The dangers of canning

My sink was draining slowly. It took about 6 hours to empty. That's not good.

I did force it to drain this morning. I brought out the plunger and pumped that a few times. It seemed to help a little. Then I fired up the garbage disposal. That also helped, but it was a little scary. I looked into the drain and saw the disposal blades spinning. The drain guard appeared to be missing. I planned to add the slow drain and missing drain guard to the list of things that I need the landlord to fix.

The odd thing was that while the sink would eventually drain, the drain itself stayed full.

Tonight, I took another look and discovered the problem.

One of these was in the drain.

Earlier in the week I finished a jar of home made cherry jam and put the empty jar in the sink to wash. I forgot about it.

Somehow, the empty jar slipped into the drain. The drain guard was still there. It was just forced open by the empty and now clear jar. The jar itself was just slightly smaller than the drain opening and fit in there perfectly.

I wiggled the jar out of the drain, and surprise, surprise the sink drained easily.

So the new danger in home canning is that if you're not careful, it can make you look like an idiot.

Cranberry Sauce

The host in a Turkey coma means it was a successful Thanksgiving dinner.

I enjoy fresh fruit these days. In the Pacific Northwest we have some of the best, most natural ingredients available. And for Thanksgiving, that means cranberry sauce that is thick, with real berries, and not shaped like a can

But I like the stuff shaped like the can. The solid gelatinous goop screams Holiday. How do I balance these flavors of fresh fruit with my desire for the log of fruit?

I made my own.

It's easy. I got my recipe from the Ball Blue Book of Preserving.

You will need:

• 4.25 cups (about 1 pound) of fresh cranberries
• 1.75 cups of water
• 2.00 cups of sugar
• Cinnamon Stick
• Several cloves

Wash and rinse the cranberries.

Then boil them with the water until the skin bursts and the mixture is bubbling.

Run the mixture through a food mill (or food processor).

Put the resulting mixture back on the stove and add the sugar.

Add the cloves and cinnamon stick in an herb bag (remove it before canning).

Boil it until it almost gels (take a tea-spoon, scoop some out and let it drip on a plate away from the stove -- if it slides off in big gloopy drips, it's done).

Finally, pour the mixture into half pint or pint canning jars (straight sided or freezer jars), and process them in a boiling water canner for 15 minutes at a rolling boil.

Then let them set for 12 hours and you have fresh, canned cranberry sauce. When you are ready for some tasty sauce, simply scoop some out of the jar. Or just turn the jar upside down on the plate and the log will ploop out.

This recipe will make 4 half pint jars:

Or 2 one pint jars:

Or 3 half pint jars and half of a one pint jar:

Well preserved sauce (except the half jar) should keep for up to 12 months so you can relive the joys or horrors of Thanksgiving in the middle of May. And, while it's great with a spoon, I'm told it should also be great with butter and toast.

Open and serve up a cylinder of cranberry sauce, and now the Holidays can begin.

Jam

Today my diet had been simple. I ate a pot of coffee and several Peanutbutter and Jelly sandwiches.

There are several reasons for this.

First of all, I don't have much food in the fridge. One of the benefits of traveling as much as I do is that I save a lot on groceries. The disadvantage is that I can't have perishable food in the apartment. The food I do have requires cooking. Since it's 94 degrees in here, that didn't have much appeal.

Second, if I went shopping, I'd come back with frozen, microwavable food, and I'd rather save those tasty treats for a special occasion.

Third and most importantly, is that the jelly is actually Rasberry Jam. Not just any Rasberry Jam, but Rasberry Jam I made myself.

Two weeks ago, I bought a ridiculous about fresh, organic raspberries at the Pike Place Market. Then I began the great experiment -- to see if I can bottle that sunshine. And it worked. I got 3 and a half jars of jam out of half a flat of raspberries. I even had left over berries that I snacked on for a day.

And today I opened my first jar and made some tasty sandwiches. I'm quite pleased with how they turned out -- the jam is full of flavor, with just enough sweetness. The actual raspberry taste comes through in a way I can't get from Smuckers.

I decided to try my hand at canning last year. I was at the market looking at strawberries. The vendor gave me a sample of the plump berries he got from a wholesaler. They were big, moist, and beautiful. And they had little flavor -- just what you find in the supermarket.

Next to those were some of the ugliest berries I've seen in a long time. They were organic berries from the Yakima valley. They were small, dark, and misshapen. When I bit into one, though, it tasted like -- get this -- and actual strawberry.

It was a flavor I hadn't had in more than 20 years. The last time I tasted berries like that, they were from the strawberry patch we had in the back yard when I was growing up. These organic berries wouldn't have survived the trip to a supermarket, but were just perfect at the farmers market.

So this year, I'm trying more fresh and real fruit. And I'm trying my hand at preserving it. Hopefully the ones I preserve will still be as flavorful in January as the are today. Even if they're not, they have to taste better than the Franken-fruit shipped up from South America in the winter.

Now, I just have to figure out how to grow real tomatoes in my apartment. I haven't had one of those in years, either.