Hooray! Can I just tell you how excited I am now that it is cherry season? It means it is the beginning of all my summer and fall canning. And I've got so much planned that I am excited to share with you. First up is Sour Cherry Jam. Have you ever heard of Sour Cherries or Tart Cherries before? They are not easily found in stores and most often at food stands or farmers' markets for a very limited time at the beginning of Cherry Season. Just like their name says, they are sour. They are beautifully bright red and are best used in another creation like jams, syrups, ice cream topping, pies, or dried and not really eaten as a table fruit. You can find dried tart cherries in the grocery stores for about $5.99/lb. At least that's how much they are in the health section of my local Kroger store. 

In Utah, the best sour cherry variety is Montmorency and it is the most common tart cherry grown in the US. It is heary and can withstand more front than sweet varieties because it blooms latest in the spring avoiding late frosts. 

Tart Cherries are perfect for pies or crumbles because they really let you control the sweetness factor  and they hold their shape wonderfully when cooked. These are what are standard for commerical pie filling cherries.  Once you find a source for Sour Cherries you'll be so excited finding ways to use them up. If you need time to decide though, pit them and freeze them because they won't last long fresh and actually really hold up to freezing well.

I happen to have found an old neighbor with a Sour Cherry tree in his yard. I was driving my girls over to a friend's house and I looked out the car window at this tree we were driving by and thought "that looks like a cherry tree" so of course I had to go have a look. Yes I am that type of person. I noticed that the cherries were quite a bit smaller than other cherries and very bright, shiny red so I figured I had just found one of these rare cherry trees. I knocked on the person's door and he was very happy to let me come back and pick as much as I wanted. I hauled my girls back there the next day and we picked 3 grocery bags full and hadn't even made a dent in the tree!

We returned all hot and sweaty from being out in the sun and sure enough when we bit in to one we found out they were tart cherries!

I thought about all the ways I wanted to use them up and we tried Sour Cherry Jam, Sour Cherry Syrup (awesome in my Tart Cherry Lime Mocktails!) and I dried a whole bunch for the kids. 

Making Jam is so easy. Every recipe is different depending on the type of pectin you use. I like the low sugar one and feel like it is plenty sweet. You can even find a no sugar fruit pectin as well. Look for a recipe that has 3 cups of sugar or less for 4 cups of fruit. 

DIRECTIONS  ___________________________________________________________________

First you want to wash, pit and chop the sour cherries and measure the EXACT amount on your pectin box instructions into a sauce pan. (Making jam really is a science so you have to follow the amounts exactly or your jam won't set)

2.  Add water and pectin package into fruit and bring mixture to a full rolling boil on high heat,  which means that it doesn't stop bubbling when you stir it. And stir constantly. (You can also add a 1/2 tsp butter to reduce foaming if you want)

3. As soon as it hits a rolling boil, pour in the sugar called for all at once and return to a rolling boil. Time for 1 minute at a full rolling boil on high heat stirring constantly then remove from heat and skim off any foam. 

4. Ladle quickly into clean glass jars. I like to use the 6 oz jars. You only need 1/8 inch of headspace. Wipe jar rims  and cover with lid and screw on the band to finger tight.

5. Place onto water bath canner rack and lower into the water to cover jars by 1-2 inches. If you need more water, have some boiling water waiting nearby. 

6. Cover the canner and bring water to a gentle boil. Process Sour Cherry Jam 10 minutes (add 5 minutes for elevations 1,0001-3000 ft and 10 minutes if your are at elevation 3,001-6,000 ft above sea level.)

7. Remove jars after alloted time and place upright. (Some people turn jars upside down but you shouldn't do this). Just set on a towel and let it cool completely for at least 24 hours. Check seals by pressing middle of lid with finger. If the lid springs back, it means it is not sealed and you can either refridgerate and use immediately or you can reprocess it again with a new lid if you have any other batches of jam to do. 

That's it. It really goes so quickly. One of the best ways we love enjoying our Sour Cherry Jam is by swirling it through a little bit of plain yogurt. In fact, that was one of my tricks to slowly get my babies to start eating plain yogurt.

