Only a week into December and it's freezing! (Ok, by California standards) I hope despite the chilly weather, you've been able to get out and enjoy yourselves. Post-Thanksgiving, Mr.S and I took Kidlet #1 to the San Francisco International Auto Show at the Moscone Center. (Thanks for the tickets Grace and Lawrence!) Kidlet #1 loves sports cars, so he and his dad were gawking at all the cool rides and talking a bunch of auto gibberish that I couldn't comprehend. (I'm used to this, as they engage in the same car nerd talk when we watch Top Gear or Fast 'n Loud.) I'm not that into car shows but I did have a nice time perusing all the new vehicles (the modified street vehicles were my favorite) and afterwards we went to Japantown, where I stocked up on Japanese sundries and snacks at Nijiya Market and Ichiban Kan. Mr.S and Kidlet #1 were also very patient while I spent an inordinate amount of time perusing the aisles of kitchen gadgets at Daiso. As a trade-off, I didn't grouse when they begged to grab dinner at Fisherman's Wharf.

Here's a few photos from the car show:










For some reason the SF trip spurred a cookie baking kick in me (maybe it was all the cute baking stuff at Daiso?) and I baked a TON of cookies the following week in the cottage's kitchen. Additionally, I chose to break in a cute tea towel  that a friend gave me as a birthday gift earlier this year. The tea towel is screen printed with a short poem by William Carlos Williams called, "This is Just to Say." I love plums and seeing that poem made me crave some juicy, ripe summer plums. Unfortunately, it's December so I was a bit SOL; however, I remembered that I had made a big batch of delicious rosemary plum jam this summer. I gave a lot of it away but I had a few jars still squirreled away in the cupboard. So in addition to the various other cookies I made, I also whipped up some fresh thumbprint cookies with homemade rosemary plum jam. Mmmm!


My thumbprint cookies have always been a crowd favorite - they're the perfect blend of savory and sweet. The trick is - I use Alice Water's sweet tart dough recipe paired with one of my own jams...strawberry balsamic, ginger peach, blackberry lime, etc. The rosemary plum is my favorite though. Plus it's super easy to make- I use a standard recipe for plum jam and just add in some fresh rosemary.



Rosemary-Plum Jam

Ingredients

3 lbs. fresh plums
a couple sprigs of fresh rosemary
7 1/2 cups of granulated sugar
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 pouch liquid pectin

Instructions

1. Wash your fruit, cut in half, twist and remove pit. Chop. Place in food processor.

2. Wash rosemary. Remove needles from stem. Discard stem. Chop. Place chopped needles in with plums.

3. Give the processor a good pulse/chop or two. You want the processor to crush the fruit mixture (but not puree it). Alternately, if you're not too fussy - you can chop the plums finely with a kitchen knife and call it a day. It'll cook down.

5. Pour rosemary-plum mixture into a large heavy bottomed pot.  Add lemon juice then sugar. Place on high heat and bring to a full rolling boil boil. Stir constantly while the softened fruit and sugar meld.

6. When it gets to be a full rolling boil (rolling boil-= boiling so hard it can't be stirred down, it keeps bubbling), add the pectin in quickly. Keep stirring the entire time.

7.  Return to full rolling boil for exactly 1 minute. Check to see if the jam has set. If it has, remove it from the heat. Skim off any foam.

8. Ladle the jam (while it's still hot) into hot, sterilized half-pint jars. Leave a 1/4 inch headspace. Wipe the rims, secure the lids and finger tighten the rings. Then follow the procedure for processing in a hot water bath.

PS This jam is also amazing when paired with roast pork.

