Category: Condiments, Dips, and Spreads

How to Make Delicious Homemade Rhubarb Jelly: A Step-by-Step Guide

Posted on by craig

Rhubarb is one of those plants where if you have it, you have a ton of it.

A pile of rhubarb on a patio table.

We don’t actually grow rhubarb in our yard, but both neighbours have rhubarb plants and neither neighbour wants any of it. Since we hate seeing food go to waste, we harvest as much as we can, wash it, chop it, and freeze it. This year we ended up with a large deep freezer stuffed to the brim with rhubarb because it was our biggest harvest ever.

When you think of rhubarb and how to use it, you’re probably thinking desserts—primarily rhubarb crumble and rhubarb pie. While those are both great, my husband and I aren’t really dessert people and so we never make either of these ourselves. My step-dad loves to make it though, so he’ll go through several bags of rhubarb every summer when he’s here.

But, still, several bags (maybe 10?) out of somewhere around 40 means there’s still a TON of rhubarb left to use up.

Ziplock bags filled with chopped rhubarb.

I’ve been working on ways to use rhubarb that aren’t desserts. I make a super delicious rhubarb wine and my rhubarb ginger gin is something I get requests for year-round. I also make a rhubarb lemonade concentrate, though that recipe needs some tweaking because it’s kind of bland (and that’s why it’s not on this site yet), and I make a rhubarb simple syrup that works great for cocktails (which I hope to have on my blog later this year).

And the final recipe I make is rhubarb jelly. Like desserts, jellies are not something my husband and I eat, so I make this for a family member upon request. It just so happens she requested another batch this past week, so I got to work in the kitchen and whipped up a batch!

Preparing rhubarb juice

This recipe can be made with either fresh or frozen rhubarb. I tend to make it from frozen since I have no time in the height of summer to make jelly when there are a million other more urgent things that need doing.

Once you’ve got your rhubarb, it’s time to make the juice.

Rhubarb in a steam juicer.

This is where I pull out my steam juicer. In fact, I have a whole post about using my steam juicer to make and can rhubarb juice. In that post I had mentioned that since I knew I’d more than likely be using the juice for recipes in the future, I opted to not add the optional sugar I wouldn’t have to have to recalculate how much sugar the recipe calls for. So, for this batch of homemade rhubarb jelly, I popped open a couple pints of pre-canned juice and skipped this whole first step.

However, if you don’t have rhubarb juice on hand—and, really, how many people do?—you have two options for extracting juice from your rhubarb: using a steam juicer or the stove top method.

Using a steam juicer

If you have a steam juicer on hand, this is the method I highly recommend.

Set up the juicer as per manufacturer directions, which usually means filling the bottom pot with water, stacking the pots together, and loading the top pot with your fresh or frozen rhubarb. (If you’re using frozen rhubarb, you don’t even have to thaw it first!)

You’ll likely need around two pounds of rhubarb, though you might want extra on hand in case it takes more rhubarb to get that amount to juice.

Turn on the stove, watch that the bottom pot doesn’t run dry, and let the juicer do its work!

Using the stove top method

This requires a bit more active work, but it doesn’t require expensive equipment like a steam juicer.

Boil two pounds of rhubarb in four cups of water until the rhubarb just completely falls apart. Then, with a jelly bag or cheesecloth-lined strainer suspended over a large bowl, strain the rhubarb. Let it sit in the jelly bag or strainer for a couple hours to allow the juice to fully drain from the rhubarb. You should end up with about four cups of juice.

If you’re short on juice, you’ll want to run another smaller batch through this process to obtain the juice. You may want to actually do a little more than the recipe calls for just to ensure you have enough juice.

Making homemade rhubarb jelly

Once you have the juice on hand, the process of making the jelly is really quite simple.

You will need a large pot. You’ll want one larger than you think, because in the later steps, it will likely bubble up quite a bit and if you use a small pot it may boil over.

Pour the four cups of rhubarb juice into the pot and bring it to a boil, then let it boil for a minute.

Then add a packet of powdered pectin and whisk it in, bringing the mixture back to a boil, letting it boil for a minute.

Finally, add six cups of sugar and again whisk and bring back to a boil, letting it boil for a minute. This is the stage where it can get really bubbly and could bubble over if you’re using a too-small pot.

Once the final minute is up, remove the pot from heat. If there’s a film on top of the jelly, you can skim it off. It doesn’t hurt anything if it’s there, it just might not look as nice in the final product.

Carefully ladle hot jelly into pre-warmed jars. To pre-warm a jar, I usually run it under hot tap water. You’ll want to fill them to a quarter-inch headspace. It can get pretty messy; a canning funnel can make the process easier and cleaner.

Once the jars are filled, wipe the rims with a paper towel wetted with white vinegar. This step is to clean the rim of the jar so it can seal properly. I find that when making jelly, it can be quite easy for there to be jelly on the jar rim, preventing a seal from forming, so this stage is more important here than it might be in other canning recipes.