As an aside, I remember being an exchange student in Germany and trying to buy yogurt and being so confused why it was so sour. I didn't realize what real yogurt was supposed to taste like. Ours is like melted ice cream in the states! Slowly I got used to it and now I love it. If you want to start weaning your family off the high sugar yogurts,  start with 1 tsp of Jam/ Jelly (that is only 4 grams of sugar) and compared to the amount of sugar that is dumped into store-bought yogurt, it is infinitely better. Then slowly I would add less and less til they would eat just plain yogurt with berries mixed in. Try it, it works! 

I hope you find yourself lucky enough to snag some tart cherries this season. There are some U-pick farms as well as farmers' markets where they will be available for about 2 weeks in July.

Happy Canning!

Tiara

- The Provident Princess

It is so healthy. Made with low sugar and chia seeds for extra protein and fiber. It is delicious on toast. or my oldest loves it on waffles instead of syrup. I also mix it into plain whole milk yogurt for my babies.

This recipe is so fast and such an easy way to save money on organic jam. And if you have been interested in canning but didn’t know where to start, this is the perfect gateway into the world of canning and preserving. I know it can seem intimidating, but try this freezer jam recipe first. It is so easy and fast, and will be the perfect confidence builder to try one of the many other step-by-step recipes I have on the blog. 

Read on for my super easy, low sugar, Strawberry Chia Seed Freezer Jam and stay tuned on the blog for many more healthy, plant-based, low cost, real food recipes and ideas.

Directions     

1. Combine the sugar and ground chia seeds in a sauce pan and stir til equally distributed. (if you are using whole seeds don’t worry about adding them until you add the lemon at the end. With ground chia seeds it helps to add them to other dry ingredients or they will clump and start to gel immediately after being added to a liquid and it is hard to incorporate them evenly. 

PP

I've been so busy that I haven't felt like posting lately. I have been canning though, I assure you. I've been keeping my eye on the price of ground beef for a while now and finally one of my grocery stores had it for $1.49/lb.

I hadn't ever canned ground beef before but I was looking forward to it since my chicken turned out to be so easy. 

Let's get started

Prep work. 

1. Get your meat. 

You don't have to brown your meat all the way, it's just for texture when you open the can. Some people don't like it really soft so the browning gives it some definition. As my meat was getting done, I would drain it, then stick it in a stock pot with a little water on low heat to keep it warm. 

Also, here's a little trick I learned about browning ground beef in Chemistry. If you stick a little water in the pan while it browns, the fat and the water don't like each other and the water keeps the fat from reabsorbing into the meat. Sticking the meat into the stockpot works the same way. That is why I wasn't too worried about using a fattier package of ground beef than usual. 

3.

When each batch of meat is almost done, dump some onions in the pan to cook a bit. You don't want them in there too long because they have enough time to cook in the pressure canner. You just want to mix them evenly in with the meat. I used about 1/2 and onion per pound of meat.

4.

Line up your clean jars and using a funnel, carefully spoon your meat into the jars. About 1 lb of beef fits into each pint sized jar. You need about 1 1/4 inches of head space because the ground beef won't expand like the chicken did since it is already cooked.

5.

But, because I'm not putting the meat in raw like I did the chicken breasts, the meat won't make enough of its own juice so I need to add some. This is some of the water from the stock pot that held the beef. It turned into a mild beef broth that I used to fill my jars with. I just used my gravy separator (which by the way, I love!) to make sure I didn't put any fat back in. Fill the jars to cover all the meat, keeping in mind your head space. As you pour, take a rubber (or non-metallic) spatula and work out any air bubbles that might be in the meat.

Option 2. 

On my second batch of ground beef, I used tomato sauce to fill my jars with. These jars I'm planning on using in spaghetti, sloppy joes, chili or anything that I would normally end up putting tomato sauce in anyway. This way the meat is already flavored. I watered it down by a ratio of 1:1 to make it easier to pour.

6.

