Not ready to can? Try quick pickles, refrigerator jam

I'm pretty fearless in the kitchen, but when it comes to canning, I just haven't been able to take the leap of faith into the hot water bath.

For traditional canning, you have to submerge the sealed jars in a pot of boiling water to prevent the growth of the bacteria that causes botulism. Hot water bath processing, when done right, yields vacuum-sealed jars of pickles, sauces and preserves that can be stored in a pantry for up to a year.

In recent years, amid our ever-increasing dependence on technology, or perhaps despite it, home cooks have reclaimed the laborious task of canning, with a vigor that we haven't seen since World War II, which was the peak in this country for both victory gardens and, subsequently, canning.

I've been happily growing what I can in my own backyard garden for a few years now, and maybe one day I'll bite the bullet and buy the extra equipment (a jar lifter, a jar wrench, special tongs, canning rack), take a class (so I know for sure that I'm not poisoning my family) and attempt traditional canning.

But in the meantime, I'll stick with quick pickles and refrigerator jam, which produce similar briny vegetables and sweet fruit spreads but don't require the special equipment, time or know-how. By skipping the hot water bath or pressure processing, you can make pickles and jam that taste almost identical to the kind that are officially "put up" but that are stored in the refrigerator. They don't last as long, but jam and pickles don't last long in my house anyway.

Pickling party

For Stephanie Scherzer, the question of how she's going to pickle isn't as important as what and with whom.

"It's such a fun process with a lot of hands," Scherzer said as she mixed spices and vinegar in big pots on the stove during a Monday morning pickling party at her house last month with Donna Daniels, Theresa Noyes and Elizabeth Winslow, with whom she co-owns Farmhouse Delivery, a delivery company that specializes in local food. Above the chatter of helpers and clatter of jars being cleaned and carrots, fennel, onions and beets being chopped for quick pickles, Scherzer explained that turning pounds of produce into jars of pickles and preserves is much more fun when it's a collaborative effort. "It doesn't feel like labor or a chore" when you divide up the work, she said.

Their mouths moved as fast as their hands. With five batches of quick pickles to make and a weekend trip to Port Aransas to rehash, the women quickly found their familiar rhythm. Just about every week they get together to process whatever Scherzer has growing. In a few months, they'll turn the last of the tomatoes into sauce and figs into preserves. In winter, they make sauerkraut and kimchi.

"People connect better when there are sharing an activity," Noyes said. "It's really more like therapy." And unlike professional counseling, when the pickle party is done, everyone goes home with jars packed not just with the colors, scents and flavors of what's in season, but the wider snapshot of the drama and joy of that particular day.

Safety first

Whether you're pickling or making jam alone or with friends, make sure you start with clean jars and fresh produce. Even though you're not at risk for botulism, using dirty jars and produce that's about to turn is risky when you're preparing something you'll eat that day, much less a few weeks later.

Mason jars, the glass jars with two-part lids that are used in traditional canning, are available in grocery stores, but you can use almost any kind of glass jar: Just make sure the lids aren't rusted and all the parts have been cleaned. To be on the safe side, you can sterilize them by boiling the parts in water for about 10 minutes.

As long as your start with clean jars and produce and your brine contains roughly equal parts vinegar to water, quick pickles will stay good for between one and two months, so either don't make more than you can eat in that time or plan to give some of the jars away. For refrigerator jam, plan on using what you make in less than a month, and if you're using overripe fruit, the jam probably won't last that long. Just like with any food, toss your pickles or jam at the first sign of fuzz, mold, scum or slime.