Attach two-part lids to fingertip tightness and then load into your water bath canner. Ensure the water level is high enough that the jars are submerged by at least an inch of water. Turn on the heat, bring it to a boil, and once it’s boiling let it process for ten minutes.

Afterward, turn off the heat and let it sit for five minutes. Then carefully remove the jars from the canner and place them on a thick towel on a counter or table and let sit overnight. In the morning, check that jars have sealed. If so, they can sit at room temperature on a shelf for at least a year, after which time quality may degrade, but safety will not (as long as the jar remains sealed). Unsealed jars should be refrigerated and consumed promptly.

A jar of rhubarb jelly.

Using rhubarb jelly

While there is, of course, the obvious use of homemade rhubarb jelly—slathering it on toast for breakfast—there are other creative uses as well. You could top a baked brie with rhubarb jelly, or slather it on a ham before baking.

Rhubarb Jelly

Sweet and with a burst of summer freshness, rhubarb jelly is both easy and delicious.
5 from 1 vote
Print Recipe Pin Recipe
Prep Time 2 hours
Cook Time 10 minutes
Canning Time 10 minutes
Course Breakfast

Equipment

  • Water Bath Canner
  • 6-8 Half-Pint (One-Cup) Mason Jars

Ingredients
  

Rhubarb Juice

  • 2 lbs Rhubarb, Cleaned and Chopped
  • Water

Rhubarb Jelly

  • 4 cups Rhubarb Juice
  • 6 cups White Sugar
  • 1 box Powdered Pectin

Instructions
 

How to make juice with a steam juicer

  • Set up steam juicer as per manufacturer directions, which usually means water in the bottom pot and rhubarb in the top pot. Boil until the steam releases the juice. Make sure the bottom pot doesn't run dry.

How to make juice on the stove top

  • Boil two pounds of rhubarb in four cups of water until the rhubarb completely falls apart.
  • With a jelly bag or cheesecloth-lined strainer suspended over a large bowl, strain the rhubarb. Let it sit in the jelly bag or strainer for a couple hours to allow the juice to fully drain from the rhubarb.

How to make and can rhubarb jelly

  • Pour rhubarb juice into a large pot and bring to a boil.
  • Add the pectin, return to a boil, and boil for one minute.
  • Add the sugar, stir to dissolve, return to a boil, and boil for one minute.
  • Remove jelly from heat and immediately ladle into jars, leaving a ¼ inch headspace.
  • Wipe jar rims with a paper towel wetted with white vinegar and attach two-part lids to fingertip tightness.
  • Put in water bath canner and cover with hot water until jars are submerged by at least an inch of water. Process in canner for 10 minutes, starting the timer when the canner reaches a full boil.
Keyword rhubarb jelly

How to Make Bread and Butter Pickles

Posted on by craig

I’ve heard it said that in every relationship, there’s one person who loves pickles and one person who hates pickles, and whenever they have burgers, the pickle-hater donates their pickles to the pickle-lover.

That’s certainly the case with me and my husband. I do not like pickles and he will gladly take my pickles so he can have double pickles on his burger. It happened last night, in fact.

But when you garden and you grow a ton of cucumbers, it’s hard to not pickle them. It’s easy to do, it uses up cucumbers, it looks pretty on the shelf, and it keeps one half of this relationship happy.

When I do up a batch of pickles, my favourite is bread and butter pickles. This is partly because this is the only and only type of pickle I find reasonably tasty—but please don’t fear, because I regularly get requests to make these pickles, so for pickle lovers these ones are amazingly tasty!

The other reason I like making these is because I find them much more visually appealing than other types of pickles. In addition to cucumber slices, bread and butter pickles also have slivered onions and spices like mustard seed and celery seed.

Preparing the cucumbers and onions

We have a habit of letting our cucumbers grow too large. We primarily use them for juicing, so larger cucumbers means more juice. For pickles, though, you want smaller cucumbers. Since these will be sliced cucumbers, though, it’s okay if they’re a little on the large side.

Start by slicing ten cups of cucumbers. Slices should be approximately 1/4 inch thick.

Then thinly slice or sliver four cups of onions. I usually cut my onion in eighths so the slices are not too long, but this can be personal preference. I aim for about 1/4 inch thickness on the slices so they match the cucumbers.

Toss the cucumbers and onions in a glass or non-reactive metal bowl with half a cup of canning or pickling salt. Mix everything around really well, then cover and let it sit on the counter for about two hours. The salt will draw some of the water out of the cucumbers and onions, as well as remove the bitterness that might be in the cucumbers.

After two hours, drain the cucumbers and onions and give them a good rinse to get as much salt off as you can.

Preparing the brine

The brine is a vinegar and sugar mixture with spices added. This is what will actually pickle and flavour the cucumbers.

In a large pot, combine three cups white vinegar, two cups granulated sugar, two tablespoons mustard seed, one teaspoon celery seed, and one teaspoon ground tumeric. I typically use the yellow mustard seeds you can buy in the spice section of the grocery store, but if you have access to brown or black mustard seeds, you can use these instead. In general, the darker the mustard seed, the more intense the flavour and heat, so if you like a spicier pickle, it might be worth your while to seek out darker mustard seeds. (We grow mustard in our garden and we get black seeds, so sometimes I will throw these in.)

