Strawberry Lemonade Concentrate

This delicious recipe comes from the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving. This book is my most valued resource when putting food up for the year and preserving the harvest. If you don't have a copy, GET ONE! Especially for the safety reassurance of canning. I like that these recipes have the Ball name backing them up. I feel reassured that the ingredients and ratios are appropriate for canning safety.

The toughest part of this recipe is reaming all the lemons of their juice. I had 17 lemons and it JUST made enough juice.

You can use store bought juice for this recipe, but I prefer the fresh squeezed.

Strawberry Lemonade Concentrate 

Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving pg. 192

6 cups hulled strawberries
4 cups freshly squeezed lemon juice
6 cups granulated sugar

1. Prepare canner, jars and lids according to Ball instructions
2. Puree strawberries
3. Pour strawberries into a large saucepan on medium heat. Add lemon juice and sugar. Still until sugar is dissolved. Heat to 190 degrees. Do not boil.
4 Pour hot concentrate into hot jars. Leave 1/4 inch head space. Wipe the rim of the jar so the seals make good connection. Top cans with lids and screw on bands.
5. Place jars in canner with 1 inch water covering. Bring to a boil. Process for 15 minutes. Remove canner lid. Wait 5 minutes, then remove jars.

For more information see pages 417-418 of the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving.

 

Farm Theme Coloring Book

I'm excited to announce that Iron Oak Farm is almost ready to release it's first Farm Themed Coloring Book! It will be available in our Etsy Shop. If you've been following us on Facebook, you've probably seen the various images I've been sharing with our readers. Last night I finished the last of the 40 images that will appear in the coloring book. Subjects include chicken keeping, goats, pigs, cows, bunnies, turkeys, ducks, shearing sheep, spinning yarn, bee keeping, milking, maple syrup collection, gardening, vegetables, apple picking, canning, plowing with tractors, and much more. There's a bunch of baby animal images too!  

When I was a child, coloring was my favorite past-time. I would go through coloring books and crayons at a pace so fast that my mom would limit the number of pages I was allowed to color in a day. When I got a little older, I remember being frustrated with coloring books at the store. I still enjoyed coloring, but most of the coloring books were themed around cartoons that I was no longer interested in. If your child likes farming, gardening, or being around animals, then this coloring book is perfect!

I see the joy that children experience around farms, animals and gardening, and it's my hope that this coloring book can bring a bit of that to them. Especially in the winter months when not much is happening on the farm or outside. I tried to use realistic images and real experience to create a book that is not only fun to color, but educational as well.

The finished book should be available by the end of this week. (That's my hope anyway, I'm still working on printing issues.) But in the meantime, I welcome you to print off this free Chicken Yard image for your children to enjoy and color. (Click the link for a printable version, or visit the Coloring Book page above.) I'd love for you to share your child's coloring work on the Iron Oak Farm Facebook Page!  

Mary Jane Farm Meeting, Making Salsa

Well, it was another successful farm meeting. We had ourselves a great Mexican Fiesta with salsa making.

We made 4 different salsas. One canned and three fresh.

Everyone brought ingredients from farmer's markets and their own gardens.

We chopped and laughed and blanched and boiled.

Everyone snacked on homemade Mexican treats and lots and lots of salsa and chips.

 Each person went home with a can or container of salsa to enjoy.

Thank you to everyone who participated, it was a great evening. 

Makeshift cactus out of floral foam and toothpicks.

Heirloom Pepper Jelly

Zach and I went to the Clarkston Farmer's Market last weekend and tasted some of the most delicious produce, pasta, cheese and bakery items. Clarkston has a beautiful market on Saturday mornings, 8am through 12 noon, June through October in the parking lot across from Depot Park.

While we were there we picked up some beautiful purple heirloom peppers. I used some for some fresh Gazpacho (along with some heirloom tomatoes, it made the most cheerful, colorful soup!) and the rest we made into jelly.








We modified the recipe that came with our pectin. 

We started by washing the jars, lids, bands and all canning tools with hot soapy water. Then we processed the jars in boiling water for ten minutes.

While we waited for the jars to boil we chopped the peppers into fine pieces. This is my favorite part, I love to use a knife in the kitchen, there's something relaxing and methodical about chopping up beautiful vegetables and piling them in a pot. All the colors and smells, sometimes I work on being fast, curving my knuckles towards the knife, sometimes I work on the size and uniformity of the pieces...too many hours of watching Food Network I guess.

