Just like Christmas

So often, when browsing for recipes, I run across a site that really grabs my attention.

Such was the case recently when I ran across Steph Chows blog. Let me just tell you how excited I was when I read about her 2nd Annual JAM Exchange! Yep, that’s right. I signed up right away and got paired up with Cathy from The Bread Experience.

The idea of the jam exchange is that you get paired up with another participant and you each send each other two jars of homemade jam. How fun is that?

I had a blast making several batches of jam this year, although a few just simply refused to set up. I sent Cathy a jar of my Blackberry Shiraz, and one of my Mango Habañero. After making the Blueberry Lavender, I couldn’t resist including a jar of that as well.

I got my box in the mail as quickly as I could, and, wouldn’t you know it? My box and Cathy’s both arrived at our respective homes on the same day! I was delighted to open the little treasure in my mailbox and found three jars of jam as well. Peach Lavender Jam (funny that we both used lavender, huh?), Canteloupe Preserves with Cinnamon, and Cherry Preserves.

I can’t wait to try all three! I had a ton of fun and you can bet I’ll be keeping an eye out for the exchange again next year!

Oh Bring Me Some Figgy....Jam?

I recently enthused at some length over the fact that I was finally able to procure a fig tree sapling for my yard, and was even more ecstatic because it came laden with ripe figs, just ready for the plucking.

If you have not been lucky enough to have fresh figs at your disposal, there is one crucial aspect to having your own tree. Fresh figs....don’t stay fresh for long. Sometimes not long at all. Sometimes you don’t even know they are ripe and they’ve gone bad.

Fortunately for me, my tree is small. I can only imagine what I will do in the years to come if this sucker turns into the fifteen foot monster that it has the potential to grow into. As it is, I was scrambling for ideas when I realized that I was about to have more than a pound of fresh figs ripe all at once. I love eating them straight from the tree, but, glutton that I am, even I can’t eat eight of them in one sitting.

Wasn’t I pleasantly surprised when Ginny came up with a wonderful little recipe for Fig & Sesame Jam over on Epicurious. I didn’t have enough figs to make the full recipe, so I halved the ingredients list and made a “trial” batch. After cooking the figs down and then mashing them with a potato masher (at Ginny’s urging), and then discarding the tougher skins that refused to part with the potato masher, I ended up with about a cup of jam, maybe less.

Fig & Sesame Jam

• 1 1/4 cups sugar

• 3/4 cup water
• 2 lb firm-ripe fresh figs, trimmed and quartered
• 2 (3- by 1-inch) strips fresh lemon zest
• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 1/4 cup sesame seeds, toasted

Simmer sugar and water in a large heavy saucepan, stirring, until sugar is dissolved. Gently stir in figs, zest, and lemon juice and simmer, uncovered, stirring occasionally, until thick and syrupy, 1 3/4 to 2 hours. Gently stir in sesame seeds.

However, now that I know how good this stuff is....as much as it will pain me to do so....if there aren’t enough figs on my tree the next time I’m ready for this, I may have to resort to buying them in the store.

Its that good.

And Ginny is going to find out for herself this weekend when I pack everything up and head out to Iowa for a visit.

So, let me just say this. Next time you find yourself at the store, drooling over a package of fresh figs. But you can’t quite bring yourself to buy them because you don’t know how you will use them up before they start getting mushy..... do THIS. You won’t regret it.

I may be a bit out of touch over the next week with the upcoming trip (yeah yeah, I know, I’ve ALREADY been a bit out of touch! Bear with me – I’m working on a new project that I hope to announce very soon!) but when I get back, I hope to have some fun new posts worked up for your viewing pleasure.

Until then....get “figgy” with it!

Mango Habañero Jam

Says those words in the same sentence and watch how fast I’m on my feet and headed to the kitchen.

It would make your head spin.

It doesn’t help that I’m participating in Steph Chows’ 2nd Annual Jam Exchange, and I’m having a hard time resisting the urge to make jam right now. And, you know what they say, “some like it hot”.

This one is super simple. My batch didn’t firm up very well, but after tasting the heat of it, I’m thinking its probably a good thing you can’t get very much at a time. Dip a little cracker in it, or pour it over a brick of cream cheese, but this one is NOT one you want to eat by the spoonful (get back, Joey Tribbiani!). Unless, of course, you enjoy bleeding ulcers. Yeah, I didn’t think so.

Here is the link for the original recipe I used, but I am including my version (with a couple of changes) below.

Mango Habañero Jam

Yields 6 (1/2 pint) jars

6-8 whole habañeros (I bought a package of red habañeros that had 10 chiles in it, so I stemmed them and threw them all in)

1 c cider vinegar

1 fresh mango, peeled and chopped (sorry, it just didn’t look like enough fruit once you cut the pit out, so I used 2.)

