My Kitchen Clatter

Real Food - Real Life

Raspberry Jam

by Leave a Comment

It’s the season for raspberries again! I love foraging for black raspberries and making them into jam that we can enjoy the rest of the year.

I keep this jam very simple – just raspberries, a little sugar and some pectin. I find that this jam doesn’t need anything else to make it wonderful. Sometimes simple is the best.

A little note on the pectin. I like using pectin for raspberry jam because the raspberries don’t have much natural pectin in them. The pectin allows the jam to thicken quickly without a lot of cooking. I find this results in a brighter raspberry flavor. I use Pomona’s Pectin as it allows me to use less sugar that other brands of pectin. I also follow the recipe in the box of pectin, except I use a little less pectin. This gives a looser set to the jam, which I like. If you like a thicker jam, then increase your pectin and calcium waters to 2 teaspoons each. You can find Pomona’s at local stores like Whole Foods and Fresh Thyme or order on-line. Pomona’s website has links on which local stores carry their product.

Okay. Enough on that. Now for raspberries. I mentioned black raspberries already. I love them. But you’ll never find them in the store and probably not even at the farmers market. For those of you interested in more foraging information, The Backyard Forager is one of my favorite foraging sources. This is a link to one of her articles on black raspberries vs. blackberries.

If you don’t have a bramble bush in your backyard like I do, you can use any other raspberry for this recipe. Fresh red raspberries can be hard to find in the store because they are so delicate and don’t transport or stay fresh very long. Ideally, you want to use them within a couple days of picking. If you can’t find good fresh raspberries, feel free to use frozen raspberries. They will be as good, maybe better, than fresh. And remember – you can freeze your fresh raspberries for later, if you can’t get to them in time.

If you have extra raspberries that you don’t know what to do with, here are some ideas. Besides eating them fresh, I love adding them to kombucha. You can also add them into (or on top of) your overnight sourdough pancakes or waffles or oatmeal waffles. My other favorite way of using them is to put them into oatmeal – we especially love them in baked oatmeal. I’m working on posting that recipe soon – so check back for it! The jam also works heavenly in all of these recipes. I hope you enjoy!

Raspberry Jam

July has arrived along with the short raspberry season. Jam is one of my favorite ways to enjoy the taste of raspberries all year long.
Print Recipe

Ingredients
  

  • 4 cups raspberries fresh or frozen
  • 1 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1 1/2 teaspoon calcium water included in Pomona's Pectin package
  • 1 1/2 teaspoon Pomona's Pectin

Instructions
 

  • To sterilize the jars, place rack in the large pot and cover jars in water. If you don’t have a rack, fold a dish towel and place on the bottom of the pot before you put the jars and water into the pot. Place lid on the pot and bring to boil, turn down the heat and simmer for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, turn off heat and leave the cover on the pot. This can be done while the jam is made. NOTE: A boiling water bath can be done in any stock pot that allows for water to cover the jars by at least 1-inch. A tall stock pot is fine to use, just place a towel or rack in the bottom so the jars don’t sit directly on the heat source. If your stock pot doesn’t fit all of your jelly jars, only jar up the ones that will fit in the pot, keeping the rest of the jam warm on the stove while the first batch of jars processes. Once the first jars are done processing, jar the remaining jam and process in a second batch. Alternately, you can just jar any extra jam to eat right away or freeze. 
  • If you are going to process the jars in a water bath, prepare the lids according to the directions on the box – usually just wash and place in warm water. I do this in the small saucepan on a back burner. 
  • Prepare calcium water according to package directions.
  • Combine sugar and pectin in a small bowl and stir to combine. Set aside.
  • Combine raspberries and calcium water in large saucepan, jam pot, or stock pot. Bring to roiling boil, stirring constantly
  • Add sugar and pectin mixture to raspberries mixture. Bring back to boil, stirring constantly. Boil and stir for 1 minute or until sugar is completely dissolved. Remove from heat.
  • Fill hot jam jars with 1/4 inch headspace.
  • Clean rims and place lids on jars.
  • Set jars into the simmering pot of water (on the rack). Jars should be covered by a minimum of one inch water. Process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes. Start timer when water is at a boil. 
  • After the processing time is complete, turn off heat and remove cover. Let jars cool 5 minutes in the water bath. Remove jars from canner and place on a towel on the counter.  Do not retighten bands, if loose. Cool 12-24 hours. Check seals. Label and store jars up to a year for best color and flavor. Any jars that don’t seal should be stored in the refrigerator and used first.
  • If you don’t want to process this recipe in a water bath (or you have a jar that doesn’t seal), you can jar the jams and refrigerate for up to 3 weeks or freeze up to 6 months. 
Keyword fruit, homemade, jam, preserves

Easy Homemade Fruit Leather

by Leave a Comment

Fruit leathers are homemade fruit rolls and they are very popular in our house. I love them because they are a great way to use up leftover fruit, don’t contain any added sugar, and the kids gobble them up.

