I realize that I’m a month or two late for the PUMPKIN-EVERYTHING craze that annually arrives in September, but I finally gathered the time, the initiative, and the pumpkins to try my hand at making my own pumpkin puree. I’ve always been a big fan of Libby’s, but I’m pretty pleased with both the results and the ease of making this myself. Right after Halloween, it’s easy to find pumpkins for just a couple dollars, so it’s a great time of year to stock up for all your coming holiday desserts, as it freezes wonderfully.

And it’s sooooo easy. I urge you to give it a try for your own pumpkin recipes this year! Here’s how it’s done:

1. Select 1-2 small-ish pumpkins, or as many as you want to make in one batch. You can definitely puree pumpkins of any size, but they flavor and texture will be better from smaller pumpkins. These are often sold as “pie pumpkins” or “sugar pumpkins”.

2. Preheat oven to 400°F and line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. Slice the stem-end of the pumpkin off, slicing off as little of the orange part as possible. Then, cut each pumpkin in half.

3. Use a metal spoon or a pumpkin scraper to clean out the cavity of each half. And don’t pitch the seeds! They make a delicious snack when they’re roasted.

4. Place the pumpkins cut-side down on the parchment paper. You can also place them cut-side up, but you’ll want to add a tablespoon of water to the cavity of each half.

5. Bake the pumpkins for 45-50 minutes. To ensure they are done, flip one half over and prick the flesh with a fork. It should be soft and easy to prick.

6. Use a metal spoon to scrape the flesh off of the skin of each half. Place the flesh in a food processor or blender. I work with one half of the pumpkin at a time to help the pureeing go quickly.

7. Empty the puree into a separate bowl and continue until all of the pumpkin flesh is pureed.

And that’s all! My sugar pumpkins yielded about 32 ounces of puree per pumpkin, or roughly the equivalent of two cans.

You can use this puree immediately if you have a dish ready to cook. Or, keep it in the fridge for up to five days.

I, however, freeze mine. I like freezing it in eight-ounce baggies. Just use regular zippered sandwich bags and a food scale to add the puree, then press them flat before freezing to maximize your storage space.

Looking for new ways to feature pumpkin at your festivities this year Try these Mini Pumpkin Cream Pies, Pumpkin Cake with Maple Cream & Sugared Pecans, or Pumpkin Chiffon Pie for dessert. Or! Kick off the party with Sweet & Savory Pumpkin Dips. Then when you’re done eating them, the dip bowls will make you another great batch of pumpkin puree.

Two years ago, I wrote a rather desperate post about my first experience in bulk tomato canning. I scarcely realized the task I had undertaken, did not have pots quite large enough or a food mill worth its weight in feathers, and I had unwittingly committed to waaaaay to many products for a two-day stint. At the time, I wasn’t sure it was worth the effort, and there are least a few moments that tears dripped down my tomato-flecked face.

But over the course of that year, I grew quite fond of the sauces I had made and became rather dependent on them in my cooking. When tomato season rolled around again, I decided to tackle the project a second time with a few changes. I reduced the variety of products, but I also added about 25% more tomatoes since I had run out of many favorites in the weeks previous. However, the project still produced a vast amount of stress. I had to do my canning at a friend’s apartment (I didn’t have the right kind of stove to manage it), which meant packing up all my supplies and commandeering a kitchen that was not my own. More tomato-stained tears were had.

They say third time is the charm, and in this case I agree: I tackled my tomatoes this year with some MAJOR upgrades that turned this somewhat dreaded experience into an exciting one.

I know many of you are completely uninterested in large-scale canning. Even with upgraded equipment and a few years of experience, putting up 120 pounds of tomatoes (!!!) is a massive amount of work. However, if you are interested but have not approached the craft because it seems too daunting, I want to share with you a few of the things I’ve learned that I wish so much I had known the first time around.

Get the Right Tools

I know this sounds like a no-brainer. Canning requires lots of unique tools, many of which are now finally available at average grocery stores. But honestly, I am thoroughly convinced that the biggest key to my success this year centered around two new items: a really, really big cooking pot and an electric tomato strainer.

Let’s talk about the pot for a minute. For the last two years, I’ve cooked my batches of tomatoes in a 6-quart pot, which only left about two inches of space at the top for the pureé to bubble along for over an hour. The result is tomato splatter ALL OVER THE KITCHEN. This year, I invested in a 16-quart stainless steel pot, which seemed absurdly huge. However, even though my raw tomato puree filled only about a third of the pot, the splatter that used to bloody my walls and stove now stays merrily inside.

As for the strainer. Brad gave me mine, a tremendous gift, after he’d asked what one item I would splurge on for myself. He went all out and bought me this one, an Italian model with good reviews and a sturdy motor that should last for years to come. There are a variety of others out there, as well. Normally, I’m not a fan of one-trick ponies in the kitchen, let along ones that only come out once a year.

But let me tell you: after two years of washing, scoring, blanching, cooling, peeling, slicing, seeding, and pureéing one tomato at a time, for over 100 pounds, the strainer was EVERYTHING. Wash tomato, slice in half if large, put into strainer, receive beautiful pureé in one pot and seeds and skins in another. What used to take two-three hours for a batch now takes 30 minutes. If you can bulk tomatoes, I can’t recommend it enough.

Can What You’ll Actually Eat

The first year, I tried all kinds of things: sweet relish, ketchup, three kinds of salsa, pickled okra, and three kinds of tomato sauce. I used the tomato sauce and most of the other cans sat dormant. The second year, I canned whole tomatoes, diced tomatoes, and three kinds of tomato sauce. I used the tomato sauce and most of the other cans sat dormant.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t try new recipes. But if a bulk-canning weekend is what you’re aiming for, I find that the fewer recipes I’m working with on those two days improves my efficiency tremendously. Starting with the easiest first, a rhythm develops that makes the whole day (or weekend) flow smoothly. This year, with just over 120 pounds of tomatoes, I finished in 14 hours, a record one-day can-a-thon for me, making multiple batches of only three kinds of tomato sauce.