Bring the brine to a boil and stir or whisk to ensure all sugar is dissolved.

Making the pickles

The next step is to add the drained and rinsed cucumbers and onions to the brine. Bring the mixture back to a boil, then remove the pickles from heat and transfer them to pint jars.

This can be quite messy, no matter how careful you’re being.

I use a slotted spoon and a canning funnel to divide the solids into five pint jars. The canning funnel helps me stop from spilling all over the place but it’s still somehow the messiest recipe I make. Once everything is evenly divided between the five jars, then use a ladle to add brine to the jars, bringing everything up to a half inch headspace.

Because of how the cucumbers layer in the jar, there’s a good chance that air bubbles are trapped. While it’s impossible to completely remove them, you do want to do your best. Using a bubble remover tool, a wooden chopstick, plastic cutlery, or any non-metal utensil, jostle the contents of the jar to remove bubbles. If the fluid level goes down, add more brine to bring it back up to a half inch headspace. If you run out of brine, you can add white vinegar.

Canning the pickles

Because I find this recipe to be oddly messy, you’ll want to take extra care to wipe the rims of the jars with a paper towel wetted with white vinegar. If there is any sugary brine left on the rim, it may prevent a proper seal.

Once the rims are cleaned, put on the two-part lid and screw to fingertip tightness.

Process in a boiling water canner for ten minutes.

If you’re newer to canning, this means to put them in a water bath canner and submerge with hot water until the water level is one to two inches above the top of the jars. Bring the water to a roiling boil and then start the ten minute timer. If the pot ever stops boiling, bring it back to a boil and restart the timer.

Remove from heat and let the pot sit for five minutes before carefully removing the jars with a jar lifter. Set them on a thick towel on a table or counter and let them rest overnight. In the morning, check to see that the lids have sealed (they bow downward). If they have, then they can sit on a shelf in a cool, dark place for approximately a year. They can sit longer, though quality (but not safety) can degrade after that. If any jars have not sealed, put them in the fridge and consume them first.

Bread and Butter Pickles

A sweet and savoury sliced pickle, perfect for sandwiches and burgers.
5 from 2 votes
Print Recipe Pin Recipe
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 15 minutes
Resting Time 2 hours
Course condiments
Cuisine American

Equipment

  • Water Bath Canner
  • 5 Pint Mason Jars

Ingredients
  

  • 10 cups Pickling Cucumbers, Sliced ¼ Inch Thick
  • 4 cups Onion, Sliced ¼ Inch Thick
  • ½ cup Canning or Pickling Salt
  • 3 cups White Vinegar
  • 2 cups White Sugar
  • 2 Tbsp Mustard Seed
  • 1 tsp Celery Seed
  • 1 tsp Ground Turmeric

Instructions
 

  • Combine cucumbers, onions, and salt in a large non-reactive bowl (glass or stainless steel). Mix until cucumbers and onion are fully coated. Let sit for two hours.
  • After two hours, drain the cucumber/onion mixture and rinse well to remove most of the salt.
  • In a large stainless steel pot, combine remaining ingredients and bring to a boil, ensuring sugar has dissolved. Add cucumbers and onions to the pot and return to a boil.
  • Remove from heat and start filling jars. Using a slotted spoon, scoop solids equally into five pint-size mason jars. Top with brine, bringing contents up to ½ inch headspace. De-bubble the jars with a wooden chopstick or plastic utensil. Top up with brine to return to ½ inch headspace. If you are short on brine, you can add white vinegar.
  • Wipe jar rims with a paper towel wetted with vinegar, then put on two-part lids and screw to fingertip tightness. Place in water bath canner and cover with hot water until jars are submerged by 1-2 inches of water. Process in canner for ten minutes; once the water starts boiling, start the ten minute timer. If at any point the water stops boiling, return to a boil and restart the ten minute timer.
  • When processing time is over, turn off heat and let canner sit for five minutes. Then, carefully using a jar lifter, remove jars from canner and place on a thick towel on a counter or table and let them sit undisturbed overnight.
  • In the morning, check to see that lids have sealed (they dip inward). If so, they can be stored on a shelf for up to a year; after which safety does not change, but quality may degrade. If any jars did not plea (they click when you press on them), store these jars in the fridge and consume them first.

Notes

If using quart jars, add 5 minutes to processing time.
Keyword bread and butter pickles

How to Make Fermented Garlic Scape Hot Sauce

Posted on by craig

The garlic scapes are up and this year we got quite the haul, coming in at around 1.5 kg, or about three pounds. Normally we get just a smattering and they’re usually quite thin, but this year we have at least double the garlic planted and these scapes grew nice and thick.

Scapes are the flower stem of the garlic plant. They grow nice and tall and then curl in on themselves. At the end is a bulb that will form garlic seeds. Once that bulb flowers, the garlic bulb underground will stop growing, so you want to harvest the scape before that happens.