How to sterilize jars and lids
How to hot water bath/can your jam

If you're one of the lucky ones who has ready access to a flourishing fig tree, I'm sure you're up to your eyeballs in sweet, ripe figs right about now. One easy way to use up some of your bounty is to make some fig jam. This is a super easy recipe that utilizes honey instead of sugar. I just made a batch this week with a bag of plump Mission figs my friend Dawn gave me and some local honey I buy from another friend, Neal. Since it was a small batch I skipped water bathing the jam and just popped it in the fridge. It'll keep there for about a month, but I'm sure it'll get eaten up much sooner than that. Plopped on some Greek yogurt, spread on some fresh-baked bread or accompanying a simple cheese platter...mmm...I'm getting hungry just thinking about the uses!





Small Batch Honey-Fig Jam

Ingredients

2 pounds fresh figs, cut into quarters

1.5 cups good quality honey (go for the lighter color honey, so that it won't overwhelm the flavor of the figs)

6 tablespoons of water

lemon zest of 1 lemon

4 tablespoons of lemon juice


Instructions

1. Sterilize your half-pint jars in boiling water. Place your lids in a pan of VERY hot (but not boiling) water for at least 5 minutes.

2.  Wash figs and remove stems. (I don't peel them as the skins get quite soft during the cooking process and I like the texture.) Slice figs into quarters.

3. In a large saucepan, combine the figs, honey and water. Let sit (unheated) for about 25-30 minutes.

4. Bring mixture to a boil then reduce heat immediately to a simmer and cook for about 30-40 minutes. Stirring frequently (you don't want the honey to burn). You'll notice that the figs will start to break down and the mixture will thicken. (Optional: If you want smaller bits, you can mash them up a bit with a potato masher at this point.)

5. Add lemon zest and juice. Stir. Cook for another 2-3 minutes.

6. Remove from heat. Ladle into hot-sterilized jars. Place lid on. Allow to cool, place in fridge.

7. Will keep for about a month, refrigerated.

It's funny- when I was in high school and throughout my twenties, most of my friends were guys. I'd say a good 90%. I found males to be less drama, more logical than emotional and much more fun to hang out with than female friends. I despised the cattiness and sense of competition that seemed to go with female friendships. Guys just seemed more up front. But since hitting my thirties, I've found myself gravitating towards being friends with more and more females. I still have many guy buddies but now some of my closest friends are women and I look forward to our "Girls' Nights." The vibe is different now- it's more relaxed, less drama and there's a strong sense of community. I know I can call any one of my girlfriends if I'm in crisis mode and need someone to talk to, need a lift to the hospital or I just would like a hand with my project-of-the-month. I'm not sure if as women we evolve as we get older to be less judgemental and snippy of each other or I just happened to stumble into some friendships with some amazing ladies. Either way, I feel lucky. My life is definitely more enriched with the female friendships I've cultivated in the last few years.

Last week, my friend Sheri was visiting from Portland (she recently moved there from Sacramento) and another friend of ours Emily decided to host a girls' night get together for her. Of course, good eats are always necessary- so there was pasta salad, various cheeses, pickles and veggies, hummus and homemade lime sorbet. I didn't have time to prepare anything fancy since I was gone all day so I decided to throw together a quickie dessert. I had purchased some Vol au Vents awhile back, so I decided to take those, press some goat cheese into them and top it off with some preserves. I did half with homemade apricot preserves and the other half with homemade ginger-Asian pear preserves. If you're not familiar with Vol au Vents, they're miniature, hollow puff pastry shells that are very light and crispy. The ones I used are made by a company called Erica's Kitchen and are shaped like super cute little flowers. I think they must have came out pretty good since the dish was empty at the end of the night. Next time, I might go the more savory route and make some Wild Mushroom Vol au Vents or maybe stuff them with some brie and brown sugar. What do you think would make a good filling?

Girls' Night Vol au Vents

Ingredients

1 package Vol au Vents (12 mini puff pastry cases)
3 oz. goat cheese
your favorite homemade jam or preserves (I used apricot and ginger Asian pear)

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees F.

2. Line a baking sheet with a Silpat mat, and place Vol au Vents on mat, spaced evenly.

3. Press the middle circle of dough down, then place about teaspoon of goat cheese into each Vol au Vent. Gently push the goat cheese down into the opening.

