Rhubarb-Orange Marmalade

So this marmalade came into being because we have a LOT of rhubarb. Last year, at the beginning of spring, my husband and I split our plant into 8 smaller plants. We gave away 4 of them, and kept 4. Those divisions were fairly large and now I have 4 huge plants.

My rhubarb is green. It's a Victoria-type that's very sweet, very tender and tends to have thinner stalks that get very long. The bottoms are red, but the lengths are a celery green.

Those oranges are fairly large oranges.

There are a lot of recipes for orange-rhubarb marmalade on the internet. They call for various cooking methods and varying amounts of the ingredients. Sometimes they have nuts or spices in them. Our recipe is fairly simple, but it's really tasty. My daughter did the cooking. I did the harvesting and gave her the recipe.

Rhubarb-Orange Marmalade- makes 3 pints of marmalade

You will need:

7 cups of  rhubarb  (12-15 stalks)
2 large navel oranges
6 cups of sugar
2 cups of water

Wash your fruits. Anything that you grow yourself and you know what gets on it, you can decide how best to wash it. For oranges from the store, wash with a bit of soap and water. For store bought rhubarb, dunk it in 1:4 vinegar water mix, scrub lightly, then rinse.

Zest the oranges into a bowl using a paring knife, microplane or vegetable peeler. After that, cut the orange into quarters, and cut off the peel and pith. Then cut the quarters in smaller pieces and put them in the bowl.

Cut the rhubarb into half inch pieces. This might require cutting them in half length-wise then chopping them into smaller pieces.

Put the rhubarb, oranges, sugar and water into a heavy bottomed 5 quart pan and bring to a boil. Turn it down and let it simmer for about an hour stirring frequently. It will thicken. Check it by lifting the spoon, when it sheets off the spoon, it's ready.

While you're doing that, prepare your jars. We used a combination of 4 oz jars and those gorgeous Ball Canning Elite Jelly Jars that are in the photo.

Fill the jars leaving a 1/4 inch headroom, remove bubbles, wipe rims and process jars (hot water method) for 10 minutes.

This makes a lovely, tart and sweet marmalade that is delicious on pancakes according to my daughter who is eating some just that way right this moment. Me? It's hard not eating it just by the spoonful, but I'm looking forward to trying it on chocolate ice cream.

International Can-It Forward Day 2016!!!!

It's that time of the year again! When our gardens and the U-Pick-Its are starting to really produce. When it's time to start canning! When Ball® brand has there International Can-It Forward Event with lots of opportunities to learn and win  Ball® products!

So a little personal history before I start reviewing and talking about the AMAZING jam my daughter made...

I canned as a kid with my mom, and when I was invited to be a part of International Can-It-Forward, used the opportunity to teach my daughter to can. Since then, we have not bought any jams or jellies. That's one way I canned it forward- by learning from my mother and teaching my daughter.

This year, my garden had enough excess from my perennials that I was able to give plants to my friends to grow their own berries and rhubarb. That's another way to Can-It Forward- by sharing plants that you know are good producers with friends who like to can.

My daughter and I can a lot of jams and jellies and give them to friends and local charities. That's another way to Can-It Forward. Friends from hotter states see my raspberries and get excited knowing they will get some of the amazing jam made from it.

You can also teach people to can, give them a basic supply kit to start in small scale canning. That's another great way to Can-It Forward.

You can take the pledge here to learn about canning and share the love of canning and learn what Ball® brand is doing for charities in the spirit of Can-It Forward. You will also get a 5.00 off coupon for the Fresh Preserving Store for taking the pledge!

This year, the fine people at  Ball® brand sent me their new cookbook, The All New Book of Canning and Preserving, a case of those gorgeous blue wide mouth jars you see in the background of this photo and a $5.00 off coupon for the Fresh Preserving Store and will give the same thing to one of my lucky readers in the U.S.A.!!  Leave a comment to enter and we will pick a name at random to win on the 24th! Shipping will be directly from the prize supplier, and I'll need a way to contact the winner to get the information- email, FB page or Twitter account. 

