blackberry-white nectarine jam

A few weeks ago, we went blackberry picking with a friend. We didn't have a tremendous amount of time, so our berry haul was slightly small, but the berries were at the perfect height of ripeness. I had planned to make Blackberry-Apricot Jam, but we were a little past apricot season here. There were some lovely white nectarines, though, so I used them instead. I also halved the recipe to accommodate my slightly smaller quantity of berries.

Using a food-mill (this is the one I got) to make the blackberry puree was surprisingly fast and easy. I am basically in love with the food mill now, and pretty much want to use it for everything.

blackberry-white nectarine jam

• 2 C nectarine puree
• 2 C blackberry pulp
• 2 C sugar
  
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 lemon, zested and juiced
• 1 packet liquid pectin (half a box)

In a large saucepan, combine fruit and sugar. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, watching and stirring to avoid boiling over. Add cinnamon and lemon zest/juice and stir some more. After the mixture begins to thicken (perhaps 5-10 minutes longer), add the pectin and allow to boild vigorously for at least five more minutes.

Process in a boiling water bath canner for 10 minutes.

yield: 5 half-pint jars

the best applesauce ever

When Victor and I got married, one of our friends (an extremely eccentric friend...) gave us some frozen applesauce as a wedding gift. It was his mom's homemade applesauce, so bonus points for that, but it was also two years old. We didn't eat it, and we completely didn't understand why he thought it was a reasonable gift. I made some applesauce tonight that almost makes me understand why he felt he was giving us something of such great value.

The "recipe" here is beyond simple and imprecise; I think the important things are getting really excellent apples and using a food mill. We used freshly-picked Gravensteins and my brand-new Oxo food mill (purchased for making a jam that I'll write about very soon). This combination made by far the best applesauce I've ever made or eaten (if I do say so myself). I'm not quite ready to gift it to someone for their wedding, but I no longer think that present was completely insane, either.

Simple Microwave Applesauce

• some apples (I had about 2 lbs Gravensteins), quartered and cored (NOT peeled)
  
• a splash of apple cider vinegar
• a splash of water
• a sprinkle of cinnamon (I actually used some pumpkin pie spice mix I had sitting around)
• a sprinkle of sugar

Combine all ingredients in a microwave-safe bowl and cook on HIGH for 10 minutes, or until very mushy. Run through a food mill. Enjoy!

countdown to labor day

I made Marisa's Sweet/Spicy Cucumber Pepper Relish the other day. It's great - as soon as I tried some, I began to imagine glopping it atop a grilled Hebrew National dog - *drool*. (I love all things sweet and vinegary, and believe there should be nearly as much relish as hotdog. These jars won't last long around here!) No changes to the recipe - it is perfect as-is!

Jello Night!

A few weeks ago, my knitting group (which meets at the fantastic Fiber Gallery on Tuesday evenings) had a Jello themed potluck. We were inspired by this sort of vintage recipe: http://www.lileks.com/institute/gallery/knox/4.html. Instead of doing something disturbingly glistening, though, I decided to go in another direction. In the comments for this recipe, someone complained that the panna cotta tasted like "milky jello" and another commenter pointed out that panna cotta is milky jello.

Confident that this met our theme, I played around with several recipes and came up with a Lemon-Lavender Panna Cotta. (I'm on something of a lemon-lavender binge at present.) It would be delicious with blueberry sauce, but I guessed (correctly, as it turned out) that there would be lots of other sweet creations to pair it with. (If you happen to have some, it went pretty well with Blueberry Jello Surprise.)

Lemon-Lavender Panna Cotta

• 4 C whole milk, divided
  
• 1 1/2 Tbsp unflavored gelatin
• 1 Tbsp dried culinary lavender buds
• 2 Tbsp grated organic lemon zest
• 3/4 C sugar

Sprinkle gelatin over 1 C of the milk in a small saucepan. Put the lavender in a cheesecloth pouch or tea ball. Let the milk & gelatin stand for 10 minutes.

Add the lavender and lemon zest and gently heat over medium-low heat for 10 minutes, whisking until gelatin dissolves. Keep stirring and increase heat to medium. Add the sugar and whisk some more, until the sugar dissolves.

Take off the heat and remove the lavender pouch, squeezing a bit to get more liquid out. Add the remaining 3 C milk and give the mixture one last good stir.

