From Scratching: Victorian Style Seville Orange Marmalade

Seville Orange Marmalade has been on my radar since I began canning this fall. I eagerly swapped for a jar of Seville Marmalade at the Preserve Swap I attended as I wanted a point of departure from which to base my Marmalade Mis-adventures. I copied a few recipes for traditional marmalade into various notebooks I keep for my food projects. This recipe was based off the one in We Sure Can!: How Jams and Pickles Are Reviving the Lure and Lore of Local Food

In Victorian style marmalade, whole oranges are boiled in water for several hours. Due to my cribbed notes I was unsure as to what the goal of this step was. Since then I have read that the oranges should be easily pierced with a skewer and express a type of 'deflation' and that the peels should be thoroughly cooked. The next step is to cut the peel into pieces according to personal preference (I lazily cut my peels into huge pieces). The peel is then boiled with sugar, water, and a jelly bag filled with the pith, seeds, and membranes of the orange) until it passes the standard jell test. To acheive a nice suspension of the peels, the mixture is allowed to stand for 15 minutes and then processed - my peels were too thick to suspend!

Victorian Style Orange Marmalade
9 Seville Oranges
4 cups sugar
2 cups water

Cover oranges with water and boil for two hours or until 'deflated'. Discard water and cool oranges. Cut oranges in half. Strain pulp and reserve liquid. 
Cut peels into matchsticks. 
Combine reserved liquid with sugar and water. Add jelly bag filled with pith, pulp and membranes of oranges.
Boil until mixture passes jell test. 
To achieve suspension, let mixture cool for 5-15 minutes. Then process in water bath for 15-20 minutes. 
Makes 6 500 mL jars.    

Tasting Notes: I actually enjoy the largeness of the pieces of peel, however several jars did not have enough 'jell' around the peel. So next year I will increase the amount of water and sugar by one cup each. 

This project was inspired by my 2013 Culinary Goals. 

Do you have an itch to make Seville Orange marmalade? Sadly, the oranges are only in season during January and February but...
this post on Spicy Seville marmalade will keep you inspired while this article on the history of marmalade will give you something to read while you wait until next year.    

          

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From Scratching: Spent Grain Pasta

I got the idea for spent grain pasta here, but I used my veganized pasta recipe (2 cups semolina flour and 1/2 cup hot water) but replaced 1/2 a cup of the semolina flour with an 1/2 a cup of spent grain flour. The pasta could not be rolled as thing as it usually can due to the coarse grind of the spent grain flour.  

This pasta with no sauce leaves a strong, slightly bitter aftertaste but improves drastically when served with some tomato sauce. I think the taste of this pasta will depend a lot on the grains used in the brew. 

Overall this was a fun experiment, but I will keep looking for that perfect recipe to use up the majority of my spent grain flour. 

Has anyone else made spent grain pasta?    

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From Scratching: Spent Grain Flour

Through twitter stalking Junction Craft Beer I discovered when they had brewed and headed down there to ask for some spent grains. I then dehydrated and ground those spent grains into a flour.

Now what to do with this flour?

Original inspiration here.   

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From Scratching: Homemade Tootsie Rolls

When other people - better people - make recipes such as these Homemade Tootsie Rolls they wind up with better-than-perfect replicas of the original. Their tootsie rolls are the perfect Tootsie shape and wrapped in perfectly square, perfectly precise  perfectly-perfect wrappers.

My tootsie rolls were odd shaped, oddly wrapped, and frankly, kinda ugly but they sure tasted good!
I adapted the recipe slightly by replacing honey with brown rice syrup, and dried milk with dried soy milk powder.    

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From Scratching: Pickled Grapes

After a few grape picks one realizes that there are only so many things to do with a bounty of grapes. I've made a store of grape jam and these lovely green grapes were to perfect to squish and boil so pickling it was. Pickling creates an entirely new phenomena - sweet and delicately flavored.

Pickled Grapes:
500 ml jar full of stemmed grapes
1 cup white wine vinegar
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 t mustard seeds
1 t peppercorns
1 cinnamon stick
1/4 t salt

Bring vinegar, sugar and spices to a boil. Let cool. Pour over grapes. Refrigerate for a few days before tasting.

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From Scratching: Grape Jam

I've always been a raspberry jam girl - with seeds! Strawberry was consumed, but not accepted when we ran out of raspberry. There was always 5 or 6 jars of half consumed strawberry jam in the fridge growing up. No one really liked it, especially with 'extra fruit' which were just lumps of sad strawberry.