In my previous post about pickling garlic scapes, I talked in depth about the process of harvesting them. In a short summary, you’ll want to cut or break the scape where it emerges from the top leaf of the plant.

Scapes have a strong garlic taste and can be used multiple ways. They grill up great on the BBQ, they have a wonderful garlic bite to them when you pickle them, they make a zesty pesto, and there’s a garlic scape jam I want to try next year that I think would go great on a baked Brie.

Garlic scape hot sauce

A few years ago I tried doing the farmers market thing, selling jams, pickles, and preserves. It was an interesting experience but ultimately not one I’ll likely return to. While there, I made some great connections with local food folks and got to try some amazing foods.

A highlight for me was the garlic scape hot sauce that I bought from the hot sauce guy. While his prices are affordable and I continue to buy garlic scape hot sauce off him, it was a hot sauce I wanted to see if I could make myself.

In my research on garlic scape hot sauce recipes I found that there’s almost nothing. I did come across one fermented garlic scape hot sauce recipe, and so my variation is based on that one.

I made a couple alterations in the batch I made for this post and have noted further alterations for next year’s batch that I’ll make. The recipe on this post is for what I’d do next year.

The art of fermenting

Fermenting is very much a science. You create an ideal environment for beneficial bacteria to thrive, which then outcompetes bad bacteria, preserving food for weeks, months, or even longer.

Because of this careful balance needed and the fact that this whole preservation method relies on bacteria, I’d always been quite intimidated by it. I’d follow recipes to the T and never vary.

A couple years back, a local chef loaned me a copy of The Art of Fermentation by Sandor Ellix Katz and even on just the cursory flip-through that I gave it, the book opened my eyes to the fact that while fermenting is very much a science, it is also very much an art. As long as you’re following the basic science of fermenting, there’s tons of wiggle room to customize what you’re creating and make culinary works of art.

This recipe relies on creating a salt brine with water and submerging the foods in it. (Versus something like sauerkraut that relies on salt drawing the moisture out of cabbage so it’s in a salt brine of its own juices.)

That brine will create the environment for beneficial bacteria to thrive, allowing us to then create some artistic customization in what is being fermented.

Making the ferment

Before we start making the ferment, we’ll want a vessel to do the ferment in. I have a Mason Tops fermenting kit that comes with a jar, an airlock lid, and a glass weight. Here are some kits on Amazon that can be adapted with a regular mason jar. In a pinch, you can jerry-rig a ferment vessel by using a mason jar, a Ziploc bag of water as a weight, and a loose-fitting lid that will keep bad bacteria out but still allow venting of gas.

The first step is prepare the veggies going into the ferment. This recipe calls for 175 grams each of garlic scapes and jalapeno peppers. The scapes can be chopped up in small pieces. The exact sizing doesn’t matter too much because at the end you’ll be pureeing everything. The peppers can be stemmed and then sliced in half—and keep the seeds so they add heat to the sauce. They can be chopped up smaller if you’re having difficulty getting everything nicely in the ferment vessel.

While the recipe calls for jalapeno peppers, you can use any green-coloured hot pepper. This is a hot sauce that gets its kick from the garlic scapes, so it’s more of a flavour with heat than pure heat. That being said, with my initial taste-test of the final product, I felt it wasn’t quite hot enough, so next year I’ll look at either a hotter pepper or adding more jalapenos.

And while ideally you want a green-coloured hot pepper, this is purely to maintain the green colour in the final hot sauce. If you don’t care so much about the colour, you could put in any hot pepper of your choice. I grew some scotch bonnet hot peppers and discovered they have an interesting flavour along with their intense heat—they’d go quite well here, but the green scapes and red pepper might create a muddied colour.

In a pinch, if you don’t have fresh hot peppers, you could use pickled hot peppers, but I would add them at the blender step. After the full ferment, you add some vinegar before you blend it, so you could add pickled hot peppers at this stage.

Anyway, back to the ferment!

Put the scapes and jalapenos in your ferment vessel and then chop and add a few green onions.

Now we’ll create the brine, which should be 2% by weight. To do this, add two teaspoons of salt to two cups of water, and heat it in a pot, stirring until the salt dissolves. Allow the water to cool a bit and then pour it into the ferment vessel, ensuring everything is submerged. If you add the brine immediately after boiling, the heat may kill the beneficial bacteria you’re trying to help.

Add the fermenting weight on top, as well as the airlock, and store in a cool, dry, dark place for 7-10 days. You may want to put a plate or bowl under it as ferments sometimes bubble over. You can check on it every few days; if you see bubbles, you know it’s working and it’s fermenting. After seven days, start tasting the scapes to see if you’ve got a good taste going. Mine took eight days.

Once things taste ideal—and this is another place where the art of fermenting comes in since “ideal” is completely up to you—the ferment is done and we can move on to making the hot sauce.

Turning the ferment into hot sauce

Strain the ferment, reserving the liquid.