Prep Your Kitchen the Night Before

On Friday night, I pick up my bulk order of tomatoes. I do my grocery-shopping to collect the other ingredients. I schlepped out my canner, cooking pots, scrap bowls, jars, lids, cookbooks, towels, and canning tools. I lay out towels for filling jars and for resting them once they’re canned.

Why stretch this process out Canning day is a lot of work, a lot of standing on your feet in a steamy kitchen over boiling pots and boxes of tomatoes. I hate preceding that with a couple hours of cleaning and organizing and much prefer to wake up to a kitchen that’s ready to go.

Be Prepared for HARD Work

Even with the tremendously-time-saving tools I gained this year, my back still screamed with pain by the time I hit the third box of tomatoes. My arms ached from pressing 120 pounds of tomatoes through a hole the size of a half-dollar in the tomato strainer. Slowly, the tomato boxes drained, and my kitchen table filled with glimmering ruby jars. All told, at the end of the night, there is always a little bit of anti-climactic disappointment at the resulting jars. The volume of 50-some jars is so much smaller than the huge boxes I started with.

I was extremely caught off-guard the first year by the work. Now, I know what’s coming, so I’m better able to prepare for it. I had Brad bring me lunch in the middle of the day so I could keep working efficiently, and I stocked up on snacks in advance to avoid while hangry (a dangerous mix under any circumstance.)  I wear good shoes and comfy clothes, and I stretch and break when I need to. By treating it like an event, planning in advance what I’ll need, and giving myself every opportunity to be successful, the resulting work feels much for acceptable.

Finally, Savor Your Efforts

You could absolutely go and buy tomato sauce of varying kinds at the grocery store. It will probably cost you less (unless you’re lucky enough to be growing your own tomatoes in which case I’m quite envious) and will taste just fine.

Canning your own food is not about beating the best price at the grocery store. The cost we pay for cheap groceries comes in other forms: unsustainable growing, often inferior products, additives and preservatives, low wages, incentive to be wasteful, the list goes on and on.

Each jar of tomato sauce on my shelf is special to me. I’m proud of the work I’ve put in to support a local grower. I like knowing exactly what’s in my sauce. I like always having some on hand (except for those scary days in August when I’m running low on last year’s supply.) I am cautious to never waste a drop, probably because I remember the back pain and sweat and effort that went into producing it.

And simply put, it’s delicious. It does take a bit of time to get used to when you’ve grown up on grocery-store sauces. But now that we have, Brad and I can hardly imagine not having these staples in the pantry year-round. One long weekend of work yields almost 8 weeks of meals. Not to shabby, I think.

The Recipes

Below are the three recipes I canned this year. After two earlier years of trying a variety of different recipes, these are the ones I use the most consistently in my kitchen. They’re extremely versatile, and don’t require a huge number of additional ingredients. I can in batches large enough to fill my water bath canner with jars, usually 8-9 pints at a time. If you’re curious, I canned this year four batches of Basic Tomato Sauce (yielding 29 pints), two batches of Marinara Sauce (yielding 17 pints), and one batch of Pizza Sauce (yielding 15 half pints.)

The recipes below do NOT outline basic canning safety procedures. For those, I highly recommend the two cookbooks I adapted my recipes from: The Food in Jars Cookbook, and the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving. They are tremendous resources. Plus, you’ll likely find other recipes that you love in each and maybe even add them to your canning agenda.

Basic Tomato Sauce
Adapted from Food in Jars

Makes 8-9 pints

20 pounds paste tomatoes (Roma or San Marzano)
2 tsp salt
1 T lemon juice per pint jar

Wash tomatoes. If using a tomato strainer, run tomatoes through strainer to collect all puree in a large pot. If not using a strainer, cut a small “x” in the skin of the non-stem end of the tomato and remove the core of the stem end. Bring a medium pot of water to a boil and blanch a few tomatoes at a time for 1-2 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon to a bowl of ice water to stop the cooking. Peel off the skins into a scrap bowl, then slice each tomato in half. Use your fingers to remove the seeds into the scrap bowl. Pureé peeled and seeded tomatoes in a food processor or blender and pour in a large pot.

Add salt to the tomato pureé and stir well. Bring to a boil. Once boiling, reduce heat to medium-high and cook for 60-75 minutes without a lid, stirring frequently. The sauce should reduce be almost half.

While the sauce is cooking, prepare your jars and water bath canner.

Once the sauce is nearly done, add 1 tablespoon of lemon juice to each prepared jar. Pour the hot tomato sauce into the jars, leaving 1/2″ of headspace. Wipe the rims and place the flat lids on each jar. Add rings and spin to finger-tight. Process in a boiling water bath for 35 minutes. Note, you will need longer processing time if you live at an altitude higher than 1000 feet. Consult a canning cookbook for recommended additional time.

Remove jars from canner and let sit undisturbed for 12-24 hours. Ensure lids have sealed and store in a cool, dark place.

Marinara Sauce
Adapted from Food in Jars

Makes 8-9 pints

Note: Do not add extra onion or garlic. They are low in acid and could make your final product unsafe for long-term storage.

20 pounds paste tomatoes (Roma or San Marzano)
2 tsp olive oil
1 cup (160 g) finely chopped yellow onion
6 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 tsp salt
1/4 c finely chopped fresh basil
1/4 c finely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
1 1/2 T lemon juice per pint jar

Wash tomatoes. If using a tomato strainer, run tomatoes through strainer to collect all puree in a large bowl or pot (not the pot you’ll use for cooking). If not using a strainer, use the method outlined in the Basic Tomato Sauce recipe to skin, seed, and pureé the tomatoes.

