Blackberry, Rum and Black Pepper Jam

We just ran out of homemade jam. It is quite the horror and I'm wondering if I should bust out the frozen berries to make more jam.

Last summer we didn't do as much canning as we normally do because we were out of town for almost a month during prime canning season. This year, I'm sure I'll more than make up for it, but I wanted to let you all know about my favorite jam that I've come up with so far. It's a fantastic mix of blackberries, spicy and complex flavors.

Last summer, I was trying to figure out what additional flavors would go well with blackberry and decided to give fresh ground black pepper and barrel aged rum a try. I was not at all disappointed.

Blackberry, Aged Rum and Black Pepper Jam

Ingredients:

5 cups packed (not crushed) blackberries, preferably organic
2 teaspoons fresh ground black pepper
1 Tablespoon grated lemon peel
1 package Ball (or SureJell) natural fruit pectin
7 cups sugar
1/3 cup aged rum*

Makes 9 half-pints.

Instructions

Rinse and measure blackberries and add them to a large, non-reactive pot. In the meantime, sterilize 9 half-pint canning jars and lids in a water bath canner.

Heat the berries over high, adding in the grated lemon peel and blending. As the berries start to reduce, freshly grind in about 2 teaspoons black pepper on a medium or coarse grind. As the berries further reduce, gradually stir in the fruit pectin.

Bring mixture to a full boil until it cannot be stirred down. Add the entire amount of sugar and stir. Return to full boil and boil hard 1 minute, stirring constantly. Immediately take mixture off the heat and add in the rum. Stir until the rum is well incorporated and the alcohol is cooked off from the residual heat (it will reboil when you add in the rum).

Fill your canning jars with jam, leaving 1/4 inch headspace. Apply lids and process the jars in a hot water bath for 10 minutes (adjusting for altitude as per the instructions that come with your pectin).

Remove jars and allow to cool for 12 - 24 hours and store. Assuming you don't eat it all as soon as it's cool.

*For the rum, I used Barbancourt Rhum Reserve Speciale, aged 8 years in oak.

Photo courtesy of Outdoor Blogging

Pickled radishes

We came back from our long vacation with a veritable crapton of radishes ready to jump out of the ground. Not too surprising, since the kids planted them a week before we left. Okay, maybe crapton of radishes is a bit of an exaggeration, but 35 radishes I cannot eat in one week.

Henry loves radishes, Emma thinks they are "too spicy", I can only eat a few as they irritate my stomach and my husband, who can plough through them, had the stomach flu last week. So, what's a gardener with a big bowl of radishes to do?

Well, during one of my many hours spent in the garden last week, I remembered an article I read in my new Hobby Farms Home magazine, Oh Yes You Can!, which is all about canning, go figure. Anyway, one of the recipes is for pickling radishes, which didn't strike me at the time as useful, but am glad I remembered it.

So, the radishes, coupled with the garlic I just pulled out of the ground (those little guys that didn't exactly make it to a full head), and some thyme from the garden went into the canning jars (after blanching said radishes and garlic). I poured the hot vinegar/salt/sugar/peppercorn solution in and let them cool before refrigerating.*

I love the combination of the garlic, radishes, pepper and thyme. Adding in the herbs really gives it an extra flavor that makes it taste more complex than just pickled radishes. Another combination that I read online was to use rice vinegar, ginger root and dill.

Since I have a bunch of beets growing for our fall garden, I'm anxious to try something similar with making pickled beets, in addition to roasting them as usual. Anyway, here's an adaptation of the recipe from the magazine. I'm not using exact measurements for stuff being pickled, just for the brine. The brine will be enough for 2 quart jars:

Quick Pickled Radishes

Radishes
Garlic cloves (about 5 per quart jar, depending on how you like it)
3 thyme sprigs per quart jar

Brine
3 cups white vinegar
1 1/8 cup sugar
1 Tablespoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon peppercorns
1/4 cup water

Wash and stem the radishes, cutting the larger ones so they are all uniformly the same size. In a medium sized pot, boil water. Boil garlic until soft, remove and chill in an ice water bath. Boil radishes for 30 seconds, remove and chill in an ice water bath. While the garlic and radishes are cooling, heat the brine until boiling. Put the drained radishes, garlic and thyme sprigs in quart jars, filling about 2/3 full. Pour boiling brine mixture into the jars and seal, leaving them until they are cool.