If you want your meat seasoned a little bit more, put 1 tsp of pickling salt in each pint. The flavor will mix as it is in the pressure canner. Make sure only to use pickling salt. Regular table salt will make your jars turn foggy. You could also just put 1 tsp of  beef bouillon in instead.

7.

Make sure to wipe the rims of your jars really well with a hot, clean towel. You don't want any grease on the rim to prevent your lids from sealing.

8.

You are ready to put the lids on the jars. Use a magnetic lid lifter to avoid burning yourself. I've don't this one too many times when trying to just use a fork to lift them.

9.

Put your jars in your pressure canner, and follow the instructions that came with it for pressure and timing based on altitude. This is the Presto 1781 23-Quart Aluminum Pressure Cooker/Canner. For ground beef pints at my altitude I used 13 lbs of pressure for 75 min. For a step by step process in pressure canning check out my post on canning chicken. 

10. Ta Da!

So they might not be the prettiest looking jars of food, but believe me, it tastes fantastic. The tiny bit of congealed fat at the top is totally normal. I made tacos out of my first jar and no joke it was exactly like the taco meat you get at Taco Bell. Mmmm so good! I'm very happy with how it turned out. 

Don't forget to label your jars! This meat will stay good for a year or longer. If you have a jar that didn't seal, just stick it in the fridge and use it soon. It's fun to see how your meat turned out anyway.

As with any canned meat, the USDA recommends boiling/ heating the meat for 10 minutes once it is opened just to make sure all bacteria is killed.

Ground beef is one of the things I'd been wanting to try canning for a long time. I'm glad I finally did it and am happy to post about it. I'd love to hear some of the things you've been wanting to try too. 

Happy Canning

One of my earliest memories is of my preschool teacher taking my class on a field trip where we made grape juice. I can't remember much about it except for the divine smell of the ripe Concords hanging on their vines and the satisfying experience of being able to sample the sweet product of our efforts. I will never forget the rich flavor and the sweet taste left on my tongue.

I've kept this memory for over 20 years never again experiencing grape juice that could compare to that of my preschool field trip. My husband thinks it's sad that I can remember things like this. But for some reason food leaves a lasting impression on me.

Imagine my surprise 2 years ago when I was coming back from a walk in the new neighborhood my husband and I had just moved into when I got a whiff of it. I looked around, took a few more deep breaths of the crisp autumn air and I was certain. 

Grapes, and not just any grapes, my preschool grapes were somewhere nearby. A little investigation proved that they happened to be along the fence of my new next-door neighbor. This was the beginning. I had never canned anything before, but at that moment I knew I needed to have grape juice from those grapes. 

Over the next few weeks I began hatching a plan to convince my new neighbor to give me her grapes. Luckily, it didn't take any master planning. One day, I mentioned how great they smelled. She told me there were more than enough for what she wanted so would I like the rest? oh and would I like her to teach me how to can the grape juice too? Music to my ears. 

So I jumped right in, got some old mason jars from my mom and the result was everything I could have wished for. Smooth, rich, sweet chilled concord bliss.

3 years later, I still can hardly wait for the first frost to come so the grapes will be ready to pick. My mom even caught the bug last year after tasting the end result. (The first year I felt like I had to ration my jars but the next year I was less stingy). My mom has always made her own jelly but last summer she drove all over the valley collecting people's unwanted concord grapes and ending up canning over 100 quarts of grape juice!

I recommend starting small. Let's start with one batch. Oh and by-the-way, it is soooo much easier if you can get your hands on a steam juicer. It's possible to make grape juice in a stock pot, but then you have to worry about straining the juice through cheesecloth. With a steam juicer, it does all the work for you.

Go pick some grapes, you might be surprised how many old neighborhoods have grapes that no one wants. So ask around. If all else fails, you can buy some. The key to good grape juice though is to only use Concords. The lighter red and white varieties just won't provide the flavor needed to make a yummy juice they will turn out too sweet.

Assemble steamer. Turn your stove to high heat and steam the grapes. The skins will begin to burst and release their juices.

You can check how much juice you have buy lifting up the top portion of the juicer to see how high the juice is in the reservoir.