Heat olive oil in your cooking pot over medium heat. Add onions, garlic, and salt and sauté for 5-6 minutes until the onion is translucent. Add tomato pureé, basil, and parsley and stir well. Bring to a boil. Once boiling, reduce heat to medium-high and cook for 70-80 minutes without a lid, stirring frequently. The sauce should reduce be about half.

Once the sauce is nearly done, add 1 1/2 tablespoons of lemon juice to each prepared jar. Pour the hot tomato sauce into the jars, leaving 1/2″ of headspace. Wipe the rims and place the flat lids on each jar. Add rings and spin to finger-tight. Process in a boiling water bath for 35 minutes. Note, you will need longer processing time if you live at an altitude higher than 1000 feet. Consult a canning cookbook for recommended additional time.

Remove jars from canner and let sit undisturbed for 12-24 hours. Ensure lids have sealed and store in a cool, dark place.

Pizza Sauce
Adapted from the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving

Makes 8-9 pints (I can mine in half-pints, which each make one pizza perfectly)

20 pounds paste tomatoes (Roma or San Marzano)
4 tsp dried oregano
2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
2 tsp salt
2 tsp garlic powder
1 T lemon juice per half-pint jar (or 2 T per pint jar)

Wash tomatoes. If using a tomato strainer, run tomatoes through strainer to collect all puree in a large pot. If not using a strainer, use the method outlined in the Basic Tomato Sauce recipe to skin, seed, and pureé the tomatoes.

Add oregano, pepper, salt, and garlic powder to the tomato pureé and stir well. Bring to a boil. Once boiling, reduce heat to medium-high and cook for 70-80 minutes without a lid, stirring frequently. The sauce should reduce be about half.

While the sauce is cooking, prepare your jars and water bath canner.

Once the sauce is nearly done, add 1 tablespoon of lemon juice to each prepared half-pint jar. Pour the hot tomato sauce into the jars, leaving 1/2″ of headspace. Wipe the rims and place the flat lids on each jar. Add rings and spin to finger-tight. Process in a boiling water bath for 35 minutes. Note, you will need longer processing time if you live at an altitude higher than 1000 feet. Consult a canning cookbook for recommended additional time.

Remove jars from canner and let sit undisturbed for 12-24 hours. Ensure lids have sealed and store in a cool, dark place.

I’ve always strongly associated oranges with summer. Their summery orange glow, bright flavors, and balmy geographic origins have all contributed to this perception. And yet I also remember that my dad always brought home the best grapefruits, even in thoroughly NOT balmy Colorado, in January and February. Occasionally, we’d receive boxes of citrus as Christmas gifts, and I even recall the local chapter of FFA selling them to neighbors as a fundraiser in the weeks preceding the holidays.

Citrus is cultivated year-round in many of the southern-most states of our continent, but it really shines in the winter. Not surprisingly, when I was driving back to North Carolina from a late-November trip to Florida with the fam, I simply couldn’t resist stopping at a roadside stand for a bag of this fruit so far outside my normal local fare.

I probably could have just eaten or juiced each and every one of these golden orbs, but I’ve been curious for some time about marmalades. I don’t remember growing up with marmalade in the house, though my mom confirms that she loved it when she was a child. Our spreadables tended to be homemade from the berries and stone fruits my grandma and grandpa grew in their garden, so perhaps that accounts for the marmalade vacuum of my youth. I’ve heard from some that marmalade is an acquired taste, that it’s a bitter product not suited for those who prefer sweet jams. I wanted to give it a shot, but wasn’t sure how I would feel about a bitter final product. I ran across this recipe, a blend of oranges and cranberries, and thought that it might be just the transitional product between sweet and bitter I was looking for.

This marmalade is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. The bulk is made up of equal parts cranberry and oranges, along with a lemon tossed in for a little extra brightness. The oranges and lemons contribute not only their juicy flesh but also their colorful, flavorful rinds.

The rinds contribute a touch of bitterness to this otherwise sweet jam, but it’s also the primary vehicle for the brilliant citrus flavor that punches through the cranberry.

This marmalade is a great way to use up any glut of cranberries you may have left over from the holidays, as well as any citrus you may have received as a gift. It’s delicious when used as a spread, but I’m also confident it would make a great stir-in for a poultry marinade or even as a topping for ice cream.

To those of you who live in climates where citrus grows freely and rampantly: I am incredibly jealous. How do you make the most of your fruit?

Cranberry Orange Marmalade
Adapted from Small Batch Preserving

Makes about 5 pints (10 cups)

5 medium oranges, thoroughly washed and dried (I used Red Navels)
1 lemon, thoroughly washed and dried
6 cups water
4 cups fresh or frozen whole cranberries, washed and picked through
8 cups granulated sugar

Use a vegetable peeler to remove the thin, colorful outer rinds from the oranges and the lemons. Chop the rind into a fine confetti and combine with the water in a large stainless steel pot. Bring to a boil over high heat, then cover, reduce heat to medium, and boil for about 20 minutes.

While the rind is boiling, peel away the remaining white rind from the citrus and discard. Separate the oranges and lemon into segments and remove seeds from each segment. Discard the seeds. Place all of the citrus segments in a food processor and pulse until thoroughly chopped. Add citrus to the pot. Add cranberries to the food processor and pulse until finely chopped, then add the cranberries to the pot as well.  Turn the heat back up to high and bring pot back to a boil. Cover pot and continue boiling for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

While this is boiling, prepare a boiling water bath and sterilize the jars and lids you plan to use.

Add the sugar to the pot. Stirring steadily, boil rapidly for about 20 minutes or until marmalade forms a gel. To test for a gel, spoon a bit of marmalade onto a small plate and place in the freezer for a minute or two. If a skin forms over the puddle of marmalade, it is ready.

Remove from heat and ladle into warm, sterilized jars, leaving about ½” head space. Lid the jars and screw on the rings until just past fingertight. Process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes.