Place jars in the refrigerator and consume within 2 - 3 weeks. The pickled radishes can be eaten as soon as they are cold, but you may want to wait a day or so for the flavors to meld.

*These would be considered refrigerator pickles (rather than canned ones) and will only last a few weeks in the refrigerator since there's no hot water bathing going on.

Spicy Sweet Relish

We've gone a little crazy buying pickling cucumbers. We've made some refrigerator pickles and I just finished up a batch of relish. I've adapted a sweet relish recipe that I found to make it a little more spicy and thought you guys would like to give it a whirl yourselves.

This recipe assumes you understand the basics of canning. Do not experiment with the quantities as you want to make sure you have the appropriate ratio of sugars to acids.

Spicy Sweet Relish

Ingredients:
6 cups diced pickling cucumbers
3 cups diced peppers - you can mix it up with hot, mild or sweet depending on how spicy you want it
3 cups diced sweet onion

1/4 cup kosher salt (or pickling salt)
3 cups sugar
2 cups apple cider vinegar
1 T celery seed
1 T mustard seed

Preparation:
Mix the diced cucumbers, peppers and onion with the salt, cover and let sit for two hours to draw out the moisture. Rinse well and drain. In a stainless steel pot, bring the sugar, vinegar, celery seed and mustard seed to a boil. Add in the cucumber mixture and bring back to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium and let simmer for 10 minutes, stirring frequently.

Ladle hot relish into hot canning jars and water bath process for 10 minutes. Makes about 8 half-pint jars.

Indian Masala Strawberry Jam

I love Indian Masala Chai tea and I've yammered on about making it before. So, what better way to savor the flavors of Masala but in a strawberry jam? Now, this may sound like a very unorthodox combination, but trust me, the resulting flavors are very subtle and they add just enough complexity to the jam without overpowering the strawberry flavor in any way.

Like the other jam recipes on this blog, start with the standard Ball jam recipe (this makes about 11 8-oz jars), this time for strawberry.

Strawberry Jam
5 cups crushed organic strawberries, washed and hulled
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 package pectin
7 cups sugar
2 teaspoons lemon zest

Sterilize your jars, lids, etc. I'm not going to go into food safety techniques here - if you want more information, study the instructions that come with your pectin package.

Masala Strawberry Jam
Strawberry jam - 1 batch (see recipe above)
1 cup red wine (Pinot Noir or something similar can be used)
2 cinnamon sticks
3 star anise
1 teaspoon fresh cracked black pepper
12 cardamom pods, cut in half
1/4 cup Port wine
additional fresh cracked black pepper to taste

Simmer spices in wine for 20 minutes and strain. This will reduce the wine down to about 1/4 cup. Return to the pot and add in the strawberries, lemon juice and lemon zest. Slowly add the package of pectin. I use a wooden spoon, but you can use any non-reactive implement you like. Bring the mixture to a boil on high heat and then add the sugar.

Bring this mess up to a rolling boil, wherein you can't stir down the boiling action and, most likely, are getting bombarded by spattering molten lava strawberry bits. Boil for one full minute. At the end of cooking, add the Port and more fresh cracked black pepper to taste.

Ladle into hot jars. Seal and hot process jars in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes.

White Chocolate Raspberry Jam

Even though it's October, I'm canning away the last of the summer berries. We've still got raspberries coming in from a local farm and I wanted to do something a little different than the standard raspberry jam recipe. When I spice up a jam it usually includes some interesting addition or flavoring and some sort of liqueur or liquor. Most of the alcohol gets burned off and you are left with a very complex flavor profile.

This recipe makes ordinary raspberry jam seem, well, ordinary. Since I've started tinkering around with jam recipes, I really have a hard time going back to the basics. This recipe can also be used as a dessert topping as well if you lower the amount of pectin and keep it a little more liquid.

