The food ate my brain

[torquill]

I started cooking shortly after I got up today. I took breaks to shower, eat (twice), and go to the grocery store. Other than that, I've been handling food for 13 hours.

I baked sandwich rolls for my usual school lunch; the internal structure/texture looked professional, and I discovered that leaving them to cool for two hours made all the difference with slicing. I still need to shape them so that they don't bulge out in the middle (they're oval rather than rectangular) but otherwise they look fabulous this time. They smell incredible, as always.

I took the peeled and cooked feijoas from yesterday and made jelly. I only got 3.5 four-ounce jars, as it cooked down, but I'm reasonably sure that it will set fine (I hate the uncertainty of jelly). Only after I started today did I discover that most recipes don't peel the fruit first, so I lost a few hours doing that yesterday and had to add pectin today... but I'll know better for next time. It tastes amazing. Thanks go to kitabare for the fruit.

I diced eight quarts of peeled Fuyu persimmons and cooked them in a quart of orange juice... they managed to stick and burn at one point, but I didn't panic and I rescued it (tip: immediately pour off what you want to keep, before you try to scrape stuff off the bottom; this keeps the burned bits from getting mixed in.) I added two quarts of cranberries and some sugar and lemon juice, cooked it until most of the cranberries were in pieces, and canned that up as well. I tried for smaller jars, as a pint is a lot, but I had fewer jam jars than I thought... I did thirteen half-pints, seven jam (12oz) jars, and finished what was left with four pints.

That was a lot of jars, more than the pressure canner could take, so I had to start a boiling-water bath to take the extras. I swear it took a half-hour to take the pot from 140° to 212° -- the pressure canner was run, cooled, and unloaded by the time the water boiled. More reason to keep using the pressure canner instead... 10 minutes at 5 pounds is more than enough for jam, and it processes in 45 minutes or so start to finish, with the side benefit of not having all that hot water to handle.

I believe they all sealed, so I'll clean and label them tomorrow, then use some of them for Christmas gifts. The persimmon-cranberry thing is apparently very good with pork. I wouldn't know -- I use it on toast.

Comments

[kitabare.livejournal.com]

Wasn't sure how much of the fruit you wanted. I can get more though. Apparently one of my co-workers mother has two large shrubs in her yard and gets buckets full. He can bring me some if you want more.

[luna-torquill.livejournal.com]

Yes, please! Lots of fruit boils down to not so much jelly, and now that I don't have to peel the fruit, it's much faster to make. I can always use more dried feijoas, too.

[kitabare.livejournal.com]

Will do. I can probably get him to bring it on Monday or Tuesday. Just need to make sure I get it done before I fire him in the next week or so ;). We'll work out how I'm getting it to you.