Apple cider. It is,without question, my favorite thing to drink. I’m rather fond of apple cider cold and unpasteurized, straight from an orchard, but I also believe that apple cider is truly at its best served warm, in a cozy little mug, for a soothing drink on cool nights in the fall and winter. From early October to New Years Eve, I need only the tiniest hint of a social gathering to bust out the crock pot and a half gallon of cider and am forlorn when parties I attend elsewhere don’t feature this essential holiday beverage.

The singular challenge I face with my affection for spiced hot cider Unless I am hosting a party, I simply need one mugful. I’ve tried various packets of instant cider mix, but I usually find them far too sweet and not apple-y enough for my tastes. And the Caramel Apple Spice from Starbucks Tasty, but not good for the wallet. And again with the too sweet.

But fortunately, Marisa over at Food in Jars has my back. Last year, after my fall supply of apple cider was gone, she posted this incredible recipe for an apple cider preserve. Not a preserve that tastes like apple cider but is actually spread on toast, but a preserve with which one can make “instant” apple cider all year long! The apple cider syrup, which is essentially reduced and sweetened apple cider, is spooned into a mug of hot water to create a delicious cool-weather drink whether apples are in season or not. I added it to my MUST MAKE NEXT YEAR list and waited, patiently, for this October to arrive.

And arrive it has. When I made my annual apple-picking journey in the last days of September, I picked up a gallon of cider and couldn’t wait to boil it down into syrup. Added a couple of extra spices as well, but did not want to can them into the finished product. Even when making a crock pot of spiced cider for a party, I’ve found that making a little baggie of spices tied with kitchen twine makes serving much easier, so I used the same technique here.

The cider will need to reduce by more than half. Once it does, the spice bag is removed and sugar is added to help it become a syrup. How do you know when you’re there Get. A. Candy. Thermometer. They’re pretty cheap at most home goods stores, and I find I use mine for many applications. It is very important to get this syrup to 218°F, but not to 220°F. Below 218, and your syrup will be too runny. Above 220, and it will turn into jelly (which sounds tasty, but not what I wanted). So keep an eye on that thermometer, and keep on stirring!

Fair warning: this syrup is not a thick, gooey, maple syrup-y syrup. It’s rather thin, actually, more like a simple syrup than anything else. But that doesn’t mean you can’t use it as a syrup. With a bit of additional thickening (try adding a bit of cornstarch immediately before serving, not before canning) this is a dream over ice cream. It’s probably phenomenal on pancakes, or even over pound cake. Add a few spoonfuls to apple pie filling. Dip a doughnut in it.

But for now, I’m gonna stick with my favorite use for it: a way to drink spiced hot cider all year long.

Apple Cider Syrup
Adapted just a smidge from Food in Jars

Makes 3-4 pints (I used quarter-pint jars, but half-pints would be lovely too)

Note: I used fresh, unpasteurized apple cider, and I have yet to try it with pasteurized. As with cold apple cider, apple sediment settles on the bottom of each jar as it sits. Simply shake up the jar before using. It doesn’t necessarily make the prettiest jar, but it is mighty delicious.

3 cinnamon sticks
1 tsp allspice berries
1 tsp whole cloves
1 gallon apple cider
2 cups granulated sugar

Wrap cinnamon sticks, allspice berries, and cloves in a square of cheesecloth and tie securely with cooking twine. Pour the apple cider into an 8-quart (or larger) stainless steel pot along with the spice bag. Place pot on the stove over high heat and bring the cider to a boil, then reduce heat to medium high. Allow cider to boil steadily for about 75 minutes, uncovered, until it has reduced by a bit more than half.

Once the cider has reduced, remove the spice bag and discard. Add the sugar to the pot and stir until dissolved. Increase the heat to high and place a candy thermometer in the pot to monitor the temperature. Stirring constantly, bring the mixture to 218°F. Be careful not to reach 220°F, which will cause the mixture to set into jelly when it cools.

Ladle the syrup into sterilized jars, wipe the rims, and place a fresh flat lid on each jar. Spin on the rings until they are finger-tight. Process filled jars in a boiling water bath for ten minutes. Remove jars and allow them to rest for 24 hours before removing the rings and storing.

For Making “Instant” Cider
Heat 1 cup of water in a mug in a microwave (or boil 1 cup and add to a mug). Stir in 3-4 tablespoons of apple cider syrup. Drink up!

I spend a lot of time contemplating my groceries. And frankly, rather a lot of time getting them. The bulk of them come from the farmers market: stall by stall, I buy some eggs here, zucchini there, a pound of pecans or cheese when I’m feeling flush. But I am rarely able to get everything I need at this weekly market. Due to rather restrictive small dairy laws in North Carolina, it’s nearly impossible to get liquid dairy products (like milk or cream) from a small farm. Needless to say, my cart at the grocery store often suggests that I need a cow of my own. Milk, cream, yogurt, cream cheese, cottage cheese… I get a lot of funny looks from cashiers.

Well I can’t have a cow. I’m sure the neighbors below us wouldn’t appreciate it. But I CAN mark another dairy product off the list of things to buy. It turns out yogurt is really, really easy to make. No rennet, no citric acid, no stretching, no aging (well, 8 hours), no cheese wax: all you really need to start yogurt is milk. And, of course, a little bit of yogurt.

At the risk of sounding icky, it’s important to know what yogurt is to understand why this method works. Yogurt is essentially milk that has been fermented by bacteria, and in most yogurts, the bacteria remains active. Seen the phrases “pro-biotic” and “active” on your yogurt That’s a nice way of saying it’s basically alive. But don’t be grossed out! These are happy yogurt bacteria. With smiling little bacteria faces.

Anyway.