Ingredients

5 cups raspberries, crushed (use a potato masher or other implement to crush the berries)
6 cups sugar
1 pack pectin
1 cup white chocolate chips (spring for the Guittard or other gourmet chocolate if it's available in your area)
1/4 cup coffee liqueur (Starbucks or Kahlua)

Instructions

Heat raspberries while slowly adding in the pectin. Once the raspberries are at a full boil that you cannot stir down, add in the sugar. Return to a full rolling boil, stirring for one minute. Take the raspberry mixture off the heat and add in the white chocolate. It will take awhile to melt, so be patient (unless you want chunks of white chocolate in your jam).

After the white chocolate has melted, add the coffee liqueur and stir until well blended. Because the raspberry jam is quite hot, the alcohol will burn off, so if you want to have more of the alcohol flavor, add it in at the very end. Pour jam into sterilized canning jars and process in a hot water bath for 10 minutes. That is, assuming you haven't eaten half of it already.

Yields 10 pints.

Drying Herbs for Idiots

My herb plants are getting totally overgrown and are encroaching on my other plants. So, I took matters into my own hands and bushwacked them back.

I didn't want to just huck the clippings onto the compost bin, so I decided to try to dry the herbs that are annual. Things like rosemary, sage and other plants are perennial around here, so I don't worry too much about not having them year round. Particularly the rosemary. It's almost viral it grows so big and gets out of control so easily.

I wish I had taken the time to dry some oregano before I chopped the hell out of it and transplanted it elsewhere earlier in the year. Same thing with the marjoram (which I ended up killing). Oh well, next time I'll know better.

So, what did I end up drying? A ton of Italian flat leaf parsley and some sage just for sport (even though it sticks around in winter). The sage is handy to have on hand inside since sometimes when it's dark, pouring rain and cold out I don't like to poke around in the yard when I'm making dinner trying to scout out decent herbs.

There are a couple different ways of drying herbs. You can put them in the traditional dehydrator and go that route. I was afraid they'd stick like crazy (like my strawberries) and didn't feel like spending hours scraping little paper thin leaves off the grates. You can also freeze them dry and store them at room temperature. Allegedly. I'm still not convinced that freezing works without molding up.

Lastly, you can dry them in the microwave, which is the method I chose. Basically you place your herbs (I washed and then dried them between kitchen towels) on a paper towel and then nuke them in the microwave until they are dry and crispy. For my microwave it took about 2.5 minutes for the parsley. The sage took closer to 4 minutes since they are so thick.

Once they are crispy dry, crush them with your hands and then store them in small jars. I had some old spice jars that fit the bill, so I loaded them up using a small funnel. The color is phenomenally more vibrant and the herbs have a much more fragrant smell than anything you can buy from the store.

Now I can save the summer bounty of my herbs and have them available to season my foods in the dead of winter. And it's so damn easy you have no excuse to not try it yourself. By the way, drying your herbs is also useful for when you buy too many herbs and want to keep them out of the compost.

Triple Orgasm Strawberry Jam

Yes, this is a very salacious sounding title for a series of three takes on strawberry jam, but they are so amazing, the name is fitting.

Like the recipes for the Triumvirate of Peach Preserves, start with the standard Ball jam recipe (this makes a little over 8 8-oz jars), this time for strawberry. You'll find the directions remarkably similar so if you've made the peach preserves, these should be easy.

Strawberry Jam
5 cups crushed organic strawberries, washed and hulled
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 package pectin
7 cups sugar
2 teaspoons lemon zest

Sterilize your jars, lids, etc. I'm not going to go into food safety techniques here - if you want more information, study the instructions that come with your pectin package.

Add the lemon and lemon zest to your strawberries in a non-corrosive pot and slowly add the package of pectin. I use a wooden spoon, but you can use any non-reactive implement you like. Bring the mixture to a boil on high heat and then add the sugar. Bring this mess up to a rolling boil, wherein you can't stir down the boiling action and, most likely, are getting bombarded by spattering molten lava strawberry bits. Boil for one full minute.

Now comes the fun part: adding flavors to this original recipe to make it much more tasty.

Spiced Sangiovese and Strawberry Jam
Strawberry jam - 1 batch (see recipe above - this recipe makes more like 11 jars)
1 cup Sangiovese wine (Pinot Noir or something similar can be substituted)
2 cinnamon sticks
3 star anise
1/4 teaspoon fresh ground nutmeg
8 cloves

Simmer spices in wine for 20 minutes and remove the cinnamon sticks, star anise and cloves. Add in the strawberries, lemon juice and lemon zest and continue with the above instructions to produce one batch of strawberry jam.

