Private Preserving Classes

When I tell people about the place that I grew up, some of them laugh and tell me that I make it sound like Genoa City or Salem, like a made up place that doesn’t even exist except perhaps in my imagination. Yes, I went to high school with a girl named Missy Lee, the bar in town was called The Old Hole and we used to party at the swimming hole.

I grew up in Drayton Valley, Alberta. It’s a small town that had a population of around 5,500 people when I lived there. The town had one movie theatre and a drive-in, until one day in a wind storm the drive-in blew over and that was the end of the that. I remember the day that we got an A&W – we felt so ‘big time’. Now don’t misread this – I am not talking trash about Drayton, the exact opposite. I have many fond memories of the place and the childhood growing up in a small town like DV afforded me.

I had several different jobs during high school – I was a janitor at Dome Petroleum, I babysat, worked at the local drugstore and I taught gymnastics. I forgot until very recently how much I loved teaching. I took all of the courses required to be a certified teacher and I took my role as coach very seriously.

What got me thinking about my days as a gymnastics coach? Well over the past couple of months I have been teaching preserving classes with The Depanneur and Withrow Market and I have been absolutely loving it. Every single class has been filled with people who are genuinely interested in learning how to preserve. They come with great questions – and have forced me to really sit down and put on paper everything I have learned about preserving over the years from my Nona, my mom and through the large amount of reading I have done on the subject.

When the series of classes end, I want to keep sharing the knowledge that I have in a more active way than just sharing recipes through my blog or tweeting about it. I believe everyone should have at least a basic understanding of how to preserve food or at a minimum shouldn’t be afraid of the idea.

Starting in December, Manning Canning will be offering Private Preserving lessons. If you are having a girl’s night, a party weekend, a wedding shower or just want to learn to preserve witha glass of wine in one hand I will come over to your house with all the required ingredients, the tools and the know-how. All you need to do is decide if you want to make jam, pickles or something else. If this sounds interesting, shoot me an email at misscackles@gmail.com and let's get preserving!

Spicy Pickled Tomatoes

So it is time to deliver some new items to my taste testers and I am pretty excited about this round. One of the main reasons for my excitement is because I HATE to see good food go to waste. My garden is FULL of green tomatoes and I know deep in my heart that there is not going to be enough warm weather to make all of those green tomatoes turn red. Summer is over. I know it, even if I have not yet accepted it.

Last month I put some of the green tomatoes to good use in some green tomato salsa and I was pretty pleased with the results. So today I decided to make some spicy pickled tomatoes. My mother in law gave me recipe from her mother in law and I took the liberty to make a few minor changes. Most of them were simply to add some spice and with the rest I remained true to her recipe.

But I have to wonder what my taste testers will think. If they had a garden full of green tomatoes, which item would they choose to make? And if they are not the 'making' kind, which item would they choose to spend their hard earned dollars on.

In the next few weeks each taste tester will get a jar of the salsa and the pickled tomatoes and we will let them answer the questions for us.

Spicy Pickled Green Tomatoes

Ingredients

• 3-4 pounds green tomatoes. If using cherry tomatoes, no need to slice.
  
• 3 medium cooking onions, sliced
• 1 small red sweet pepper, chopped
• ¼ cup seeded and finely chopped jalapeno peppers
• 4 ½ cups white pickling vinegar
• 3 cups white sugar
• 2 tbsp mustard seed
• 5 tsp whole white peppercorns
• 2 tsp celery seed

Preparation:

Wash tomatoes. If you are using cherry tomatoes and you don't want them to float in the jar, prick the bottom of each tomato with a sterilized needle. Slice larger tomatoes 1/4-inch thick. Combine the tomatoes, onions, sweet peppers, and jalapeno peppers and set them aside.

In a large saucepan combine vinegar, sugar, mustard seed, peppercorns, and celery seed; bring to a boil. Turn off the burner and set aside.

