Thy Kindness Freezes

Not long ago I mentioned to a pal that I like to include cleaning out my freezer as one of my spring household re-boot chores. She seemed startled by the admission, as well she might since I am not known around town for my housekeeping prowess. The words “casual” or “breezy” could be applied in this regard and I have not the slightest grounds to argue. Anyway, apparently freezer sorting wasn’t on her spring tidying list (perhaps because her freezer never gets out of order in the first place) but she was a trooper in listening to my recitation of the reasons why I do what I do: the inevitable forgotten package of snow peas, now more grayish than green, the three utterly shriveled and now unusable bananas which had originally been intended for pancakes, a bag of last springs asparagus trimming that I was 100% sure would end up as soup. Well. They’re all gone now and me and my freezer feel lighter than air and ready to take on the next year’s gleanings.

The only thing I couldn’t reconcile, I told her, was a lone bag of cranberries left over from the fall. One bag really isn’t enough to play with in any kind of fun way but, as far as I knew, the cranberries would keep a while longer. Keep or toss, I wanted to know. While my meager tendencies toward thrift and orderliness battled, she calmly walked to her own freezer, took out a package of cranberries and held it up as an offering. “Want them?” she asked. “I won’t use them and will just keep them until they need to be thrown away.” Score! (Aside: this is why you should always share the minutiae of your life with friends and internet. You never know when someone will give you a bag of cranberries in response.)


Two bags of cranberries is enough to make a smallish amount of very delicious chutney, which can be canned or refrozen in a labeled and dated container so you know what it is when the memory of having made it inevitably fades (which it will, even for you young and chippy types). Even more fun, a perfectly lovely chutney can be made with the little bits of whatever else you encounter during freezer cleaning. A cup of raisins? Check. A few tablespoons of candied ginger? Oh, my, yes, yes, yes double check. Some chopped jalapeno? I didn’t, but there’s no reason why you couldn’t.


And that’s one reason I adore making chutneys. There are no real requirements, no chemical reaction to prompt and pray for, virtually no rules outside of minding your sugar and acidity in the event you plan water bath processing. My recipe originally came from my dear college friend Kate, with whom I now speak only twice a decade or so but for whom I would gladly and with no questions asked traverse the world if she called out of the blue and requested it of me, and she in turn learned it from someone named Sabra. That’s what it says at the top of the dot-matrix printed page (hello, old Mac SE and your adorable double-floppy arrangement!), “Sabra’s Cranberry Chutney”. Sabra’s version tends toward the more tangy and sweet, while over the years I’ve cut the vinegar and ancillary fruit but upped the spice and citrus. That’s the way of chutney, friends, and I recommend it heartily.


This time I used those two bags of berries, the juice of the last orange (no more oranges until winter comes again – this last one wasn’t looking to hot but was just fine for juice), some raisins, chopped candied ginger, two cups or so of sugar, and about a half cup of leftover rioja from the night before for an added peppery kick. Cranberries cook down easily and thicken well. Too well in this case, so I added another half cup of o.j. on the back end and called it good. If I wanted to be more authentic I’d have added some vinegar or something pickled, but I’m not totally wedded to authenticity here and I like the final product so that’s that.


Now, as I said, this didn’t make a lot – three cups, maybe. It can be canned and processed in a hot water bath, if you’d like and, if I went that route, I’d have done it in quarter pints and processed just in a largish saucepan - no need to fire up the ginormous canning kettle for such a wee bit of processing. I’d say fifteen minutes after return to full boil ought to do it and there you go. For my part, I placed two well-marked freezer containers back into my newly cleaned and tidy freezer to await use.


And what use might that be?

No Noble Thing Can Be Done Without Taking Risks*

Show me someone who blogs about having done a bit of canning and I’ll show you someone who’s been anonymously scolded for real or imagined safety infractions. Home canners do, or should, pay attention to the latest guidelines, of course and I, myself, have reminded folks from time to time that the old ways are just that - old, as in former - for a reason. The problem is that defining “guidelines” as the word pertains to canning is nearly as futile as defining “risk”. Add to the mix variances in resources, facilities, and skill and you’ve got the makings for a world of experts, few of whom are shy about proclaiming the rightness of their own thoughts on the subject. Here are mine:

Risk is a tricky thing. Home canning has an inherent degree of risk (although we’ll do well to remember that likewise does consumption of commercially-produced foods) which has been mitigated over time with new research on food borne pathogens and corresponding technological improvements. That’s the upside. The downside is that, with every advance in safety knowledge, a whole bunch of people feel that the heretofore-regarded-as-safe activity in which they’ve engaged for years has been unjustly maligned. I confess that I feel this way about water bath canning plain tomatoes (no longer recommended, although I still do it with older varieties) and I’ve had more than one e-mail from folks who share their opinion that old mayo jars were good enough for grandma so they’re good enough now and that however many untold dollars are saved practicing this economy. Then there’s great and mighty Martha Stewart herself, who advocated for sealing jam with paraffin (admittedly for her own use only) not all that long ago, a practice now discredited.

