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.

Trisha Yearwood's Apple Dumplings

Did you know that Trisha Yearwood has a cookbook out? I did. And I know this because I’ve been seeing a lot of bloggers talking about it. But you know what? I really wasn’t excited about it. As a matter of fact, I don’t even know if I can honestly say I read a single post all the way through.

Why? I don’t know. Its not that I don’t like Trisha Yearwood. I do. She has a wonderful voice and she is a great musical talent. I just never thought of her as a cook, apparently, because I have been dismissing her new book without cause. And you know what? That’s not like me. I am a very open minded person, and I am always trying new things, so I don’t know what my problem was.

That is, until my friend Kim posted Trisha’s apple dumplings. Oh MAN, did they look good. I admit, I skulked around the internet until I found the recipe. (Hey, don’t look at me in that tone of face, when you buy a car, you give it a test drive first, right?)

It really doesn’t get much easier than this. And inexpensive, too. I mean, a can of biscuits, two apples and some staples like butter and cinnamon. I whipped these bad boys up Sunday morning and took them with me to the weekly family breakfast at the motherinlaw’s house. You could say they went over well. You know, considering that the average person at the table had 2-3 dumplings and I swear someone almost licked the pan clean. These were TASTY. Health food, this is not, but really, if you think about it, there are a lot of breakfast foods that are worse for you.

Trisha has achieved a new level of respect in my book, and I just might have to put her book on my list. I’ll definitely be making these again.

Apple Dumplings

2 Granny Smith apples

1 cup water

1 cup sugar *divided

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter

1/4 tsp. vanilla extract

8 canned biscuits (buttermilk)

4 tsp. ground cinnamon

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Peel, core and slice apples vertically into 8 slices each. Cover with water to keep them from getting brown.

In a medium saucepan, mix the water, 3/4 cup sugar, butter and vanilla over heat and bring mixture to a boil.

Separate each biscuit into 2 layers. Wrap a biscuit layer around a slice of apple, stretching it to slightly overlap and seal the bottom. (I used my mini Silpin to roll them out since stretching them wasn't working too well for me.)

Place the wrapped slices sealed side down in a 9 X 13 baking pan. Pour the hot sugar mixture over the apple slices.

Mix the remaining 1/4 cup sugar with cinnamon and sprinkle over the tops of the wrapped apples.

Bake for 35 minutes or until golden brown. Serves 8

Pineapple Ginger Sorbet for I Heart Cooking Clubs

It really doesn’t get any easier than this.

Looking for a nice, light dessert for a hot summer evening, I turned to our dear friend Mark Bittman. And, as usual, I was not disappointed. I have said in the past that Bittman’s recipes are the epitome of ease and simplicity (Duh, that’s why he’d called “The Minimalist”.) but this recipe just goes above and beyond.

I’ve been on kind of a gelato/ice cream/sorbet kick lately. I recently ordered Bittman’s book, The Minimalist Entertains, and found this chilly treat on his menu for an Asian Grilled Dinner. I don’t even need to look up the recipe....there are only three ingredients.

4 cups pineapple puree (Admittedly, I’ve never seen this in the store, but I bought 2 cans of crushed pineapple and demolished it in my food processor instead.)
1 cup sugar
1 TB ginger (fresh, dried or candied)

Mix all three ingredients together and freeze it in an ice cream maker.Bittman says this is best straight out of the machine or after no more than an hour in the freezer. I couldn’t agree more. Naturally, I doubled the ginger, but that’s just how I roll. Other than that, I made no changes. This recipe is the essence of perfection. Fresh, cool, and flavorful, it just caresses your mouth and makes you utter noises that probably shouldn’t be heard at the dinner table.

Need a quick and tasty dessert in a hurry? Try this one. Keep a couple of cans of pineapple in the pantry and it’s a no fuss-no muss dish that will have your dinner guests raving...and mumbling sweet obscenities under their breath....if my experience is any indicator...

I’m already thinking of variations on this one to try.....stay tuned....I may just get inspired!

This is my submission for this week's theme over at I Heart Cooking Clubs - POTLUCK!

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.....

Lime Blueberry Tiramisu

Sometimes people surprise me.

