Kansas Preserves with Sorghum Syrup Recipe

The spiced peaches and icebox pickles, dilly beans
and tomatoes in every shape and form, the blackberry jam and hot pepper
jelly–it’s summer, and a whole world of summers past, in a jar. Pack the
pantry the way Grandma did, and put away the sweetest fruits and preserves, the
most tender savory vegetables, the taste of the sunny day and the scent of the
crisp harvest air, with more than 250 blue-ribbon canning and preserving
recipes culled from The Farmer’s Wife magazine. Along with instructions for canning
and preserving fruits and vegetables from your garden or the farmer’s market, The Farmer’s Wife Canning and Preserving Cookbook (Voyageur Press, 2009), like an old family
friend, offers recipes for using the tomato sauce, raspberry jam, peaches, and
other tasty fruits and vegetables that you’ve “put by.” The following recipe
comes from the section, “Other Preserved Fruits and Fruit Products.”

You can purchase this book from the GRIT store: The Farmer’s Wife Canning and Preserving Cookbook.

Kansas Preserves with Sorghum Syrup Recipe

The
flavor of this preserve might be too strong and bitter for some palates;
additionally, there is no recommended processing time for the mixture.
Therefore, make this preserve in a small batch and store in the refrigerator,
using up within a week.

1 pt. light sorghum syrup
1 tbsp. fresh butter
1 tsp. minced fresh ginger
root or ground ginger
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 tsp. lemon peel, chopped
fine
1 tsp. orange peel, chopped
fine
2 peach leaves (optional)
wild plums, pieplant
(rhubarb), crabapples, or any native fruit
2 c. sugar, heated in oven

Boil
light sorghum syrup very rapidly for 15 minutes, being careful not to let it
scorch by lifting the pan from the fire when it boils up. Add, for each pint of
syrup, 1 tbsp. of fresh butter.  Tie in a thin, muslin cloth a teaspoon
each of grated ginger root or ground ginger, cinnamon, lemon peel, orange peel,
and two peach leaves. Boil up then add wild plums, pieplant (rhubarb),
crabapples, or any native fruit, and 2 c. of sugar heated in the oven. Boil
rapidly until the fruit is tender, about 20 minutes.  Pack hot in hot, sterilized
jars, seal, and store immediately in refrigerator, using within a week to 10
days.