August is hot and busy with making preserves
Wednesday, August 31, 2011 August has been an exceptionally busy month. For those of you who read Life is Lemonade regularly, please forgive my delay in posting something new: The first week of the month brought school, and with it, long, 12- to 14- hour days for my daughter and me. (I honestly wonder sometimes how we all make it through high school.) The quiet early mornings that I would normally spend writing have been taken up with work, school and a tyrant of a schedule. Add to that a blitz of birthdays: my husband, dad, mom and sister-in-law, and a canning class this past weekend at Cook’s Warehouse. Whew.
So, what’s up?
For me, late summer and early fall are canning time. Though the beautiful green kadota figs from my tiny tree were all eaten by the birds, I still had a chance to make fig preserves this year. August is fig time in Georgia, and a delicious evening at The Shed at Glenwood in Atlanta led to my making a couple dozen half-pints of fig preserves.
9 pounds of fresh figs perfect for canning!
The Shed’s talented chef, Lance Gummere, is heavy into learning the ways of canning and preserving, and our conversation sparked my volunteering to show him how. My daughter and I headed over to the restaurant early one evening in the middle of the month, enjoyed a plateful of Lance’s famous $3 sliders, and then Lance and I got to work. He had just received between 10 and 12 pounds of figs, and wanted to preserve them – a couple of pounds he had sliced and put in his food dehydrator to serve as dried figs, but the rest were left to us to make into the sugary, smearable orbs I love to spread on freshly baked biscuits or toast.
Lance putting our fig preserves into dry storage.
As a restaurateur, Lance’s chief concern with canning his own fruits and vegetables is food safety. Home canning, and in this case - restaurant canning – is perfectly safe as long as certain precautions are taken.
If you need a brief history and lowdown on preserving, this earlier post has all the details. Lance and I had so much fun that we plan to can again – this time in a challenging effort to preserve vegetables in duck fat. Our preserves have been a big hit at The Shed, too – many thanks to Creative Loafing’s Cliff Bostock for this shout out.
Fig Preserves
Yield: about 20 half-pint jars
Use any ripe fig, taking care to remove the stems, but leaving the skin intact. A little lemon juice will give preserves a better color and flavor.
5 pounds fresh figs, stemmed and sliced in half, peel on
5 cups granulated sugar
Lemon juice
Steps to water bath canning:
Wash and clean the figs by submerging them in water and draining.
Sterilize your jars and equipment by washing, then boiling in a water bath for 10 minutes. (Do not boil the lids and bands -- bring them only to a simmer as not to affect the sealant of the lids.) Keep the jars and lids simmering until ready for packing with preserves.
In a large bowl, combine the figs and sugar. Stir gently until the sugar begins to dissolve. Add the juice of ½ lemon. Let the mixture sit for at least 30 minutes, or overnight.
Stirring the sugar and figs together.
In a large, non-reactive pot, cook the figs on medium-high heat until the mixture boils, foams and a sugar syrup forms. Cook until the sugar syrup thickens to almost string stage – about 30 to 45 minutes. Stir often during cooking, skimming foam as needed.
During cooking, it's normal for the figs to foam - skim any excess foam from the surface before packing into jars.
Pack the figs into hot, sterilized jars, leaving 1/4-inch to 1/2-inch headspace. Run the end of a wooden spoon down the side of each jar to release air bubbles.
A funnel is indispensable for packing the figs into hot, sterilized jars.
Wipe the rims of the hot jars well, then seal with lids and bands.
Hot fig preserves packed in hot jars.
Place the jars in a large pot, cover with hot water and process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes (if I am only canning one thing, I often use the hot water and pot I used for processing my jars). Remove the jars from the hot water. After 12 – 24 hours, test for sealing - the top of the lid will indent just a bit, sometimes making a "pop" sound when it does – the proof that your effort has been well-worth your time.
Our finished preserves!
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