Ladle into hot jars. Seal and hot process jars in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes.

Black Pepper and Peppermint Strawberry Jam
Strawberry jam - 1 batch (see recipe above)
10 fresh peppermint leaves, washed and coarsely chopped
1/2 tablespoon coarse ground black pepper

Follow the instructions above to produce one batch of undoctored strawberry jam. Stir peppermint leaves and black pepper into strawberry mixture and ladle into hot jars. Seal and hot process jars in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes.

Vanilla Amaretto Strawberry Jam
Strawberry jam - 1 batch (see recipe above)
1 vanilla bean, cut in half and split down the middle
1 tablespoon quality balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup Amaretto (or Disaronno)

Follow the instructions above to produce one batch of undoctored strawberry jam, adding in the vanilla bean and balsamic vinegar at the point where you mix in the lemon juice and lemon zest.

This concoction smells absolutely heavenly while on the stove but avoid the temptation to throw yourself into the pot head first lest you suffer third degree burns on your face and mouth.

When the jam is finished cooking, take it off the heat and let it rest for about 3 minutes. Stir the Amaretto into the prepared strawberry jam and ladle into hot jars. Seal and hot process jars in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes.

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Don't get greedy and eat these right away. The flavors in the jams will mellow out and become quite subtle - even a few days maturity will improve the flavor of these jams immensely!

Once you've tried these jams, there's no way you'll go back to faking, I mean, making plain strawberry jam again!

Lavender Chocolate Mousse Pie

Last month's lavender flowering resulted in some lovely dried culinary lavender. What better way to enjoy it than to couple it with chocolate?

My husband makes this wonderful chocolate mousse pie, so we adapted it to include a lavender infusion with the cream. It turned out aromatically heavenly.


Lavender Chocolate Mousse Pie

Crust
21 organic Newman's Own chocolate sandwich cookies (or Oreos)
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted organic butter, cut into pieces, room temperature

Mousse
12 ounces semisweet chocolate, finely chopped *
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Pinch of salt
3 3/4 cups chilled whipping cream
1/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons dried culinary lavender

For Crust:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Butter a 9-inch diameter springform pan with 2 3/4 inch high sides. Finely grind cookies in food processor. Add butter and process until mixture is evenly moistened. Press crumb mixture onto bottom and up sides of prepared pan to form thin crust. Bake crust 5 minutes. Transfer crust to rack and cool completely.

For Mousse:
Combine chocolate (* we like Callebaut - you can get it at Whole Foods), vanilla and salt in food processor. Bring 1 cup cream and 2 tablespoons dried lavender to boil in heavy small saucepan. Strain cream mixture to remove lavender buds. With processor running, gradually pour hot cream through feed tube and process until chocolate is melted and smooth. Transfer mixture to large bowl. Cool to room temperature stirring occasionally.

Beat 2 cups cream and sugar in large bowl to still peaks. Fold into chocolate mixture. Pour mousse into prepared crust. Chill until set, about 6 hours.

Serves 8. Errr, 5?

Crunchy Chicken Marbella

Do you still have loads of dried plums left over from your (or a neighbor's) tree from last summer? Do you have any leftover bay leaves you dried last winter?

Here is one good way of using up those plums to make way for this year's crop. It is my take on the classic Chicken Marbella from the Silver Palate cookbook ca. 1982. Throw in some fresh garlic, oregano and Italian parsley from the garden to make the flavors really stand out. This is an extremely easy recipe to whip together - the only thing you have to remember is to prepare it the night before so the chicken has ample time to lounge in the marinade.

Since I generally don't cook for hoards of people, I've cut down the amount from the original recipe. Also, since I'm a breast man, I mean woman, I used bone-in chicken breasts instead of thighs. This recipe serves 4 - 5 (depending on how you cut up the chicken).