The scapes, peppers, and green onions are then put into a blender. (If possible, use an actual blender. I used an immersion blender / stick blender and it didn’t work that well, so next time I’ll dig out the actual blender.) Add in half a cup of vinegar and 2/3 cup of the brine.

The choice of vinegar is up to you. The original recipe calls for apple cider vinegar, but I found the apple taste clashed with the garlic and jalapeno. I’d strongly suggest white vinegar or unseasoned rice vinegar, or a vinegar with a complementary flavour profile.

When I make this next year, I’m going to either use my homemade chive blossom vinegar, which would add a chive flavour, or I’d use my homemade sinamak. Sinamak is a Filipino vinegar infusion; white vinegar is infused with hot peppers, ginger, garlic, and black peppercorns. I made a batch a while back with some thai chili peppers and it has a real kick to it that would go fantastic in this hot sauce.

Blend until smooth.

From here, you have two options.

If you like a smooth sauce, you can strain the pureed sauce through a strainer or cheesecloth. If you like a chunkier sauce, you can transfer the whole thing to a jar as-is.

The original recipe calls for the sauce to be strained and then xantham gum to be added, which would thicken it and give it some consistency. I chose to go without the xantham gum and without straining. The hot sauce I buy always needs a good shake because it settles easily, but then you get all those garlicky bits from the pureed scapes and it’s oh-so-good.

Because it’s a ferment that’s ultimately preserved in vinegar, this should last in the fridge for weeks, if not months.

Garlic scape hot sauce can be used the same as any hot sauce, but the garlic taste opens up some ideal pairings. This goes great on any food where garlic is a complementary taste, such as on pizza.

Fermented Garlic Scape Hot Sauce

A hot sauce with the mouthwatering tang of garlic makes for the perfect topping on things like pizzas and burgers.
5 from 1 vote
Print Recipe Pin Recipe
Prep Time 20 minutes
Fermenting Time 10 days
Course condiments

Equipment

  • 1 Fermentation Kit / Vessel, see notes for alternatives
  • 1 Blender

Ingredients
  

  • 175 g Garlic Scapes
  • 175 g Jalapeno Peppers, or other hot pepper, preferably green
  • 2-3 Green Onions
  • 10 Peppercorns
  • 2 tsp Salt
  • 2 cups Water
  • ½ cup Vinegar, see notes

Instructions
 

  • Chop garlic scapes and add to fermentation vessel. De-stem jalapeno peppers and quarter or chop and add to fermentation vessel. Chop green onions and add to fermentation vessel.
  • Add salt and water to a small pot and heat, stirring until salt dissolves. Let the saltwater brine cool, then add to the fermentation vessel.
  • Place the weight in the vessel, ensuring all vegetables are below the water line. Close with an airlock. Place on a plate (in case it bubbles over) and put in a cool, dark, dry place to ferment.
  • After a few days, you should start to see bubbles in the ferment. This means it's working.
  • After 7 days, taste a scape to test for readiness. (There's no real measure of when it's ready, you go by taste and preference.) Ferment should be done in 7-10 days.
  • Strain vegetables, reserving the brine.
  • Add vegetables to a blender, vinegar, and ⅔ cup of the reserved brine. Blend until smooth.
  • If you prefer smooth sauce:
    Strain though a strainer or cheesecloth, then store remaining liquid in a bottle or jar in the fridge.
    If you prefer chunky sauce:
    Transfer blender contents to a bottle or jar and store in the fridge.

Notes

If you don’t have a fermentation kit, you can piece one together using a large jar as the fermentation vessel, a Ziplock bag filled with water as the weight, and a loose-fitting lid as the airlock.
For vinegar, white vinegar is usually best, but any vinegar with a complementary flavour profile would work well, such as chive blossom vinegar or sinamak.
Keyword garlic scape hot sauce, garlic scapes, hot sauce

How to Make Chive Blossom Jelly

Posted on by craig

It seems like every food gardener has an arsenal of jam and jelly recipes. After all, it’s a sweet, tasty, and easy way to preserve fruit and, in some cases vegetables and herbs, for the year ahead.

The problem is that my husband and I rarely eat jam or jelly, so most of these recipes don’t appeal to us since they’d just sit on the shelf. I still have some dandelion jelly from two years ago that I’m unlikely to ever eat.

Every once in a while, though, I come across a jelly recipe that does appeal to us. We tend to like savoury jellies, partly because they have wider uses than “spread it on toast”. Later this year I’ll do up a batch of hot pepper and wine jelly, which goes phenomenal on a baked brie.

My discovery this year is chive blossom jelly.

The first harvest of spring

Dandelions and edible weeds aside, chives are often the first produce to come up in the garden and the first to be harvested.

So in the spring our garden looks like this…

…with the ground mostly barren and the only plants showing life being the perennials, trees, and bushes.

But the chives are quickly growing and very soon look like this…

They’re the first burst of colour in the spring. And they bring with them a tantalizing aroma that you can sometimes smell just being in the vicinity of them.

