Canning in 2013

This is a photograph of the largest continuous cupboard in my kitchen.  Yes it isn’t very big, and yes, strangely it’s filled almost completely with canning jars.  It’s been this way (nearly empty of actual food) for multiple months now.  In the bottom left are the last few jars from last year’s canning fest; clearly the pickled carrots and beets were the least popular.  Notice, however, that the second and third shelves also have filled jars, which I’m very happy to announce are the first stuffs to be put up in 2013!  There’s still, clearly, a ways to go.  But with any daunting task, it helps to make a list (and then ignore it), so here is the canning plan for 2013.  Almost all of the recipes are from Canning for a New Generation, many of which I made last year, but there are also a couple newbies to keep morale high.

Jam

• Cardamom plum jam (1/1 pint)
• Nectarine Jam (6/6 half-pints)

Pickles

• Honeyed Bread-and-Butter Pickles (0/7 pints)
• Quicker Kosher Dills (0/4 quarts)

Salsa, Hot Sauce, and other Tomato Things:

• Charred Tomato and Chile Salsa (4/12 pints)
• Salsa Verde (0/12 pints)
• Nectarine and Cilantro Salsa (0/10 pints)
• Tomato Ketchup (0/12 half-pints)
• Sriracha Hot Sauce (0/6 half-pints)
• Peach Habanero Hot Sauce (0/5 half-pints)
• Tomato Sauce (0/8 pints)

What am I missing???

Rum Cherries

For my birthday, my lab-friend Ted gave me the makings of his drink-of-the-moment, the Dark and Stormy: a bottle of dark rum (Black Seal Bermuda Black), and a six pack of ginger beer. The drink itself was pretty good, but after we ran out of the ginger beer we didn’t have much call for the rum.

Until, that is, I came home from the farmer’s market with a few too many cherries. Anna suggested making rum cherries, and after a bit of googling I came up with a recipe. I can’t find any of the sites I pulled from, and it doesn’t actually matter that much, I think: I could find no definitive version of rum cherries, and I’m sure you could find a recipe for rum cherries with whatever ingredients you’re desire. Here’s one more to add to the pile.

Rum Cherries

1.2 lbs cherries
2/3 cup sugar
500 ml (2/3 of a bottle) of dark rum
1/2 of a very used vanilla bean

Sterilize the jar and lid by boiling (we used a 3lb honey jar) (I don’t know if sterilization is necessary). Cut the cherries in half and pit them (this was a bit laborious). Mix the sugar into the rum as best you can. Put the cherries in the jar and pour the rum/sugar mixture over, then add the vanilla bean (slice it in half, long-ways, if not done already). Top off with rum until covered, close, and refrigerate. You can then shake to dissolve as much sugar as possible.

We aged it in the fridge for one and a half months. At this point it was pretty darn delicious. Anna invented a great cocktail for it, as well:

Orange Cherry Lazy (so called because she was “too lazy to do anything fancy” and, apparently, too lazy to come up with a real name)

Juice of two squeezed oranges
Several tablespoons rum-cherry sauce
Several rum cherries

Combine and enjoy. Also, once you’ve had enough, “Orange Cherry Lazy” starts to sound like “aren’t you very lazy”.