English Mint Jelly

It all started with a visit from my mother in law. Now that is not as ominous as it sounds, in fact I think I won the 'mother in law' lottery. We get along like a house on fire. On this particular visit she didn't come empty handed. She came clutching a small mint plant from her garden and that mint plant originally came from her mother's garden located in South Molton in England. I don't know if you have ever had the pleasure of trying english mint, but it is different than the mint you may be used to seeing in our Canadian grocery stores. The flavour and aroma are much stronger and the leaves of the plant itself are thicker and more rigid in structure.

It was last summer and we had requested some mint to add to our own herb garden. We already had basil, sage, lavender and lemon thyme and the mint was welcomed with open arms. However, we learned the hard way that mint is perhaps better suited for container gardening. In our excitement we had planted it in a small area in the garden that we had prepared for it earlier that day. Within 4 weeks it had completely filled the previously empty space and was travelling into the lawn, the basil and had even creeped out into the lettuce area.

This summer before we expanded and planted our garden, we dug up what we thought was all of it's root structure and relocated it into 4 different containers in our yard. That was back in early May and it is now the end of September and I am still pulling up persistent mint from our garden on a weekly basis.

What does one do when their garden is bursting with mint? Mojitos are always a good first stop, but when you want a non-alcoholic option - mint jelly is always a great next step.

English Mint Jelly

Yield: Approx 6 - 250ml jars

7 cups lightly packed and finely chopped English Mint leaves (divided in 2)

4.5 cups water

1/4 cup fresh lemon juice, filtered

4-6 drops green food colouring

7 cups sugar

2 pouches liquid pectin (6 oz total)

You will start with approximately 16 cups of mint leaves that have been removed from the stems. You want the leaves only. Wash and rinse 8 cups and then pat dry. Leave the remaining 8 cups until you are cooking the jam and repeat the same chopping process for them. Get the leaves as dry as possible and then finely chop either by hand or using a food processor.

Place the first 3.5 cups chopped mint into a pot and cover with 4.5 cups of water and bring to a boil. Remove from the heat, cover and let soak for at least an hour or overnight in the fridge.

Strain the juice over a bowl using a fine mesh sieve or a cheese cloth or bag. Throw out the mint and keep the juice. Cover it in the bowl and let it sit for an hour or overnight once again. Ladle the juice into another container being sure not to stir up any of the sediment that is resting on the bottom of the bowl. Throw out the sediment. Then if you want a nice clear jelly, strain the juice 2-3 times more using a coffee filter.

You will end up with 3.5 cups of the mint juice, nicely strained and clear.

In a medium pot, pour the mint juice, add the strained lemon juice and the green food colouring. Over medium heat warm the mixture slightly. While the mixture is heating, take your remaining 8 cups of mint leaves and chop finely and set aside.  Once the mint juice is warm add all 7 cups of sugar. Stirring constantly until the suar dissolves and then increase the heat slightly to bring the mixture to a rolling boil. Stir in the liquid pectin and stirring constantly once again bring to a rolling boil. Once it achieves the rolling boil status keep it at this heat for a full minute. Remove the pan from the heat and add the chopped mint leaves.

Let mixture sit for 5 minutes so not all of the mint will float and then ladle into previously sanitized jars. Leave 1/4 headspace. Wipe the rims with a clean damp cloth and apply lids. Water bath for 10 minutes.

Finding New Ways to Say Thank You

Have you ever had those moments in your life when you just weren’t sure how to thank someone for something they did for you? In this particular case what this person did was not exactly a ‘favour’, it was more of a business agreement. As in I gave her a brief, she gave me a quote and at the end of the day payment exchanged hands. Yet somehow it still did not feel like enough.

I have spoken about my friend Mich and her amazing design skills in previous posts. She was the creative talent behind the logo and label design for Manning Canning. She completely nailed what I wanted for my brand and by doing so gave me the courage to put the things that I make out there for sale and for other’s judgement and consumption.

The ‘giving me the courage’ part is what I have struggled with how to thank her for. Now don’t get me wrong, I am not giving Mich more credit than she deserves or undermining my own courage by feeling I need to thank her for the part she played.