So the book? We went through the recipes and there are a lot we are planning to try. My son is particularly enthused about the Fiery Fermented Hot Sauce recipe that uses habanero peppers. I like the idea of making my own Worcestershire sauce because we use it a lot. But it's the jellies and jams that we always look at first. We made the Strawberry-Rhubarb jam on page 30. There are soup recipes, instructions for making kombucha and other fermented goodness, sauces, seasoning mixes and all sorts of other yumminess that makes fantastic gifts or ways to save money and provide good food for your family and friends. 

Just as an aside, a couple weeks I commented on a photo on Ball Canning on Facebook  that I can never grow enough strawberries to can my own. A lot of people liked the comment so apparently I'm not the only one! We bought strawberries, but rhubarb, that amazing plant, we have plenty of that. So we chose between this and a rhubarb-orange marmalade. 

The jam is fantastic!! If you like Strawberry-rhubarb pie, you'll love this jam. It's like having dessert for breakfast. As soon as the photo above was taken, my daughter grabbed the English muffin. I think her face says it all. 

The book is full of great recipes that are clearly written with the steps written out very well for beginners. Like any of the Ball® publications, it has photo step by steps for canning methods.

If your a more visual learner, be sure to tune in on the Ball Canning Facebook page on Friday July 22nd for videos from 10:00AM – 3:30PM ET. Each hour, viewers will have the chance to win a giveaway prize!

During those hours, there will also be experts answering questions on their Twitter page- @BallCanning  #canitforward

You can also post things on Pinterest and Instagram using #canitforward and check out their Pinterest page here- Ball® Canning on Pinterest, BallCanning on Instagram.

Ooh..  I just opened this book at random and found a recipe for Summer Bounty Zucchini Relish that looks fantastic. I need to check my garden and see how my zucchini is doing.

It's so easy being green- tomatoes, jars and salsa (with a giveaway!)

You already know that we are big fans of Ball® jars and food preservation products. We use them for everything. Drinking glasses with their new lids, canning!! making yogurt and more recently making chia pudding. 

Ball® sent me some really cool things to review, use and enjoy AND they are going to give away the same things to one lucky reader!

The Ball Blue Book® Guide is THE go to guide for food preservation. Between this book and a good extension service, you have a wealth of information ready to go for preserving your garden and summer market finds for the year. 

The Ball® Heritage Green Jars are my favorite. It's hard to choose, because the Elite jars are so stylish, and last year's blue jars are my daughter's favorite color- but green is my favorite. Look how pretty that color is! This year they come in two sizes- pints and quarts. 

The Herb Series
The  Ball® Dry Herb Jars are really nice. If you grow herbs (and you should, it's so easy and can be done in containers)- all you do is hang them to dry, then after they are completely dry, put them in the jars. I like the jars because they are nice, wide and easy to fill compared to using standard spice jars and a funnel. They also have shaker tops. Those are the jars with the black lids, the green flips up to reveal generously sized holes for shaking crushed herbs into your recipes. 

The  Ball® 5 Blade Herb Scissors are really helpful for fresh herbs. If you look on top of the sheath for them, you can see some chives that I've chopped into nice small rings. Already to go into all sorts of summer recipes, they also work fantastically well for leafy herbs like cilantro. 

At the end of this post, I'll tell you how you can win all these things, plus a Fresh Herb Keeper, and Ball® Frozen Herb Starters. The Ball® Fresh Herb Keeper is the ideal way to keep things like cilantro fresh in your fridge for a couple of days. Those leafy herbs that tend to wilt too quickly stay fresh and pretty enough to use for a garnish in the keeper, and the Frozen Herb Starters are silicone trays with lids that you can make frozen cubes that are ready for recipes. Put your favorite soup seasonings stock or water and freeze for fresh flavor that's ready to go, or you can use olive oil and other fats as well. 

