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Pomegranate jelly colors the season

Recipe: Tangy condiment is just the right red

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Dark in the jar, pomegranate jelly is bright red on the plate (or cookie).
(Photo: Debbie Arrington)

Pomegranate jelly looks as cheery as the holiday season -- a brilliant ruby red. It’s just the right color for Valentine’s Day sweets as well as Christmas cookies.

Using fresh juice, pomegranate jelly can be a tangy and pretty filler for thumbprint cookies or petite pastries. Delicious on toast or English muffins, it makes a flavorful glaze on pork or chicken, too.

It takes eight to 10 medium-to-large pomegranates to produce 4 cups juice. This recipe can be scaled down, but not up.

The little dab of butter cuts down on the foam (and hence the waste). This recipe is adapted from Elise Bauer’s excellent Simply Recipes version.

Pomegranate jelly
Makes 6 to 8 half-pints

Adapted from Simply Recipes

Ingredients :
4 cups pomegranate juice
¼ cup lemon juice
½ teaspoon butter
6 tablespoons powdered pectin (1 package Sure-Jell)
5 cups sugar
Instructions:

Strain pomegranate and lemon juices to remove any seed or white membranes.
In a large heavy pot, combine pomegranate and lemon juices with powdered pectin and butter. Bring to a full rolling boil.
Add sugar all at once. Return to boil. Boil for 2 minutes, remove from heat and let sit for 1 minute.
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A food mill can be used to juice the arils.
(Photo: Debbie Arrington)
Skim off any foam. Ladle hot mixture into hot sterilized jars, leaving about 1/4-inch head space. Wipe rims, screw on lids and process filled jars in hot water bath for 5 minutes.

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Garden Checklist for week of Nov. 3

November still offers good weather for fall planting:

* If you haven't already, it's time to clean up the remains of summer. Pull faded annuals and vegetables. Prune dead or broken branches from trees.

* Now is the best time to plant most trees and shrubs. This gives them plenty of time for root development before spring growth. They also benefit from fall and winter rains.

* Set out cool-weather annuals such as pansies and snapdragons.

* Lettuce, cabbage and broccoli also can be planted now.

* Plant garlic and onions.

* Keep planting bulbs to spread out your spring bloom. Some possible suggestions: daffodils, crocuses, hyacinths, tulips, anemones and scillas.

* This is also a good time to seed wildflowers and plant such spring bloomers as sweet pea, sweet alyssum and bachelor buttons.

* Rake and compost leaves, but dispose of any diseased plant material. For example, if peach and nectarine trees showed signs of leaf curl this year, clean up under trees and dispose of those leaves instead of composting.

* Save dry stalks and seedpods from poppies and coneflowers for fall bouquets and holiday decorating.

* For holiday blooms indoors, plant paperwhite narcissus bulbs now. Fill a shallow bowl or dish with 2 inches of rocks or pebbles. Place bulbs in the dish with the root end nestled in the rocks. Add water until it just touches the bottom of the bulbs. Place the dish in a sunny window. Add water as needed.

* Give your azaleas, gardenias and camellias a boost with chelated iron.

* For larger blooms, pinch off some camellia buds.

* Prune non-flowering trees and shrubs while dormant.

* To help prevent leaf curl, apply a copper fungicide spray to peach and nectarine trees after they lose their leaves this month. Leaf curl, which shows up in the spring, is caused by a fungus that winters as spores on the limbs and around the tree in fallen leaves. Sprays are most effective now.

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