I have always enjoyed Paula Deen. Reading her books, watching her shows, even meeting her in person at a book signing. But I have to admit, I don’t make a lot of her recipes. Frankly, they tend to be too fatty for me, and use a lot of prepared food items.

Recently, I was browsing through an email newsletter and came across a recipe entitled Lime Blueberry Tiramisu. Now, normally I am a tiramisu purist, but with blueberries being in season right now, this one caught my attention. Reading the recipe, I was even more intrigued. Although it called for a can of blueberry pie filling instead of fresh, it actually lists mascarpone cheese (instead of the cream cheese most country cooks seem to want to replace it with).

Boy was I surprised to see that it was a recipe from our girl Paula!

I knew I had a birthday food event coming up at work, so I immediately proceeded to conjure up a pound of mascarpone (food of the gods) and gathered the remaining ingredients.

This dish was not only quick and easy to put together, but the limeade concentrate gives it a wonderfully limey flavor punch that I thoroughly enjoyed. It was light and fresh and just perfect for a June day. This one is definitely a keeper!

Lime Blueberry Tiramisu
Recipes courtesy Paula Deen, 2008

Ingredients
1 pint heavy whipping cream
1/4 cup confectioners' sugar
1 pound mascarpone cheese, at room temperature
3 (3-ounce) packages unfilled ladyfingers
1 (6-ounce) can frozen limeade concentrate, thawed
1 (21-ounce) can blueberry pie filling
Fresh mint leaves, optional

Directions
In a large bowl, beat cream with an electric mixer at medium speed until thickened. Gradually add confectioners' sugar, beating until soft peaks form. Gently stir in cheese until combined; set aside.
Split ladyfingers in half. Line a 13 by 9 by 2-inch baking dish with ladyfingers, cut side up. Brush ladyfingers with limeade concentrate. Spoon half of cheese mixture over ladyfingers. Top with half of blueberry pie filling.Repeat procedure for the next layer with remaining ladyfingers, limeade, cheese mixture, and pie filling. Cover and chill 8 hours. Cut into squares to serve. Garnish with fresh mint, if desired.

A Deborah Madison Cookbook Review!

They say April showers bring May flowers, and we sure had enough rain in April this year! Something else those showers bring is fruit. Strawberry season is in full swing here and everything else is sure to follow. So, when I was asked to review the newest cookbook by Deborah Madison, well, let’s just say I was more than a little enthusiastic about the opportunity. To start with, its not often that I get asked to review cookbooks or food products (I’m not one of the big girls). I see lots of other bloggers getting offers on a regular basis, but I have not been as lucky.
I must say though, that this book was well worth the wait. When I was told I’d be receiving a book by Deborah Madison, I was both thrilled and intimidated. She is widely known for her vegetarian dishes. Which is great....for me. Cooking in a house full of picky eaters (read: won’t eat anything that has a color other than brown), I wasn’t sure how I was going to manage it.
Then, day of glorious days, I arrived home from work, opened the screen door, and PLOP! Out fell a fat shipping envelope. I was so anxious to tear it open that I nearly forgot my Little Man was trotting along behind me, pulling dandelions from the overgrown yard. I didn’t make it very far into the house before the treasure was revealed, however, and even Ty was echoing my “Ooohhh!” when he saw the cover and gingerly fingered the outline of the luscious raspberry tart depicted there.
To say the least, I was a tad distracted the rest of the evening. I situated myself on the sofa, with a glass of wine and a pad of purple Post-its, excitedly marking the pages displaying the recipes I was interested in trying.
The book soon resembled a peacock’s tail. Practically every other page, I was marking one recipe or another. I did have to eliminate a few simply because the fruits involved aren’t yet available in my area, but that didn’t slow me down for long.
After drooling over the pictures for an hour or so.....I sat down and actually READ. Madison’s writing style is as fresh as her recipes, sweet and simple. What I think I enjoyed most about Seasonal Fruit Desserts was that it was the most refreshingly welcoming cookbook I have held in a long time. Madison makes you want to run straight out to the nearest farmers market or berry farm and pick the freshest fruit available, at the same time, encouraging you to use what is readily available to you (minus the usual guilt that cookbook authors and chefs make me feel for not having the absolutely best ingredients available, which generally results in me NOT making the dish). Her instructions are casual and friendly, describing her own ingredient preferences while making you feel like you are in the kitchen with her, rinsing fresh berries, or rolling pastry while having a chat with an old friend.
As an extra bonus, I didn’t find a single recipe in this book whose instructions weren’t clear and manageable for even the most inexperienced cook. I found myself enthusing to friends and coworkers about how easy the recipes were when they gushed over the samples I brought them to taste.