Meanwhile, pack tomato mixture into hot, clean pint jars. Then pour hot vinegar mixture over mixture, leaving 1/2-inch headspace. Remove air bubbles with rubbr spatula or plastic knife and add more vinegar mixture if required. Wipe jar rims; hand tighten lids. Process jars in a boiling-water canner for 15 minutes.

Yields – 5 to 6, 500ml jars

Peach Preserves vs Peaches in a Light Syrup

Inquiring minds wanted to know. Well that might be an overstatement so let me rephrase. An inquiring mind wanted to know and that mind was me! What did I want to know, you ask? It’s simple. After years of putting up peaches in a light syrup to carry me through the winter, I wondered if there was a recipe out there that could top my current ‘go to’ recipe for peaches. It wasn’t that I was tired of the favourite peaches. It’s not like I was going to cheat on them so stop judging me. I was just curious…and I had a bushel of peaches fresh from the farmer’s market staring up at me from their wooden box.

I scoured some preserving cook books, checked out some of my favourite blogs and shortlisted it to three different recipes, made all 3 and personally chose one that was different enough but delicious enough to be a contender for my taste testers to put through the paces.

But before I get into the results let me tell you a bit about each recipe. The Peaches in a Light Syrup are quite simply peach slices in a very light sugar syrup. When you open the jar you get the fresh sweet smell of natural peaches. The colour is light and clear and the flavour is pure peach. The Preserved Peaches are different in that you let the peach slices macerate before you preserve them so the peach slices and the sugar get all juicy together. The addition of pectin to this recipe makes the syrup slightly thicker and to be honest there is just simply more sugar. The colour is bold and rich and the flavour is deep and rich but not as ‘peachy’. NOTE: I did not include the cinnamon or the almond extract as I wanted the peach flavour to stand on it's own.

photo credit: Nancy Lismer

I delivered a jar of both to each taste tester alongside a little questionnaire. Now not all of the results are in but there were some clear lines in the results that I will share with you now and they seemed to revolve around sweetness. If you like a sweeter product, the Preserved Peached are for you. The comments listed in the box below are highlights from some of the taste testers. Check it out.

	Preserved Peaches	Peaches Preserved in Syrup
Texture	LOVED the texture, thick, rich and syrupy. Because of the thickness the flavour lingered longer. It flirted on the palette	Peaches were still nice and firm so they didn’t fall apart
Rating	If you like sweet – that average rating came in between 8.5 and 9	For those taste testers who like a product that is less sugar-y the peaches in light syrup rocked a score of 10
Sweetness	9.5 – 10 (by those who liked and disliked the sweetness level)	3 - 6.5
Uses	All parties seemed to agree that this preserve would be great on ice cream or served as a desert. A suggestion came through that you could drizzle the juice on a pork chop and serve the peaches on the side.	Excellent for breakfast with yogourt or granola. Or as a key ingredient in a cocktail with sparkling wine
What would you tell someone about this product	The colour is gorgeous. Has a wonderful smoothness from a flavour and texture perspective. The syrup alone is so good and then you bite into the peach and the flavours just explode	It’s like a taste of summer in a jar.

 Taste testers - are you ready for your next delivery?

Simple Pickled Cauliflower

The first time I tried pickled cauliflower I was in Lisbon, Portugal in the mid 90's. I had quit my job and taken 6 months to travel around Europe on my own. My mom had decided to meet up with me for a few weeks and we rented a car and travelled through Portugal and Spain together. It was a welcome respite from trains and buses, hostels and cheap meals.

We had heard about this restaurant from some locals that we had run into earlier in the day and I can tell you I was looking forward to a hearty meal. My chicken dish came with a side of pickled carrots and cauliflower. Now I am not a fan of cauliflower in general. I rarely make dishes that include it, much to my husband's disappointment. So when I first received my meal I had kind of shuffled them to the side and determined I would leave them on my plate.

