The Tilsons

I have officially got the canning bug! Today I felt inspired to try a couple of new recipe ideas - thanks to the mint, lavender and rose jelly I bought my mom for christmas (and porked out on after stockings were opened). Here are the recipes:

I used the Certo box recipe for the apple jelly - note that two cheesecloth layers are enough if making a bag. Somehow the jelly clears up as you cook it. I don’t get it.
First, make a bunch of apple juice by:

1. cutting up apples in quarters, removing the stem and blossom end, and then cooking them (with water to cover).
2. Let ‘em simma for about 30 mins and then mash ‘em up with a potato masher.
3. Stick the mush in a jelly bag (or make one from cheesecloth) Then hang it precariously from a stick going across the gap between the counters. I left it all day.(This is pretty sketchy. My mom’s cherry bag broke once and they went everywhere - that stains.) I enjoy risk. (not botulism risk though…)
4. Then, the stuff you have at the end - strain it through a clean dish towel, and you’ve got juice!

For Basic Apple Jelly:

1. For Bring 7 cups of juice, 2 TBSP lemon and 1 pack certo crystals to a boil.
2. When boiling, add 9 C sugar and bring to a rolling boil for one minute ( make sure your pot is way bigger than your liquid, because the bubbles WILL boil over. They will expand like an alien species on a new planet and over take whatever pot they are in. Heck - don’t even bother trying to prevent it, just be ready with a spoon to eat it up cloth to clean it up.)
3. As it is doing this, try and get the fine white frost off as fast as you can. After a minute, turn off the heat and scrape the rest of the foam off. Should be a clear brown colour.
4. At this point, proceed with all botulism prevention methods of canning jelly (hot jars, hot lids, hot screw tops - pour in to 1/4″, wipe rim, screw top, place on towel to set)

If you want to add some flavour, try lavender or mint. For lavender I used between a 1/4 and a 1/2 C of fresh lavender flowers, crammed them in my big tea ball and put it in with step 2. Keep it in until after the 1 minute boil-overflow-thing.

For mint take 2 C of fresh mint leaves (from your garden!), wash them and put them in a bowl. Then pour 1 C of boiling water on them, cover with a plate and leave it for an hour or more. When ready, squeeze the leaves out and put 2 tbsp per cup of juice (that would be 14 tbsp in this recipe) in with the ingredients of step 2.

ENJOY~!