I'm a bit sensitive to Jalapenos so Zach chopped those up for me. If you are sensitive to hot peppers wear latex gloves, or marry a blacksmith with leather hands to do you chopping for you. We used about 3 cups of peppers. You can change the ratio of sweet peppers to jalapeno depending on how spicy you want it.

When we had the peppers chopped we added cider vinegar and sugar and brought it to a rapid boil that couldn't be stirred down. Then we added the pectin, brought it to another rapid boil and boiled for one minute.
We ladled the hot tangy jelly into the clean jars using our canning funnel. We wiped any drips from the tops of the jars to ensure a good seal. Then we put on the lids and the bands and boiled the jars of jelly for 10 more minutes (check you local elevation for processing times)
The sound of the jars popping always makes me giggle a little inside. Pepper Jelly is delicious with cream cheese on crackers. It also makes a great dipping sauce for fried chicken, pork chops etc. Enjoy!!!

How to Make Refrigerator Pickles

For the past couple of years Zach and I have grown pickling cucumbers in our garden with pretty good success. Last year we had so many that we were looking for ways to use them up before they went bad. We tried several pickle recipes including one that processed the pickles in canning jars, and while I love to can, the pickles didn't have that fresh crunch. I started looking for refrigerator pickle recipes and couldn't find one that encompassed all the flavors that I was after. So after looking up the basic ingredients for the brine we've added and changed some things including the vinegar. Many of the recipes call for apple cider vinegar, which in my opinion, gives the pickles an aged taste, I like the freshness of the white vinegar. We also added fresh dill and garlic cloves. Here's our recipe.

Garlic Dill Pickles
Mix Brine, do not cook

2 qts. water
1/2 c. kosher salt
2 cups white vinegar
fresh dill
garlic cloves crushed
pickling cucumbers sliced into wedges

Rinse cucumbers, slice and pack in jars with 2 cloves garlic and small bunch of dill. Mix salt, water and vinegar, pour over cucumbers filling the jars. Leave pickles at room temperature for 3 days. Refrigerate after that.

I'm not sure how long the pickles keep in the refrigerator because we eat them too fast to let them spoil. We kept a can for about 2 weeks and they seemed fine, but the vinegar taste was a little strong.

Glossy Strawberry Jam

After berry picking, one of the best ways to preserve all those delicious berries is to can them into jams and jellies. You'll thank yourself come winter.

Your will need:

• canning jars with new lids
• berries
• sugar
• pectin (there are many types of pectin, use the recipe for your type of pectin)
• pairing knife
• colander and bowl for soaking and rinsing the berries
• giant pot for sterilizing and processing
• optional canning supplies, funnel for ladling the jam into jars, a jar grabber, magnet on a stick to pick up the lids from the bottom of the boil pot. (There are many gadgets that can help with the canning process, many times you can substitute these items for things you already have in your kitchen, but they can make the process easier, and are relatively inexpensive.)

Start by removing all the green leaves from each of the strawberries. You can purchase a fancy do-hicky that is designed just for that task, but a pairing knife works just fine. We compost all the scraps.

Then wash the berries several times in cold running water with a bowl in a colander. I rinse until the water in the bowl is clear.  

In the meantime start your water boiling to sanitize the jars. We run them through the dishwasher then boil them and the lids for 10 minutes. Place on a clean towel to dry. Read instructions carefully, there are lots of factors that effect boiling times for jam, including elevation levels.

Each pectin recipe is slightly different depending on the brand you buy. Some call for lemon juice, some alternate the order in which you boil the strawberries, sugar and pectin. We used Sure-Jell this time. It called for 5 cups of crushed strawberries and 7 cups of sugar. We use a hand pastry blender to mash our berries. A food processor blends them a little too much for my taste. I like my jam chunky. 

Then we heated the berries and the sugar until they boiled. Once they boiled for the correct amount of time, we added the pectin and let them boil for one remaining minute. We skim off the foam with a shallow spoon. Some recipes you can add margarine or butter to reduce foam, but this is optional.

After that we ladle the hot jam into the jars using our funnel. Wipe each jar with a damp paper towel to remove residue so the lid seals properly. Then place the jars back into the boiling pot bring back to a boil and boil for 12 minutes. Remove carefully. And let cool, if you did it right, the jar lids will pop. pop, pop and seal...ahhh music to my ears.

Check out the Hobby Farm Home July/August 2010 magazine. They have some interesting recipes for infusing your jams and jellies with fresh herbs.