Start heating your new lids and sterilizing your bottles. Do not boil your lids, you just need to soften the gummy seal by warming them up. The grape steaming process takes from 30 min to 1 hour.

Line up your sterilized bottles so they are easy to get to.

Once your juice is almost to the top of the reservoir and you are ready to fill your jars, carefully place a bottle with a funnel one under the spout hose and release the clamp. Obvious but necessary warning: the liquid coming out of the steamer is boiling hot. Hold the jar with a towel so you don't burn yourself as the bottle fills up. Leave 3/4- 1 inch head space. (I usually dump my first jar back into the steamer over the grapes. I think it helps the top layer of grapes breakdown and evens out the flavor.)

Wipe the rim of your jar with a wet, hot rag or paper towel. Grab on of your warm lids with a magnetic lid lifter and place on jar with metal band.

Mmm... don't they look delectable? Stick one in the fridge right away and you'll know what I mean. Sweet childhood memories just as I remembered.

I put it off until one of my grocery stores had a deal on boneless, skinless chicken that I couldn't resist. I ended up buying 15 lbs.

I was surprised by how easy it was. You need to follow the instructions that come with your pressure canner. They can vary slightly, but sometimes it's nice just to see the process.

The nice thing about canning meat is that you can put it in the jars raw. They cook in the pressure canner for so long that there is no need to cook beforehand.

Directions

Prep work. 

1.

Get your chicken and cut off any visible fat. You can put the chicken in as whole breasts but I wanted to slice mine into tenders. That way I figured I could reduce air bubbles. I sliced my chicken and seasoned with a little pepper as I went. You don't need to season them if you don't want to though.

2.

Stuff your raw chicken into clean mason jars. 1 pint jar holds about 1 pound. Leave 1 1/4 inch head space. The chicken will release its juices as it cooks and you don't want it to touch the lids or it might make them not seal.

               

I put chicken base Better than Bouillon in my jars. It just intensifies the flavor of the chicken as it cooks.You can use a bouillon cube or powder instead if you want.

3.

Wipe all your jars with a hot towel to remove any chicken juices that might've gotten on the rim. Use a magnetic lid lifter to lift lids out of hot water and place on jars. Screw rings on til finger tight. They have to be able to release some air so don't screw them on ridiculously tight.

4.

Place lid on your pressure canner following directions from manual. I'm using the Presto 1781 23-Quart Aluminum Pressure Cooker/Canner. Turn to high heat. Vent steam for 10 minutes. Place on vent block and bring to pressure depending on altitude. Once pressure is reached cook for 75 minutes for pints. Slowly turn down the temperature as it builds pressure until it is just right. You need to babysit the canner to make sure that the temperature doesn't drop below what you are supposed to can it at or you will have to bring it to pressure again and start the time all over. It isn't as hard as it sounds. You can find a setting on your stove where it will hover around the right temperature without building or losing pressure. For me, it was on 4. If you have a gas stove it is much more precise.

6. Once the 75 min are up, remove the canner from heat and let it slowly release pressure. You do not need to do anything, this happens naturally as it begins to cool. Once the pressure gauge reads zero and the pressure indicator drops, you can take off the lids, and remove jars. Place them on a towel to cool. 

7. Don't forget to label your jars. Canned chicken will last for over a year, but I doubt you will be able to wait. I made Chicken Enchiladas with the chicken and my husband without knowing that I used my canned chicken declared them my best yet! He was nervous about me canning meat because he was afraid of how it would taste so I didn't tell him til he'd already eaten it. Tricky, tricky, I know.

ENJOY!

When I first opened the can, I tasted it to see how it turned out. It smell and tasted just like the canned chicken you can get at the store. I buy that usually just for making chicken salad sandwiches but with your canned chicken, you can use it to make anything you usually need shredded chicken or chicken chunks for. And it is so easy to shred. I basically just pressed my fork against it and it fell apart. 

It is recommended to heat/boil canned meats for 10 min after opening just to make sure that any bacteria is killed. If you are going to use it in a casserole or other dish that needs to be heated anyway, I don't bother with preheating, I figure it gets hot enough for long enough while cooking.