First made last winter, the jars were quickly gobbled up as it is my all-time-favorite jam of all time.  Then in the summer when raspberries were ripe and ready, I hunted for blood oranges.  In this day and age of abundance I though someone might stock a few.  Nope.  I settled for making the recipe with cape gooseberries and it was good.  Just not my all-time-favorite of all time.

But now it’s time, my friends, time for blood orange and raspberry jam.  Finally.  Here is the recipe:

Ingredients:

• enough  blood oranges to get 4 cups freshly-squeezed juice
• 4 cups raspberries
• 3-4 cups sugar (this really depends on your preferences and how sweet the fruit is) I used 3 cups and my jam is perfectly sweet and tart
• cheesecloth

Directions: 

• Put a couple of plates in the freezer.
• Juice those bloody oranges until you get 4 cups.  Take all the membrane and seeds out of the peels and tie into a square of cheesecloth (I used a 4-ply thickness of cheesecloth, i.e. a large square folded in half twice).  Tie the ends of the cheesecloth around a large wooded spoon.  This is your pectin bag.
• Add juice to a large pot with the raspberries and sugar and bring to a boil on medium-high.  Stir frequently.  Hang bag of orange guts from the edge of the pot.  I rigged up something with a chopstick and a clip on the side of the pot, but the large wooden spoon works great too.
• When boiling, reduce heat to medium-low and continue boiling and stirring until reduced.   Remove pectin bag and let cool.  When cool enough to handle, squeeze the bag so that a creamy gel comes out of the pores of the cheesecloth – that’s your pectin!  Scrape the pectin back into the jam and stir.  Then you can discard the bag and membranes.

• Jam is ready when it passes the gel test: put a spoonful of the jam on a plate from the freezer.  When the jam has cooled, drag your finger through the middle of the glob.  If it spreads back into a puddle, it isn’t gelled yet.  If your finger mark stays put, then your jam is ready to be canned.
• Process 125ml (aka 1/2 cup) jars for 5 minutes, or 250ml (aka 1 cup jars) for 10 minutes in a boiling water canner.

In other news, just as these flavors came together organically, it seems that right at the same time I’m all ramped up about citrus, I have a few new Garden Therapy Handmade pillows to launch.  This one seemed particularly fitting to announce today, given the citrus-y color of the crocosmia blooms.  For those of you who haven’t yet, please visit the Garden Therapy Handmade shop and take a look at all the bright-colored blooms.  Hopefully they will bring some cheer to your winter’s days.

I’ll be linking this post to these wonderful parties.

Ingredients: 

• 12 organic lemons
• coarse Kosher salt

Directions:

1. Scrub the lemons under running water with a vegetable or nail brush to get the rind nice and clean.  Then cut the stems and ends off the lemons.

2. Score each lemon into a star: start by making a cut through the lemon from the top down to almost the bottom, but don’t slice all the way through.  Leave enough remaining so that the lemon stays attached.  Cut again twice more, to get a star shape.

3. Pack the insides of the star with lots of coarse salt.  Don’t be afraid of the salt it’s not going to become overly salty if you use too much.  Just go for it!

4. Now pack the lemons into clean, sterilized jars.  Really squish them in there so that the juices start to cover the lemons.  Add extra fresh lemon juice if you need to top each jar up so that all the  lemons are completely covered.  Keep squishing down the lemons over the next couple of days to get more juices out and covering the fruit.

5. Let sit for a month in a cold place like the fridge until the rinds soften.

To use the preserved lemons, rinse under cold running water and remove the pulp.  The pulp can be squeezed for it’s juice, but generally the rind is what is used.  Slice or dice the rind to add to recipes like this one: Chicken Tagine with Green Olives and Preserved Lemon. Yum!

Materials:

• Epsom salts
• 100% pure lavender essential oil (not fragrance)
• dried lavender
• vintage mason jars

Every year we like to hang a different wreath on our front door during the holidays.  We’ve amassed a collection of wreaths to match the holiday season trends of sparkly red berries, Christmas ornaments, peacock feathers, and square-shaped boxwood but my favorites are most certainly natural, fresh wreaths.

A fresh wreath makes for an individual work of art that smells as good as it looks.  Florists and garden centers are wonderful places to find one to suit any style but if you are feeling adventurous, a homemade wreath made with garden clippings or purchased greens, can be most gratifying.

