Sunshine in a jar

I remember a song when I was a kid about swinging on a star and carrying moonbeams in a jar.

I always wanted to do those things Bing Crosby sang about, but I never even managed to find a firefly much less a moonbeam.

One thing I did discover though, was how to capture sunshine in a jar.

My mom didn’t do much canning, and I quickly lost the sense of magic at harvesting the vegetable garden when I was young. It was more work, in my opinion. 

Mom used to blanch snow peas and beans and freeze them, and I helped. It was my job to take the straw that came in the package with the special plastic bags and suck the air out of the bag to ensure the veggies didn’t get freezer burn.

Have you ever tasted green bean air? As a kid would say, “It’s gross!”

Luckily, as I got older, my horizons were broadened. In one of my first university jobs, I worked at a beautiful neighbourhood restaurant.

The woman who owned it was from Turkey, and many of her traditional recipes were on the menu. One of my favourites was the ricotta cheesecake she made and served with homemade apricot sauce. 

Coming into my second summer working there, I asked if I could help her make the apricot sauce, as I was intrigued by the taste. As I learned her secrets, I became hooked.

That Sunday was my initiation as a domestic geek. My passion for food came full circle from the garden to the dinner table and finishing with canning jars.

Over the years, I have made all kinds of fruit jams and jellies:

• Chokecherry
• Crab apple
• Peach
• Plum
• Raspberry.

I have made chutneys, ketchups and hot sauces. I’ve poached pears, cherries and peaches (in wine, even)
and pickled:

• Cucumbers
• Tomatoes
• Beets
• Carrots
• Beans
• Even baby peaches.

But my all-time favourite item in our pantry is still apricot jam. 

Homemade preserves do take time and they have to be made safely so they keep properly. The flavours are more than worth the effort if you ask me.

When you capture the ripe flavours of fresh fruit, it’s like taking yourself back to the heat and abundance of summer.

The fresh crunch of a pickled cucumber or carrot can be like just picked from the garden, and a spoonful of jam can make you remember having the juice of the fruit running down your chin when you bit into it.

Apricots are the perfect balance of tangy and sweet. They have a rich texture, especially when cooked, but they are not overwhelming with that bit of acidity. That apricot sauce of long ago with the cheesecake was a perfect combination in my mind. 

A homemade apricot pie I tasted one year at the Wauconda Sock Hop with a scoop of vanilla ice cream was just as delicious. I was quite chuffed to get the 80-year-old baker’s recipe the next summer when we went back for more dancing – and more pie.

I hope you’ll take some time this summer to put away a bit of the flavour of the season. Freeze some fruit to bake with later or try some jam.

Freezer jam is a great way to start – look for freezer jam pectin where you find canning supplies (I get it at Home Hardware.) If you’d like more tips, send me an email; I’d be happy to share what I know.

When the winds blow cold again and the snow flies, you will be glad when you bring back some of the sunshine from summer, like a magic moonbeam.

You might even feel like you’re swinging on a star.  

This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.