1/2 c apricot nectar

1/2 c fresh orange juice (I couldn’t find apricot nectar, only mango nectar, so I used 1 cup of mango nectar in place of the apricot nectar and orange juice)

6 c sugar

1 packet liquid pectin (I used Certo sure-jell)

Blend all habañeros with vinegar, mango, and juices until well pureed. Bring mixture and sugar to boil in a heavy pot. Boil 8 minutes. Add certo and bring to boil again. Pour into 1/2 pt jars and seal.

Isn't it PRETTY??Now, just because I am a fool for a cool gadget, I have to show off my newest addition. The Norpro lid lifter. This bad boy will hold up to ten canning lids upright in your water bath so they stay out of the way of your jars. Either dip your magnetized lifter in the water to grab one at a time, or use the wooden knob to pull the whole thing out when you are ready to seal your jars. Nifty, no?

Blackberry and Red Wine Jam - its canning season!

I did not grow up in a family where canning was a part of our summer. We didn’t live near a farm, and we didn’t have much in the way of a garden. We were city folk.

Well, now I’ve married into the country lifestyle, and I adore the idea of canning. But it scares me.

I’ve canned a few things and then I rarely end up using it because I’m always nervous about random bacteria. That, and I live on a well and the water leaves this nasty white residue on the outside of the jars. I know, I know, its just minerals and it wipes right off, but still. It freaks me out.

But I WANT to be a canner. I really do.

So when I was out browsing for a jam recipe, I ran across Steph Chows blog and learned that there is such a thing as a “Jam Exchange”. That’s right, a bunch of people all over the country make jam and then send it to each other. I am sooooo signing up for THAT!

As you may have heard if you follow me on Twitter, I’ve recently been endowed with large quantities of fresh blackberries, courtesy of the hubs’ buddy, MG. More than twenty quarts. So, I did a lot of freezing, but I still had several quarts in the fridge I needed to do something with, and that means jam.

I had seen recipes for blackberry with port, or strawberries with port, but since port never last long at my house, I didn’t have any on hand and I didn’t want to wait until I could get to a decent liquor store to pick up a bottle.

But you know what else goes really well with berries? Red wine. So, in place of the port, I poured some red wine into a saucepan and reduced it down to the ¼ cup the original recipe called for. I worried about the amount of sugar it called for, but I didn’t want to chance changing the recipe too much so I left it. The jam did end up awfully sweet, but still quite tasty.

Well, I signed up for the jam exchange this morning, and this will be one of the jars I send out! Unless, of course, one of the dozen or so other jam recipes I have filed away turns out better....

Coming up next – Blueberry and Lavender Jam! Stay tuned!

Blackberry and Red Wine Jam

4 cups fresh blackberries (crushed)

1lb sugar

Juice of 1 lemon

1/4 red wine reduction

Simmer about ¾ cup of red wine in a small saucepan until reduced to about ¼ cup.

Add the crushed berries and the sugar to a large, deep pot. Heat on low, stirring often, until the sugar is dissolved.Add the lemon juice and bring the heat up to Med/High, stirring to blend.

Cook until the berry mixture reaches 220F. Carefully add the wine reduction, stir and reheat to 222F. (Note: I could not get my jam to break 220 degrees, so I quit mine a bit early, but it turned out fine. Remove from the heat and let rest for 3-5 minutes so the berries can mix with the syrup. If any obvious hard blackberry cores rise to the top, remove them for a smoother jam.

Note: at this point, I actually put my jam through a food mill to remove all the seeds and hulls. My jam also did not seem to be gelling very well, so after straining off the seeds, I put the mixture back in the pan, brought it up to a boil and added some liquid pectin.Pour hot jam into sterilized jars, seal properly and finish with a hot water bath for 10 minutes. OR, just pour into freezer containers and freeze.

Rhubarb-a-Rama

Every so often, Ginny asks me a crucial question. Well, shortly before her recent visit to the Boondocks (aka, my house) she was visiting her folks out in Des Moines. From their house, she calls me.

Ginny: So, um, how much rhubarb should I bring out with me?
Me: As much as you can carry.

Ask a silly question.....

Well, in any case, she ended up bringing somewhere in the neighborhood of ten pounds of gorgeous rhubarb stalks with her, and a long list of ideas for what to do with it. I am a huge fan of rhubarb (still have those memories of cutting stalks from our patch in the back yard when I was a kid, dipping it in sugar and snacking on it), so this was no problem for me at all.