For an elegant presentation, pour into 8 6-oz ramekins and allow to chill at least 4 hours. When the mixture is completely set and chilled, invert each panna cotta onto a dessert plate. Pour berry sauce over the panna cotta, if desired. (For a potluck, it's much easier to just pour the hot mixture into a pretty serving bowl and scoop it out of there to serve after chilling.)

serves 6-8

post-farmers' market dinner

Monday: Salmon Roasted in Butter; Tomato, Basil, and Fresh Mozzarella Salad; Blueberries

Wow, it's been a looooong time since I've posted anything. I guess summer is all about food that's so simple I don't need to write it down? Anyway, I have all kinds of tasty food stuff planned for the week (including some canning), and I have a feeling that our holiday weekend will include some pie-makin'.

We had quite the haul from the farmers' market, including an extra-large salmon fillet. We had planned to have salmon once this week (tomorrow), but had so much fish that we made a simple recipe with it (from Mark Bittman's Fish) in addition to a glorious late-summer tomato salad. We also scored some delicious blueberries from Sidhu Farms (which has consistently had the best blueberries at the market, IMO). The salad feels so simple that it's hardly worth writing down, but here 'tis:

Tomato, Basil, and Fresh Mozzarella Salad

• 1 large or two small, very ripe tomatoes, sliced into moderately thin wedges
  
• 2 oz fresh mozzarella (ours was from Golden Glen), sliced
  
• 1 handful fresh basil, chopped or snipped into small pieces
• glug olive oil
• generous drizzle balsamic vinegar
• salt & pepper, to taste

Arrange the first three ingredients however appeals to your sense of food style on a plate. Drizzle with olive oil & balsamic; sprinkle with salt & freshly ground pepper.

serves 2 as a side

lemon cookies with lavender icing

I've had an image in my mind of a very specific cookie. I think it had its origin in the lovely lemon crunch cookies at Sugar and was likely also inspired by the many desserts they have there that use lavender (sometimes paired with lemon, even). But what I wanted was more specific even than that: I wanted a pale yellow lemon-flavored sugar cookie with a light lavender frosting (in my mind, it was a delicate lilac color).

Finally last weekend I decided that I just had to have that cookie, and set about making one. I started with a variation of the Fannie Farmer sugar cookie recipe, because it had an egg (not all sugar cookies do) and I was pretty sure that was part of the texture of the cookie I craved:

Lemon Sugar Cookies
adapted from The Fannie Farmer Cookbook

• 1 stick butter, softened (1/4 lb)
• 3/4 C sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/4 tsp vanilla
• 1/4 tsp lemon extract
• grated zest from an organic lemon
• 1 Tbsp milk
• 1 1/4 C flour
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp baking powder

Preheat the oven to 350F. Cream the butter, then add the sugar. Beat until light and fluffy. Add the egg, flavorings, zest, and milk. Beat until uniformly mixed. In another bowl, mix together the flour, salt, and baking powder. Add to the dough and blend well. Arrange by spoonfuls on cookie sheets, 1" or 1 1/2" apart. Bake for 8-10 minutes, until lightly browned

yield: ~40 cookies

While the cookies cooled, I hunted up a recipe for lavender frosting (I used skim milk, but otherwise followed the recipe). I added a tiny bit of food coloring to get the look I was going for. Because I can't resist adding salt to things, I made a few with a sprinkling of pink Hawaiian salt on top. (The salt covered cookies were good, IMO, but not really what I was trying to make.)

Overall, it was a success - I've only made cookies a few times, so I was surprised that they turned out at all, much less that they were tasty. They weren't quite the cookies I'd been imagining (possibly because I didn't have lemon extract and subbed in fiori di sicilia instead), but they were pretty darn close.

Early Summer Menu II (week of June 27)

Sunday: loads-of-veggies pilaf (Vegetarian Suppers)
Monday: slow-cooked ginger salmon; snap peas; brown rice
Tuesday: cook's holiday
Wednesday: roasted chicken; braised kale with bacon; roasted carrots
Thursday: outFriday: hoisin pork and "Asian" slaw (with thinly sliced radishes); ice-cream(!)
Saturday: lemongrass soup with tofu & rice noodles (Bittman)