This is a blog about home canning—or "putting up" as one might say where I'm from—and it will cover jams and other fruit preserves, pickles and briny things, canned vegetables (above all tomatoes) and the complement of condiments that includes relishes, sauces, salsas and those related preparations that result when you chunk bits of seasonal produce and preserve them in a syrup either piquant or sweet.
It's been a busy day.
I'll start with the recipe I worked out for the black Mission figs from the market this morning. Figs are supposedly a low-pectin fruit, but this jam set up beautifully, even though I reduced the sugar to compensate for the fig's natural sweetness.
Yesterday I said it was getting to be summer, and here's proof: The first 90-degree day in Laurel Canyon.
This morning I ran down to the Studio City Farmers Market to get pickling cucumbers. Then I saw the black Mission figs at the Nicholas Family Farms stand and couldn't resist.
Sometime late last summer, my friend David Tanis came for visit and I threw a dinner for him. The next morning we were sitting out on the porch, a little addled from the festivities, when we noticed that the garbage can had been rummaged by a nocturnal beast.
The marauder had left his mark: a trail of greasy paw prints up the front stairs, which clearly identified him as a raccoon. David named him Old Greasy Paws.
Old Greasy Paws hit again last night. I stupidly forgot to close the lid of the Coleman cooler on the porch, and the little bastard came up to help himself to the brown Turkey figs I got at the market yesterday. Sic transit gloria mundi.
I thought apricots were done, through, over and finished for the season. Although I had only put up 12 pounds and had planned to put up at least twice that, this past week at work was chaotic and left me no time for jamming. Sometimes fate intervenes, and I figured I'd just settle the apricot-jam deficit with extra peaches.
Then fate intervened again today when I headed over to Surfas to get vinegar for pickling the golden beets from the market. Outside the entrance was a stand from Bee Green Farm with beautifully packed flats of Blenheim apricots, a bucket full of lemon verbena leaves—verveine to you French speakers—and five baskets of Persian mulberries, the queen of all berries and one of the very finest fruits in the world. A miracle.
I didn't make it to the Santa Monica Farmer's Market on Wednesday and today I was amazed at the difference since my previous trip last Saturday. Summer has arrived.
I vaguely noticed something was different even before leaving the house in Laurel Canyon this morning because the sun was burning bright by 7.30. Then it dawned on me that after a solid month of May Gray and June Gloom, the marine layer is finally in retreat.
Another seasonal indicator: the glamorous pair of crows that have been nesting in a tree next door and feeding in my front yard were raising a hell of a racket. I figured it meant they were screaming at the kids, and sure enough, a bit later I heard their squawking again and looked outside to see the pair of crows flapping around with their two fledgling chicks, who are at last big enough to test their wings.
When I got to the farmer's market, the change of seasons was unmistakable. Last week's late cherries, green onions and turnips had given way to squash, tomatoes and peaches. There's even a little white corn. But to my frustration there wasn't an apricot in sight. I had been counting on a final haul of Blenheims—maybe 10 pounds more—to make a third batch of jam and a few jars of apricot butter, my mother's favorite.
I've read that apricots don't ripen off the tree. Not true. When I got Blenheims at the SMFM on Saturday, I included a handful of green ones to see what would happen. They have ripened and I ate them tonight—juicy and delicious.
Recipe: