So you planted some tomatoes but you just can't wait for them to ripen. Here is a recipe to help you enjoy some garden fresh tomato flavor while you wait for the red.  This recipe is also perfect in the fall when you know that first frost is coming but you still have green tomatoes on the vine. It will add some variety to your green tomato menu along side of your bread and butter green cherry tomato pickles and your fried green tomatoes. Green Tomato Marmalade Yield: 6-7 half pint jars 2 oranges 1 lemon 1 cup water 4 pounds (about 9 cups) green tomatoes, cut into small pieces 5 cups sugar 1/4 cup minced crystallized ginger Instructions  Remove the top layer of rind from the oranges and lemon with a vegetable peeler, being careful not to remove any of the bitter, white pith. Sliver the rind and set it aside while you segment the oranges and lemons.   Boil the slivered rind in 1 cup water for 5 minutes in a small saucepan. Drain and rinse. Core ...

Well from May to August is cherry season and seems a great reason to share this exciting recipe for honey cherry chutney! It is easy to make and will add some cherry zing to your table. If you have the jelly blues, chutney is great way to use fresh fruit and keep it interesting. It is like a spicy, savory cross between tart relish and sweet jam that you can use as a condiment at any meal not just breakfast. Cherry chutney goes well with pork, turkey and chicken and little half pint jars make great gifts! So here is how to make it... Spiced Honey Cherry Chutney yield 4-5 pints or 9-10 half pints Ingredients 4 lbs cherries pitted and halved 1 1/2- C onion chopped 1 to 1 1/2- C honey to taste 1 3/4- C apple cider vinegar 1 C raisins chopped 3 large cloves garlic minced 1 lemon or lime zested and juiced 2 T freshly grated ginger or 1 T dry ginger 1 T dry mustard 2 t to 1 T salt start with the 2 tsp. and taste test at end of cooking 1/2 to 2 tsp red pepper flakes t...

It has been some time since I thought about peaches but summer is here and fresh peaches are right around the corner!  Whether you grow your own or buy them from a pick your own orchard or even from a farmers market, making peach preserves is a great way to store up some summer flavor to bright a long cold winter day! Today I am sharing a less well known type of peach preserves. You have heard of apple butter, but did you know you can make peach butter?  Yes! you can! (pun intended).  And here is a great old fashioned recipe for you to try! For this recipe, you will want to decide how many pints you can make with the amount of peaches you have ahead of time.  You will need roughly one pound of fruit for each pint you want to make. Ingredients: One pound fresh peaches per pint  sweetener to taste, either sugar or honey optional:  add a teaspoon of cinnamon for each pound of fruit Directions: Remove the pits from your peaches and cut them into qua...

Today I wanted to add another list of helpful hints and tips for home canning. Some of these are things that have been learned and shared by canning veterans who are kind enough to share what they know and things we may never have thought of on our own. I enjoy hunting down and gleaning knowledge from experienced canners!  Isn't it a blessing that people are willing to reveal their discoveries and secrets?  So without further ado here are seven very helpful tips to make your canning experience more satisfying and successful! If you have any tips of your own to share, feel free to leave them in the comments section for others to learn from! Keep hard water deposits off your jars by adding 1/2 cup of vinegar to your processing water.  Half a cup of lemon juice is a good substitute for "Fresh Fruit" to keep your fruit from turning brown while you are working with it. In a pinch a butter knife or chopstick makes a good bubbling tool.  Don't plan to cook dinner ...

Summer in Oklahoma means lots and lots of wild sand plums.  We have so many of these bushes on our 10 acres of land and the wildlife love them. Once several years ago when we were still homesteading that land, I attempted to make jelly from wild sand plums.  I had heard that it could be done with just the fruit, sugar and water. Well either I did something wrong or that recipe was wrong. It never jelled. But the good news is that it still made a delicious syrup for pancakes! What I would have given then to have this recipe. As soon as the plums start to ripen this year, I intend to give it another shot. I was rummaging through old recipe forums and found this one that I want to try. When I read the first ingredient I realized what may have gone wrong for me so long ago. It calls for part of the fruit to be under ripe. All the plums I was using then were well ripened.  I had not heard of this before so I am very curious to see if this is the key. Of course this rec...

So you might have spent some time browsing the recipes on this blog and thinking... what would I do with all that jelly if I did make it?  Two things:  There is no such thing as too much jelly, (that is my motto). You have to learn to think outside of the peanut butter and jelly sandwich box.  There are so many ways to enjoy jelly, so many things to put it on.  The French put it on croissants. You can put some on a bagel, but don't tell any New Yorkers about it! The British are famous for scones and jam, a tea time favorite. Southerners are known for buttermilk biscuits, butter and peach jelly. Nobody doesn't like a jelly doughnut or long john. Native Americans eat fry bread and jelly. Mexicans eat strawberry jelly in tamales. Mint jelly is good on lamb and pork. Cranberry jelly and chutney make turkey something special. Try some of your favorite flavor jelly on your oatmeal. I like peach and apple on mine. In a pinch some cream cheese and...

So I discovered this recipe on an obscure recipe sharing site. Some guy named Ed shared it and one of the people who made it says it is ... "Real jelly, not the gelatinized stuff other recipes call coffee jelly - this is something to use with PB&J. Not an easy recipe for the preciseness of measuring and rigor of following instructions. It's got to be done this way or it will not work, at least by my experience it will not work. Experience and/or knowledge of canning is required if the jelly is to be stored at room temperature.Observe the precautions, or keep all the jelly in the refrigerator"  Well, I figure if you are reading this, you have a working knowledge of jelly making and canning. If you are a first time canner I recommend you make a few easier recipes to get some experience and then come back to this one later. That way you can store it on the shelf and not have to eat coffee jelly every day for the next 6 months to keep it from spoiling. Ed's Re...