Hot Chile Jelly

I have been wanting to make this jelly for years...since the first time I saw a photo of it  in Lianna Krissoff's Canning For A New Generation:  Bold, Fresh Flavors For The Modern Pantry.  It just looked so pretty.  The fact that I enjoy sweet and hot tastes combined was just a bonus, but really, for me, this is a "bling" jelly.

My CSA has been sending a ridiculous number of hot peppers, which, oddly, I don't typically use in everyday cooking.  I reach for the end product of hot peppers when making breakfast, lunch, and dinner - the dried peppers and chiles, hot sauces, hot oils, etc.  I will apparently have the ability to make a lot of my own "end products" as each of the recipes I have investigated uses only a few ounces of chiles.

The reason I had not tackled this particular recipe, as enticing as it is, before now was strictly due to intimidation.  It calls for making apple pectin and seemed like loads of additional work.  Surprise!  Not really so much!

4 lbs of Granny Smith apples cut into eighths, 4 ounces of chiles and one bell pepper roughly chopped, 3 cups of water, 3 cups of white vinegar, a sliced lemon, and some of the papery skin of a few red onions.

When prepping the apples, you leave the seeds and core but remove the stem.  While the seeds and core add to the pectin levels, the stem contributes nothing but a little yuck factor.  Bring the whole mess to a boil, occasionally giving it a stir, until you see the apple wedges come apart from their skin.  This should take 20 to 30 minutes.  You house should smell divine by now!

The onion skins are for color.  You can also use a cup of plums or cranberries for the same purpose without substantially changing the flavor of the resulting jelly

Drain the mixture into a fine mesh strainer (or a jelly bag), a big one unless you want a mess, set into a large bowl, and let it drip.  You can stir it now and then just to get things moving but if you have made jelly, you know not to mess with it too much or you will make your jelly cloudy.  If you didn't know that already, now you do!

This fits nicely, with enough of a lip to grab later without burning or pinching my fingers, and plenty of room in the bowl for the liquid to drain out.  It defeats the purpose if you have it sit in the liquid

At the end of 30 minutes, you should have about 4 cups of liquid.  If you are short, add some water to the strainer mixture and give it a gentle, non-cloud-inducing stir to make up the difference.

During the wait, you can set up your jelly/water-bath canning process:  sterilized hot jars, small plate in the freezer with spoons, and lids being warmed for later sealing.  Also, wash out that big pot! You are about to use it again and don't want bits and pieces in it (clouds, always the clouds).

Pour the juice back into the pan along with 3/4 cup of sugar per cup of liquid (telling you this for future reference in case you make a small batch of something using apple pectin), in this case, about 3 cups of sugar.  Bring it to a boil and stir to keep from burning until either a candy thermometer reads about 220F or you do the jelly test with your freezer plate and spoon.  This should take about 15 to 20 minutes.

The jelly test -

Version 1:  you put small amount amount of jelly on the cold plate.  Let it rest for 30 seconds and tilt or nudge.  If it runs down the plate, keep boiling.

Version 2:  you dip your cold spoon into the boiling jelly and raise it up about 12 inches, turning it sideways.  If the syrup flows down to form 2 drops that become a sheet and hang off the side of the spoon, it is done.

Once your jelly is done, spoon it into the hot jars, leaving a 1/4 inch headspace. Clean the edges with a damp paper towel or cotton cloth, place a flat lid on each jar, and finger-tighten each ring.  Process the jars in the canner for 5 minutes, timing after the water begins to boil fully, then remove to the counter.  As much as you want to play with them, don't disturb for 12 hours.  Make sure you hear that beautiful ping as each jar seals.

As always, the recipe says you get 4 half-pints.  I get 3 and a 1/2 half-pints, tiny jar not pictures as it was being eaten.  ::ahem::

Krissoff is quiet on what to do wtih all that boiled apple, chile, and pepper mess.  This was my thought

I ended up with about double this - a tangy, spicy, apple-y puree now in the freezer while I ponder its use.  I have ideas!

Snow Day for Moms!

Rumor has it you can make jellies from peach peelings and pits, so I had to try it out.

Happiness is a day of picturesque snowfall that covers the grass but leaves the roads clear so the kids go to school!  I did some deep cleaning in the kitchen and finally got to those peeled peaches, peels, and pits that had been residing in my refrigerator since Sunday.  Thank goodness for Fruit Fresh and lemon juice!

After boiling for 30-45 minutes until the skins are somewhat translucent, I strained the liquid through a fine-mesh strainer and several layers of cheesecloth.

I boiled and strained on Tuesday night while making dinner, putting the whole mess in the refrigerator overnight so it could continue dripping.  What you see here is about one cup of juice.  There was not enough peach on the peels to rate any kind of food mill action so they were tossed out.


Wednesday, I looked at several jelly recipes and decided that one cup of juice plus 2 tablespoons of pectin and one scant cup of sugar would work.  I hate cleaning candied fruit juice off my glass top stove (hate my glass top stove, too, but that's another story!), so I used a pot far larger than would first come to mind.  Thank goodness for that, because memory served me right and it did boil up pretty spectacularly.  I brought the juice and pectin to a boil, then added the sugar and brought it back to a boil for one minute before pulling it off the stove to a hot pad on the counter.  Last time I left jam sitting on the burner, it burned - have I mentioned I hate glass top stoves?

Excuse the blur, I just had to show the color!

The end result was three 4 oz jars of a mild-tasting peach pit jelly, exactly half the amount of peach jam created from the same batch.

3 cups of chopped peaches, scant 3 cups of sugar, two tablespoons of lemon juice, boil 'til it looks right

I've made the pectin-less peach jam before, in a more peach preserves form than jam. Same skillet technique, only this time, knowing I was not going to try to reach an impossible gel point!  I could just eat it with a spoon right out of the jar!

One peach pit jelly already in sample mode

After a successful jam session, I shared my thrifty preservation with a friend who asked innocently, "Aren't peach pits poisonous?"  This sent me racing to both my garbage can and Google where I found that, Yes, Virginia, peach pits do indeed contain a form of cyanide.  Sigh.  Fortunately, a careful investigation revealed no cracks or loose pits were involved in this canning experiment.  For the record, I would have automatically tossed them had they been cracked or broken, but it never hurts to be sure!