Tart cranberry dipping sauce and jam

Tart Cranberry Dipping Sauce
1 lb frozen cranberries
2 cups orange juice
3 cups ginger ale
2 Tbsp maple syrup
2 Tbsp light brown sugar
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1 orange, zested

Combine ingredients in non reactive saucepan and bring to boil. Reduce heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, for 30-45 minutes, until liquid is reduced by half.
Carefully puree until smooth. Check seasoning. Serve in small ramekins with turkey. Reserve leftover (not used for dipping) for jam recipe below.



Tart Cranberry Jam 
(for turkey sandwiches!)

2 cups tart cranberry dipping sauce (above)
4 ounces ginger ale
1 cup sugar

Combine all the ingredients into a small, non-reactive saucepan.
Bring to a simmer and reduce by two-thirds or until the mixture has thickened to the consistency of a loose jam. Remember to keep the heat low to prevent the jam from burning. Store in fridge.

Strawberry fig preserves

Tastes like strawberry jam but uses figs. Recipe from my neighbor who has a fig tree.

3 cups mashed figs
3 cups sugar
1 small box strawberry jello

Mix well all ingredients. Bring to simmer and keep simmering for 20 minutes. Pack in hot sterile jars and process in hot water bath.

Grapefruit Marmalade & Spiced Blueberry Jam

I have tried several new recipes in the past few weeks, some have been successes, some not so much...but my favorite thing has been making marmalade & jam! I spent part of last fall lamenting that I hadn't canned any jam that summer due to moving, and trying to make orange marmalade that never totally jelled. I knew I should try again, but I had no desire until I actually felt I had to buy some jam since we ran out of apple butter, and I had nothing besides the "marmalade" and my boys don't love it like I do.

Then comes the discovery that Alton Brown has 2 winter jam recipe possibilities! Spiced blueberry jam from frozen berries & cranberry jam from cranberries! How exciting. :) Unfortunately, we'd already eaten all the cranberries I bought and there aren't any more at the store, but frozen blueberries were quickly obtained at the bulk store for a decent price.

His blueberry jam is flavored with freshly ground star anise & nutmeg. The anise smells like licorice, and adds a fun twist to the jam recipe. It is delicious jam and he wrote the recipe fairly thoroughly. The recipe can be found at this link.

Then one of my favorite food bloggers, Mercedes, wrote about a Grapefruit marmalade with vanilla and I had to try it. I have never had grapefruit marmalade and she raved about the flavor that the vanilla added. It was a long, slow cooked marmalade, and came out wonderfully. But the vanilla flavor was a bit odd to DH & I, so I made another batch without the vanilla, and the differences are fascinating. While the vanilla flavored marmalade is almost too sweet, but delicious in a unique way, the one without is delicious and full bodied from the long slow simmer. I really like it and think I will adapt the idea of it to orange marmalade. It is an excellent way to use all the awesome local grapefruit and oranges we have here in TX.

The result has been some satisfying restocking of the jam supply in our home, and my boys are delighted with the blueberry jam. I will have to make more soon I'm sure!

Orange Marmalade

Ahh, the lovely taste of Orange marmalade...

I have never made orange marmalade, and since I didn't make any jam earlier this summer (I'm blaming the whole moving thing) I had to figure out some sort of homemade spread to make for my toast and sandwiches and such. But buying lots of frozen berries isn't exactly cost effective.

I actually love the taste of orange marmalade, even with the peels in, so that was a plus too.

I still had to buy oranges and lemons but I think that is a bit cheaper than the frozen berries. Next I had to peel the zest off of all those fruits. Fun! The lemons were considerably more cranky about being peeled than the oranges.

Next was peeling off all the yucky white pith and cutting the fruit into slices. Tip - remove the white stuff inside the fruit too. I forgot. D'oh! I was fishing it out later which was totally not effective.

Next, mix up the fruit and pectin and set aside. Boil the peels in water (or juice) until they are soft. Then add the fruit and heat up and add the sugar. Bring to a hard boil for atleast a minute and then put into jars for canning.

It went marvelously, but never set up completely. Marmalades are harder to set, and maybe I should have used extra pectin. Though some recipes use pectin from the seeds only, and not commercial pectin!

Marmalades can take up to 2 weeks to set. Mine never completely did, guess I needed more pectin. It works fine though as a sauce/loose jam. Tastes great. I plan to make another batch once oranges are really in season, maybe that will help!