Hey, Food52 Faithful, what are you canning this summer? ;o)

Yesterday alone, 4 jars pineapple-peach jam with mint, 6 jars plum jam with cardamom, 8 jars fig jam with cardamom, 6 jars vanilla balsamic fig compote, and 4 jars fig lime jam.

Sour-cherry jam.... which decided it wanted to be sour-cherry ice-cream topping bc it didn't thicken enough...

It's nice to know that there are others out there who spend their summers obsessing about what they're going to put in jars next! I've got a 10-lb tub of frozen sour cherries that my husband lugged home from northern Wisconsin that I'm going to turn into mrswheelbarrow's sour cherry jam sometime soon. I've a question for fermentation folks: How long can you keep lacto-fermented sour/half dill pickles in the fridge? I've read a month but it seems to me they'd last longer? I sure hope so cause I just made a crock-load of them.

Just to update you: I've made pickled beets several times, once with Paul Virant's red wine and rosemary recipe, the other times making Kevin West's pickled beets with ginger and sweet spices. I just finished processing Mme Ferber's 2-apricot jam, using a combination of white peaches, yellow peaches and nectarines, because apricots are long gone. I did not have an orange so I used 2 lemons. The recipe has you macerate the fresh fruit overnight, while you soak the dried fruit in the Gewurz. I had a lot else going on, so I let the fruit macerate in the fridge for three days instead of one. Friends, this jam is amazing. I strongly recommend it. I see that Cathy Barrow posted it on her site, if you are interested: http://www.mrswheelbarrow.com/2011/07/my-admiration-of-the-apricot-four-preserving-projects/
I've also canned a dozen jars of blueberries in light syrup. That's all I'll do, given our meager crop this year. Those should suffice for special occasion breakfasts.
Next up: I'm looking forward to trying Kevin West's kosher dill pickle recipe. (We go through at least two pints a month, so I have to make a lot of them!) It will be fun to compare the two versions. Stay tuned.
Also, I plan to can several quarts of stone fruit slices for crumbles and cobblers mid-winter.
My son wants to pickle some hot peppers, so we'll be doing that too over the next few weeks.
Cheers,
AntoniaJames
Next up

Brandied cherries! Love them in a French 75. Half Sour slices and this weekend my husband will be attempting ketchup. I was hoping for just canned tomatoes but he is hell bent to make his own ketchup.

I must say, you all are so impressive! I'm inspired.

In addition to the blueberries from our bushes which will all go in jars in light syrup, given how tiny the crop is, thanks largely to the drought, I have these on my dance card:

Yellow Plum and Riesling Jam (from Paul Virant’s “Preservation Kitchen,” page 74) (I often use Gewurztraminer) Beautiful and great tasting. I’ll also make a plum + nectarine variation.

Dill Pickles (Virant, page 30; my notes: brined for 12 hours, 3 tablespoons kosher salt/quart water; cut into spears, slices) Best Kosher dills I’ve ever made, hands down. I’ll make at least two dozen pints.

Two Apricot Jam from Mme. Ferber’s “Mes Confitures.” I make it with all kinds of other stone fruits, given the ephemeral apricot season here in Northern California + dried apricots (Frog Hollow Farm dried apricots – without any question, the best ever)

Pickled Golden Beets with Ginger (Kevin West, “Saving the Season,” page 143) Best recipe in that book full of good ones. I’ve already put up five pints, including a few made with red beets, because one week the reds just looked better than the gold ones. Incidentally, one red beet slice in the bottom of a jar of golden beets turns them the most luscious shade of orange.

Sweet Pickled Damsons (Pamela Corbin, “The River Cottage Preserves Handbook,” page 112) So pretty when made with the Emerald Beauty plums we'll see in September.

Stone Fruit Chutney, from the Williams-Sonoma site. We made this at our preserving potluck a few years ago and it was such a hit!

Dilly Beans! (A wonderful addition to "3-bean salad")

Green Tomato Chutney, my recipe here on Food52, in the fall when green tomatoes arrive at the farmers’ market

Raspberry Jam, standard ratios, spiked with Slivovitz

In the fall I’ll make:

Roasted Applesauce (roast with spiced pear cider, no sugar; after roasting, blitz in food processor; cook at low boil stovetop for 5 minutes, process 10 minutes. I’ll take this over candy any day of the week.)