So we know what yogurt is. The process of making it is pretty straight forward. Milk is heated and then slightly cooled, yogurt culture (or yogurt starter, or a bit of yogurt, no need to bicker on semantics) is added to the milk, and then the whole mixture is poured into jars or bottles and must sit, quite warmly, for several hours to transform into Cinderella.

Now it may seem like there’s a hitch here: how do you keep milk still, warm, but not cooking for 6-8 hours I’ve not tried it, but one option is to keep an oven warm with the jars resting inside. But who wants to hold up their oven for 8 hours Not this lady. I prefer to use my little mini cooler (named Stanina, for reasons I now forget) to keep my yogurt happy. The same insulation that keep ice from melting when we take this on road trips will now keep piping hot water at temperature through the entire process. For extra insulation, I you can wrap a crazy printed towel around the cooler, as well. For snuggly yogurt.

And after eight hours or so, or overnight if you are not as rushed in the mornings as I am, you’ll have yogurt! Well, almost.

If you want, you can use the yogurt as it is right out of the cooler. With a bit of whisking, it will form a flowy, classic plain yogurt. But with just a bit of straining to remove the whey, you can produce a creamy, dreamy Greek yogurt that I, personally, find much more versatile. Greek yogurt is thicker, approximately the consistency of sour cream, and I actually use it in place of sour cream quite a lot. In addition to replacing sour cream, it can sub in for mayonnaise in chicken salad, can add body to cream sauces, and makes a pretty decent base for creamy dips.

But my number one love for yogurt, still, is with with a bit of homemade strawberry preserves stirred in and served up for breakfast. Homemade yogurt with home canned strawberries Aces.

DIY Greek Yogurt
Adapted, barely, from The Art of Doing Stuff

Ingredients
1/2 gallon milk
1/4 c plain yogurt with active cultures (I use Chobani)

Equipment
stainless steel pot, at least 3 quart size
dairy thermometer
whisk
two quart-size glass jars or bottles with lids
small cooler, tall enough to enclose the glass jars
cheese cloth or tea towel
strainer

Heat milk in a stainless steel pot over medium heat, stirring frequently, until milk reaches 180°F. Remove from the heat and allow to cool to 115°F.

Stir yogurt into milk and whisk well. Pour milk mixture into glass jars or bottles and secure lids. Place jars into the cooler, and place the cooler in a place where it can sit undisturbed for 8-12 hours.

Turn on your water faucet to the hottest setting. Fill the cooler with very hot water until jars the water completely covers the milk in the jars. Close the lid and wrap a towel around the cooler. Allow to sit, undisturbed, for at least 8 hours or overnight.

After the yogurt has rested, line a strainer with cheese cloth or a tea towel over a medium bowl. Remove the glass jars from the cooler and pour the yogurt into the cheese cloth. Allow the whey to drain off for 10-15 minutes, tipping the cheese cloth a bit to release additional whey. Once the yogurt has reached your desired consistency, remove it from the cheese cloth and whisk well. Store in an airtight container.

To ensure you have enough yogurt starter to make your next batch, reserve 1/4 c of yogurt in a separate container.

After not only one but two majorly epic failures in the kitchen yesterday, I thought I’d start off today with an easy, food budget update. I started the year off posting monthly, but as winter slid into spring, spring into summer, things got busy, and I’d suddenly find myself half-way through the month and still didn’t have time to post about my edible expenses from the previous month. In fact even this month, I’m clearly not posting until halfway through, but since this too is an accumulation of three months, I tossed up my hands and decided to post anyway.

And, as I discovered when looking at my graphs this morning, I’m glad I did. June, July, and August have, for the last two years, been a very unusual time for me. Brad has been away on internships both summers, which leaves me living a life of full of single lady meals at home and, frankly, a lot of take-out. I also traveled rather a lot, grew a lot of food in the garden, and canned copious amounts of summer produce that I otherwise would not have purchased. In some ways, my graphs reflect a bit of back-sliding from the previous installment of the rather fortuitous months of March, April, and May. Here’s how things shook out:

On the grocery front, things stayed pretty steady. I was somewhat surprised by this particular chart since I collected quite a lot of food from my garden and thus was expecting the blue segment to grow. However, I also spent a fair amount of cash on canning supplies, produce for canning, flours, sugars, and butter for wedding cake practice cakes, and so on. Evidence also seems to suggest that I made a lot of oh-poofles-I-forgot trips to the Harris Teeter by my apartment (it falls in the purple pie, large-scale corporate). Seems I was kind of a scatterbrain. Still, the vast majority of my groceries were either grown by me, grown locally, or purchased at the local co-op, so at least there’s that.

Here, however is the true backslide. During the spring months, I had cut my corporate restaurant budget down to 20% of this graph, but look! Back up to nearly half, something was terribly amiss. The most logical conclusions I have are these: one, when I did eat out this summer, it tended to be quick stops on my way home or lunches on campus when I was too frazzled to pack my own. Two, it’s REALLY obvious when I traveled. After a week with 1-2 restaurant trips, suddenly there are six airport purchases from long days of travel flying across the continent. Oy. Must do better this fall.

Summer was strange. As I move into fall, I’m curious to see what develops. Brad is back now, I’ve been much better about planning ahead so I am less tempted to stop for takeout or to order lunch on campus, and the farmers market is still chock full of new produce. Here’s to hoping for getting back on the local-eating horse!

I’m not sure when “pickles” came to indicate cucumbers that are pickled, and nothing else. You can buy pickled garlic, pickled eggs (eeeeeew), but the pickles section is predominantly composed of cukes. Oh sure, there’s variety: sweet pickles, bread & butter pickles, dill pickles, kosher dill pickles, zesty dilly pickles, pickle chips, and more. But they are all cucumbers!

It turns out this was not always so. Those of you who can have probably seen many kinds of pickles in your cookbooks. Pickled okra! Pickled beets! Pickled peaches!

And one of my personal favorites, pickled green beans!