4. Top with a teaspoon of your favorite homemade preserve.

5. Bake the Vol au Vents for approximately 10-15 minutes or until layers are golden.

6. Serve warm or at room temp.

If you visited my cottage right now, you'd swear it was Christmas in July. Not because I have a Christmas tree or stockings up but because of the aroma wafting from my little kitchen- a mixture of sweet fruit with an undercurrent of cinnamon and nutmeg. Doesn't that sound delightful? It's plum-apple butter. Yum! Recently a friend of mine was kind enough to share some fresh plums from her family's tree, I wasn't too sure what I wanted to do with them so for the first few days I just ate them as is. The ping pong ball sized plums were delicious- a wonderful nectarous snack. I ate them for several days straight but still didn't make a dent in them; so I had to come up with a Plan B, hence, the plum-apple butter. I took an old recipe I had bookmarked from Taste of Home and played with it a little. The resulting garnet-colored "butter" tasted fantastic and it could be purposed as a topping for a multitude of dishes...I was thinking perhaps pancakes, ice cream, cheesecake or maybe some homemade biscuits? I could probably even muddle it into some summer cocktails? The possibilities are endless....



Old Fashioned Plum-Apple Butter

Ingredients

20 small fresh plums- pitted and chopped (about 3 cups, chopped)
1 Fuji apple- peeled, cored and chopped
1.5 cups granulated sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
dash of allspice


Instructions

1. In a saucepan, combine plums, apples and 1/4 cup water. Bring to a boil. Cover and reduce heat. Simmer for 20 minutes.

2. Remove from heat and allow to cool slightly.

3. Puree in food processor. Return to saucepan- add sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice. Bring to a strong boil. Then reduce heat and simmer for about an hour and 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. The butter will thicken some.

4. Allow to cool. Keep in an airtight container in the fridge, should stay good for up to 3 weeks.

(Makes one and a half pints)

For years, I always thought kiwi were grown in some exotic locale and shipped over...to me they have that tropical look like they'd belong with pineapples, mangoes and guavas, but it turns out they're grown right right here in good old California. I found that out a few years back, when a friend of my ex-husband's told me that his family owned a kiwi orchard out past Wilton and asked if I'd like some kiwi...and ever since then I've been a recipient of a big bag of fresh kiwifruit every year. Most years I would just eat the kiwi sliced in a salad, if I was feeling a bit adventurous I'd throw them in a smoothie but this year I thought I'd take it up a notch and make some kiwi jam. I poked around the internet and found the recipe below by Ball. It was a different way to use up the kiwifruit and a neat way to extend enjoying the flavor beyond the usual season.

• Kiwi grow on vines.
• California is the only state that produces kiwi in the US.
• Kiwi can be stored in the fridge for up to 4 weeks.
• Although kiwi are named after the New Zealand bird, the fruit originated in China.
• Kiwi are a great source of vitamin C and potassium...so eat up! :)

Kiwi Jam (The Ball Blue Book of Preserves)
Yield: about 4 half-pints

Ingredients

3 cups chopped and *peeled kiwi

1 cup unsweetened pineapple juice

1 package of powdered pectin

4 cups of sugar


Instructions

1. Combine kiwi, powdered pectin and pineapple juice in a large saucepan.

2. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly.

3. Add sugar, stirring until dissolved.

4. Return to a rolling boil. Boil hard 1 minute, stirring constantly.

5. Remove from heat. Skim foam if necessary.

6. Ladle hot jam into hot jars, leaving 1/4" headspace.

7. Adjust two piece caps.

8. Process 10 minutes boiling water bath.

* Peel only if using fuzzy kiwi, and the easiest way to do that is to actually cut the kiwi in half and just scoop out the flesh instead of peeling. Hardy kiwis have tender skin so no need to peel.