Ball® Canning and International Can-It-Forward-Day

Tomorrow, August 16th, there will be events across the Ball® Canning social channels. They are pretty nifty. A live webcast canning demonstration by Chef  Hugh Acheson, a demonstration of how to make Pepper Jelly using the Ball® FreshTECH Automatic Jam and Jelly Maker (I have one, and love it, my daughter loves it even more), crafts, even more canning and recipes- check the link above for a complete schedule and follow Ball® on their social channels- 
@BallCanning on Twitter, Follow BallCanning on Pinterest, like on BallCanning on Facebook

 Did you see the little tomatoes in the photo above? 

I have 8 beautiful tomato plants, and so far have had 2 red tomatoes. There are a lot of flowers, and a lot of green tomatoes. A quick search on FreshPreserving.com yielded this recipe for a salsa verde that uses the Ball® FreshTECH Automatic Jam and Jelly Maker. So easy, we have the cilantro and tomatoes in our garden, the rest of the fresh ingredients can be gotten at a farmer's market, and it will look gorgeous in those green jars. 

So do you want to win everything I mentioned? 

• Ball Blue Book® Guide 
• Ball® Heritage Green Jars pint and quart size
• Ball® Dry Herb Jars
• Ball® 5 Blade Herb Scissors
• Ball®Fresh Herb Keeper
• Ball® Frozen Herb Starters

Leave a comment here or on my Facebook post 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Mason Jar Lamp

The jar lamp above was so simple to make, it only takes knowing three knots. The simple overhand knot that everyone uses, and how to tie a good square knot, and a lark's head.

I use one of my Ball Heritage Blue jars for this, a strand of battery operated LED fairy lights, and inexpensive cotton cord from the local grocery store. The most expensive part is the strand of LED fairy lights at 10 dollars a strand, but they operate off of standard AA batteries so it's easy to swap out batteries. I also used aluminum foil to cover the battery case, and provide reflection. You can also use little LED tea lights.

This is the kind of cord I used- you can find it at Menards, Fred Meyers, and hardware stores- but it doesn't have to be this kind, any kind of medium weight household twine will work. Don't use yarn, it's too stretchy.

You will need:

• cord
• a jar (doesn't have to be a Ball Heritage jar, but isn't that pretty? This year they have GREEN jars!)
• scissors
• glue- I used Tacky Glue
• strand of LED fairy lights (optional- could use a battery operated tea light instead)
• foil

Cut 10 strands of cord 30 inches long- about an arms length from the center of your chest out to your finger tips if you don't want to measure! 

Then cut a piece that's about 14 inches long, fold the 10 long cords in half, and tie them in lark's head knots along the length of the 14 inch piece. Lark's head means you'll hold the loop on one side of the cord, then pass the ends around the cord through the loop and pull to tighten.

Take the lid and band off the jar, tie the 14 inch piece tight around the top of the jar under the threads, securing with a square knot.

A good square knot is a strong knot, accidentally switching the orientation of one side of the knot makes a granny knot which isn't a good knot. So always remember, right over left and twist, left over right and twist. 

Count 3 cords out from both sides of the knot, arrange those so they are directly opposite each other and the same distance from the center knot.Tie those two sets of cords together for the hanger. Tuck them into the jar for the time being.

Arrange the rest of the cords so they are spaced evenly around the jar, and take one right hand cord from pair, and a left hand cord from the cord pair to the left and tie a square knot about an inch down from the anchor cord. Repeat all the way around. If it helps to use a piece of cardboard to space them, do that.

Keep repeating that around, until you've made a set of knots that's about an inch past the bottom of the jar. 

Now for the trickiest part. Except it's not really tricky. Knotting the bottom so it will be flat enough to put on a flat surface if you don't want to hang it.
Please ignore the hair in the picture. I know better than snap these shots without putting my hair up first, but I was too excited about how good it looked with the fairy lights in it!

Tie the right hand cord from one pair to the left hand cord of the next pair in a square knot that's directly under the last row of knots. Repeat around.
Then do that again. Seal all the knots with a bit of glue and let the glue dry and trim the ends.