Dilly beans start with a heap of fresh, brilliant green snap beans. They’re dirt cheap right now at my local farmers market, so it’s a great time to buy a bunch and pickle them.

For a little extra pizazz, each jar gets a dried chili pepper. Pretty to look at, and they give these pickles a zesty little kick.

As with many pickles, these are also very quick to make. The lengthiest part of the process is snipping the ends off the beans. Then, quick boil of vinegar, water, and pickling salt and a trip through the water bath canner and you’re set!

I love these little pickles. They are unbelievably crisp, zesty, and dilly, and they offer a great change of pace from ye olde cucumber pickles.

Happy green bean season!

Dilly Beans
Adapted just a bit from Saving the Seasons

Makes 3-4 pints

2 lbs fresh green beans
4 dried red chili peppers
4 cloves garlic, peeled
6 tsp dill seed
2 1/2 c white vinegar
2 1/2 c water
1/4 c pickling salt

Wash beans thoroughly and snip off both ends of each bean. In each of four sterilized jars, add one dried pepper, one clove garlic, and 1 1/2 tsp dill seed.

Before packing the beans into the jars, combine vinegar, water, and pickling salt in a medium pot and bring to a boil. While that is heating, pack beans vertically in the jars as tightly as possible without crushing the beans.

Once the vinegar mixture has come to a boil, pour into jars leaving 1/4″ head space in each jar. Wipe rims of jars and lid, tightening the rings until they are finger-tight. Process jars in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes. Allow jars to rest for 24 hours, then label, remove rings, and store.

It occurred to me today, while I was harvesting tiny cherry tomatoes and tufts of parsley, that I haven’t written a garden update in months. This is quite a change from the first few months I had my plots: I took photos of virtually every change: sprouts peeking through the soil, leaves unfurling, vines climbing. I celebrated each pea pod and jalapeno as though it was the first I’d ever seen. And why not I’m growing some of my own food! A feat that would hardly be possible without my two little community garden plots.

I’ve always thought the idea of community gardens was a great one, but having now experienced one first-hand, I’m a total convert. I wish every neighborhood, subdivision, and city block could have one. Many of you probably don’t have a community garden easily accessible to you… but many of you might. And if you have any interest in learning to grow a little food, I highly recommend you join.

Need some convincing Well. I can talk all day about why community gardens are great. But these, certainly, are the top ten perks.

In no particular order:

It’s Really, Really Affordable

Every garden is a little different, but most charge “plot-owners” a small monthly or annual fee for space in the garden. The fee at my garden is almost mind-bogglingly small: $12-$25 per year. Per. Year. The garden is funding, primarily, from grants, donations from local garden clubs, and the North Carolina State Extension Office. Many of the seeds and seedlings that we plant are provided by fellow gardeners with greenhouses, and rich compost is donated to the garden a couple times a year. Aside from stakes and cages for vines and tomatoes, my out-of-pocket costs have been almost non-existent.

Shared Supplies

Our garden has a shed full of shovels, rakes, wheelbarrows, and gardening gloves. We have an onsite well with hoses long enough to reach all corners of the garden. The entire garden is encircled by a deer fence. Do you have any idea how much it would cost to buy those things just for me Neither do I. But I know it’s A LOT. Sharing supplies not only saves each gardener lots of money, but the benefit to all of us is greater than what we could afford on our own.

There’s No Better Place To Learn

I’m a frequent victim of my own overly-ambitous plans, so I appreciate that my 4’x10′ plots keep me in check. These small plots are large enough to grow a variety of foods, but small enough that they are easily manageable. Plus, and I know this sounds awkward, the relatively small financial investment helps me deal with my failures a little more easily. I just brush off my slightly-bruised ego, replenish the soil, and put something else in the ground to see how it works instead.

Shared Knowledge

Speaking of learning: I consult a lot of web forums, gardening books, and blogs for info on growing food. But the best sources of info, hands down, are my fellow gardeners. Many of them have been growing food for decades, both in small gardens and in vast fields. And here’s the truly amazing thing: after just a year, I sometimes surprise myself when I am able to answer the questions of gardeners even newer than me.

Shared Effort

I’ve frequently heard growers lament the fact that summer vacations are virtually impossible. Plants must be harvested, watered, and weeded every day or two from the day the seeds go in the ground. Lucky for me, there are two dozen other people who garden within feet of my plots, and a quick e-mail to our listserv ensures that my plants won’t die while I take a two-week vacation in July.

A Daily Dose of Outside

A day in the box office can be stressful. Phones might ring off the hook, deadlines rapidly approach, and it’s shocking how much one nasty customer can ruin your day. But at the end of each day, I can take a few minutes outside. A few minutes to take care of my plants, to listen to the birds and crickets flitting about the garden, and to put in just a bit of physical labor dragging hoses all over the place after spending all day at a desk. I won’t lie, there are some days I wish I could just go straight home, but after arriving at the garden, I’m always grateful I didn’t skip the trip.

The Food

This should really go without saying, but it’s definitely a major reason I love my community garden. I’ve been tracking my harvests, and to estimate their values, I’ve been comparing the harvests to what I would pay for the same thing at the farmers markets. The results are staggering. In 80 square feet, I’ve harvested almost $500 worth of produce since January. Fresh, organically grown, produce. In addition to the food I’ve planted myself, we have a giant wall of blackberry bushes along the fence, and blueberries as well. A fig tree planted this year should fruit within just a few seasons. These fruits, impossible to grow in each owner’s plot, are available to all of us.

The Sense of Accomplishment

Or really, it’s the actual accomplishment. There’s nothing quite like the excitement of cultivating a plant from a tiny seed to a mature, vegetable-producing machine. Or the thrill of pulling up garlic that’s been in the ground for eight months to discover that IT WORKED. Yeah, there are failures (I’ve lost my zucchini plant two years in a row), but successes have far-outweighed the failures.