Given the current popularity of lateral space gardening, there are supplies available for all sorts of wreath plantings. Evergreen, succulent, moss, and flower wreaths are beautiful micro gardens that will suit most any style or climate.  Care will vary depending on what type of planting you decide on, but many will last for months, if not years, with a couple weekly squirts of a spray bottle.

Here’s how to make one:

Materials:

• evergreen foliage
• grapevine wreath
• pruners
• gloves
• twine
• berries, twigs, pinecones, ribbons (optional)

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A special thanks to the wonderful neighbourhood gals who provided all the foliage, wine, and treats that go along with the annual wreath-making afternoon.

With American Thanksgiving coming up this week, I thought I’d share my homemade bourbon cranberry sauce recipe.  We gave jars of this away to each of the guests that joined us for Canadian thanksgiving back in October.  The recipe is intended for canning so you (and your guests if they are lucky enough to take a jar home) can store in the cupboard until Christmas or Thanksgiving next year.  Don’t forget to dress up your jars with some adorable canning labels you can download and print on label paper.  Here is a custom design for this recipe:  Garden Therapy Bourbon Cranberry Sauce Labels.

Ingredients:

• 6  cups cranberries
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 tbsp red wine vinegar
• 1/2 cup bourbon

1. Combine sugar, water, and vinegar in a tall-sided saucepan and bring to a boil over high heat.
2. Stir until the sugar is dissolved, then add cranberries.
3. Return to a boil, then reduce heat and stir rapidly uncovered for 5 minutes until cranberries burst.
4. Stir in bourbon.
5. Ladle into hot jars leaving 1/2″ of headspace.  Process in a boiling water canner for 15 minutes for 250ml (1 cup) jars.

Makes three 250ml (half pint) jars or six 125ml jars.

We’re participating in these linky parties or blog hops.

Without the space to grow hops in our small, urban garden, we were excited to receive a gift of freshly cut hops from the country.  the Golden Hop Vine (Humulus lupulus ‘Aureus’) is a vigorous-growing deciduous vine and the prettier sibling of the common hops used to make beer.    The cone-shaped flowers are green in the summer but when it’s time to cut the vine back in the fall, the flowers start to turn.  The flowers arrived a pale yellow, but have dried to a rich golden colour.  If you are lucky enough to get your hands on some hops, here are the instructions on making your own Halloween Hop Wreath.

Materials:

• grapevine wreath
• golden hop stems
• scissors
• Halloween decoration (crow or other)

Step 1: Pick out strong stems  3″-6″ long with clusters of hops at the ends.  Snip off the leaves and flowers at the base of each stem, enough so that the stem can inserted into the wreath and hold.

Step 2: Starting at the inner bottom edge of the wreath, tuck each stem into the web of grapevine branches, enough so that when the wreath is hung they will not fall out.  Insert the stems around the grapevine wreath from inner bottom edge of the form to the upper top edge.  As the hop flowers will hang once mounted upright, this will ensure that the wreath will look symmetrical.  A good practice is to periodically lift the wreath to its finished position to check the arrangement.  Give it a light shake at the same time to remove any flowers that are loose.

Step 3: Use your creativity to decorate the wreath for the season. We used a crow but a spider, rat, or even a severed hand would have been just as compelling.

Step 4: hang your wreath and enjoy the flowers as they deepen in colour and release the most delicious hop aroma.

Basic Pie Crust 

Ingredients

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup salted butter, cut into small cubes
• approximately 1/2 cup ice water

Directions

Cut up the butter into cubes, lay them on a small plate, and stick them in the freezer. The longer in advance you do this, the flakier your crust will be.  We like the butter to be fully frozen when we use it.

In a food processor, pulse the flour to mix, then add the butter and pulse about 10 times (until the mixture resembles a coarse meal with chunks of butter still visible). Add ice water, a tablespoon at a time and pulse to mix.  Combine just until the dough holds together when pinched with your fingers and there are still butter bits visible although no larger than small peas.

Turn the dough onto a floured surface and gently form into a large square and cut into 16 evenly-sized pieces.  Gently and quickly so that you do not melt the butter or overwork the dough, form the 16 pieces into disks and wrap each in plastic.  Refrigerate for at least 1 hour.