I spent Friday cooking like a madwoman; after all, we were having the Pope over for dinner...okay, not THE Pope. But rather, Mr. S.'s buddy who's surname is Pope, but it does sound pretty neat to say that we're dining with the Pope, doesn't it? His holiness or not, I wanted to cook up something special for Mr. Pope, the Mrs. and their three kidlets. The menu I decided to go with was :

Appetizers

• Bourbon Bacon Jam & Fried Quail Eggs on Crostini
• Caramelized Onion & Goat Cheese Tartlets
• Sweet & Sour Meatballs 

Main Course

• Ribeyes & Filet Mignon from Taylor's Market (for the adults)
• Grilled Cheeseburgers (for the kidlets)
• Roasted New Red Potatoes w/ Herbes de Provence
• Asparagus w/ Remoulade

Dessert

• Cherry Pie Filling Chocolate Cake

-----------------------------

The big hit with the guests turned out to be the bourbon bacon jam and fried quail eggs on crostini (although the meatballs were a close second).  The bacon jam is pretty easy to make and if you store it in an air tight container in the fridge it can keep for up to a week. I chose to use Buffalo Trace Bourbon...it's delicious! I was first introduced to it by a bartender in Portland while on a roadtrip with a friend. I thought the oaky undertones and trace notes of vanilla would complement the rest of the spices in the bacon jam well. You only use a little bit in the recipe so you'll have plenty left over to serve your guests with the dessert should you choose to do so. ;)

Bourbon Bacon Jam (recipe by Evil Shenanigans)

Ingredients

1 pound thick-cup applewood smoked bacon, cut into 1″ pieces (use the best quality bacon you can get)

1 large sweet onion, cut into 1/4″ thick slices

3 tablespoons light brown sugar

3 cloves garlic, minced

1/4 teaspoon allspice

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

Pinch fresh grated nutmeg

Pinch ground cloves

1/2 teaspoon dry chipotle powder

1/4 teaspoon smoked paprika

1/2 cup strong brewed coffee

1/4 cup apple cider vinegar

1/2 cup good quality bourbon

1/4 cup maple syrup (does not have to be the best quality, any grade B maple syrup will be fine)

1 tablespoon hot sauce (I used sriracha)


Instructions

- In a large skillet over medium high heat cook the bacon pieces until the begin to crisp at the edges but are still soft in the center, about 1 to 1 1/2 minutes per side. Set aside to drain. Pour all but one tablespoon of the bacon drippings from the pan.

- Lower the heat to medium-low and add the onion and brown sugar. Cook until the onions are well caramelized, about twenty minutes. Add the garlic and spices and cook an additional five minutes.

- Add the liquid ingredients and the bacon to the pan. Increase the heat to medium heat bring the mixture to a boil, then reduce the heat to low and simmer for about two hours. Check the mixture every 30 minutes. If the mixture becomes too dry add a few tablespoons of water. You want the final mixture to be moist and very sticky.

- Let the mixture cool slightly them put it into the bowl of a food processor, or blender, and pulse about 20 times, or until it reaches your preferred consistency.

On one of our recent date nights, Mr. S. and I attended the California Musical Theatre's production of Miss Saigon. One of my all time favorite musicals, Schönberg and Boublil's Miss Saigon does a phenomenal job of intertwining the threads of romance, heartbreak and the ravages of war to bring about a piece that would make even the most iron-hearted come to tears at the end. Mr. S. had never seen the musical before and ended up enjoying it a lot; however, I was the one who ended up sniffling at the end (despite having seen it before and knowing how it concludes). Anyhow, this Sunday I was at the farmers' market and saw that the strawberry season was coming to a close, I decided to hustle up and buy some to make one last hurrah of jam. When I got home I was listening to my iPod and as I hulled the berries, one of the lilting tunes from Miss Saigon came on and I was inspired to do an Asian flavored jam. I looked and looked but I couldn't find a Vietnamese Strawberry Jam recipe; however, I did remember a Strawberry Jam with Thai Herbs recipe that my friend Katy and I had discussed awhile back from a book called Canning For a New Generation by Liana Krissoff. A quick look turned up the recipe but I noticed that Krissoff's recipe didn't include pectin so I called my local jam-go-to-girl, Jenn, with a few questions...her answer was to combine the original recipe's ingredients with my favorite standard strawberry jam recipe and I'd be all set.