Beautiful Potential

I joined my garden when it was very young. It still is. But our collection of plots occupies a tiny corner of a large plot of land, and the plans for the future of the garden are incredible. An orchard, a demonstration garden, an outdoor pavilion for garden meetings and celebrations, more plots for even more gardeners to grow… I can’t wait to see what the future holds.

The Community

I sought out a community garden because I thought it was the best way I could grow food while I was living in an apartment. And it is. However, I was not expecting to so enjoy thecommunity part of that garden. I look forward to our monthly garden meetings as much as any other social gathering. It’s great to see a friendly face or two when I’m out watering, to hear about their plots, and to swap some produce if each of us has something extra. We celebrate together as a group, collaborating on harvest dinners and volunteer days. We struggle together against colonies of ants, vicious squash bugs, and a wily groundhog. We learn together how to help tomatoes survive the heat and how to pickle okra.

Community gardens are catching on. Empty lots in urban areas are being reclaimed and now flourish with flowers and vegetables. If you do have one near you, seriously: check it out. See how long the wait list is. Or be really bold: join up with your neighbors and see about starting one of your own! I do hope that someday, I’ll have enough space that I can garden at  my house, with more space, to grow even more of my own food. But at the moment, I couldn’t ask for a better deal.

It’s sort of interesting how some posts come about. Sometimes I very specifically know I want to try a recipe, I cook and photograph that recipe, edit the photos, write a little something, and post it to the world. Other times, something comes wildly out of left field and I MUST move it to top of my posting schedule (yes, I have one) because it will either lose relevance or because I’ve made some food I desperately want to share with you.

I had no intentions of writing about this, evidenced by the fact that I took not a single photo aside from before and after shots. This post arose out of a weekend in the kitchen what was, for lack of a better word, grueling. So grueling that it threatened to bring on a veritable identity crisis for this little food blogger.

Just in case you haven’t picked up on this, I care deeply about eating locally. I started this blog, in part, to chronicle my quest toward learning what that means and figuring out just how much of my diet I could change to local fare. This has involved shopping primarily at farmers markets, foregoing produce that isn’t seasonally available, avoiding chain restaurants, starting a garden, and learning the art and science of canning to capture produce when it’s plentiful so that I can eat locally all year long.

I’d say my experience with canning up to this weekend could be firmly classified in the “dabbling” realm. For a while I just made jam. There’s a reason that jam is widely considered an entry-level canning project. Couple together berries and sugar, boil the heck out of them, and you’re left with pretty little jars in brilliant shades of ruby and purple that taste delicious on everything from toast to ice cream. I’d graduated to making a few kinds of pickles, and I tried an inaugural batch of apple sauce last fall.

But none of those things are life-sustaining. They didn’t replace any staples that I was hitherto buying from the grocery store. I’d procured a water bath canner before my apple sauce project, and I knew I wanted to go further this summer. So this weekend, I took my first real crack at canning food that could potentially replace some store-bought staples with homemade ones.

Well.

Having selected eight recipes to try (if you’re gonna turn your kitchen upside down, you might as well get a lot done) I came home from the farmers market on Saturday morning well-stocked: two pounds of okra, five pounds of peaches, two quarts of figs, several onions and peppers, large handfuls both of parsley and basil, and, most importantly, nearly sixty pounds of tomatoes. I dug every every sizable pot and bowl from my cabinets and cheerfully set to work.

Several hours in, the boxes of tomatoes appeared to refill from some bottomless spring. Every burner on my stove was ablaze to keep pots boiling, jars sealing, and lids warm. Tomato juice was everywhere. My shoulders ached from running batch after batch of boiling tomatoes through a food mill, and my lower back was growing angrier by the second. With only half of the tomatoes in jars, I finally turned off the stove after twelve hours and collapsed into bed, exhausted at the thought of returning to the project the next day. But those tomatoes weren’t gonna can themselves, so Sunday morning I was back in the kitchen determined to empty those boxes. Seven hours later , I finally pulled the last batch of jars from the canner, hung up my apron, and tried to coax my muscles back from the ledge.

I stood back to admire my work, a little more than 33 pints of food, but I found I was asking myself a confusing question.

Why in the world am I doing this?

Not exactly the reaction I was expecting.

I figured I would come out of this weekend feeling euphoric. I had conquered a new jam!  A new pickle! Two kinds of salsa! Ketchup! Tomato sauce, in three flavors! Instead, I not only felt physically exhausted, I felt utterly deflated. The way you feel when you discover the tooth fairy isn’t real, or when you finally get rejected after the final round of a job interview.

I was finally exposed, truly, to the immense quantities of produce required to create the likes of ketchup and thick, red pasta sauce. The ketchup alone required four pounds of tomatoes, FOUR, to yield one pint. And those four pounds of tomatoes took several hours to transform into this favorite condiment. (Respect those little packets, friends…)

Then there is the flavor. I’m  not saying the final products taste bad. Maybe they don’t – to be honest, I haven’t cracked open a finished jar, and this is my first time making each of these recipes. But I did sample a spoonful here or a spoonful there to get a sense of what I was making and was surprised at what hit my tongue. The taste was so different (again, not bad, just different) from anything I’d had before I began to wonder: if this is what real tomato sauce tastes like, what the hell have I been eating all these years?

And finally, perhaps most importantly, there is the work. I’m rarely one to shy away from a productive day in the kitchen, but this weekend gave me a run for my money, especially when the yield seemed so very small for what I started with. I can totally see why farm families of yesteryear had so many children: imagine how much more rapidly I could blanch, peel, core, seed, chop, puree, cook, jar, and process sixty pounds of tomatoes with an army of my kin to help out.