Normally I would have just invited her and her lovely husband over for dinner, overfed them, plied them with drinks and desserts and in some way this would have been my silent ‘extra’ thank you. But you see Mich and her family no longer live in Ontario. Their dreams have taken them to Nova Scotia. So what else could I do?

I got the idea one day in the commercial kitchen when I was filling my 45ml jam jars in preparation for the market. The only way I knew how to thank her was to send her a sample of every product that I make and bundle them up in my small jars and mail them to her as a little surprise.

So over the weeks sample sized jars of peach jam, raspberry jam, pineapple jam, ploughman’s pickle, Zucchini relish, beer jam, onion garlic jam, rhubarb jam and some that I can’t even remember now got tucked aside. It took a couple of months for me to get enough samples made before I could send the package off. But I finally got it mailed in August.

Yesterday…this arrived in the mail and I knew that my ‘extra’ thank you had done just what I wanted it to do. I am smiling as I write this ;).

 

Sugar is not evil! What you need to know about its role in preserving.

I can’t tell you the number of times I have been asked a question along the lines of “Can I reduce the sugar in this recipe?” or “Could I substitute honey for sugar?” The short answer is most likely ‘yes’ in both instances, but you have to understand why sugar is part of the recipe in the first place and what will happen if you decide to alter the amount.

Jams, jellies and marmalades (in general) are all made from a balance of four ingredients. The proportion of each in relation to the other is required to achieve the right ‘set’.

-          Fruit, sugar, pectin and acid

 Sugar plays an important role in two ways; set and preservation

 Too little sugar, acid or pectin in relation to the fruit and you jam will remain liquidy.

Too much sugar, acid or pectin and your jam will be stiff.

 When you cook jam it is cooked to 220 degrees F and at this temperature, the heated sugar will bond with the pectin and provide your jam with the desired structure or ‘set’.

 Products higher in sugar have a much longer shelf life than those will lower sugar. This means that if you cut the sugar in your recipe in half, two things will happen. You will end up with a runny jam and its shelf life will be drastically reduced.

 If a runny jam that is more like syrup in consistency that only lasts in your pantry for a limited period of time is ok with you, then yes feel free to reduce the sugar.

Note: If you want to make a jam with less sugar, use a pectin designed specifically for this purpose and follow the enclosed directions closely.

Splendid Green Tomato Salsa

I knew something had to be done about the current situation, but I was paralyzed with indecision. There had to be over 30 of them, just hanging there practically staring at me. What were we thinking when we opened that seed package back in the spring? We could have stopped with 10, but I think we were both still feeling the leftover effects of our tremendous failure from last year. We thought, what was the worst thing that could happen and we tipped the contents from the package into our hands and began to plant.

You see last year was our first attempt at growing tomato plants from seed. The first batch we made the fatal error of having the lights too far away and our plants were stringy and pitiful. So we dumped those and tried again. This time, our lighting was perfect, but still something went wrong and they got some terrible fungus. Let’s just say there wasn’t a happy ending with that round either.

So this spring, we went and got seeds for 3 different types of tomatoes (roma, cherry and beefsteak). We were using our success rate from last year as our measuring stick for success and decided to plant 8 plants of each assuming we would lose 50% of them.

 Well we didn’t. We lost 3 plants in total. The rest did just what we had hoped would happen. They weren’t stringy and they didn’t get a fungus. So what did we do? We planted all 21 of them. Do you have any idea how many tomatoes 21 tomato plants produce? I am not complaining…in fact I love it and I would change very little about the number of tomatoes I would plant next year. I have had the most delicious cherry tomatoes in my salads, some are frozen in my deep freeze, I shared some with my neighbours and made the rest into jam.

 

But it is September and there are still a lot of tomatoes on the plants in my yard. Green Tomatoes – and I was at a loss as to what to do with them. I found myself standing in the garden looking at them and hoping for inspiration. None came.

So I did what any social media savvy person would do, I put a call out on twitter asking for suggestions.

I received a fabulous fried green tomato suggestion from someone as well as Green Tomato Pickle and the offer for the family recipe, which I thought was fabulous. But the suggestion that piqued my interest was for Green Tomato Salsa. They even included the specific recipe they would like me to use.

