Gardening, Watermelon Lemon Mint Jelly, and Pickled Watermelon Rind

So, now that I've finished this crazy degree, it seemed like the time to put in a garden. I've half-heartedly yearned for one for years, especially since I started canning. Yearning in earnest this year, and egged on by my apartment-bound best friend who also loves to garden, I finally did it!

This year, the timing really worked out because we had this giant live oak that shaded the whole backyard, and half of it fell over, leaving the bare patch you see below. There was some (minimal) landscaping back here, but between the enormous fallen tree, the guys who cleaned the tree up and the guys who rebuilt the fence, there wasn't much of anything green left. So we decided raised beds were the way to go. We stripped the remaining landscaping and tilled up half the backyard. (Much to my husband's amusement, he came home one day to both of us in cammo cargo short and sports bras, tilling like mad.)

Then we built a compost pile and six 4x8 beds. This may have been overly ambitious, having never had a garden, but whatever. I'm lucky that there wasn't a bunch of grass to kill off, and the soil was in pretty good shape, as the previous owners were organic gardeners.

My best friend took on the task of starting our seedlings at her apartment. While this began as a highly organized endeavor, it didn't end up that way. Between having to restart some seedlings that died and her boyfriend sort of rearranging them, we wound up planting four beds of we-don't-really-know-what-we're-planting-so-SURPRISE! Always an adventure around here. It's been sort of like Christmas around here seeing what's going to sprout up next. I saw a green bell pepper yesterday poking up amongst a bunch of cucumber vine. I didn't even know we had planted bell peppers.

Above is the start of some baby plants: a squash plant  (top left), a stevia plant (top right), and what I later discovered to be watermelon (bottom left). Little did I know that the squash and watermelon would try to take over the WORLD. The below shot is about three weeks later.

Oddly, my squash has approximately one million blossoms on it, I have SEEN bees on it, and yet there was no actual squash happening for the first few months. We needed squash marriage counseling. I watched some You Tubes on how to hand pollinate the squash, but I couldn't find any girl flowers to use the boy flowers on! We have a gay squash. While I'm totally okay with that, I may need to plant a straight one so I can get some squash. However, all the boy flowers have made for some lovely stuffed, fried squash blossoms. UPDATE: 7/10-I found ONE round, green squash growing! And some girl flowers!! 

I also found my first watermelon! It's about the size of a grapefruit, but I'm pretty excited even though it's getting harder and harder to contain the watermelon vine. I've gotten several tomato cages to try to tame the squash and watermelon vines, but they're barely making a dent in all this crazy growth.

This funny fellow is a black Hungarian jalapeno. We have about four of these plants scattered about the beds, and they're very mild. Plus, they look cool. I'm not sure yet what I'll do with these. 

We also planted cherry and heirloom tomatoes (see my post on pickled fried green tomatoes here) and LOTS of rosemary to keep the bugs away. I think I have a cucumber vine (we'll see), AND I discovered a green jalapeno plant (I think). When I graduated last November, my lovely colleagues gave me a pot with rosemary, sage, and thyme, all of which are happily thriving, along with sunflowers (for my honey--he loves to have sunflowers in the house. He has an affinity with Van Gogh, but I'm hoping we can skip the whole ear situation), stevia, three kinds of mint, some purple speckled lima beans, dinosaur kale, strawberries, regular jalapenos, and chives. So kind of a motley collection now that I can identify most of it. 

Good Lord. Some of what we'd planted has withered away (the green beans in particular seemed unable to withstand the full sun). Some is barely limping along (poor basil), and some is going NUTS. However, I'm learning a lot for next year.

Here's a pic of yesterday's harvest. I just went out to clip a few things, no big deal. Then I cut into this watermelon. Holy Moses. If you haven't had juicy watermelon still warm from the sun, you must endeavor to have this experience soon. So I went out and got two more. Then I had a lot of watermelon to deal with. So guess what? Watermelon-Lemon Mint Jelly and Watermelon Rind Pickles happened.