As die-hard a raspberry fan as I am there are folk out there who only accept PB & Grape sandwiches. Which blows my mind - with the insipid store bought purple colored jam? Why such self hatred?

But with this delicious homemade grape jam? I may just be a convert!

Grape Jam
4 cups grapes
3 cups sugar

Boil grapes and sugar for 20 minutes. Push through a sieve which will remove skins and seeds. Hot water process for 15-20 minutes.

Total Jars Canned: 24 1/4 pints

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From Scratching: Crabapples

Crab apples. Crab apples have a less than stellar reputation. According to my husband they are only good for childhood neighbourhood fights. According to my sister's CSA farmer, "no one eats crab apples."

Eating those sour, pucker apples straight off the tree was definitely a trip down memory lane. I had to figure out something to DO with them, because eating more than five WILL give you an upset stomach.

Crab Apple Jelly - a jewel like jelly that is sweet and tart at the same time.

Put the apples in the pot. Add enough water to cover and cook until the little apples explode. Strain through a dishcloth. Measure how many cups of liquid you have. Add an equal amount of sugar. Boil until jell test passes. Hot water process 10 minutes.

Crab Apple Hot Pepper Jelly - my sister and my husband both like this jelly so I had to give it a try

Cook 2 lbs apples in water until they burst. Strain. Add enough vinegar to make 3 cups of liquid. Add 3 3/4 cup sugar. Boil until dissolved. Slice up half a sweet bell pepper, 3 jalapenos, and 1 scotch bonnet pepper. Boil for a few minutes then strain. Continue to boil until mixture passes the jell test. Process for 10 minutes.

I did not measure how long the pepper were in the mixture but I continued to taste test until I thought the strength was appropriate.

Check out my DIY Canning post for basic canning information.
Total Jars Canned: 19 3/4 pints

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From Scratching: Plum Jam

This is the canning recipe that really sealed my current obsession with canning (pun intended). I went on a @NFFTT plum pick and came home with a huge bag of small under-ripe plums. There really was no choice except to make jam.

Plum Jam
2 cups pitted, quartered plums (skin on)
1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon lemon juice (used bottled)

Combine on the stove. Once the sugar melts and starts to boil start at timer for 15 - 20 minutes. At 15 minutes, start to test for jell. Process for 10 minutes.

Makes: 3 x 125 mL jars

Follow my DIY Canning Guide for more information on canning.

Total Jars Canned: 5 pints

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From Scratching: DIY Canning

While I am a somewhat adventurous home cook, there are a few things that I am simply terrified of. For example, I have a huge fear of broiling because after all, broiling is basically a controlled burn. I have nurtured a fear of canning for many years. This fear was so strong that it survived a successful batch of raspberry jam. 

However my recent involvement with Toronto's Not Far From The Tree has forced me to overcome this fear. I have been on a plum pick, apple picks, and even a grape pick. It's been a ton of fun and is a really good organization to get involved with.  

The @NFFTT bike and picker poles.

My DIY guide to canning:

Equipment:
One gigantic pot
One huge pot
Fruit
Sugar
Canning jars and new lids
Tongs
Jar lifter


1. Sanitize the jars by boiling them in water for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, keep them in the hot water until ready to use.
2. Start cooking the ingredients for jam. Test for jell by dipping a metal spoon in the jam and placing in the freezer for a few minutes. This cools down the mixture quickly so that you will be able to tell how thick the jam will set to.
3. When the jam is almost set, throw the lids and rings into the pot with the jars. 
4. Remove one jar from the gigantic pot. Fill with jam. Wipe the rim of spilt jam. Remove one lid and ring from the jar. Place on the jar and finger tighten.
5. Repeat step 4 until you run out of jars.
6. Turn up the heat on the gigantic pot. Place the filled jars back into the pot. Once the water returns to a boil start the timer for amount the recipe calls for.
7. Remove jars from water. The jars should start to pop sealed within a few minutes. Once the jars have sealed remove the rings. Let cool completely before storing.

The main things I have learnt through the last few weeks of canning is:
a. don't remove the rings and lids from the hot water until immediatly before you place them on the jar
b. don't remove the ring from the jar until the jar seals

My seal rate greatly increased after I started to follow these two things!

