Christmas gifts

I’m always on the lookout for special Christmas gifts throughout the year. I’ll stash my treasures in a secret closet away from snooping kids or in one of my freezers. I have bags of blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, Aronia berries and cranberries stacked in the freezer ready to be transformed into sweet Christmas gifts.

These are four new recipes I’ve been working with for this year. Our milk truck driver, Ronnie, kept me supplied with Aronia berries this summer. I didn’t know what I was going to do with this surplus, but I think I’ve found a few great ways to use them up. I gave Ronnie a couple of muffins one morning, and he shared one with another farmer on his route. The consensus was I should enter the recipe in a holiday baking contest. 

I think I’ll just share it here instead. The nice thing about Aronia berries is that they are very similar to blueberries, just a bit drier. They can be substituted for each other in recipes.

I have also been stocking up on cranberries. Mark loves cranberry sauce, and I was able to can some sauce for later this winter when you just need something with a twang to break the dullness of winter. Cranberries also freeze so well that I have them on hand throughout the whole year. I’m hoping to try my luck at canning cranberry juice later this winter.

The last recipe is one I know I will be making a few more times to give away fresh. The flavors are explosive. It is like the flavor of the holidays in a single bite. Merry Christmas.

Aronia muffins

1/2 cup butter at room temperature

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 cups flour

1/2 cup milk

2 1/2 cups Aronia berries, frozen

1 teaspoon nutmeg

Heat oven to 375 degrees. Grease 12 large muffin cups or 18 regular-sized muffin cups.

In a bowl, mix butter until creamy. Add sugar and beat until pale and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition. Beat in vanilla, salt and baking powder.

With a spoon, fold half of the flour, then half of the milk into batter; repeat. Batter will be thick. Fold in Aronia berries. Spoon batter into muffin cups and sprinkle a dash of nutmeg onto each muffin.

Bake 15-20 minutes until golden brown and springy to touch. Remove pan from oven. Remove muffins from pan and cool on rack.

Aronia berry preserves

recipe from Forager Chef.com

1 pound (3 cups) berries, either fresh or frozen

2 cups water

2 ounces red wine vinegar

Zest of half a lemon and orange

2 teaspoons lemon juice

2 cups apple sauce, preferably unsweetened

4 teaspoons pectin

3 cups sugar

Pinch of kosher salt

Cover berries with water to clean them, drain. Combine berries with 2 cups water and vinegar. Bring to a boil, then turn off the heat. Mash berries and allow mixture to cool to room temperature. Strain juice from berries. Add applesauce to juice. Discard berries or make into fruit scrap vinegar.

Mix sugar, salt and pectin together. Add to juice mixture along with lemon and orange zest. Bring mixture to a rolling boil until it starts to thicken, around 10-15 minutes on high heat. Whisk in lemon juice and pour into four sterilized half-pint jars. Place lid and ring on jar and process in water bath for 10 minutes.

I think this recipe would also work with blueberries, blackberries or raspberries. I haven’t tried these yet, but hope to make it with these other berries on a cold winter day when I’m craving a taste of summer.

I like jam more than jelly and have left the berries in the juice. If you don’t want to waste the discarded berries, roll them into some oatmeal to form fruit balls for the birds to enjoy this winter.

Fermented blueberry syrup

recipe from Forager Chef.com

1 1/2 pounds fresh or frozen and thawed blueberries

1 2-inch strip lemon peel

1 tablespoon vanilla

3 cups sugar

2 teaspoons lemon juice

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

Mix berries, sugar, vanilla and lemon peel together. Let stand for 15 minutes, then mash berries to release juices. Pour into a half-gallon jar or another non-metal container. Cover jar with lid and allow to ferment for 4-5 days or up to a week.

Pour contents of jar into blender or food processor. Slosh a bit of water around in jar to capture all the fruit. Process until slightly smooth with still bits of fruit remaining. Pour into a heavy-bottomed pot and bring to a simmer. Simmer syrup for about 10-15 minutes on medium heat until it starts to boil. This is not a thick syrup recipe; it is more like a simple syrup. Turn off heat and stir in lemon juice.

Pour syrup into hot sterilized jars, leaving a half-inch headspace. Process in a hot water bath for 10 minutes. It will keep for months in the fridge if you don’t want to can it.

Cranberry chutney

1 bag cranberries

1 seedless orange quartered (leave on peel, just make sure to wash very well)

1 jar maraschino cherries, drained

1 cup sugar

3 shots whiskey or brandy, divided (one for the recipe, two for the cook)

Place all ingredients into food processor or blender. Pulse till chunky. Store in quart jar for a few days to allow flavors to meld. It is great on hot buttered biscuits, in a bowl of oatmeal or on top of a chunk of chocolate.

As their four children pursue dairy careers off the family farm, Natalie and Mark Schmitt started an adventure of milking registered Holsteins just because they like good cows on their farm north of Rice, Minnesota.