I've seen recipes for watermelon rind pickles in my canning books for a while, but generally, grocery-store bought watermelons don't have enough rind to really work with. You're looking for the green flesh in between the outer skin and the pink part. One of the watermelons I picked was not quite ripe yet and still had quite a lot of rind, so I decided to check out this whole rind pickle situation. Most recipes advise to trim off all the pink, but the pink bit I left on was very firm. 
Cut the rind into whatever size/shape makes you happy.

 

While this recipe is very loosely based on Liana Krissoff's recipe in Canning for a New Generation, a great cookbook I talked about in this post.  I decided to make refrigerator pickles because I can't abide a soggy pickle. To avoid soggy pickles when processing, you have to use pickling lime and rinse and rinse and rinse it, and I just wasn't that gung-ho today. So I mixed up a brine of three cups white vinegar, three cups filtered water, one course chopped lemon, 1 3/4 cups sugar, a half a handful of whole allspice, one star anise, and one tablespoon of candied ginger. I brought this to a boil until the sugar was melted and added my rind to the mix, stirring the pot off the heat. I covered the pot and left the pickles to marinate overnight.  

The next morning, I removed the anise and allspice, brought the whole thing back up to a boil, and turned off the heat.

Before the second cooking. 

When the mix cooled, I funneled it into a quart jar and popped it in the fridge. These pickles are a really interesting sweet-tart treat! I think they would be great chopped into a salad, served along side something rich that needs some acid to cut it, or with a sandwich. 

On to the jelly. After I had filled a sizable container of watermelon to eat (I'm the only one at home who will), I decided some jelly was in order. I had about 4-5 cups of watermelon that I chopped and put in a sauce pan with two cups of sugar. Let this simmer until the sugar melts and the watermelon starts breaking down. I used a potato masher to help break up the flesh, and that also released a few yellow seeds I had missed so I could fish them out. When the fruit was quite tender, I ran the whole pot of liquid and fruit through the blender (I probably should have let it cool a bit first. I'll be cleaning sticky watermelon goodness off the ceiling for a bit). I added two tablespoons of lemon juice to ensure acidity and 1 1/2 teaspoons of vanilla to the mix.

Because I am total crap about sticking to recipes, I ordered some ph paper. To make sure a product is safe for water-bath canning, it needs to be at a ph of 4.6 or less. Any higher, and whatever you're canning needs to be pressure canned. Most canning recipes are carefully tested to determine what method needs to be used in the canning process. Because I like to fiddle, I wanted to ensure I wasn't going to poison anyone, especially because I'm fond of giving my canned goods as gifts. So now I go all mad scientist and test any recipes that I don't strictly follow (which is basically never).

 

When my jelly mix passed the test, I added in three tablespoons of standard pectin, brought it to a boil, reduce the heat, and added in two tablespoons of lemon mint from the garden. I processed this in a water bath for ten minutes. Yum! I'm always a bit tense to see if my jelly will actually set up, but this one did beautifully!

The last part that I saved from my watermelons were the seeds so I don't have to re-buy them next year. You can't plant hybrid watermelon seeds (which is usually what you get with store-bought melons), but mine aren't a hybrid variety. So I saved all the good, plump, black seeds (no cracked or yellow ones), washed them, and let them dry on paper towels. When they were dried, I put them in envelopes and in an airtight jar in the pantry. They're supposed to be viable for up to five years.

I'm really in love with my silly garden, and I'm excited to start planning for next year! Do you garden? What do you grow? What's your favorite thing to grow, whether it's on a patio, in a garden, or in pots in the kitchen window?

Up next, adventures in stevia. My stevia plant is gigantic, and I need to prune it and start preserving it soon!

Recipes follow...