There are two common types of chives — onion chives and garlic chives. These are onion chives. (We bought some leek seedlings and planted them and our neighbour says he thinks the plant was mislabeled and we bought garlic chives instead. So now we might have both?)

Onion chives have a green onion taste to them — oniony and fairly strong, but without the harsh bite that green onions can sometimes have in the bulb area. Both the green stalks and the purple blossoms are edible.

The only problem with chives is that they are difficult to preserve. You can freeze them, but they lose their flavour pretty quickly. You can dehydrate them, but they lose their flavour even faster.

I’ve got a batch of chive blossom vinegar on the go as a way to preserve the flavour and I’m attempting a fermented chives recipe I found (and I’ll report back when they’re done). Chive blossom jelly is a new preservation method added to my arsenal.

Frankensteining a recipe

I sort of Frankensteined this recipe together.

There are chive blossom jelly recipes out there, but they all call for low-sugar pectin which, to the best of my knowledge, is not easily found in Canada. The grocery stores don’t have it, Amazon has it for super expensive, the nearby department stores with canning supplies (Canadian Tire, Walmart), don’t have it. I couldn’t find an easy way to adapt a low-sugar pectin recipe to a full-sugar pectin recipe, so I half-invented this and half-adapted this to work with regular pectin.

You start by boiling and then simmering chive blossoms in a mix of water, white wine (optional, you can use additional water instead), and cider vinegar to leech out the flavour and some of the colour from the blossoms. I had some chive blossom vinegar from last year on hand, so instead of using cider vinegar I used the chive blossom vinegar for some extra chive-y taste. After it simmers for a while, you strain out the solids and let the liquid cool to room temperature.

From there it’s a pretty standard jelly recipe involving pectin, boiling, adding sugar, hard boiling, and canning. All instructions are in the recipe card below.

For an extra splash of fun, I picked apart some chive blossoms and added them to the jar before pouring in the hot jelly.

After canning, this is the final result…

Uses for chive blossom jelly

Chive blossom jelly has a very vibrant chive taste and even though it’s a full sugar recipe, it doesn’t seem too sweet to me, which opens it up to several different uses.

There’s, of course, the obvious use of spreading it on toast, but here are some ways I’m looking forward to using it:

  • As a topping on sandwiches. I make an excellent bagel breakfast sandwich with mayo, cheese, egg, and bacon, and I find a thin layer of savoury jelly often caps it off perfectly.
  • As a topping on a baked brie. During BBQ season I love to bake brie cheese on the grill and putting a thick layer of savoury jelly on top just adds a little something special to an already delicious appetizier.
  • As a side for a charcuterie or a cheese board. A little slathering of jelly on a cracker served alongside sharp cheese or cured meats would be heavenly.

Chive Blossom Jelly

Savoury, chive-y, and slightly sweet, chive blossom jelly looks gorgeous, tastes delicious, and can be used for savoury breakfasts, charcuterie boards, and baked bries.
5 from 2 votes
Print Recipe Pin Recipe
Prep Time 2 hours
Cook Time 15 minutes
Course Appetizer, Breakfast

Equipment

  • 1 Strainer
  • 1 Water Bath Canner
  • 4-5 1-Cup Canning Jars with Lids (Or 8-10 Half-Cup Canning Jars with Lids)

Ingredients
  

  • 2 cups Chive Blossoms, plus a few extra for garnish
  • 1¼ cups Water
  • 2 cups Dry White Wine (cooking wine is fine)
  • ¼ cup Cider Vinegar
  • 1 box Powdered Pectin (57g)
  • 4 cups Sugar

Instructions
 

  • Clean blossoms. Be sure they're free of insects, dirt, and debris; wash/rinse if necessary.
  • Place blossoms (except the few saved for garnish), water, wine, and vinegar in a pot and bring to a boil. Simmer for twenty minutes, stirring regularly.
  • Strain to separate blossoms from liquid. Leave to drip for 1-2 hours. Discard solids. Let liquid cool to room temperature.
  • Measure sugar and put aside so it can be added quickly when needed. Prepare canning jars by ensuring they are clean and warm. Pick petals off the saved chive blossoms and drop into the jars. When jelly is added later, the petals will float to the top and be part of the jelly.
  • Put three cups of liquid in a large pot. A larger pot is necessary as the jelly will foam up in the next few steps. Whisk in powdered pectin until it dissolves.
  • Bring to a boil. Whisk in sugar and return to a boil. Boil hard for one minute, stirring constantly.
  • Working quickly, remove pot from heat and skim off any foam. Immediately ladle into the jars, leaving a ¼ inch headspace. Wipe rims. Put on lid and screw to fingertip tightness. Place jars in canner and cover with an inch of water.
  • Process in canner for ten minutes. The ten minute timer starts when the water is brought to a full boil.
  • Remove canner from heat and let sit for five minutes. Carefully remove jars using a jar lifter. Let sit undisturbed on the counter overnight.
  • In the morning, test if lids have "popped" — they bend downward, indicating a seal was made. Sealed jars can be stored in a cool dry place. Unsealed jars (ones that did not "pop") should be refrigerated and consumed first.