How could I refuse a request as specific as that? I changed a few small things. I added more jalapeno’s because I prefer my salsa on the spicier side. I only used 3 red peppers, used 8 garlic cloves and ½ tsp cayenne pepper. The rest I followed exactly as outlined and the result is delicious. Slightly tart, somewhat spicy with almost an earthy flavour. The great thing about this recipe and I am speaking personally and it might be grounded in my intrinsically selfish side is the YIELD! I got 12, 250ml jars from one batch.

 I have put aside a jar for you Nolin seeing as the request was yours. Come and get it!

 There are still plenty of green tomatoes awaiting a home, so if you provide me with the inspiration, I will provide you with a jar of the final product.

 

Temtpress Truffles and Jacobsen Salt

Sometimes it is the ingenuity, inventiveness and courage of total strangers that can provide you with that little push that you need to keep going down what is sometimes a difficult path. I don’t mean to sound all dramatic or anything. It is not like I was climbing Mount Everest or saving lives. I was just working 2 full time jobs for the last 6 months and my candle was burned right down to the nub.

I had been looking forward to our trip out to Portland. I had received some great restaurant recommendations, booked a room in a great little hotel, scheduled some much needed vacation time and registered for the International Food Blogger’s Conference.

As expected – the food was great. If you are interested in the restaurants we went to and thoroughly enjoyed you can check the list at the bottom. The conference was interesting, there were some great speakers and I felt like I left with some valuable information.  If you are interested it is being held in Seattle, Washington next year.

But it is not the food, Portland or the conference that this is all about. This is a story of 2 people with whom I crossed paths and in doing so found myself re-inspired and motivated all over again.

Her name is Elan and his is Ben. Our interactions were fleeting at best and each of them had a story that weeks after my trip to Portland concluded, I have found myself sharing with others.

Elan after determining that her career in dog training was no longer rewarding because she had realized she was training the owners and not really the dogs, decided to combine her love of dogs, nature and food. She began to train her dogs to find truffles and has started a company called Temptress Truffles. She makes amazing Truffle Salted Caramel Sauce and I tucked a little of her passion and ingenuity in my back pocket after meeting her.

Ben has started Oregon’s first salt harvesting facility since Lewis and Clark. Wow! His salt has a nice clean finish and if you can get your hands on some, I highly recommend it. He told a story of perseverance, of ruined batches and of not giving up. Keep an eye out for Jacobsen Salt.

Thanks Elan and Ben for inspiring me when I needed it and giving me a little burst of inspiration by simply following your dreams.

Restaurants we enjoyed in Portland

The Ox - oxpdx.com

Pok Pok - www.pokpokpdx.com

The Bent Brick - thebentbrick.com

Riffles NW - rifflenw.com

Shigezo - shigezo-pdx.com

Scrumptious Preserved Ginger Pears

I remember vividly the first time I tried it. From who I was with, to the lighting in the restaurant. I was nervous - this was my first exploration into the land of sushi. I was with an old, dear friend; Blair Shimbashi. I figured if anyone would steer me down the path to good sushi, it would be Blair. I was not a very adventurous eater as a child. In fact one might say that I swayed closer to the term 'picky' than I did adventurous.

It wasn't until I was in University that I was brave enough to try Thai food and I was well past university when I decided I was ready for sushi.

To my surprise and Blair's delight, I loved it. I gobbled up everything on my plate; from the tuna to the eel. I couldn't get enough washabi, but the one thing that stopped me in my tracks was the ginger. I didn't like it. I am not sure if it was the texture, the aroma or the flavour, but there was something about it that turned me right off.

It took almost a decade until my taste buds changed their minds. And change their mind they did. I don't just suffer through or tolerate ginger now. I LOVE IT! I could add ginger to almost everything if given the chance.

A few years ago, a friend of mind knowing about my most recent love affair handed me a recipe for Ginger Pears. She had found it tucked in the back of a recipe book and she was uncertain of the source. Using Google Recipe Search, I was able to track it down to here. I can't be certain that is where she got it from, but it is pretty darn close.

Not to take away from the source that Google Recipe gave me, but I am going to share the recipe with you as she shared it with me. There are subtle differences and I think the yield in her recipe is much more accurate.

I hope that the people that have signed up for my first canning class at The Depanneur are as crazy about Ginger as I am as we will be making this together in just a couple of nights.

