Ended Official BYC 2023 Summer Fair Contest—Canning & Preserving Contest

Entry #4 Homemade salsa. Made this last year for the first time and plan on making a lot more this year. So good!
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A couple of days ago I made gooseberry jam.
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I always have completely different canning jars, there is a whole collection of them. As a rule, these are carefully washed and scalded cans from red caviar, kvass wort concentrate (a drink similar to beer, only it is made from rye flour or bread), from some beef stew bought in a store, and so on. This is the Russian standard for cans, if you look closely, the lids are slightly different. Some of them are simply screwed, some require a special seaming machine. Other than that, it's an easy process.
The jam recipe that I use requires a lot of sugar, for 1 kg of berries there are 2 kg of sugar. First, sugar syrup is boiled (a lot of sugar and a little water so that the sugar does not turn into caramel), after which the berries are poured into this sugar and boiled. There are two ways - either cook for a long time, or boil three times for 5 minutes. Those. the jam has boiled, it is boiled for 5 minutes, after which it is closed with a lid and left the next day. In the morning, in the evening and the next morning after the third boiling, the jam is poured into jars. After pouring, I need to wait about five minutes, after which it is customary to turn the jars over so that the hot jam scalds the lids from the inside. (need to wait because if you turn the jar over right away, the pressure in it will jump up sharply and the tightness of the lid will be lost). Then this jam can be stored in the cellar for a very long time, at least three years.
In other matters, given the amount of sugar, this jam sometimes does not even have to be closed, sometimes it is simply poured into jars and covered with paper tied with a string or elastic band. True, then storing it for more than a year is not very good.
I also have jars with American-style lids in my collection, but my lids have been used many times and are no longer airtight. and new ones are not very easy to buy here, in addition, they are much more expensive than local ones. Therefore, I use those jars on which the lids are easier to get)
The rag spread on the table is not a tablecloth, it seems to be my old T-shirt ))) I usually wash my old clothes and use them to line jars at work.
Seeing your post reminds me of my trip to visit my soon-to-be-husband's family in Russia a few years back. He grew up there. For a portion of the trip, we stayed at his grandma's дача where she had so many wonderful foods canned just like this! Yes, you guys have to use different cans, but you Russians sure do know how to preserve your food! Her cellar was incredible and it seems yours is too. Thanks for sharing this. I only went to Russia once but it feels like a second home to me. I loved the home cooking I got to eat there. One thing I remember his grandma pulling from the cellar was a fermented drink made from mushrooms, I think it was just called mushroom/гриб. Do you make that one as well?
 
Seeing your post reminds me of my trip to visit my soon-to-be-husband's family in Russia a few years back. He grew up there. For a portion of the trip, we stayed at his grandma's дача where she had so many wonderful foods canned just like this! Yes, you guys have to use different cans, but you Russians sure do know how to preserve your food! Her cellar was incredible and it seems yours is too. Thanks for sharing this. I only went to Russia once but it feels like a second home to me. I loved the home cooking I got to eat there. One thing I remember his grandma pulling from the cellar was a fermented drink made from mushrooms, I think it was just called mushroom/гриб. Do you make that one as well?
Most likely, it was kombucha, at one time these creatures were very popular in the USSR. Then they somehow disappeared, but now they are on sale again, they are brought, it seems, from China. I am not a biologist and somehow I was little interested in these issues, I only suspect that this is some kind of creature, something similar to a jellyfish. It lives with people in jars, feeds on sugar and saturates water with the products of its vital activity. It probably doesn’t sound very appetizing, but for some reason we sometimes drink.

As a child, I often drank this thing, but now I don’t, due to the fact that this creature is thermophilic, and it’s usually cool in my house. The fact is that I weigh 125 kilograms and can’t stand the heat well, so in winter I regulate the heating to low temperatures, up to about +17 C. Kombucha cannot live in such conditions, she will get sick. Therefore, I do not drink this drink and do not buy this creature. Most often I just drink fruit compotes. Ordinary boiled fruits and berries with added sugar.

There is also a rye drink kvass, similar to beer, usually made from rye bread, flour, grains, yeast and sugar. Only beer is usually made from barley, and this drink is made from rye. Well, kvass is most often rarely brought to the state of alcohol, it is most often either a non-alcoholic or low-alcohol drink. Although if kvass is kept for a long time, it can become more alcoholic than strong beer.
I sometimes make kvass, for kvass they usually sell rye must concentrate here, in 0.5 liter jars.
 

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