If you are going with the same set of battery operated fairy lights I used, make a loose pouch of the foil to put the battery case in, and stuff the whole thing in the jar. You'll need to be able to get to the switch so make sure it's on the open end of the pouch.

 These are the lights I used- they also come in blue so The Amazing Turnip Girl is making a jar lamp for her room using the blue lights.

Cozy Jelly Jars Crochet Pattern

So lately I'm crocheting cozies for jelly jars- because they look so cute all dressed up. It would also be a nice way to share a spice mix, you could use it with a Cuppow for a small drinking jar.

These patterns are sized for the half pint quilted jelly jars with the regular mouth by Ball Canning.

Both jars use a size G hook and worsted weight yarn- I like Lily Sugar 'n Cream very much for these sorts of projects and you can see how the Batik color way created a spiral effect on the jar in back.
Gauge for both is 2.25 inches for the first 4 rounds

The Blue Jar-

This cozy has a simple front post stitch design that makes a diamond grid in textured stitches around the jar. If you haven't tried front post crochet- it's done by inserting the hook around the post of the stitch instead of in the top of the stitch. Front post means it's done on the front or outside of the piece.

Stitches used:
Single crochet= sc
Double crochet= dc
Front post double crochet= fpdc
Front post triple crochet= fptc
slip stitch= sl st
stitch or stitches= st or sts
Repeat ** means to repeat what is between the asterisks

Base-
Ch 2 or make magic ring
Round 1: sc 7 times in ring or first stitch, sl st to join.
Round 2:  Ch 1 (does not count as first stitch),2 sc in each stitch around, sl st to join (14 sts)
Round 3: Ch 1 (does not count as first stitch), sc in first stitch, 2 sc in next st, *sc in next st, 2 sc in next st*, repeat ** around, sl st to join (21 sts)
Round 4: Ch 1 (does not count as first stitch), sc in first st, sc in next st, 2 sc in next st, *sc in next st, sc in next st, 2 sc in next st*, repeat ** around, sl st to join (28 sts)
Round 5: ch 2 (counts as first stitch), dc in next st, dc in each stitch around. Sl st in 2nd st of starting chain to join.
Round 6: Ch 1 (does not count as first stitch), sc in same st, fpdc in next dc, *sc in next st, fpdc in next dc*, repeat ** around, sl st to join (14 fpdc stitches)
This is where it gets tricksy. You'll be working backwards and forwards to create the Xs.
Round 7: Ch 1 (does not count as first stitch), sc in same stitch, skip next stitch, fptc in next dc, sc in st after skipped stitch, fptc in skipped dc (X formed),*sc in next st, skip next stitch, fptc in next dc, sc in st after skipped stitch, fptc in skipped dc (X formed),* around, sl st to join (7 crossings)
Round 8: Ch 1 (does not count as first stitch) sc in same stitch, fpdc in next st, *sc in next st, fpdc in next st*, repeat ** around (14 fpdc)
Round 9: Ch 1 (does not count as first stitch), sc in same st, fptc in last dc of previous round, skip stitch, sc in next st, skip stitch, fptc in next dc, *sc in next st, skip stitch, fptc in skipped dc, sc in next stitch,  skip stitch, fptc in next dc*, repeat ** around- the last fptc will be going into the first skipped dc. sl st to join.
Round 10: Repeat round 8.
Round 11: Repeat round 7
Round 11: Repeat round 8
Round 12: Repeat round 9
Round 13: Repeat round 8.
Round 14: Ch 1 ( does not count as first stitch), sc in each stitch around, sl st to join, break off yarn and weave in ends.