Mini Apple Pies

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour, plus more for rolling
• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 8-10 mixed apples (some tart like Granny Smith, some sweet like Gala)
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 egg, beaten

Directions

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Roll small disks of dough on a lightly floured surface, into an 8” circle, handle lightly and keep cool in the fridge until ready to roll each piece. Carefully fit 12 of the disks into jumbo muffin tins or wide mouth canning jars, gently lowering dough into bottom and sides of pie plate without stretching. Gently fold and pinch the dough so that it creates a cup form with a thick edge. Refrigerate.

Place lemon juice in a large bowl. Peel, core, and slice apples 1/8 inch thick, tossing them in the bowl as you work.  Add sugar, cinnamon, flour and toss to combine.  Transfer apple mixture to pie crust, pressing in firmly.

Roll out the remaining 4 disks of dough and cut into 4” strips.  Layer four strips per pie in a lattice pattern and brush with egg.  Bake until golden and bubbling, approximately 25-30 minutes, Cool before serving.

We also made the dulce the leche  ice cream and sauce, but those recipes will have to wait for another day.  In the meantime, try out our absolute favourite vanilla ice cream recipe.

Come join Love the Pie with TidyMom  sponsored by Cherokee USA, Le Creuset, Wilton,Bags by Bloom and  Harvard Common Press

Materials:

• wire coat hanger
• scissors
• twine or wire (in a colour that matches your flowers*)
• dried lavender

Instructions:

The best part about this project is that you don’t need any special materials beyond what you can likely find around the house.  Start by bending a wire coat hanger into a circular form.  The hook of the hanger will be hidden when the wreath is complete, and it makes it easy to hang the wreath when finished.

It first starts with a few yellowing leaves. Yikes.  Remove these right away!

Then a few brown leaves and whitish-grey powder (spores) can be seen.  Ack! Remove these immediately!  At this point you could also top the plants by cutting the main runnier to prevent more flowering and send the plants energy into fruiting.

Sadly, there will start to be grey-brown spots on the stems which means the race has heated up.  Cut off the stems that you can, and if the blight is widespread, begin defoliating the plants to allow all the plants energy into ripening the tomatoes.

It all happens so fast.  You can go from lush green plants with many hidden tomatoes (August 2011), to sad looking sticks with ripening fruits (September 2011) in no time as seen in these photos of our raised bed tomato garden and self-watering container tomato garden.

Generally, we win the race and see late blight as a reality of growing tomatoes.  Taking the proper precautions in the beginning of the growing season will greatly improve your odds.

• Rotate tomatoes to different parts of the garden each year.  It takes 3 years for the fungus to leave the soil.
• Grow healthy plants:  start plants off strong as seedlings, and feed and water them well through the season.  Healthy plants are the best defence to disease and pests.
• Keep the leaves dry by watering the soil below as opposed to top watering.
• Grow plants undercover such as under a greenhouse, plastic dome, or roof overhang.
• Wash tools every time you use them, particularly when snipping off the blighty bits.

Templates:

• Garden Therapy 2 Inch Canning Labels Polka Dot
• Garden Therapy 2.5 Inch Canning Labels Polka Dot
• Garden Therapy 2 Inch Canning Labels Plaid
• Garden Therapy 2.5 Inch Canning Labels Plaid
• Garden Therapy 2 Inch Canning Labels Bold
• Garden Therapy 2.5 Inch Canning Labels Bold

Supplies:

• Full page shipping labels or heavy-stock, glossy paper and spray adhesive
• Colour laser printer
• 2″ and/or 2.5″ round hole punch or scissors

Steps:

1.  Print the labels on a full sheet shipping label or on a nice heavy-stock, glossy paper.  Buy the best quality shipping label you can find.  We like glossy paper for these.  Printing can be done on your colour laser printer at home (do not use an ink jet printer as that will smudge when wet) or by taking the file to a printing house.

2. Use a 2″ or a 2.5″ hole punch (available at craft stores or online) to cut out each label or if you don’t want to invest in one of those fancy tools, cut by hand with sharp scissors.

3. If using plain paper, cover the back of each label with spray adhesive according to directions on the can, or use another type of fairly dry glue (don’t use white glue or the label with pucker).

4. Apply the labels to your homemade creations and revel in the beauty you have brought to the world.

For more ideas on how to dress up your canning creations, check out last year’s canning label template project and canning label inspiration contest.