Preserved Pears with Ginger

Ingredients

• 3 cups granulated sugar
• 3 cups water
• 3 tablespoons lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon lemon zest*
• 1 teaspoon fresh ginger, finely chopped or grated
• 2 lbs pears, cored, peeled, and quartered
• 3 tablespoons crystallized ginger, chopped (candied ginger)
• 3 or 4 500ml jars and lids

* Lemon zest is a necessary ingredient for this recipe, so please don’t leave it out. It provides natural pectin to the syrup and thickens the preserves.

Preparation:

Sterilize the 500ml jars and lids and set them aside.

In a large saucepan, heat the sugar, water, lemon juice, lemon zest, and fresh ginger to a boil. Lower the temperature so the mixture is simmering, and cook, stirring occasionally, for 10 minutes.

Add the quartered pears and crystallized ginger to the saucepan and continue cooking for 30 minutes, until the preserves thicken and coat a spoon.

Pack the pears and gingered syrup into the sterilized jars leaving ½” headspace. Wipe rims, apply lids and rings. Process jars in a boiling water bath canner for 10 minutes. This recipe yields 3 to 4, 500ml jars.

Goodbye to my Nona - she was one hell of a lady

Warning; This post is R rated due to inappropriate language

Just last weekend I was out in BC to help celebrate my Uncle Rudy and my Auntie Dena’s 50^th wedding anniversary. It was a great party, but also a really lovely weekend. All of my sisters ( except one) were able to make the trip with their husbands and kids. My cousins and all of their kids were there, friends of my Aunt and Uncle whom I have known my entire life were all in one room together celebrating love that has lasted 50 years. That in itself was a beautiful thing.

There were many changes this trip that took some getting used to as well. It would be my first time seeing my 96 year old Nona in a home. I was fortunate to have been able to spend the last Christmas with in her own home and we even washed dishes together.

Now my Aunt and Uncle have moved into her house and I had prepared myself to feel sad at not seeing her house the way I always remembered it. But walking  through to door, I felt nothing but happiness, it was like new life had been breathed into the bones of the house and I knew if Nona could see the changes and how happy my Aunt and Uncle were there, she too would have been happy.

I got to see Nona 3 times over the weekend. All of us made a trip out to see her at one point or another and she mentioned how happy she was to see us all. She had slowed down a lot even from when I saw her at Christmas, but she was still Nona and managed to make us all laugh. My sister, my nephew,  my mom and I had gone for a visit and when we arrived, Nona was asleep on the chair in her room with her feet up on a foot stool. We woke her and she lowered her feet to the floor so that we would all have somewhere to sit. My sister on the stool, mom on a chair and my nephew and I on the edge of her bed. Even though we had just woken her up, she was alert and interested in the  stories we were telling her about the party.

When it was time to leave, we asked her if she wanted her feet back up on the stool and she said ‘Not til we are done with kisses.”. It made me laugh out loud. We each gave her a kiss and told her how much we loved her and then we lifted her feet back up onto the stool and left the room.

My Nona was always saying things that made me laugh. She had the tremendous ability to laugh at herself, which I have been told by her health care workers is something to be cherished in someone her age.

Just over 20 years ago now, I had just moved to Toronto and I was dating a guy named Andrew. Mom and Nona had come for a visit, she would have been in her 70’s at this point and we had decided to go watch him play soccer this one summer afternoon. It was hot. Toronto hot, and it was humid.

We arrived as they were still warming up and we took our place on the bleachers. There wasn’t a lick of shade and very little breeze. I could tell the heat was getting to both my mom and my nona. I noticed a tree at the end of the field behind the goalie and suggested we relocate to the grass and watch the game from there.

We settled down onto the grass just as the team began to take practice shots on net. Each time the ball managed to sneak past the goalie, he would curse. Fuck, shit, son of a bitch, etc. And each time he would curse my mom would “tsk” and inhale to show her disgust. This went on for what was longer than seemed possible until finally, I said “If his language is bothering you, we could go sit back on the bleachers”. My nona shifted her weight, leaned back and crossed her arms and said with an ever so slight Italian accent “He can Fuck all he want, I’m not moving from the shade”.

The response was instantaneous. My mother and I erupted in fits of laughter. I had never heard my nona use that word before, but it had just flew out of her mouth with such emphasis. It was amazing.