The jam that was yielded turned out absolutely delish and I've dubbed it the-"Miss Saigon Jam." ;) It's currently Mr. S's favorite flavor out of all the jam flavors I've made this season. It definitely has that strawberry sweetness but combined with a refreshing, light undertone that you don't find in a lot of berry jams. It's a keeper!

Miss Saigon Jam  (recipes adapted from Strawberry Jam with Thai Herbs from Canning For a New Generation by Liana Krissoff  & Strawberry Quick Jam from Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving)

Ingredients

3 3/4 cups crushed hulled strawberries

4 tbsp lemon juice

7 cups granulated sugar

1 pouch (3ox/85 mL) liquid pectin

2 tbsp minced cilantro

1 tbsp minced mint

1 tbsp minced Thai basil


Instructions

- Prepare canner, jars & lids.

- In a large, deep, stainless steel pan, combine the berries, herbs, sugar and lemon and bring to a rolling boil, while stirring constantly so that it doesn’t burn. When the boil cannot be stirred down, add the pectin and boil hard, stirring constantly for one minute. (Check jam consistency at this point. Add more pectin/ cook more if needed.) Remove from the heat and skim off the foam.

- Ladle the hot jam into the hot jars, leaving 1/4″ headspace. Wipe the rims of the jars and place the hot seals on top. Screw the band on fingertip-tight.

- Place jars in canner, ensuring that they are covered with water. Bring to a boil and process 10 minutes. Remove canner lid. After 5 minutes remove jars and let cool.

Remember when you were a kid and you got to have summers off? It was all about laying poolside with your cousins or having sleepovers with your friends. Well my friend Katy is a teacher and is still lucky enough to get those long summers off. And lucky me got to spend this Tuesday with her. Last year Katy made this amazing rosemary plum jam which we decided to try and recreate this year. We picked up 2 big bags of plums at the Co-op. On the way home we stopped by the Fremont Park Farmers' Market and scored a flat of beautiful peaches. They were ripe and wonderfully fragrant, just right for jamming! So in addition to the rosemary plum jam, we decided to make a spicy peach butter, a vanilla bean peach butter, a peach gin jam, and a few white peaches in light syrup. Talk about a long day- almost 12 hours total. I was seriously waning towards the end, but Katy was like the Energizer Bunny, her energy never ran out nor did her happy demeanor.




Peach Gin Jam  (recipe from With a Glass)

Ingredients:

1 kg very ripe peaches weighed without stones and peel

40g pectin in powder (not necessary if you like a runny jam or if you cook it long enough to be dense)

300g sugar (or more if peaches are not very ripe)

juice from 1 lemon

100ml gin (we used Bombay Sapphire)


Instructions

- Put the peaches in boiling water for two minutes. Take them away with a slotted spoon and place immediately in cold water. After a couple of minutes the peel will come off easily with fingers.

- Remove the stones and cut the fruit into small pieces (do not throw away the juice!). Weigh it.

- Put the fruit, the lemon juice and a couple of tablespoons of water into a non reactive pan and cook on a rather high heat until the peaches become soft. Stir it often and watch the pan constantly (if there is not enough liquid they will burn). Add the sugar and simmer on a low heat for ten more minutes.

- Add the pectin and more sugar if the jam is not sweet enough, stir it and cook for another ten minutes. Put aside.

- (Here you can pour the gin and stir the jam once more before filling the jars).

- Spoon hot jam into sterilised jars, cover with lids.

- Leave the jars to cool.

- Place the cool jars into a big pan, cover up with hot – but not boiling- water to the level just below the lid.