For a gut-wrenching moment, just a moment, I wondered if my goals were folly. If all the energy I’ve put into taking local eating to the next level has been some futile, tilting-at-windmills sort of endeavor. Is my palette really so well-trained by massively processed food products that I can barely recognize that same staple when made from scratch How long will it take me to anticipate the flavor of home-canned pasta sauce rather than that of the giant bottles of sauce we currently buy?

I started pondering just how far am I willing to go to eat locally. When I might be satisfied that my diet is local enough. There are some non-local ingredients that will simply never go away. Lemon juice, required even to make my tomato sauce, is a prime example. Olive oil is another. And I highly doubt I’ll give up chocolate, which isn’t even grown on this continent. Does eating these things up make me a hypocrite And if it doesn’t, why not keep commercially produced salsa and pasta sauce, as well To make it myself, I’d weathered the cost of the produce, the jars, the time… was it worth it?

Since then…

The apartment has cooled down, the smell of tomatoes has dissipated, and I’ve spent a lot of time contemplating the questions that flowed from my tomato-addled brain over the weekend. I always try to examine my actions, my emotions, my principals, and my reasons for doing things. On this particular matter, I came out pretty close to the same place I went in.

Why in the world am I doing this Because it matters.

Local food is so much more than baskets of fresh strawberries in June. It’s more than meals at trendy restaurants, more than free-range eggs and grass-fed beef. It’s not about foregoing foods that are processed beyond their raw forms, but about garnering appreciation for the enormous effort and artistry that goes into creating them, which is where canning comes in. Canning fills my pantry with local food, supports local growers, capitalizes on the bounty of spring and summer produce, increases my self-reliance, and reduces packaging waste. Less of my food is coupled with weird-ass chemicals I can’t pronounce, and more of it stands against an industrial food system that is, in many ways, hugely unsustainable. Imagine what might change if each us learned to can.

Is it a lot of work Absolutely. But for me, for my mission to eat locally, it is important work to do.

Next time, perhaps I’ll invite a friend so that the tomatoes chop twice as fast and I don’t awkwardly talk to myself. I’ll probably try some new recipes, repeat some favorites, and skip the ones I didn’t like. As the years go by, I’ll learn what is handy to have in my pantry: tomato sauce seasoned or plain Whole tomatoes or diced ones Maybe I’ll even advance to pressure canning to open up a whole new array of vegetables I can put up. The truth is I’ve only scratched the surface of this incredible craft, and I’m looking forward to digging deeper. In the meantime, I’ll get to enjoy the almost fifty pints of food neatly stacked in the pantry.

Who wants to join my zombie apocalypse team?

Can we talk about bell peppers?

I don’t particularly care for them. I like a good roasted red pepper cream sauce sloshed over some pasta, I think they are super pretty cut into strips and fanned out on a tray of crudités, but I’m never one to actuallyeatthem from said tray.

I do, however, make an exception when for fajitas. Green bell peppers and red onions snuggle up in a tortilla so nicely with well-seasoned chicken, perhaps some cheese, and a healthy dollop of sour cream. I used to buy those little packets of fajita seasoning, but I found I never used it all in one go. Why accumulate half-used packets of seasoning in the pantry when I could just make my own?

Also, what better time to do a glitzy little photo shoot for my most recent kitchen obsession THESE. My beautiful spice jars. I recently ordered an assortment of jars to make my spice and herb rack the prettiest little thing you’ve ever seen, and I still can’t fully express my delight. I know, I know: spices last longer if they are protected from the light. But my kitchen is a cave for 18 hours a day anyway. Plus, they are sooooo pretty!

Fajita seasoning is pretty straightforward. Most of the spices required are common enough that most of you probably already have them in your kitchen. Plus, it can be used for lots of things. In addition to taco meat, I use mine for taco seasoning and also anytime I want a little extra kick in a batch of roasted vegetables. All you need besides the spices is a little jar of your own.

Once your spice are added, give the jar a good shake and you’re ready to make fajitas!

See how easy Kiss your old fajita seasoning packet days (do you have those?) goodbye!

Then make yourself some excellent Tex Mex for dinner.

Homemade Fajita Seasoning
Adapted from Food.com

4 tsp chili powder
2 tsp paprika
2 tsp white sugar
1 1/2 tsp onion powder
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp ground cayenne
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes

Combine all ingredients in an airtight jar or other small container and shake well.

Easy Chicken Fajitas

Makes enough for 4 medium-sized fajitas

2 T canola oil
8 oz chicken breast
1 T fajita seasoning, use more or less to taste
1 T salsa (your favorite)
1 green bell pepper, de-seeded and sliced into long strips
1 small red onion, sliced into long strips
1 cob of sweet corn
1/8 tsp salt
1/4 tsp fresh cracked black pepper
four tortillas, approximately 8″ in diameter
cheddar cheese (optional)
salsa (optional)
sour cream (optional)

Trim fat from chicken breast and slice into long, thin strips. On a separate cutting board, de-seed bell pepper and slice into long strips. Peel your onion, slice it into flats, and then cut each flat in two so that the pieces will be half-moon in shape. Separate the layers from one another. Shuck a cob of sweet corn and cut the kernels off of it.

Place two frying pans on the stove and pour 1 T canola into each pan. Heat both pans over medium heat until the oil glistens. To the smaller pan, add your chicken and sprinkle with fajita seasoning. To the other, add the peppers, onions, corn kernels, black pepper, and salt. Cook peppers and onions until peppers have started to softe, tossing frequently. Cook chicken through, adding additional seasoning as desired. As the chicken finishes, I like to add a spoonful of salsa to the pan, toss well, and remove from heat.

While both pans are cooking, grate about 3/4 c cheddar cheese (more or less to taste). To prepare your tortillas, place another frying pan (or sauté pan, anything large enough to hold a tortilla laying flat) over low heat and gently heat tortillas on each side. Cover with a plate until ready to serve.

Construct fajitas as you desire, adding sour cream, salsa, cheese, guacamole, or whatever toppings you prefer.