vegan corn chowder

Inspired by this and this recipe, I made some vegan corn chowder!

In hot pan (or instant pot on saute mode), add 1 TB avocado or canola oil. 

saute  1 diced yellow onion with 1/2 tsp salt until browning. 

Add 2 stalks celery, diced, and 3 cloves garlic, diced.  Deglaze pan with 1/4 C dry white wine.  

Now add: 

1 can diced mild chili peppers like hatch

2 small potatoes, diced

1 red bell pepper, diced

bay leaves

veg broth or water 

Pressure cook for 5 minutes at high pressure, or cook on stovetop until potato is fork tender. 

Open pressure cooker, add 4 C frozen corn, stir into hot soup to thaw the corn. 

Scoop some of the mix into blender and blend with 1/4 C cashews. 

Pour back into the pan, add chickpeas or white canelini beans.  Heat until warmed through. 

garnish: chopped cilantro and finely diced red onion

Serve with corn bread or warm corn tortillas. 

Red Currant Jelly (canned)

Red currants make an excellent jelly!  I looked up a few references for making currant jelly and canning it in boiling water bath:

• University of Alaska Fairbanks Extension
• David Lebovitz's recipe
• Colorado State Extension

According to a couple sources, no need to add lemon juice (like the usual jam recipes for other fruits) because red currants have enough acid already.  (Cooksinfo and Colorado state extension jelly page)

METHOD

Sort the currants, remove any moldy bits or rocks. Leave them on the stems, no need to pull the berries off the stems. Rinse in a colander.

Boil the currants (stems are ok) and a bit of water  until soft
Strain to get the juice ( I used a fine metal mesh sieve)

Measure how many cups of juice you have. By volume, the ratio is:1 part juice to .8 part sugar.

Combine currant juice and sugar in saucepan and bring to boil.

Pack into hot sterilized half pint (or smaller) jars with 1/4 inch headspace.

Place in boiling water bath canner for 5 minutes (for half pints or smaller).

Yield: I bought 4 pints of red currants, which fit comfortably in my large saucepan. It yielded 2.5 C red currant juice, to which I added 2 C sugar. Yielded 3 half pint jars of jelly.