurt makers out there that swear that whole milk is the way to go, but I'm not one of them! I declared that I would never use anything more than 1% milkfat, so 1% it was!

Investing in our local dairy products! 

I had a typically ridiculous yooper experience when I went to the closest grocery store to our house to get the milk and a single starter yogurt, of course! A store clerk was stocking yogurts when I came by to grab a plain greek yogurt. I scanned the rows of Fage, Okios, Greek Gods, and Chobani, and much to my dismay I did not see a SINGLE plain yogurt! How could this be?? I scanned again and also checked for vanilla, since someone specifically asked if vanilla would work in the comment section of the recipe I use. Surely there would be vanilla. No vanilla. No lemon. Not a single variety that didn't say "fruit on the bottom" or had artificial flavors or dyes in it. By now the store clerk had noticed (and probably heard) my distress, and asked if I was looking for something in particular. When I told him what I was looking for, he glanced at his cart of Yoplait Lights, and told me that they didn't have what I was looking for. Not one to accept defeat, I decided that I would make do with what I DID have, and took a peach fruit on the bottom yogurt with the plan that I would scrape the half cup of plain greek yogurt I needed off the top. That's "Yopper Genius" in action people! I grabbed a half gallon of the local dairy, Jilbert's, 1% milk and headed home to create yogurt. Upon suggestion of fellow yogurt makers, I did NOT crank the heat as I had planned, but rather increased the cooking time of the milk by an hour, so I was whisking my scraped yogurt and milk combo by 10PM. I had to work at 8 the next morning, so I started the draining process (we use paper towels rather than cheesecloth) and Martin filled our tubs with four perfect cups of greek yogurt the next day! And we all lived happily ever after. 

The first recipe I linked to, the summer porridge, really WAS the genesis of this yogurt making adventure. Not to make me sound like a crunchy, granola, yogurt making, co-op owning backwoods person, but this oatmeal is SO healthy, and SO easy, and SO satisfying, but SOOOO expensive! Every jar has a quarter cup of greek yogurt, a third of a cup of milk, and one and a half teaspoons of chia seeds in it! Not to mention the produce costs... we love this stuff, but were looking for a way to cut back on costs. A two cup tub of greek yogurt costs around $5 here, and we can now make four cups of yogurt for the cost of milk, which is less than $2. We got the chia seeds on sale at the co-op, so we stocked up and are set for a while! 

The oatmeal is positively wonderful, and stored in the cutest like half pint mason jars this side of ever. We even whipped up some oatmeal for my mom and dad when they visited a few weeks ago, and they liked it so much my mom left with half pint jars of their own to try this at home! We are particularly partial to the rasperry vanilla variety, but we really do love them all. We were blessed with a haphazard garden when we bought our house, and last year we had more raspberries than you could shake your fist at! We're just PRAYING that will happen this year! We also had the sweetest strawberries I've ever tasted, and plan on making our own recipe for summer porridge! I'll let you know what we come up with! 

YUM! Raspberry Vanilla Overnight Oatmeal!

Believe it or not, OURS are even CUTER! 

We have these squat square half pints! SQUEE!

Speaking of our garden, I've strong armed... no, forced... no, ASKED Martin to be a guest blogger on here to talk about one of the ways we are using our overabundance of rhubarb tomorrow! It will be an all things rhubarb extravaganza! I know you can hardly wait, right?

Yooper love!