You’ll need a couple special kitchen tools for this recipe. The first is a blender. I use my immersion blender to keep the clean up simple, but any good blender will do.

This batch of fruit includes blueberries and mangos.

The second tool is a dehydrator. A decent dehydrator runs about $100 and can be used for other preservation projects. If you don’t have a dehydrator, you can try to do these on a very low oven – they will take about 18 hours in an oven. You can also dry them in the hot sun – it will take about 1 to 2 days to dry in the sun.

Fruit leathers ready to go in the dehydrator.

For the diabetics out there, make these without added sugar and they should contain the amount of fruit allowed for a fruit exchange.

This recipe is written for 2 cups of fruit, but it can be multiplied to accommodate as much fruit and drying space as you have.

Enjoy!

Easy Homemade Fruit Leathers
Recipe Type: snack
Author: Andrea
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Serves: 13″ x 15″ leather
These homemade fruit roll-ups are a great way to use up extra fruit that isn’t getting eaten quick enough. They are also an awesome low-sugar snack.
Ingredients
  • 2 cups of any combination of ripe or slightly overripe fruit – blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, banana, kiwi, mango
  • 1/4 cup of applesauce (optional, to help thicken the fruit)
  • 2 t of lemon juice or 1/8 t ascorbic acid for light colored fruit to prevent darkening (optional)
  • 1-2 T of honey, to taste (optional)
Instructions
  1. Prepare dehydrator trays by lining them with parchment paper over the surface of the tray. I cut out the center hole on my paper to help it fit better. Edges of the parchment paper can be folded up at the edge of the tray. Depending on the size of your dehydrator trays, you will need one or two trays for 2 cups of fruit.
  2. Wash fruit or berries in cool water. Remove peel, seeds, and stems.
  3. Using a blender or immersion blender, puree the fruit.
  4. The pureed fruit should be slightly thick so that it doesn’t run apart when poured onto the dehydrator trays. If it seems too runny, add a little applesauce to thicken it up. The applesauce will also help decrease tartness and make the leather smoother and more pliable. If the fruit seems to thick, add liquid, such as orange or apple juice, to thicken.
  5. Taste and add honey, if needed. I rarely add any honey at all.
  6. Pour the pureed fruit mixture onto the prepared tray. Avoid the edges of the tray. Spread it out to about 1/8 inch thick. Thicker spreads will take longer to dehydrate. Spread into any shape you like. I usually do about 2″ x 8″ rectangles. Larger shapes can be cut smaller later, but will take longer to dry.
  7. Dry the leather at 140 degrees F. The leather will dry from the edges to the center.
  8. After about 4 hours, test for dryness by touching the center of the leather – your finger should not leave an indent.
  9. While warm, you can peel from the parchment and roll. Allow to cool and rewrap in plastic. I usually let mine cool flat and then bag it and freeze.
  10. The leather usually will get eaten pretty quickly. But it will last about a month at room temp or it can be frozen up to a year.
Notes
This recipe can be multiplied based on how much fruit and dehydrating space you have.

 

 

Homemade Fruit Vinegars

by Leave a Comment

Making your own fruit vinegar sounds so hard. But it’s not. Have you ever had a jar of apple cider go sour accidently? Or a bottle of win or beer? Then you’ve made vinegar and probably not even known it.

I’ve made vinegar from scraps of all sorts of fruits – apple, peach, pear, raspberry, strawberry, and blackberry. I’m even giving cherry a try this spring. Your final vinegars are more interesting than most store-bought options and they have the added advantage of containing beneficial probiotics. Give it a try, you’ve got nothing to loose.

The Basics – Getting Started

Vinegars are one of my favorite ferments to play with – I have to say I’m slightly obsessed with them. I love seeing science in action in my kitchen. This stems back to high school chemistry. I think. Anyway, to make a fruit vinegar, you start with fruit, water, and a little sugar. Mix everything together in a large glass jar with a wide opening. I like the 1/2 gallon Ball jars to start with – they are cheap and easy to find at most hardware stores. I also have some large one gallon jars that I picked up at our local beer brewing shop. You’ll want to use a glass or other non-reactive container for this so the vinegar doesn’t react with the metal. Also, the beneficial bacteria don’t like the metal either. Finally, look for a wide mouth jar since you want a good air to liquid contact area. The bacteria need oxygen to do their job on the vinegar.

