“Hey, we were planning on getting together later today, right?” I asked my friend. “Yeah, but after dinner.” “Can we push that back to later in the week?” I was exhausted from Can-o-Rama and the idea of a social commitment after dinner was more than I could handle. “Sure. What’s up?” “I’m pretty tired. I…
Food Preservation
How To Make Pectin-Free Jam: Ditch The Box and Increase The Creativity In Your Preserves
Do you need pectin to make jam? I used to think so. I followed the recipe on the inside of the pectin box slavishly for 7 years before I broke free of the pectin bonds. Every year, my strawberry jam tasted exactly like the strawberry jam of everyone else who wore the Sure-Jell shackles. The…
Create Your Own Signature Jam By Mixing and Matching Flavors
It’s unofficial Preserve Week here at Northwest Edible Life. I know because my floor is sticky with canning syrup and my refrigerator smells like pickle brine. It’s hard for me to think of anything else but putting food by right now, so I’m going to be talking jams and pickles all week long. I hope…
Seven Great Things You Missed On Facebook: Peanut Sauce, Peaches and More
It’s been a busy week over on the Northwest Edible Facebook Page. We blew through the 5,000s in no time and are currently sitting at over 6,000 smart, bad-ass and very attractive community members. Thank you guys! Homebrew Husband captured the exact moment of the 6,000th like on his phone. Not that we are total…
How To Turn A Mason Jar Into A Fermenting Crock
You can spend a lot of money on specialized pickling crocks. Go ahead, be my guest. You’ll learn all about how your $25-$200 is buying you an ideal anaerobic environment in which to nurture your precious anaerobic bacteria…blah, blah, blah. Me? I don’t need another unitasker in my kitchen. I like to be able to use a…
By Popular Demand: Pressure Canning Planning Sheets For Low Acid Foods
A few of my readers mentioned that a planning sheet for low-acid foods to go with last week’s Canning Planning Sheet would be pretty useful. Ask and ye shall receive, Gentle Readers! You’ll find this on the downloadables page paired up as a two-page PDF with the (Water Bath) Canning Planning Sheet, so if you want both you…
More Organized Food Preservation: A Canning Planning Sheet
I’m a bit late to the game this year in terms of laying out my canning goals. But, with the majority of the summer harvest still to come on in this area, it’s not too late to make a game plan. For a canning overview, I like to list out my canning projects by type (jam,…
Buying An All American 30 Quart Pressure Canner: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
If you are part of the NW Edible community on Facebook, then you may already know about the pressure canner that brought me to tears. I had some birthday money, you see. Visions of pantry-ready, home-canned stock danced in my head. And so, after some research, I look the plunge into pressure canners. It was a…
Canning Swirly Fruit: An Easy Way To Prep Pears and Apples
Here’s a lovely way to save some time when you prepare apples or Asian pears for canning. Use an apple peeler-corer (see mine at work here) to make beautiful coils of automatically-cored firm fruit. The swirly fruit looks fantastic in the jar, and packs in well for a nice, well-filled raw pack. Don’t get too…
When She Got There, The Cupboards Were Bare: Assessing Your Larder
How’s your larder looking? Mine is pretty spartan. This is a great time of year to assess your larder and see what you’ve eaten tons of and what hasn’t been a hit. If you make some notes now about what your family really eats, before the furor of canning season comes upon us, there’s a good chance…
Easy No-Stick Canning Jar Labels
Last week, just in time for a massive can-o-thon over the weekend, I followed a Facebook recommendation to some fantastic, customizable canning jar labels on Etsy. I’d link to them, but my aging memory and the fast pace of digital life don’t always play nice, so I’ve completely forgotten where I saw them. The neat thing…
Householder Haikus – My Weekend In Poetry
Juice of two lemons To ensure a proper set I feel every cut. “Can’t finish the peach. The juice runs sticky, too far down my elbow, mom.” My apricots float They will do it every time Maybe more syrup? (big thanks to Harriet Fasenfest for this one) Met the orchard man Blushing fruit, picked by…