Another thing to note is that the jar lifter is not required for jars that are 125 mL in size. These tiny jars can be lifted with tongs even when they are full of jam. So if you aren't sure if you are going to continue canning you could skip buying the $8 dollar jar tongs. There are packages of canning equipment for $15 that include jar tongs, tongs, magnetic lid lifter, funnel, and jar opener. I feel like the jar tongs are the only required item but the magnetic lid lifter would be nice to have.

Disclaimer: I am not a food scientist or an expert canner. There are a lot of safety concerns with canning and I urge you to do your own research regarding canning. The above DIY guide is simply meant to illustrate how simple the premise of canning is. I hold the view that the industrial food complex requires (and likes) us to be scared and sceptical of our food. However, if jam smells like jam and tastes like jam it probably IS jam. Overall, we should not be scared of food that we source and cook ourselves. It's important to trust your own senses and common sense.  

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From Scratching: Roasting Coffee

Roasting coffee at home is in vogue at the moment. This simultaneously annoys and encourages me. It encourages me because if something so DIY as coffee roasting can become a trend then there may really be hope for a widespread change in the food production system. It annoys me because the rich, white urbanites that are buying raw coffee beans are not doing so in replacement of their charbucks but as a form of social currency.

My foray into coffee roasting is intended to replace the purchase of all coffee beans consumed in the home and I will continue to support local cafes. It is my belief that coffee should be a luxury. It should be a treat, enjoyed because of the flavor and comfort that it brings and not a daily necessity.

It is this view of the luxury of coffee that allows me to drink a single espresso that takes 12 hours to produce!

I have roasted coffee three times now. The first time I tried the beans-in-a-fry-pan method. This method would work but I was too freaked out by the chaff and the popping beans to allow the roasting to continue and therefore had a bunch of under-roasted beans that had to be tossed.

I then bought a 13 dollar popcorn machine and voila roasted beans!

Roast ya'selves some beans:

a popcorn machine

open window/fan

bowl

1/2 cup of raw green beans

stopwatch

tea towel

strainer

Situate the popcorn machine by an open window or fan as fire alarms have been set off with this method! Place a bowl under the shoot of the machine because once the beans start 'popping' chaff will fly out of the machine. Sometimes beans are expelled as well. Put the beans in the machine and turn it on. Start the stopwatch.

The following are some visual cues I use...

4 minutes - beige/brown

13 minutes - carmel brown

25 minutes - chocolate brown

35 minutes - dark chocolate brown

Turn off the machine and place the beans in the strainer. The top of the popcorn machine is hot, so use the tea towel! Shake the beans until they are cool and you can touch them. Technically the beans are now ready to use but I find that the final product has more body if you wait six to twelve hours. 

Disclaimer: I have not managed a really dark roast (which is the roast I usually like) but I have managed to make a decent espresso with this method.

Due to energy consumption, I would love to use the stove top method but I thought the whole thing was gonna light on fire! I want to try roasting over a campfire - if it lights on fire in the great outdoors - oh well!

Overall this was a fun/rewarding thing to do and the popcorn method is easy! I would recommend you give it a shot!

Have you roasted coffee? Do you have advice for me? What do you think about my views about the luxury of coffee?

 

dj

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From Scratching: Vegan Butter

I few months ago I heard about vegan butter churners via twitter. I was intrigued and a quick google search later I was in possession of a vegan butter treaty. I do worry about the inclusion of refined coconut oil in this recipe but I follow the author's advice of moderation.

The big benefit of this recipe is that it eradicates reliance on a big business ie Earth Balance. I believe that all big business have the potential for abuse (of land, of people, of resources) and Earth Balance's use of palm oil is prime evidence of this. This recipe takes 15 minutes of active time and an hour of freezer time as well as having a long storage time frame making it easy to have homemade vegan butter in a hurry.

I made the Regular Vegan Butter and my only problem was that my soy lecitin granuales were old and had changed color and were sticking together. This made it hard to incorporate the granulates into the mixture. I think I will see if I can find some liquid lecithin for future butter making adventures.

I have had pancakes for supper twice in the last week just so that I can have some of this butter. It melts on pancakes beautifully. I think it tastes very similar to butter but I haven't had real butter in almost 5 years and was never a huge butter eater!

I recommend you give this recipe a try and I will definitely be making more vegan butter in the future. 

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