I use fruit scraps to get my vinegars started. I love knowing that I’m not throwing away all those apple peals or slightly mushy strawberries. You can use the stems, peels, brown spots, and mushy fruit for this. Just make sure everything is clean – both the jar and the fruit scraps. Basically, you’ll ultimately end up making something out of nothing. Fill the jar about half full of the fruit scraps. Add anywhere from a tablespoon to a quarter cup of sugar per quart and top the jar off of with water. The sugar gives the bacteria a little boost to get to work and it will affect the sweetness of your final product. Try to use water that has not been chlorinated since the chlorine will stop the natural processes that we are aiming to encourage.

As the fermentation process proceeds, the jar may start attracting fruit flies. I normally cover  my containers with a breathable cover (such as a coffee filter, paper towel or cheesecloth) held on with a rubber band. Once I start seeing the flies, the jar usually gets kicked out of the kitchen to either the garage or basement. The temperature range for the fermentation process is pretty wide – between 59 and 94 degrees F – so this gives you a lot of flexibility on where to store your jars as they are fermenting.

During the first step, natural yeast and bacteria (Acetobactor) in the air start to go to work on the sugar and they produce alcohol, essentially turning the water into alcohol. Meanwhile, your fruit is also flavoring the water into juice. You’ll notice some bubbling in the mixture, which is a good sign that your reaction is taking place. Stir the container once a day to keep it oxygenated. Stirring also helps redistribute the fruit so that the pieces sticking out of the top don’t go moldy. If you get a moldy piece of fruit, just pick it out and keep going.

After about a week or so, the bubbling will stop and you can strain off the fruit and let the yeasts and bacteria keep working on the alcohol. At this point, your chemical reaction will change and the alcohol will ferment into vinegar.

This is the point where the process gets really fun – and some people may get grossed out by this stage. But you will start seeing a gelatinous mass begin to cover the top of the vinegar. At first it will look like a foam forming on the top. This mass is called the mother of vinegar and it is actually a cellulose mass of the Acetobactor bacteria. It consumes the alcohol in the liquid and expels acetic acid – or vinegar. The mother will get thicker as the fermentation proceeds. If you have a little unpasteurized apple cider vinegar or mother from a previous batch of vinegar, you can jump start the mother formation by adding a couple tablespoons to your jar. But I’ve actually seen mothers start to form within the first day of removing the fruit scraps.

Once the mother forms, try not to disturb the jar so that the mother can remain floating on the top. If it sinks to the bottom, don’t worry. The fermenation will keep proceeding, but the jar will probably start forming a second mother on the top.

The entire process is an aerobic process, which means that your jar of liquid needs to have oxygen for the chemical processes to occur. So keep the breathable lid on the container this whole time. After about 3-8 weeks, the vinegar will be finished.

Finishing & Bottling

Now the tough question – how do you know when the vinegar is done? For me, it is mostly a matter of taste and smell. Does it smell like vinegar? Yes? Good. To taste it, stick a straw in the container, slide it under the edge of the mother, and see what you think. It’s really a matter of personal taste. The acidity level can have a pretty high range to give you a weaker or stronger vinegar. If it’s too strong, you can always water it down.

What if you let the vinegar go too long? It’ll get stronger – to a point. And then the chemical reactions start backfiring on you and it actually will start converting back to water. This can take a few months or more.

Once you have a vinegar you like, you can filter and bottle the vinegar. First, remove the mother. You can save it for future vinegars. Most of mine get composted. Then filter the vinegar through a cheesecloth and bottle into narrow necked jars. Now you can cap the jars for storage. At this point, you don’t want oxygen contact with the vinegar because you want to stop the fermentation process.

You may find a new mother form in you stored bottles. This is most likely to happen if you don’t bottle it into narrow jars. If it happens, just fish it or strain it out of  there.

Your vinegar will continue to develop flavor as it ages. I have some two year old raspberry vinegar that has wonderfully deep flavor. You can even store the vinegar for three years or more, depending on the vinegar and storage conditions.

Ideas  for Using Vinegar

Obviously, cooking is a great use for flavored vinegars. Homemade vinegar can be used in almost any recipe calling for vinegar – including salad dressings, potato salad, coleslaw, and barbeque sauce. Just don’t use your vinegar in canning recipes that call for 5% vinegar since you don’t know the actual acidity of your vinegar.

If you make up a bunch of apple cider vinegar, you can use it for all sorts of health, cleaning and beauty products. While I do use vinegar in cleaning, I don’t use it for much of the health and beauty stuff myself. If you are interested in this, do a search for uses of apple cider vinegar and you’ll find lots of ideas such as wart remover or a digestive aid. I personally like the ideas for a hair conditioner, but then again I haven’t actually attempted it myself. Although, I will admit to giving the chickens a little apple cider vinegar in their water as a probiotic.

Along the idea of probiotics, as long as you don’t pasteurize or can your vinegar, it contains natural bacteria that are good for your gut. This is the same reason that yogurt and kiefer are good for us. Even using your homemade vinegar in your salad dressings is a great way to help introduce some additional good bacteria to our systems.