This week we busted out the canning equipment from its winter storage and got busy with jam. We got enough blueberries to make two different styles of jam and did our future selves a favor and made some refrigerator pickles. Spring rolls made a reappearance in our dinner plans, and did an inventive spaghetti squash & zucchini noodle entree.
Tasty Meals
- Pesto
- Spiced Blueberry Jam
- Refrigerator Cucumber Pickles
- 4 Salads featuring snap peas and cucumbers from our home garden
- Spaghetti squash and zucchini noodle bake
The Experience
We took on a whole lotta canning and preparing flavorful ingredients for futures meals this week. All of the the blueberries, basil and pickling cucumbers were used up for jam, pesto, and pickles. We even put some of the snap peas in the refrigerator pickles jars, just to see how that would turn out. We will let you know how they turn out in a week or two! Half of the lettuce was turned into salad with snap peas featuring two home grown cucumbers, while the other half got incorporated into spring rolls.
We did a simple grill for the bock choy as a vegetables side, and snipped chives into practically everything. The remaining chives we added to the freezer scrap veggie back for future broth. The two highlights of this week were the blueberry jam and pesto – links to both recipes are below!
Blueberry Jam
Its been a few years since we’ve busted out the canning equipment to make and preserve homemade jam. We know how important food safety is and to follow recipes strictly, so for our first attempt this summer, we relied on the pros. We followed this Spiced Blueberry Jammin’ recipe by Alton Brown on Food Network. What’s great is that the recipe comes with ‘eat now’ tips as well as fairly comprehensive review of how to properly can foods. We upped the jar processing time to 10min, rather than the 5 recommended, for extra safety.
When we first got into home preservation, we taught ourselves how to do it using the resources provided online by the National Center for Home Food Preservation. We just needed a Canning Starter Kit, a Granite Ware Canning Pot with Rack, and some Mason Jars. Pay particular attention to all the food safety and handling safety tips! Everything is going to be extremely hot, and you’ll want to be careful to not burn yourself. If something does spoil, its easy enough to just toss it out, but we’ve never had any problems.
Pesto
When we got our first giant bunch of basil, the obvious thing to do was to make our own pesto, and there’s nothing wrong with obvious! We followed this Basic Pesto recipe. We also read through the reviews before starting and decided to follow the suggestion of a review and toast the pine nuts and cut the olive oil in half. Put your delicious homemade creation in some mason jars and store any extra in the freezer.
We used up all of our pesto in just a few days by incorporating it into all these meals.
- Homemade pesto bread
- Pesto sauce pizza (we made two!)
- Spaghetti squash & zucchini noodles with pesto
The baked spaghetti squash and zucchini noodle with pesto was a flavorful dish, but its not ready for prime time. We’ve got to work on it a little bit more before its ready for its photo shoot. ‘Til then, here’s a teaser… 🙂
The Score
The fourth week went really well. The fresh basil, turned into pesto, and quarts of blueberries gave use new recipes to try out. We’re looking forward to more summer canning projects and whatever Box 5 brings us!
12
Meal Wins
100%
Amount Consumed
2
Home Garden Haul
CSAeats 