Freebies & Printables – FoodWatcher

Sweet & Spicy Pepper Jelly

Pepper jelly is a delicious enigma: the perfect balance of sweetness and spice. It is nothing short of perfection on a cracker with cream cheese. This recipe is extremely versatile, use whatever color peppers you have on hand, and adjust the heat level to your liking, from just a hint of heat to inferno-in-your-mouth. This […]

Pepper jelly is a delicious enigma: the perfect balance of sweetness and spice. It is nothing short of perfection on a cracker with cream cheese.

This recipe is extremely versatile, use whatever color peppers you have on hand, and adjust the heat level to your liking, from just a hint of heat to inferno-in-your-mouth.

Jars of red and orange pepper jelly with printable labels

This sweet and spicy pepper jelly is one of my favorite recipes from my canning ebook series, That’s My Jam. It’s been a few years since I’ve made it, but recently a glut of peppers from our CSA left me no other choice than to make a batch or two. The result was so pretty I decided to share it here, complete with brand new labels (the ones in the ebook are specifically for red pepper jelly, so a new, more color-versatile label seemed to be in order).

I’m actually not particularly fond of peppers, if you can believe it. Pepper jelly is the exception, however, and I will devour an entire jar myself with gusto.

Bright sunlight making the red and orange pepper jelly sparkle

I’ve actually posted a pepper jelly recipe before, a traditional recipe using liquid pectin, but I reworked the recipe using Pomona’s pectin for the ebook a few years back. The updated recipe also incorporates the chopped peppers rather than straining them out, which results in a slightly chunkier but noticeably more flavorful jam (not to mention a higher yield).

Another benefit to using a low sugar pectin? It’s much quicker. In fact, the third batch of this jelly I made (I had high hopes for the purple version using some pretty purple sweet peppers, alas, ’twas not meant to be…) only took 30 minutes start to finish, minus the water bath (which I opted to skip for the third batch since it was smaller and ugly and not worth preserving). Even including the 10 minute boiling water bath, you can easily be done in 45 minutes… an hour total if we’re including dishes. Still, for jam, that’s definitely on the quick side, and one of the reasons I love canning with Pomona’s pectin.

(Be sure to click through and scroll to the bottom of this post for the printable labels… including a NEW editable template option for your canning convenience!)

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Drunken Peach Jam

Peach and bourbon come together in this delightfully tipsy drunken peach jam. With ripe summer peaches, a splash of lemon juice and more than a splash of bourbon, this might just be your new summer jam. Homemade jam is a perfect way to preserve the best of summer peaches to enjoy throughout the year. I […]

Homemade jam is a perfect way to preserve the best of summer peaches to enjoy throughout the year. I mean, what’s better than a spoonful of sunshine in the dead of winter? How about a boozy spoonful of sunshine (indeed!)

Glass jars of orange peach jam on a pink background, with a small glass of bourbon and peaches cut in half.

Peach season is far too short, if you ask me.

May is really too early, even if you see peaches starting to pop up at the markets they are usually not the best, having been picked prematurely.

June is when the peaches really start to shine, and by July, when the heat of summer has infused the fruit with liquid sunshine and sugar, well, that’s your cue to eat all the peaches your stomach can handle.

But for the rest… the extra peaches sitting on the countertop, starting to soften and wrinkle… why not turn those peaches into homemade jam so you can enjoy them all year round?

Open glass jar of drunken peach jam with a gold spoon and hang tag label, showing the perfect texture of the jam.

I really haven’t felt like making much jam lately. Let’s just say I’m all jammed out. Which, if you count just how many jars of jam I’ve made over the past few years, sort of makes sense.

But… when faced with a giant box of seconds peaches, ripe and juicy and just begging to be used, I simply couldn’t resist getting out my canning pot, gathering a mishmash of random leftover jars, and diving right in to a big bubbling batch of this beautiful boozy jam.

Seconds are a great option if you’re willing to accept a few bumps and bruises. But for jam, since you’re peeling and processing the fruit anyway, it’s really not a problem (just cut out any bruised areas and make sure the fruit hasn’t gone rotten, otherwise it doesn’t matter what the peach looks like as long as it’s ripe and juicy!)

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Old-Fashioned Meyer Lemon Marmalade

Old-fashioned Meyer lemon marmalade is made with little more than lemons, sugar, water and time. The result is a vibrant citrine-hued marmalade with a perfect balance of sweet and tart. Meyer lemons, a cross between traditional lemons and mandarin oranges, have a sweeter flavor that makes them perfect for marmalade (it’s definitely one of my […]

Old-fashioned Meyer lemon marmalade is made with little more than lemons, sugar, water and time. The result is a vibrant citrine-hued marmalade with a perfect balance of sweet and tart.

