No-Peel Nectarine Jam

I don't know about you, but I prefer nectarines over peaches. In my experience, the odds of getting a mealy peach is much higher than getting a mealy nectarine. In addition, nectarines are awesome because you don't have to deal with peach skin, which tastes like dryer lint.

This was one of the few jam recipes I made this summer where I actually paid for fruit, but it only cost about $3 for 3 pounds. I bought approximately 9 rock-hard nectarines and threw them into a paper bag with an old banana to speed up the ripening process. Both bananas and nectarines are climacteric fruits, which means they release ethylene while ripening (and the ethylene from the over-ripe banana helps speed up ripening of the neighboring nectarines). 

I used the Ball recipe for peach/pear jam (4 cups or 3 pounds fruit, 5 cups sugar, 2 tablespoons lemon juice, and regular powdered pectin). I didn't peel the nectarines because I'm lazy and I couldn't find any skin in the finished product anyway.

I was pretty lucky with the store-bought fruit because not a single fruit was mealy. The jam tastes somewhat similar to apricot jam. In the future I want to try Pomona's Universal Pectin because I felt like the sharp nectarine flavor was a little diluted with all the sugar. In fact, next year I want to switch entirely over to Pomona's. Although my jam yield will be lower, I think I purchased almost 25 pounds of sugar this year just for jam recipes!

Yellow Tomato Jam

I had an impromptu jam session the other night. I had been feeling guilty for the lack of tomato-based canning goodies being cranked out this summer (thank-you Master's Thesis submission process) and I was inspired by a recipe for Orange Tomato Jam with Smoked Paprika from Food in Jars. However, being an impromptu jam session, I didn't have all the ingredients for that recipe and ended up making the Food in Jars Yellow Tomato and Basil Jam instead.

I ran out to the garden with my trusty garage sale colander (love this thing) and picked all my golden beauties.  I planted over 30 varieties of heirlooms this year, so this jam was made with a motley crew of sungold, taxi, big rainbow, azoychka, valencia, moonglow, kellogg's breakfast, persimmon, and yellow brandywine). 

I was nervous about adding the basil suggested in the recipe. The jam was so incredibly sweet on its own, you could practically put it on a PB&J. However, I wanted to truly delve into the realm of savory jams, so I added the basil. It adds a nice flavor and I like the little ribbons of green (I did my best attempt at a chiffonade). I'm looking forward to trying this out on a bagel and cream cheese or as a sweet and sticky glaze on meat. Maybe I'll even try that PB&J!

Well-Stocked Pantry

Okay, so maybe all the items in my pseudo-pantry aren't edible, but these great handmade shelves (put in by a previous owner under the basement staircase) are coming in handy for storing all my canned goods this summer.

I've managed to fill six shelves so far (with another batch of tomato sauce on the way). 

I've really been cranking out the tomato sauce this year. I'm on my fifth batch!

In addition to tomato sauce (bottom right), I also tried dilly beans (bottom left) and tomatillo salsa (top right) this summer. After gifting many jars of my humongous batch of apricot jam (top left), I'm finally getting down to a more reasonable supply.

In addition to the apricot jam, I also made blackberry apricot (bottom left), black raspberry (top right, my favorite), and sweet cherry jelly (top left). The six jars on the right side of the bottom shelf are leftovers from the 2009 and 2010. They still taste just fine, so I'm not too worried about their advancing age.

Jam Session

I don't really have time to go into my recent jam making sessions in depth, but I thought I'd at least post some pictures of the process.

I picked between 9 and 10 pounds of black raspberries over the course of two trips to the woods and a few trips to my small backyard berry patch.

My lovely Roma food strainer. I don't own the screen that is meant for processing berries, but I used the apple/tomato screen with success (I just had to dismantle the whole thing halfway through and unclog the seeds from the screen). 

The first run through the strainer I didn't get much pulp and I was a little worried!

I ran the waste material back through the strainer three or four times and got a lot more of the pulp out.

By the end, the waste product was almost entirely seeds.

I put the pulp in the fridge until canning time and I was surprised to see that it had completely jelled on its own. I still followed the jam recipe and added pectin though.

I can't actually remember if this photo shows raspberry jam or black cherry jam. I also ran my pitted black cherries through the food strainer. Cherries have such a high water content that the strained product was very thin, so I ended up making cherry jelly instead of jam.

Counter chaos full of canning supplies.

Homemade Apricot Jam

I went berry picking over the weekend, hoping to make black raspberry jam, but I was about half a pound shy of what I needed (raspberry season isn't quite going full force yet). So apricot instead!

Apricots were on sale for 99 cents per pound at the grocery store. I would have preferred to buy them at a farmer's market, but I have no clue what time of year is apricot season. I really wanted to have some fun and make jam this weekend (partially as a reward for finishing my written comprehensive exams), so I picked up 4 pounds of apricots on the spur of the moment.

Pitting and chopping apricots.

Cooking apricots and pectin.

Adding sugar and boiling.

Filling the jars with jam.

Processing the jars in the water bath canner

The finished product. It turned out a bit runny, but that's fine. It's easier to spread that way anyhow!

My recipe only called for 3.5 pounds, but I feel like I'm always cutting it close when I fill the jars. That's why I got an extra half pound of fruit. However, somehow that extra half pound turned the 8 half-pint jar recipe into an 12 half-pint jar recipe! I had to run around at the last minute grabbing extra jars and lids out of the basement to make room for the excess. I guess I didn't need to worry about cutting it close this time! That said, I think apricot jam is my favorite jam of all (although there are plenty I've never tried) so I'm pleased to have gone a little overboard!