Notes

If you’re located at more than 1,000 feet above sea level, you’ll need to adjust the processing time. This chart will help you figure it out.
If you’re avoiding wine, you can use water instead.
Cider vinegar can be replaced with any vinegar that has a mild or complementary taste, such as white wine vinegar. When I made the batch pictured here, I had chive blossom vinegar on hand, so I used that for an extra burst of chive-flavour.
Keyword chives blossom, jelly

How to Make Pumpkin Butter

Posted on by craig

For fans of pumpkin and all things autumn, pumpkin butter is a treat. I made a batch last year and took it along to work with a fresh loaf of homemade sourdough bread and a colleague described it as “a warm hug on a cold day”.

I’ve taken to gifting pumpkin butter to friends and family. It’s one of those things that feels luxurious and special, but it’s ridiculously easy to make. Given that pumpkin butter is something not found in stores—at least not around here—it doubles as a gift for those hard-to-buy-for people in your life.

Despite its name, there’s no butter or any kind of dairy in pumpkin butter. It’s basically pumpkin cooked to the point where it’s spreadable like butter.

Making pumpkin butter

In a large heavy-bottomed pot, dump in a 15oz can of pumpkin puree—or if you make your own pumpkin puree, put an equivalent amount in the pot. For us metric system folks, 15oz is just shy of two cups, so you could just put in two cups and not worry about the 1oz extra.

To this, add half a cup of apple juice—I used my own apple juice that I canned from a friend’s apple tree this past summer—two-thirds cup of brown sugar, half a teaspoon of cinnamon, and an eighth of a teaspoon each of ground cloves, ground ginger, and salt.

When I got to the brown sugar part of this recipe is when I discovered I didn’t have any in the house. John had done some baking a few weeks ago and must have used the last of it. Unfortunately, we’re in the midst of a sugar shortage here in Western Canada. Most (or all?) of our sugar comes from Rogers / Lantic, and they’ve been on strike since sometime in September. Nowadays you’re lucky to find sugar in the grocery store…right as we enter into Christmas baking season. All of this is to say that I didn’t bother heading down to the grocery store to pick up a bag of brown sugar since I knew chances of me finding some were slim to none.

Thankfully, there’s an easy fix for this—I had white sugar and molasses on hand, and brown sugar is literally just white sugar and molasses combined.

Since pumpkin butter isn’t a baking recipe that requires exact ratios of ingredients, I didn’t get too exact with the white sugar and molasses ratios. I put in the equivalent amount of white sugar, two thirds of a cup, and then poured in several tablespoons of molasses.

Once everything is in the pot, give it a big stir to mix it all up, then turn on the stove, bring it to a boil, and then partially cover it, reduce the heat, and let it simmer for about twenty minutes until it’s thick and glossy. You’ll want to stir it regularly with a rubber or silicone spatula so you can scrape the bottom of the pot to ensure nothing is sticking and burning.

At the start…
At the end…

Once you’ve reached your desired consistency—and do feel free to let it cook a little longer if you find it’s not thick enough yet—remove the pot from the heat and let the pumpkin butter cool. Once it’s fully cool, you can transfer it to containers or jars for storage. I like to use one-cup mason jars as this allows me to put one jar in the fridge and the rest in the freezer, so I don’t have to worry about a big jar of it going bad before I can finish it all.

In the fridge, pumpkin butter should last a few weeks. In the freezer, you’ll get at least a few months.

Enjoying pumpkin butter

I find that pumpkin butter tastes like pumpkin pie filling, which shouldn’t be too surprising—after all, it’s made with pumpkin, sugar, and some of the spices found in pumpkin pie.

I like to eat it on my morning toast or on a bagel. It’s nice enough that it could be part of a mid-day snack or even a dessert. A scoop of pumpkin butter on top of a flaky buttery (but plain) pastry would be lovely.

Pumpkin Butter

Pumpkin butter makes a wonderful autumn spread for toast and bagels, tasting almost like pumpkin pie.
5 from 1 vote
Print Recipe Pin Recipe
Prep Time 5 minutes
Cook Time 30 minutes
Total Time 35 minutes
Course Breakfast
Cuisine American

Equipment

  • 1 Large Pot

Ingredients
  

  • 1 15oz Can Pumpkin Puree (or homemade pumpkin puree)
  • ½ Cup Apple Juice
  • ⅔ Cup Brown Sugar (Packed)
  • ½ tsp Ground Cinnamon
  • ⅛ tsp Ground Cloves
  • ⅛ tsp Ground Ginger
  • ⅛ heaping tsp Salt

Instructions
 

  • Combine all ingredients in a large heavy-bottomed pot.
  • Bring to a boil over medium-high heat.
  • Reduce heat and partly cover. Simmer, stirring regularly to ensure nothing is sticking to the bottom and burning, for approximately twenty minutes until mixture becomes thick and glossy.
  • Remove from heat, let cool. Transfer to jars or other fridge- and freezer-safe containers.
  • Pumpkin butter can be stored, covered, in the fridge for a couple weeks or in the freezer for a few months.
Keyword pumpkin, pumpkin butter

How to Make Cheddar Guinness Dip

Posted on by craig

My husband and I like to have traditions around food.