Strawberries in Red Wine Syrup (page 64)
This was the first recipe I made, mainly because I had just opened a bottle of red wine. The berries are a luscious little summer treat by themselves, with a drizzle of cream, or as a topping for ice cream, pound cake....the bumper of a 1986 Yugo.....it would make pretty much anything taste good.

Jam and Almond Tart or Bar (page 151)Figs are one of my all time favorite fruits, so this recipe jumped out at me immediately. Although my coworkers were a bit hesitant to try it, they were all pleasantly surprised to find such a familiar flavor hiding inside. This recipe couldn’t have been easier and the pan was empty before I could get a second helping for myself.

Chocolate Bark with Cardamom and Sea Salt, Apricots, and Pistachios (page 169), White Chocolate and Coconut Bark with Lavender and Tangerine Zest (page 170)Chocolate bark is a no-brainer, in my opinion. It is rather like a good pot of soup. You can put anything in it, but sometimes when you find just the right combinations of ingredients, it can border on a religious experience. The flavors in Madison’s versions here fit the bill wonderfully. Cardamom is a complex spice and it blended beautifully with the sea salt and the sweetness of the apricots. The lavender required a trip to Penzey’s (oh yes, it was a real trial for me to walk into that store....not) but it was well worth it. I admit that I have never liked the fragrance of lavender, but combine it with coconut and tangerine and it becomes the stuff dreams are made of.

Broken Jellied Wine with Summer Fruit (page 200)This recipe was, by far, the favorite among my guinea pigs...er, I mean, friends.... What a surprise this was! It would never have occurred to me to use wine in this fashion, but now I’m going to have a hard time seeing it in any other way. I already have a second batch in the fridge, and one of my coworkers is headed home tonight to start a batch (I think she has a crush on this recipe). The book is worth buying for this recipe alone.

Dark Chocolate Pudding (page 186)This pudding was a spur of the moment choice. It seemed kind of average, conceptually. I mean, come on...its PUDDING. But the flavors infused in this version push it over into the “gorgeous” category. I topped mine with fresh berries.

Quinoa Pudding with Dried Cherries and Cranberries (page 177)The quinoa pudding was the odd man out in my list of “must try” recipes. I knew that my coworkers would be hesitant to try something they’ve never heard of, but it turns out that it won’t be a problem. Why? Because I plan to eat every last grain of this one myself. I’m not sharing. You can’t have any, so just keep your mitts off. I wasn’t very excited about this one, but I wanted to give it a chance because it was very “outside the box”. The list of ingredients is simple and I was worried about it being bland, but I needn’t have been concerned. Served warm, with a touch of heavy cream on top, it gives the impression of being a very rich dessert, but in actuality, was a healthful and satisfying breakfast for me. This was definitely the sleeper of the group, and one I will make again and again.

Yogurt-Honey Ice Cream (page 216) with Compote of Dried Farmers' Market Fruit (page 142)

Lastly, the Yogurt-Honey Ice cream. Run, don’t walk, to the nearest kitchen store and get an ice cream machine if you don’t have one. The hardest part about this will be waiting for my freezer canister to be ready to make another batch. I found myself standing in front of the freezer, with the door open and a spoon in hand, greedily spooning the creamy concoction into my mouth before it was even fully set. And returning to the scene of the crime again later in the evening for another helping. The dried fruit compote was a wonderful accompaniment, adding a certain sweetness to the dessert, but the ice cream can stand on its own with no trouble at all. My camera battery was threatening to die on me while I was getting this last shot, so I apologize for the poor view, you’ll just have to trust me on this one.

As you can see by the number of dishes I created, I was definitely inspired. This is not only a great reference for summer desserts, but has great information on serving suggestions and combinations, for fruits, nuts, cheeses and more. In addition, the wonderful photos would make Seasonal Fruit Desserts just as much at home on my coffee table as in my kitchen. This is definitely a “keeper” for my collection. I would love to hear from anyone else who picks this book up to see how many recipes you fall in love with!