From the archives comes one of our favorite food projects: Halloween Cuisine: Sweet or Savory Specimen Jars.

 What good is a specimen jar if you can’t serve it at dinner? The contents of the jars should be genuinely edible, made out of real food. Plastic snakes and spiders are right out.

More Halloween edibles can be found  in the food category of our Halloween Project Archive.

The plums on our tree ripened all at once this year! Making this sweet and tart Lemon Plum Jam took care of some of the excess fruit in a tasty way.

Ingredients:

• 4 cups plum pieces (pits removed, skin still on)
• 2 whole lemons—large meyers if you can get them—cut into pieces (seeds removed, peel still on)
• Juice of 2 more lemons
• 1/2 cup water
• 4 cups sugar

Heat the plum and lemon pieces, lemon juice and water in a pot on medium, stirring occasionally. After about 15-20 minutes, the fruit should be softening. Macerate the fruit in the pot—a potato masher works well for this. Add the sugar. Stir regularly and cook to the desired consistency. To test consistency, put a spoonful on a plate in the fridge. If it’s too runny after cooling for a few minutes, keep simmering and test again after a few minutes.

Makes about 2-3 pints.

If you want to can it for longer storage, Ball has a nice introduction to canning (pdf), and additional resources on their website.

Other fruit preserves from the Play with your food archives:

• Marmalade is way easier than it looks
• Plum Chutney
• Marmalade Redux
• Spicy Berry Preserves
• Peach Chutney
• Orange Spice Marmalade

It’s citrus season around here, and that means marmalade. Whole cloves, cardamom seeds and cinnamon sticks decorate this sweet orange preserve and give it an aroma reminiscent of holiday desserts and spiced cider.

Ingredients:
15 navel oranges
2 cups water
6 cups sugar
1 tablespoon whole cloves
1 tablespoon cardamom seeds
1 stick of cinnamon per container

The procedure is from our Marmalade Redux: peel the oranges and cut the peel into strips. Juice the oranges and put the strips of peel, juice and water in a pot to cook. Take the pithy pulpy parts leftover from juicing three or four of the oranges. Cut into smaller chunks and tie into several layers of cheesecloth or a cloth jelly bag (like this one) to cook in the pot with everything else.

After cooking for about 20-30 minutes, the pieces of peel should be softened. Remove the pith bag and put it in the cold equivalent of a double boiler: a bowl on top of a layer of ice that’s in a larger bowl. Turn the bag over every so often to help it cool down more quickly. When it is cool enough to handle, squeeze out a few tablespoons of the cooked pulp and pith through the cloth–this will provide the pectin that will help the marmalade to gel.

Put the pectin goo into the pot (which you conveniently left simmering on the stove) and add the sugar, cloves and cardamom. Stir regularly and cook to the desired consistency. To test consistency, put a spoonful on a plate in the fridge. If it’s too runny after cooling for a few minutes, keep simmering and test again after a few minutes. Put one cinnamon stick in each storage container you’ll be using and pour the finished marmalade over it. Makes about four and a half pints.

If you want to can it for longer storage, Ball has a nice introduction to canning (pdf), and additional resources on their website.

Other fruit preserves from the Play with your food archives:

• Marmalade is way easier than it looks
• Plum Chutney
• Marmalade Redux
• Spicy Berry Preserves
• Peach Chutney