We like to try new things and then incorporate them into an event to make both the event and the food special. For example, we love watching the Oscars every year and my husband always does up a big batch of Caesar salad (with dressing made from scratch) and fettuccini Alfredo (with sauce made from scratch).

For the past few years we’ve had a friend with Irish heritage come over for dinner on or around St. Patrick’s Day, and so our food tradition is that I try to come up with something Irish for dinner. We’re not the type to drink all the green beer, but more the type to want a good Irish stew with some Irish sides. Last year I made Irish soda bread.

This year I stumbled across a handful of recipes for Cheddar Guinness Dip and knew I had to make it.

What you serve with the dip is up to you. Around the same time I also discovered Irish Potato Bread, and these definitely go together well. Pretzels and celery sticks would be fantastic with this.

There is a small amount of Guinness in here and it’s not cooked so the alcohol isn’t boiled off or anything, so ideally this would be an adults-only appetizer. That being said, the amount of Guinness per serving is minuscule.

Other than the two cheeses, I treated this like a “measure with your heart” recipe. I eyeballed everything and doubled the garlic because who doesn’t like garlic?

But, let’s work through this:

If you have a big food processor, this whole recipe is made in there. I don’t. My food processor is tiny, but I found using a handheld blender / stick blender worked well. I just had to really force it into the cheese to get it to mix. If you don’t have one of these either, you could just mix it really well with a fork. Your final result will be a bit chunkier, but it’ll taste just as great. The chunky texture might even be more appealing, come to think of it.

Start with putting nearly everything in the food processor or a bowl—softened cream cheese, shredded Irish cheddar cheese, garlic cloves, Dijon mustard, Worcestershire sauce, paprika, salt, and pepper.

I had to head to the deli section of my grocery store to get fancy cheeses, but if that’s not an option for you either because of cost or local selection, getting an old or sharp cheddar cheese will do in a pinch.

If you don’t have Dijon mustard (I didn’t), a strong mustard will do. If all you have is yellow hot dog mustard, use that. For myself, I harvest and blend my own mustard and it has quite the bite, so I used that.

Blend it all in the food processor or with the stick blender or fork until smooth and nicely blended.

Pour in the Guiness and mix it up again. Be careful that you don’t splatter Guinness all over the place.

When that’s all mixed in well and you have a consistent final product, transfer it to your serving bowl and top with parsley (fresh or dried) and green onion.

Let it chill in the fridge for at least an hour to let the flavours really combine nicely, and then serve it up. Like I mentioned above, goes fantastic with Irish potato bread, but pretzels or celery would go great too.

This is definitely a recipe you can make a day ahead. We had leftovers that we ate the next two days while watching TV and it was just as good those times.

Honestly, this is super easy to make and super impressive. It was the hit of our dinner party and it literally took me like ten minutes.

Cheddar Guinness Dip

A tasty option for a St. Patrick's Day party, or any party really, with the sharp bite of Irish cheddar cheese and the tang of Guinness. Goes great with crackers or Irish Potato Bread.
Print Recipe Pin Recipe
Prep Time 15 minutes
Resting Time 1 hour
Course Appetizer
Cuisine Irish

Equipment

  • Food Processor (Large) You can make do without a food processor. See recipe for details.

Ingredients
  

  • 250 g Cream cheese Softened
  • 250 g Irish cheddar cheese, or other sharp cheddar cheese Shredded
  • 1-2 Garlic cloves
  • 1 tsp Dijon mustard Any strong mustard will do in the absence of Dijon
  • 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
  • ½ tsp Paprika
  • ¼ tsp Salt
  • ⅛ tsp Pepper
  • ⅓ cup Guinness
  • 3 Green onions
  • Parsley, fresh or dried, to taste

Instructions
 

  • Put the cream cheese, cheddar cheese, garlic, mustard, Worcestershire sauce, paprika, salt, and pepper in a large food processor and blend until smooth and consistent. If you don't have a food processor or yours is too small, there are alternatives. I used a hand blender / stick blender, pressing it down into the mixture to mix it up. You could also use a fork to mix and press together; with this method you'll get one that's less smooth but that's all right. If you're going with the fork method, you'll want to mince the garlic since there are no blades to chop it up.
  • Add in the Guinness and process until smooth.
  • Transfer to a bowl, smooth out, and top with green onions and parsley.
  • Let sit in the fridge for at least an hour before serving.

Notes

This works well as a “measure with your heart” recipe. If you want extra cheese or extra Guinness or extra garlic or any alterations, just go for it. When I make this, I eyeball all the ingredient measurements.
If you want to go all Irish, this dip goes great with Irish Potato Bread.
Keyword Beer, Cheddar, Dip for bread, Dip for crackers, Guinness