Crunchy Chicken Marbella
2 bone-in organic chicken breasts (approx. 2 lbs)
5 cloves of garlic, chopped
5 bay leaves
1.5 cups dried, pitted plums, chopped into smallish chunks
1 cup green olives (I leave the pits in)
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 cup sherry vinegar
2 tablespoons fresh (or dried) oregano
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup dry white wine (I used a Viognier)
1/4 cup Italian parsley, chopped

With a large knife, split the chicken breasts into more manageable sizes - I cut mine up, yielding servings for 5. Rinse and pat dry (mostly to remove little bits of bone). In a large bowl, combine the chicken, garlic, bay leaves, dried plums and green olives. Whisk together the olive oil, vinegar and oregano. Pour the olive oil mixture over the chicken and combine well, adding salt and pepper to taste.

Cover and let marinate in the refrigerator overnight.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Place the chicken in a single layer in a large, shallow baking dish. Spoon the remaining marinade (make sure you include the plums, olives and bay leaves) over the chicken evenly. Sprinkle the chicken pieces with brown sugar and add the white wine around the chicken.

Bake for about 45 minutes or so, flipping the chicken every 20 minutes. The chicken is done when the juices run clear.

Transfer the chicken, plums and olives to a serving platter and moisten with the pan juices. Sprinkle with parsley.

Make sure each serving gets an ample amount of the plums and olives - they are what makes this meal stand out!

Triumvirate of peach preserves

These three takes on a standard, easy peach jam recipe will make you crave them fortnightly! (Okay, anyone who can guess that odd media reference gets bonus points).

Since peaches are in season around these parts, what better way to capture the taste of summer than by making peach jam? I wanted to do something a little more interesting than just plain peach jam, so I played around with the original recipe, making my own modifications.

Last Saturday I spent the day blanching and removing peach skins and chopping up 8 cups of peaches. Then, the magic began (and the molten peach-lava-induced-blister on my hand from stirring at full boil -- who said great flavor didn't come at a cost?).

For the first batch, I started with the standard recipe (this makes a little over 6 8-oz jars):

Peach Preserves
4 cups chopped organic peaches, skins and pits removed
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 package pectin
5 cups sugar

Sterilize your jars, lids, etc. I'm not going to go into food safety techniques here - if you want more information, study the instructions that come with your pectin package.

Add the lemon to your peaches in a non-corrosive pot and slowly add the package of pectin. I use a wooden spoon, but you can use any non-reactive implement you like. Bring the mixture to a boil on high heat and then add the sugar. Bring this mess up to a rolling boil, wherein you can't stir down the boiling action and, most likely, are getting bombarded by spattering molten lava peach bits (see above note). Boil for one full minute.

Now comes the fun part: adding flavors to this original recipe to make it much more tasty.

Cognac Vanilla Peach Preserves
[or Confiture de Pêche au Cognac et Vanille - if you wants to be fancy-like]
Peach preserves - 1 batch (see recipe above)
1/4 cup cognac
2 vanilla beans (each one cut into thirds and split down the middle)

Follow the instructions above to produce one batch of undoctored peach preserves. Let cool for 10 minutes.

Stir cognac into the peach preserves and ladle into hot jars. Add one piece of vanilla bean into each of the six jars, pushing the bean down with a spoon. Seal and hot process jars in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes.

Cacao Peach Preserves
[or Confiture de Pêche aux Eclats de Fève de Cacao - ain't this Frenchy stuff fun?]
Peach preserves - 1 batch (see recipe above)
6 tablespoons cacao nibs

Follow the instructions above to produce one batch of undoctored peach preserves. Ladle prepared peach preserves into hot jars, adding about 1 tablespoon of cacao nibs to each jar. Seal and hot process jars in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes.

Ginger Peach Preserves
[or Confiture de Pêche au au Gingembre et Citron - phew!]
Peach Preserves - 1 batch (see recipe above)
3 tablespoons candied ginger, chopped into small pieces

Follow the instructions above to produce one batch of undoctored peach preserves. Ladle prepared peach preserves into hot jars, adding about 1/2 tablespoon of chopped candied ginger to each jar. Seal and hot process jars in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes.

I know you won't be able to resist the temptation to start eating these right away, but your patience will be rewarded when you finally crack open those preserves months away from now when you can enjoy a taste of summer in the dead of winter. Ooh la la!