Spiral Colored Cozy:
Ch 2 or make magic ring
Round 1: sc 7 times in ring or first stitch, sl st to join.
Round 2:  Ch 1 (does not count as first stitch),2 sc in each stitch around, sl st to join (14 sts)
Round 3: Ch 1 (does not count as first stitch), sc in first stitch, 2 sc in next st, *sc in next st, 2 sc in next st*, repeat ** around, sl st to join (21 sts)
Round 4: Ch 1 (does not count as first stitch), sc in first st, sc in next st, 2 sc in next st, *sc in next st, sc in next st, 2 sc in next st*, repeat ** around, sl st to join (28 sts)
Round 5-16: Ch 1 (does not count as first stitch), sc in first stitch, sc in each st around, sl st to join.
Round 17: Ch 1 (does not count as first stitch), sc in same stitch, sc in next stitch, ch 1, skip stitch, sc in next st, *sc in next st, sc in next st, ch 1, skip stitch, sc in next st*, repeat ** around, sl st to join (7 ch 1 spaces)
Round 18: Ch 1 (does not count as first stitch), sc in same stitch, skip stitch, 5 dc in chain 1 sp, *sc in next st,skip stitch, 5 dc in chain 1 sp,* repeat ** around, sl st to join. (7 shells)- break off yarn and weave in ends.

Hope you enjoy dressing your jelly jars!

Yogurt and the Pretty Green Jar

I rigged up a white background to show off the green!

If you've liked Ball® Canning and Recipes on Facebook (and you should!)- then you've seen the announcement that while the limited run of blue jars is ending, they are starting to make GREEN jars. Even better? These come in both pint and quart sizes and really are just that pretty. They are Heritage Collection jars, and inspired by the Ball Perfection Jars. The are manufactured to the normal high quality of Ball jars and absolutely gorgeous. The color is fantastic, the lid sizes are also standard so the rings, plastic caps and accessories you have will work with these jars.
Pre-order Spring Green Jars
I love the Heritage Blue jars and blue is my daughter's favorite color. Green is my favorite color, so I'm just thrilled with the new release. If you really love the blue, you have a limited window to buy more before they are gone.

The jars shown are the quart sized Heritage Collection green jar and the Ball Collection Elite half-pint. The yogurt shown is Viili.

Viili is:
mesophilic- which means that it sets at room temperature, no heat necessary
heirloom- which means that the culture itself can be reused and shared indefinitely.

Ball® pint and quart jars are perfect for making yogurt using heirloom cultures. Why? Because it makes it even easier. My son uses a Heritage blue pint jar for his yogurt. He makes a batch, puts it in a bowl, washes the jar, then puts back in two spoonfuls of yogurt. He tops that with milk and then puts a plastic cap on it to shake it up and mix in the yogurt. Takes off the cap and puts a coffee filter on top of the jar, and then adds a canning band to hold that in place. Sets it out on his counter top until it's set and fixes two 1 cup servings of yogurt for himself. He uses the yogurt both sweet with fruit or extracts, or adds savory spices to use it as a dip or topping.

Using the quart jar, you'd put in a 1/2 cup of your finished yogurt to start your next batch. When it gets low, I measure what's left in a measuring cup, wash the jar and start the next batch. I like plastic caps for jars after they are opened. It saves wear and tear on rings to store them properly, and the caps are inexpensive, washable and reusable.

There are a few kinds of mesophilic cultures, so it's about finding the one you like best. Piima is lovely in smoothies and has a cream cheese flavor that works well with cream added to the milk. Matsoni/Caspian Sea yogurt is very tart, Viili is mild with a neat ropey/jelly like texture, Filmjolk is the yogurt I recommend to people who don't really like yogurt. It's very mild, and excellent for desserts.
The piima works so well for smoothies that I've never tried thickening it, but for the rest, adding in some cream and some instant dry milk with the milk/starter mix makes a thicker yogurt without having to add anything that's not milk.

For flavoring- my family uses all sorts of stuff. Homemade jellies and jams, frozen fruit, sugar, maple syrup, homemade caramel sauce, cocoa powder- the important thing to remember is that you need to keep some yogurt completely plain to culture your next batch. We've found the easiest is just to have all the yogurt plain in the fridge then flavor individual servings.

Ball® sent me the green jars for review purposes. The Elite jar is from my personal collection and my personal choice for packed lunches and yogurt servings because of the shape of the jar and the wide mouth.