Honeysuckle Pomegranate Jelly

Oh, pomegranate, how do I love thee...but I hate your damn seeds! I really fell in love with pomegranate at a work picnic. We were all asked to bring something from our family/ethnicity. One of my colleagues had made wonderful flatbread and served it with barely pulled-apart hunks of pomegranate drizzled with honey. It was gorgeous and exotic but had so many seeds that I found unpleasant to chew. But, I love the flavor of the juice, so when I saw these two pomegranates, literally jumping off the shelf to get into my cart, I thought, it's jelly time! You know I also have massive tea fetish, particularly when it comes to jam and jelly. I also knew I didn't have enough fruit to make much jelly, so I would need some extra liquid.

So, I made a simple syrup infused with the tea first. I put 1 1/2 cups each of sugar and filtered water, along with five Republic of Tea White Honeysuckle tea bags. I really wanted to go with a white tea so as to not overpower the pomegranate or dilute the beautiful ruby color. When the syrup had gotten, well, syrup-y, and the tea flavor was strong enough, I strained it all into a bowl. Then I dumped the pomegranate and 3T of water into the pot to simmer and break down. I did use the side of my spoon to help burst some of the seeds, but don't go too nuts. If you pulverize the seeds, your juice may be bitter. Once the fruit was broken down, I gently ran it through a chinois (any fine strainer or cheesecloth will do).

When I had gotten all the juice extracted that I could, I put the syrup, juice, lemon juice, vanilla and allspice back in the pot to heat up. When it came to a boil, I added the pectin and let it boil for a minute. I did a crappy job on my frozen saucer test, however, so I'm suggesting you all add more pectin than I did (I adjusted the recipe below for you). I'm always shy with the pectin, and then I have very, um, juicy jelly. Sigh. I will learn one of these days.

While I was working on my jelly, I found a standard recipe for pumpkin bread and made it with some of last week's fresh pumpkin puree and added in some extra spices to compensate.

I was kicking myself for not having nuts. Sigh. However, I'm a big fan of brushing the crust with melted butter both once while it's baking and then again when you take it out of the oven so some pretty turbinado sugar sprinkled on will stick. Especially when you have a nutty crust (nuttier than me), this makes for a nice, caramelized crunch on top.

Voila! Honeysuckle Pomegranate Jelly and Pumpkin bread. You better believe I took one of these muffins and scoured the jelly stuck to the bottom of the pot. The pumpkin and pomegranate were particularly fabulous together.

Earl Grey Jelly (and Jane Austen's Fight Club)

There's nothing better in the world than a good cup of tea. Well, there might be some things, but they're probably not appropriate for discussion here. But really, tea is so versatile. Dark and rich or light and fruity, exotic or plain ole' breakfast tea, I really feel like there's little in this world that can't be improved by a good cup of tea. I've run across several recipes for jams and jellies that incorporate tea, but at one point (I wish I could remember where), I found a recipe for just tea-infused jelly. Screw the fruit; there's tea! I finally got around to making this jelly, and it's like Fight Club meets Jane Austen, and they made jelly. It's that rad. 

I haven't tried this recipe with any other teas yet, but I think pretty much anything will work. I'm going to do green tea with honey instead of sugar next. So here's what you do: take two cups of filtered water and 9-12 teabags, depending on how strong you want it. Make sure you do something intelligent with the tea bag strings and tags so they don't set on fire dangling down the side of your pot.

Bring the water to a boil, and then let your tea bags steep in the water for thirty minutes. When it's done, discard the tea bags, measure your water, and make sure you still have two cups of liquid. Add more filtered water if needed.

Add in 1/4 cup bottled lemon juice (it's important you use bottled and that you use it all to make this jelly safe for canning) and 3T powdered pectin. Let the mix boil. Now, the recipe I jotted down on a napkin called for 3 cups of sugar. That sounds insane to me, but if you enjoy sugar shock, go for it. I used about     1 3/4 cup of sugar, stirred it in until it melted, and let it get to a hard boil and stay there for a minute (you have to let it get hot enough to reach the temp where pectin gels). Now, it can be a risk, messing with sugar in these recipes because the pectin and sugar react to one another to make the jelly set. So you have to use some. Taste it and see if it's sweet enough for you as you go. Keep a saucer in the freezer. When the mix has boiled for a minute, put a dab on the cold plate. If, after about 10-15 seconds, it gels up, you're good to go.