From this plethora of tart-a-liciousness came the following:
Rhubarb-Ginger Jam
and

Rhubarb-Ginger Syrup

Rhubarb Ginger Jam

Ingredients
3/4 lbs. rhubarb stalks, chopped in 2″ pieces
1 cups sugar
1″ piece peeled ginger
1 cinnamon stick

Directions
Quarter 1″ piece of ginger.
Place in a large saucepan with sugar, ginger, cinnamon stick and 1 cup water. Simmer over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally and skimming foam as it rises, until rhubarb is soft and syrup begins to thicken, about 15 minutes. Remove rhubarb with a slotted spoon and set aside.
Continue simmering syrup until very thick, another 7–10 minutes. Remove from heat.
Discard ginger and cinnamon, return rhubarb to pan, stir, and cool for 5–10 minutes.
Pour jam into jars and allow to cool.
Store in refrigerator for up to 1 month.
Rhubarb-Ginger Syrup

makes 1 jar to keep, plus a little to use right away; can easily be doubled or tripled

1.5 cups white sugar

1 cup water

2 cups thick-sliced rhubarb stalks, leaves discarded

1 cup chopped ginger (no need to peel)

In a medium saucepan, bring the sugar and water to a simmer, stirring to dissolve. Add the rhubarb and ginger; return to a simmer, then reduce heat and let slowly bubble until the rhubarb is thoroughly soft. Remove from heat and let steep for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, line a metal strainer with cheesecloth, and place it over a heatproof bowl. (If you want crystal-clear syrup, use a muslin jelly bag and be prepared to wait for gravity to draw the liquid into the bowl; be careful not to press or squeeze the solids.)

If you noticed, there does seem to be a theme here. And that theme is GINGER. We are both lovers of ginger, but Ginny is the more enthusiastic of the two. Needless to say, we may have used more ginger than the recipes called for. In the case of the jam, where the recipe calls for straining the ginger out and discarding it...well....that’s just wasteful. We put that ginger and some of the rhubarb in the food processor and put the resulting paste right back into the jam. Mmmm hmmmm.
Also. Both recipes recommend canning, but we opted to freeze the jam, and DRINK the syrup (it was excellent with some club soda and a little tequila).

NOTES: We quadrupled the recipe for the jam and doubled the recipe for the syrup so that we would have plenty, and use as much of the rhubarb as we could. The taste combination of rhubarb and ginger is absolutely phenomenal. The jam was like eating ambrosia and I’ll be hoarding my share and rationing it out over the winter. The syrup? Yeah well, the syrup didn’t last long in my fridge at all.....it is summer, you know....and you really should hydrate regularly.....

Summer Sweets

Here is a new take on pickles for you to try. I found this in a cooking magazine that I picked up at the St Louis airport on my way to Baltimore in April. I love pickles and I love radishes, so it seemed like a win-win to me.
Some friends of ours have a great garden and had radishes coming out of their ears last week and donated a bag full to the cause.
The magazine raves that “However peculiar pickled radishes may sound, the piquant slices are divine. eat them along or sprinkle them on burgers or hot dogs." but I am rarely convinced by magazines.
I am, however, very prone to trying new and unusual things, so away I went after those radishes with the super sharp blade of my Kyocera ceramic knife! (yes, I know, I could do this with the slicing blade of my food processor, but that’s just a lot of parts to wash afterward, and I am not a fan of doing the dishes. However, if I was going to make more than a jar or two of these at a time, I may retract that statement.

Pickled Radishes
2 cups of sliced radishes (about 8 ounces)
1 small red onion, thinly sliced
1/2 cup white vinegar
1/2 cup sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

6 6-inch stems fresh dill (I used 3)
1 TB whole pink or black peppercorns (i had a 3 pepper mix that I used)

Thoroughly wash and slice the radishes and onions and place in a 1 quart jar.

In a bowl, stir together vinegar, sugar and salt until mixture dissolves. Pour mixture over radishes and onions. Add dill and peppercorns. (in retrospect, I think I would have added the dill and peppercorns FIRST so that I wasn't fighting with the fronds to keep them down while I screwed the lid on the jar.)

Cover and refrigerate at least 8 hours or overnight before serving.

So, I left the jar to marinate in my fridge for a day, and the brine progressively sucked the redness out of the radishes and turned itself a lovely shade of fuchsia, leaving the vegetables themselves pure white. After a day or so, I cautiously opened the jar and plucked a vinegary slice out and sniffed it. Yep, smells like a pickle….and, oddly enough, like a radish, too. I plopped that bad boy in my mouth, and yes, it TASTES like a pickle….and like a radish, too! I ate another, you know, to check for consistency…. and another, for the benefit of Ginny who was vicariously taste testing through my phone receiver, and then another…. and another…and I made myself close the jar. Those pungent little suckers are just darn tasty. I have yet to decide what other applications they might have, other than just the late night snack craving of a pregnant woman in her late third trimester, but I think they are a keeper. If nothing else, I’m going to start putting them on all my relish trays.
Now, if I can figure out how to CAN them so I can make a bunch at a time and save them all year…..without having to cook them, because I think that might ruin it. Anyone?

**Oh, side note. I may have mad more radishes than I was supposed to (you know, because I’m always soooo precise when it comes to things like that….damned Italian roots…) but I ended up having to make twice the amount of bring for the amount of radishes I had, just to fill one quart jar. So, I guess my point is, you may want to be prepared for that possibility if you decide to try these.