But then I took my first bite of the carrots and the flavour was amazing. You could tell these pickles had not been made recently, that they have been allowed some time for all the flavours to come together before someone opened that jar. The vinegar was tangy but not overwhelming, they were slightly spicy yet through it all you got the subtle flavour of the carrots. I decided I needed to know what this amazing brine had done to the cauliflower. WOW! Was I ever in for a treat. Yes, you could still taste the cauliflower, yet somehow the marriage of the cauliflower with the vinegar and the spices used brought it to life.

My mom and I went back the next night so we could have the pickles once more - and that is no lie. We even ordered them as a side to our meal so we could have more. I raved to our waiter about how great they were and told him that my mom made pickles and I would love the recipe. He politely smiled and said thank you and at the same time managed to completely deflect my request for the recipe.

The following recipe is the closest I have come to replicating the flavour of the pickled cauliflower I had all those years ago. It comes pretty close in my estimation and after leaving the first jar sit for 8 weeks it was opened for the first time this weekend and my husband and I had to put the lid back on and physically push the jar out of arms reach or we would have finished it in one sitting.

Pickled Cauliflower

Ingredients

• 4-5 medium to large heads of cauliflower, cut into bite size pieces
• 1 tsp crushed pepper flakes per jar
• ½ tsp mustard seed per jar
• ½ tsp dill seed per jar
• 1 whole garlic per jar
• 5 cups vinegar (1150 g)
• 5 cups water (2520 g)
• ½ cup salt (115g)

Preparation:

Wash and pat dry the cauliflower and cut it into bite size pieces. Place cauliflower pieces into your jars and fill tightly. Add spices and garlic.

Meantime, pour the vinegar and water into an 8 quart stainless steel pan over medium high heat. Add the salt and bring to a boil.

Ladle the hot syrup into the jars leaving ½” headspace. Using a spatula or plastic knife remove any air bubbles, and if necessary add more syrup. Wipe the jar rims and threads with a clean, damp cloth and cover with the hot lids and apply the screw rings.

Process 500ml jars in a 180-185F water bath for 30 minutes.

Yields – 5 to 6, 500ml jars

Top 5 Tomato Recipes - Pickled, Jammed or Preserved

Over the past few weeks I have literally been picking tomatoes off our 21 tomato plants on a daily basis. Some, like our cherry tomatoes get consumed the moment they are picked because they are so delicious that it is almost like eating candy. Others like our plum tomatoes I have been freezing, the beefsteak have been turned into some of the most delicious tomato sandwiches and the green tomatoes have transformed into green tomato salsa.

If you have an overabundance of tomatoes at the moment and are searching for inspiration on how to pickle, jam or preserve them, look no further. Here are 5 of the most inspiring tomato recipes I have come across this season.

http://hungrytigress.com/2012/09/oven-roasted-tomatoes-with-turkish-spices/#more-5083

I love this recipe for a couple of reasons. The fact that the flavour gets better once you have frozen the tomatoes and what better way to preserve your tomatoes than to oven roast them and then put them in the freezer for a rainy day.

http://wellpreserved.ca/2012/09/06/spicy-or-not-preserved-bbq-sauce/

Ever since my husband bought a Big Green Egg several summers ago he has been all about making his own rubs and bbq sauces. This one tops the list of recipes I want to try in October.

http://www.foodinjars.com/2010/10/small-batch-pickled-green-tomatoes/

I really hate to see good produce go to waste and I find that at the end of my garden season I am always left with enough green tomatoes to try at least a few different recipes. I was looking for a new pickled green tomato recipe when I stumbled across this one. I will definitely be trying it to see how it compares to my current recipe.

http://www.food52.com/recipes/411_sweet_savory_tomato_jam

Last winter I really fell in love with tomato jam and I made a couple of different types. Tomato Basil Jam was a tasty option. Spicy tomato jam was also great. Time to add something sweet and savory to the arsenal.

http://lacucinaitalianamagazine.com/recipe/preserved-tomatoes-with-basil-

Anytime someone puts tomatoes and basil together in a recipe I want to try it. It is like my kryptonite.

If you happen to try any of the above, share your thoughts. I would love to hear what you thought about them and how they turned out for you.