Make sure you've sterilized your jars in a boiling water bath and softened your lids (remember, you can only use the flat lid part ONCE to process a jar and make it shelf stable. Discard after one use). Pour into your jars, wipe the rims, lid them up, and process in a boiling water bath for five minutes. If you don't want to process in a water bath, just make the jelly and keep it in the fridge.

This recipe made 3 half pints with a tiny bit left over for me to snack on. And snack I did.

I'm not going to lie. This is totally a Popeye's biscuit. After having spent the afternoon drying herbs, pureeing pumpkin, and making jelly, I realized I'd eaten the last of my leftovers for breakfast and was way too tired to cook anything else. So I had a weak moment. Sue me. I'm kidding! I'm just feisty because this jelly is truly as cool as this video of the Jane Austen Fight Club. No lie.

**Remember, it's really important to do some research about canning if you want to produce jars you can keep in the pantry rather than in the fridge. Botulism is some serious nasty. I haven't provided a basic run-down of Canning 101 here because there are links to several good resources for this on my website page. PLEASE don't can ANYTHING until you've educated yourself.**

Chai Pear Jam--The Last Jam You'll Ever Need

It's fall!! Well, fall-ish here in Dallas. However, I'm determined to make some fall flavors, for crying out loud, whether it's almost 80 degrees outside or not. It is delightfully rainy here today, however, and seemed like a good day for more canning!! So off I went to Half-Price Books with a list of cookbooks I'm trolling for (found some treasures--I'll do a favorite cookbook post soon), then to Elliott's Hardware for canning supplies. Btw, if you need anything hardware, grilling, plumbing, canning, etc... and are in the Dallas area, I would highly recommend Elliott's over the big box stores. It's got a mom and pop feel, really knowledgeable associates, and the best canning aisle I've seen in DFW yet.

Anyhoo, on I went to Trader Joe's to see what looked good in the produce. They had an abundance of sinful-looking organic pears, so I picked up five or six. Yum.

I'm a big fan of pairing fruit and tea flavors, and I've been doing it for a long time. For my sister's wedding last April, I made passion tea-infused panna cotta with raspberry coulis and a green tea panna cotta with a pureed mango sauce. Hang on, I'm trying not to salivate on the keyboard. So what tea goes with pear? I pulled out all the boxes of tea in my beverage cabinet, sniffed around, and settled on chai. Just to be safe, I consulted a couple of websites and cookbooks on ratios for pear/sugar/acid to make sure the jam would set and be safe for water-bath canning in terms of acidity. (The National Center for Home Food Preservation is an excellent such guide. Lord knows we don't want to hand out botulism for Christmas.)

To start, I peeled the less ripe pears with thicker skins, and cut pear into dime-sized pieces. While I did this, I put equal parts water and brown sugar (1 1/2 cups each) with three chai tea bags to simmer into an infused syrup.

I could have just licked that pot, but I restrained myself, removed the tea bags, and added the pear, a splash of vanilla, 3 T bottled lemon juice (for consistent acidity), a pinch of salt, and the zest of one lemon.

I let this cook down until the pears were getting soft and then ran my immersion blender through it to break up some of the fruit but not all. After I got it jarred up, I put the jars to process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes (some sources said five minutes, some said ten, so I opted to go the longer route).

Success!!

This made three half pints and two quarter pints. I will be eating it spread on some banana bread tomorrow and trying not to just bathe in the stuff.

For when you get immersed in fifth-grade math homework and neglect your jam for a moment, this little scraper (got mine at Bed, Bath, and Beyond) is a miracle that will help salvage your jam pot.

Ya know. Because it just wouldn't be the house of a recent grad and mom if I weren't simultaneously making jam and dinner, continuing to dehydrate herbs in mad batches, trying to keep the cat out of the dog food, and dredging up the secrets of equivalent fractions from remote corners of my fried brain. I hope you're all planning on cooking something yum for yourselves soon!





Chai Pear Jam recipe after the break...