Canning Season - Banana Jam

Banana Jam, July 2013; Photo by J. Stahl

My husband had a wonderful idea this past week and asked if I would be willing to make banana jam since I was so busy in the kitchen. I decided why not, we have some soft bananas!

So, I went surfing the internet and was greatly inspired by this blog post, and began formulating a plan.

For those of you who do not know, our canning sugar is a bit different. It already has the pectin in it, and it's a 1:1 recipe. Basically, I had to modify an existing recipe and hope for the best.

From what I understand after reading many other blogs, it's suggested that banana jam doesn't hold for very long, so plan on using it within 3 months or so, even if you run it through a water bath. Thank goodness it made up into only a couple small jars, right?

Here's our process:

• 4 very ripe, large bananas (About 3 cups US)
• 3 US Cups of Sweet Family Nordzucker Gelierzucker 1:1 - der Klassiker 1kg
• 2 Tablespoons of lemon juice.

 Fill your large canning pot with water and get it set to boiling before you get started. This will go very quickly. Hunt up your canning funnel and get your glasses and lids sterilized. Once you've got that step done and the lids and mouths of the jars dry, go ahead and pop your funnel into one of the jars.

Blend your bananas, sugar and lemon juice together in a small pot. Stir until the sugar looks like it's dissolved, and allow the pot to boil for 5- 10 minutes. (Be sure to keep stirring, as this will stick!) 

Fill your jars very carefully, screw the lids shut and pop into the water bath with your jar lifter. Process these for 10-15 minutes (depending on your altitude) and then take them out and cool wherever you've got a safe spot for that. (As you can see, mine was right by the apple sauce that day!)

If you have any jars at all that have not sealed, they will need to be refrigerated.The jars that have sealed, should be shelf-stable for around three months or more.

Next time I make this, I plan on adding some cinnamon or other spices.


From what I've heard from friends, this is a rather popular item that is often sold in the local Christmas Markets.  I'd not been able to go in the last couple of years for health reasons, so I did not know that.

The day after I got it made, the kids were able to have some with their bento. There were absolutely no complaints, and my husband said it was very good. I've not yet tried it since I've been having some health battles due to our local wheat fields. 

Let me know if you give this a try. I would love to hear any tweaks you can come up with!!

Bento: Grapes, mini pickles, banana chips, boiled eggs
cherry jam toast and banana jam toast on buttered bread
Photo by J.Stahl

Canning Season - Red Currants

Out of all the lovely bushes in the side yard, we have three red currant bushes. I was quite excited when we moved in almost three years ago and found these lovely plants were in the yard. I had high hopes that we could do some canning or make currant wine or something with them.

As the last two years passed, it was pretty obvious that I was fighting a lot of health issues as a result of my last major glutening, and the ideas of canning had to be shelved for a time.

This year though, I remembered the currants and decided since we had permission to check over the cherry tree, I'd go ahead and check over the currant bushes. I picked everything I was able to find that the birds had not made off with, and netted about 4 cups of currants.

We'll be making currant jelly with these babies today.

I decided to mesh two recipes together today. One I read suggested using Kirsch Likör, and the other is alcohol free.  I will use about two tablespoons of Lörch Kirschwasser on top of the recipe I found from About.com.

Unlike other bloggers, I would like to ask you to check out the first link. It has some beautiful photos from France (I presume it is from France), and show you in better details than I could, how beautiful these fruit were on the bush. Unfortunately, our bushes are quite tight with leaves, short and picked over by the local birds and wildlife.  They wouldn't make a pretty picture at the moment.

As far as canning goes, this is quite easy, but time consuming.  I'm funny about stems, so I went ahead and took the fruit off of the stems just in case there were any rotten fruit left behind after being rinsed.  I came up with four cups of berries, which isn't too bad considering.

It takes about 30 minutes to can these, but most of this time is spent in either cooking the fruit and the long wait for them to drain through cheesecloth rather than the water bath portion of this. This only needs to be in the water bath for about 5 minutes depending on your altitude.

That's not bad really, is it?

• 2 pounds ripe red currants
• 2 1/2 cups canning sugar (this has pectin already in it here in Germany)
• 1/2 cup water

Basically, you cook the currants in water until they begin to get soft. Once that has been done, you'll mash the fruit and strain them. Once you've sufficiently strained the currants, you'll have about half of what you begin with. This is what you will be cooking with the canning sugar and canning into jelly.  It's really up to you whether you wish to press and get fruit into the jelly or if you would rather a clear jelly.  I'm not one to tell people what to do when it really is all about aesthetics.  What is aesthetically pleasing to me, may not be to you.

Red Currant Jam, J. Stahl, 2013

We ended up with five jars full of jam. We gave one to our neighbors downstairs as a thank you for letting me get down in the yard to find all the currants I could.

This should last us through the year. Not enough for years of preserving, but hey, it's a start, right?

So, have you ever canned currants? Or maybe you've made wine out of them?  Have you ever considered canning currants? If so, drop a comment down below and let me know what you did, and I'll definitely consider that for next year!

Canning season - Cherry Jelly

Cherry Jelly, J.Stahl 2013

Our cherries have definitely become ripe, and I've decided to begin canning. I've done some canning before, so  I had an idea of what I was getting into. My husband however, not so much.

I'd picked about 16 cups of cherries (also known as about 3 inches worth of the bottom of a laundry basket) and had those soaking in water for 24 hours.  I don't know about the cherry species in the US and Canada, but I found out rather quickly that here in Germany, if you don't want extra protein - do go ahead and make sure you do this step.   There were lots of little worms that came out in this process.

I decided to divvy up our cherries once they'd been processed in water and pitted - and we've gone ahead and made jelly, maraschino cherries and cherry pie filling. I'll be blogging about that later.

Processing Jelly is rather simple actually.  Since I have some issues of arthritis in my hands and wrists from a couple car accidents, I decided to skip the mashing step and just process the cherries in the food processor.  I was doing this late at night, so I forgot to take a photo. I was trying to be quick and quiet.

The next step was getting some wonderful music going while reading through the recipe and processing everything.  This was very easy. 

6 cups cherry juice (mashed cherries)
1 3/4 cups water
1 (3 ounce) package dry pectin
7 3/4 cups sugar 

Read more here.

Canning Jar Lids, J.Stahl 2013

Canning Jars, prior to sterilization, J.Stahl 2013

While the jam was jamming (haha), I went ahead and started sterilizing the half pint jars I'd washed in the dishwasher.  This is a tedious step, but very worthwhile.  My husband hadn't ever canned before, so we traded off once I got lids finished, and he cleaned the lips of the jars.

We had a nice long laugh about jar lips at this point. We were having more fun than was appropriate!!


Our thought process went something like this:

We then quickly descended into asking "WHO WANTS TO COLOR THE LIPSSSSSS!?!"

TB, Dancing in the kitchen, J.Stahl 2013

So, at this point, I'm getting ridiculously silly and we're dancing to music, and my youngest came in to join in on the crazy, never realizing that we're actually working in the kitchen.









 

Once we had the water bath complete, we set everything up on a doubled up, thick towel - and voilá, easy-peasy jelly.  We've given a jar to our neighbor already, which I hope they like. It was delicious on toast this afternoon!

Finished product, J. Stahl 2013

Don't just take my word for it, give it a shot and let me know how you liked making your own gluten free, kosher, cherry jelly.