Paul Virant’s Pumpkin Butter (now a Genius recipe)

Rachel Saunders’ Valencia orange marmalade (my father’s favorite, and he does appreciate a good marmalade!)

I'm making all kinds of flavored red wine and white wine vinegars, too. I am fortunate to be able to buy excellent wine vinegars by the four-liter jug for a song at our local winemaking store. I always have a bit left over after my pickling and chutney adventures.

I'll be trying some of the many excellent suggestions on this thread, too.

Thank you so much, everyone!

(I do hope that more people will chime in. What an amazing resource this is.)

Cheers,

AntoniaJames ;o)

So far, I've done cherry-Maraschino jam, pickled cherries, apricot jam (with noyaux), apricot butter, apricot jelly, pickled garlic scapes (Marisa McClellan's recipe is wonderful), pickled asparagus, cornichons, several batches of dill pickles, and some fermented half sours. I was going to do a sour cherry jam as well, but then we had a long spell of 90+ degree weather and I said "uncle" and just ate all the sour cherries out of hand! Hopefully, the weather will let up enough for me to can some tomatoes and do something with plums.

So far this season: Strawberry balsamic black pepper jam, strawberry rhubarb, strawberry lime, blueberry cherry lime, cherry cardamon, Ranier cherry lime. I skipped making apricot jam last year, but am going to make sure I put some up this year. I will make various plum jams, go wild blackberry picking and put up blackberry sage jam, and make fig cognac jam.

So far, peach jam w/saffron; peach jam w/rose geranium; and plum jam with star anise. I have a few pounds of white peaches on the counter right now, waiting for me to decide whether to make jam w/spiced rum or can them in lavender-flavored syrup. ;)

I've loved many recipes from Sherri Brooks Vinton's book "Put 'Em Up!", especially the Picnic Relish and Dilled Carrots. Another favorite is fruit jams with herbs. You can buy strawberry jam in any store, but you'll never find such gems as Blueberry Basil, Chocolate Raspberry, or Peach Lavender.

My neighbor showed up last night with FOUR giant bags (like, trash bags) of mustang grapes so mustang grape jelly is happening. Two bags of wild plums, so plum jam. PEACHES are here. I made double peach jam (the Mrs Wheelbarow way) and feral plum jam (half wild half domestic plums - yuk yuk) Also Mrs W's dilly green beans. Corn chow-chow. Peach chutney. Mother in laws figs will be ripe in a couple weeks then it's fig jam time.

And who knows what else? Fun!

We call it canning fever at our house! Fancy Pantry by Helen Witty is a wonderful resource for all kinds of little put up jobs. An excellent recipe for bread and butter pickles. Add dried red peppers for a spicy version. And my favorite pickle relish ever. Great in cocktail sauce for seafood.

I warmed up with pickled jalapeños, then some quick pickled ginger and rhubarb chutney (Ashley English)
Currants and gooseberries are next!

I think I might can some Bread & Butter pickles, if I have enough cucumbers to do a batch.

all time favorites: apricot juniper preserves (serve with meat), lemon or lime chutney (Laurie Colwin), giardinara Italian vegetable antipasto, mango or peach chutney, vodka infused applesauce (aka applesauce for grownups).
new to me: ginger marmalade, in the process of making it, so don't know outcome

I'm all about experimenting with kimchi this summer, using various vegetables like radish, spring onions, eggplant, zucchini. Its not really canning per se, but its preserving!

I had a friend who canned fruit for the express purpose of making pie...and anything involving pie gets my heart racing. I was thinking of peach with ginger and chile. I canned apricot and boysenberry jam a couple years back, but I gave nearly all of it away as gifts, which I later regretted.

I love the idea of canning salsas! Nothing compares to homemade salsa. I eat salsa verde like its ketchup.

Salsa and relish taste way better than store-bought. Best of luck to you!

Thank you for this!!! I'm pretty new to "serious" canning and am feeling very enthusiastic but my husband's sick of hearing about it. :) In the past couple months: strawberry and blueberry jams, Meyer lemon marmalade, candied clementine slices (sooooo good...), spicy radishes, dill pickle spears, and sweet n' sour pickle slices. I'm not sure what to do next and am looking forward to hearing from everyone else!!