Where does this leave us? Ultimately, I do not think that canning risk is different from any other. I do things all the live long day that are pretty darn dangerous – driving, sitting at my desk, grilling the family dinner – but the fear I might bring to these activities is tempered into mere caution with the application of knowledge and experience.

And there’s my bottom line: there’s nothing to do for risk but learning more and canning more. For those that would assume that someone is being foolhardy for one of those previously mentioned real or imagined infractions, I recommend further the understanding that no two people are going to be on the same place with regards to risk. For every person I’d love to convince to give up the mayo jars, there are two who would rather I not water bath my tomatoes. The mayo jar people have the weight of experience on their side since they’ve been at it for years and I call upon knowledge. I know the guideline and I know why it was issued, so I can react accordingly in my intent to disregard. It’s all about knowing where you are, being confident in what you know and getting on with it.

That’s the making. On the eating side, my feeling is that there’s less wiggle room. With luck, following good canning procedures will result in only good food on the shelf. That’s not always the case, though, and knowing what to look for when the time comes to open a jar is key. The jar shouldn’t be more than a few years old, for starters. Goodness knows that I find some ancient thing tucked in the waaaaay back of the cupboard more often than I’d like to admit and I’m not as good with labeling as I ought to be, so, you know, see also: cobbler’s children and shoes. Don’t eat anything that you cannot state when it was made and/or how long you’ve had it. Like the jar of mango jam I just found – I haven’t made mango jam in years and years.

Likewise, don’t eat anything for which the lid is weeping or oozing, or if there’s any strange looking unidentified stuff around the seal. Does the food look and smell as you expect? There will be some natural degradation of color, but generally the food in the jar should present as if it were put there yesterday – not a foolproof test since many nasties are odor- and colorless, but one to which attention should be paid regardless. Pass by anything that doesn’t appear to have been canned according to guidelines (er, see above for more on that point). See the jar up there? The apples were sealed without adequate liquid and, now that I think about it, I don’t know where these came from or how/when I got them. They’re outta here.

This pre-eating checklist seems cumbersome and scary, but it’s not. Experience and knowledge gets it down to as natural as when opening any other product. With the experience and knowledge comes the confidence to make and stand by your own canning decisions. Since I started canning in the first place to exert some control over my food supply that is entirely the point.

* Michel de Montaigne, French Philosopher (1533-1592). Monsieur de Montaigne also said, "He who fears will suffer, he already suffers from his fear" which also applies, don't you think?

Thank Goodness I Canned: Pickled Hot Peppers

We use a lot of pickled jalapenos here. They’re good on pizza, nachos (one of my quick dinner standbys and one that can be made in a fairly healthy manner, by the way) burgers and sandwiches of all kinds and for adding a bit of a jolt to grilled meats and kebabs. The canning brine (I use a very standard 2 parts vinegar, 2 parts water, 1/2 part kosher salt) can likewise be used in marinades, drinks (yes! Really!), as a stir-in for plain rice or potatoes, or to punch up the flavor in all kinds of otherwise insipid dishes.

A few evenings past I arrived home feeling snacky and cocktailish and in absolutely no rush to get to the usual weeknight dinner routine. Perhaps it was the planned meal of leftovers that proved less than inspiring or maybe seeing the sun for the first time in at least a week was the cause, I don’t know. Either way, I wanted to capture a bit of languorous leisure before jumping into the post-workday fray. Trouble is, we’re down to not all that much on the shelves at the moment (which is why I planned on serving those uninspiring leftovers in the first place). Just as I was closing the refrigerator door and about to issue a dejected sigh, I spied what I’m fairly sure is the last jar of pickled jalapenos. There were possibilities in that there jar.


A bit more scrounging brought up some chevre, a lonely scallion and a box of Triscuits which Brainiac must have bought because I know that I didn’t. No matter. With these three ingredients, I had the makings of a simple and much-welcomed zippy little nibble. With more forethought, a bottle of vinho verde would have been chilled and ready to provide a perfect mineral counterpoint. Without the benefit of such planning, a cheeky Mike's Hard Cranberry served the role well enough. Together, the crackers and Mike's, enjoyed with my equally worn-out husband, were exactly the home-based Happy Hour we didn't know that we desperately needed, no matter how much it had been wanted.

The full recipe for the cheesy pepper snacks can be found at the Hot Water Bath Facebook group. Come on over - we'd love to hear your favorite uses for pickled hot peppers, too. Do tell!