Meyer lemons, a cross between traditional lemons and mandarin oranges, have a sweeter flavor that makes them perfect for marmalade (it’s definitely one of my favorites).

Open jar of Old-Fashioned Meyer Lemon Marmalade, with whole and half lemons and full jars with printable labels.

When life (or in this case, your lovely Auntie) gives you lemons…

… make marmalade.

Ok, and maybe some lemonade too. And preserved lemons. And lemon bars. And lemon curd. And lemon poppyseed muffins. And… (she really did send me a TON of lemons).

Luckily I’ve got a wealth of Meyer lemon recipes to choose from.

Still, I couldn’t resist putting this perfect, untreated fruit to work in a batch of good old-fashioned marmalade.

Bright yellow Meyer lemons in a ceramic bowl on marble background

This is an old fashioned marmalade recipe, meaning it does not have any added pectin.

What it does have is quite a bit of sugar.

I know 7 cups seems like a lot, but please don’t try to reduce the sugar in this recipe. I won’t get into the science of it, but having the proper concentration of sugar is what allows the pectin to activate and the marmalade to form a proper gel.

I know it might seem like reducing the sugar will result in a less-sweet jam, but the point at which a marmalade ‘sets’ is when the sugar concentration reaches a certain percentage (typically 60-65%). If you reduce the sugar, you’ll either end up with a runny jam, or you’ll have to cook the jam for a longer period of time, essentially evaporating off more water until you end up with the same concentration of sugar as if you used the full quantity of sugar to begin with. So unless you want to spend more time to get a smaller quantity of the same thing, please use the full quantity of sugar as written.

I’d also argue that the sweetness is necessary to offset the tart and bitter notes of the citrus, much in the way sugar is pretty much a requirement for lemonade (drinking straight up lemon juice is anything but pleasant). In the case of marmalade sugar also works as a preservative, maintaining the stained glass-like color of the citrus for a much longer period of time.

That said, I do have some lower sugar marmalade recipes here as well as a few in my ebook which use Pomona’s pectin (this particular kind of pectin is designed to react with calcium, not sugar, so you can reduce the added sugar in jams by a significant amount without affecting the final set). I do find that these lower-sugar preserves, marmalade especially, do tend to darken in color over time, much more noticeably than the old fashioned kind.

Want to see the whole step by step process? I documented the entire marmalade-making procedure last weekend in my Instagram Stories, and saved to my highlights. Because sometimes it’s easier to see a recipe made to fully understand just how it works.

Also be sure to click through/scroll down to get the FREE printable labels I’ve designed just for you. :)

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Crunchy Pecan Praline Biscotti

Light and crunchy pecan praline biscotti dipped in a white chocolate praline coating and sprinkled with a caramel praline crunch, this pecan praline biscotti might just change your opinion of biscotti for good! No more rock hard biscotti! This praline biscotti is thinly sliced and perfectly baked for a delicately crispy crunch you’ll adore with […]

No more rock hard biscotti! This praline biscotti is thinly sliced and perfectly baked for a delicately crispy crunch you’ll adore with coffee or simply on its own.

White chocolate dipped biscotti cookie sitting on the rim of a blue gingham coffee cup, with more biscotti in the background.

Biscotti has always been a cookie favorite of mine, especially around this time of year.

It’s just so darn shippable that, when you regularly send out a dozen cookie boxes to friends and relatives like I do, it’s hard not to love it’s durability. Not many cookies can arrive half way across the country and little worse for wear.

Plus, the fact that they were literally meant to be dipped in coffee means they are totally acceptable breakfast fare.

Cookies for breakfast? What’s not to love?

Rows of white-chocolate dipped biscotti neatly lined up on a baking sheet

This recipe is a hybrid of my orange and dark chocolate biscotti and ATK’s almond biscotti recipe from The Perfect Cookie. I added caramelized pecans and a bit of pecan praline flavoring, plus a dip of praline-infused white chocolate and sprinkled with crunchy praline crumbs for even more crunch. I know I’m usually on team chewy, but there’s no denying these cookies are delightfully crunchy and downright delicious.

The secret to the perfect texture is air: rather than creaming the butter with the sugar like most cookie recipes, here you start by beating air into the eggs. Then you add the sugar, melted butter, and dry ingredients.

Comparing identical batches with and without this special first step, the biscotti with the beaten eggs were noticeably lighter with a more delicate crunch that won’t threaten your dental work.

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