hot ladles i

I bought a little lemon balm starter at the beginning of the gardening season and the plant exploded!  There’s lemon balm for everyone!  I found this recipe after a quick google search and decided to try it out.  I used Sure-Jell instead of liquid pectin and put the powder in before the sugar per the directions on the box rather than the recipe.  Also, 6 1/2 cups of sugar is intimidating so beware.  But after a quick boil to set the jelly, the little jars of lemon balm jelly look good!  Fingers crossed they taste as good as they look and I can share some garden love with my fellow hotladles.

Life is hectic in D.C., so it’s been fun to slow things down on occasion and can! So far, I’ve canned strawberry jams, orange marmalade, and a few different kinds of salsa.  It’s exciting to cook up the fruit or veggies, pour it all into those quaint little jars, time the water bath like a hawk, and hear that tell-tale pop of the lids… and of course, it’s a joy to eat the handiwork weeks or months later, knowing that I preserved it all myself.

I’ve been wanting to venture out into new canning terrain and found this recipe for raisin d’etre mustard online at local kitchen.  Using beer to make mustard?  Sounds fantab.

I made a few adjustments to the recipe… like using a Saranac Caramel Porter instead of the Dogfish Head.  And I couldn’t find brown mustard seeds, so doubled the quantity of yellow ones.  I also used waaaay more cayenne pepper than called for so the finished product has some nice heat.

It was an easy recipe to follow and the finished product is great: 4 1/2 pint jars of hot caramel mustard for my friends and a big dish of it for my fridge.  YUM!