Suffice it to say, we watched the game in the shade.

A few years later (Nona was in her late 70’s at this point)  when I was living in England, my sister, mom and nona came over for a visit and we all went to Italy together. We went to the town where my Nona had been born and we saw the house she grew up in, took her around to call on old friends and went and spent time with relatives I had never met before.

On our road trip we stopped at a gas station along the way to get some lunch and use the rest rooms. Nona, my sister and I all rushed to the ladies room as it had been a long time between stops, we opened the stall door and discovered that there was no toilet but merely a ceramic hole in the floor. This was new to all of us and we asked Nona if she was going to need some help. She said no and that she would be fine, she entered and closed the door. A few minutes later, the door opens and Nona emerges with a slight smile on her face. She looks at us and says “Bulls eye”.

That was Nona. Always making you laugh when you least expected it.

I got a call from my mom last night. My nona had her dinner and sat in the dining room at the home for a bit and then she went off to her room. For whatever reason, a nurse poked her head in to check-in  on her and Nona had passed away.

It was how I always wanted her to go, quietly in her sleep without suffering. I suppose I got what I wanted, but it doesn’t make saying good bye any easier.

She was a one of a kind lady and I know that each and every one of her kids and grand kids is feeling a huge loss today. But we can all remember how made us smile even when she was washing our elbows in the tub with Comet and an SOS pad, how she could fill a house with the smell of fresh baked bread, how we would help her roll the home made gnocchi with a fork in her kitchen, how until her late 60’s she never told us she loved us, but would always respond “Me Too”, how she hand plucked every dandelion that dared to show it’s face on her lawn. The list is long.

Nona – you were one of a kind and you will be missed.

It's time for the showcase showdown

 

Taste testers, this is just a little preview as to what you will be receiving in the coming week. On the left are the Preserved Peaches. I am extremely interested to try these beauties myself as this is the first time I have ever preserved peaches this way. What makes this particular jar of peaches unique is that there is a little pectin in the liquid so the juice from the peaches combined with the pectin should make for a firmer, perhaps almost jelly like consistency. Whereas the smaller jar on the right is my fall-back-all-time-favourite recipe and it is simple - peaches in a light syrup.

I am excited to be delivering these babies along with a little handout that explains what I would like you to do and the types of information I will be looking to get from you.

Wake those tastebuds up and grab a bowl and a spoon!

Preserved Peaches vs Peaches in light syrup

I was kind of panicking last week when I realized that it was mid August and I still had not canned my yearly stash of peaches. A couple of months ago I opened my last jar of peaches that I had put away this time last year and there was no way I was going to go a full year without a steady supply.

I went out and bought fresh Ontario peaches, laid them out on my table in the basement and sat down to peruse some recipes to decide what I would do with them this year.

I have my 'go to' recipe of peaches in a light syrup that I make every year. It is tried and true, but surely there are other delicious things to do with peaches besides this and jam.

I came across a recipe for Preserved Peaches and the fact that it contained pectin caused me to pause and think about what it might taste like. I decided I needed to find out. Over the next couple of days the kitchen was a flurry of activity as I blanched, peeled, sliced and preserved peaches. I now have several cases of both recipes in my cool room and in a couple of weeks time once the flavours have settled I will be giving each of the amazing 'taste tester' volunteers a jar of each to try and review. At that point in time, I will share the recipes as well as the reviews from the taste testers.

Taste testers - get your forks or spoons ready. Your first samples will be ready in early September.

Taste Testers Wanted

Throughout the months of September, October and November Manning Canning is going to be busy in the test kitchen experimenting with new recipes to see how they can be improved, bring out new flavours, reduce the amounts of sugar used, etc. But we are also going to pit recipes against one another to see which recipe is the better of the two.

If you believe yourself to have a discerning palette, are willing to taste test several different preserves; be it pickle, jam, relish or jelly and are also willing to share your honest feedback and have me share it with others in any of my on-line spaces, let me know. Unfortunately at this point in time, I can only open this opportunity up to those in the Greater Toronto Area. Just enter your name and why you are interested in being a Manning Canning Taste Tester in the comment section below as well as the best way to contact you.

And if you are interested, the first recipe battle will be Peach Preserves vs Canned peaches in a light syrup.