- Bring to boil and keep on a very low heat, in simmering water, for around 20 minutes.

*  Share with cousins, friends and neighbors! :)

Not too long ago I posted about how my friend Sarah and I attended a wine event out in the wilds of Winters and on the way home stocked up on lots of fresh juicy jam berries. The following day we spent damn well close to nine hours in her cute retro kitchen hulling strawberries, measuring sugar and stirring jam over the stove until our arms almost fell off. It was a long day but the pay off was over sixty jars of sweet, beautiful jam- strawberry, blackberry, strawberry-tangerine and strawberry-balsamic vinegar with black pepper. Don't they all sound delish? What's funny about this whole jam-a-palooza is that I'm not a big jam eater. It probably takes me about three to four months to eat one jar of jam and that's if I'm moving fast. So since then I've been giving most of them out as gifts or trading them with friends for fresh veggies. In fact, I wrote an email last week to a friend that I recently reconnected with (ahhh, the miracle of Facebook...) and the conversation went roughly like this:

Her: So what have you been up to this week?
Me: Oh, a friend just dropped off some fresh plums, homemade pasta and a bit of basil in exchange for a jar of jam. Later tonight I'm going to go pick up some homemade honey from a friend's house that has bees and then I'm going to a make your own BBQ'd pizza party.
Her: Umm, do you like live on a commune?
Me: No, Sacramento.

Maybe it seems über granola to some to be making things like jam or to can but I really enjoy it and I've been loving the looks on people's faces when I've given them a jar of fresh jam or some spicy dilly beans. Pure delight! Also, doing the hot water bath portion of the canning process (to make the jam shelf stable) turned out to be much easier than I thought!




Simple & Quick Strawberry Jam (Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving)

Ingredients

3-3/4 cups crushed hulled strawberries

4 Tbsp lemon juice (use bottled for consistency)

7 cups granulated sugar

1 pouch (3 oz.) liquid pectin


Instructions

- Prepare canner, jars & lids.

- In a large, deep, stainless steel pan, combine the berries, sugar and lemon and bring to a rolling boil, while stirring constantly so that it doesn’t burn. When the boil cannot be stirred down, add the pectin and boil hard, stirring constantly for one minute. Remove from the heat and skim off the foam.


- Ladle the hot jam into the hot jars, leaving 1/4″ headspace. Wipe the rims of the jars and place the hot seals on top. Screw the band on fingertip-tight.


- Place jars in canner, ensuring that they are covered with water. Bring to a boil and process 10 minutes. Remove canner lid. After 5 minutes remove jars and let cool.

Mmmm, blackberries...I love them. They're sweet, they're tart, they're juicy...they just scream summer. And in August, they're at every supermaket, farmers' market and roadside stall. But like the ant in the "The Grasshopper and the Ant," I needed to start preparing for the colder months when blackberries aren't so plentiful (or cheap). Canning's the logical way to set aside the berries but all that sugar and they'd be a bit mushy...I was in a bit of a quandry. What to do, what to do.... A friend of mine suggested making freezer jam and then luck would have it my local Target had Ball's Instant Fruit Pectin on sale, so I went with that. This stuff is amazing! You can make jam in a few minutes without having to use the stove and you don't even have to sterilize the jars (just wash them well). Not to mention that you use MUCH less sugar, the jam tastes fresher and it has more of a fruit-like texture to it.

If you aren't familiar with freezer jam, check out this great NPR article on it:  Freezer Jam: A Baby Step to Canning

Blackberry Freezer Jam

Ingredients

4 cups of crushed blackberries (I used a potato masher. You can remove the seeds by using a sieve if you wish, but I left mine in)

1.5 cups of sugar ( do not use less/more or substitute another type of sweetener, it's what's needed to make it gel)

5 (8 oz.) containers (you can use freezer jars, (straight-sided) jelly jars, any sealable plastic containers)

1 package of Ball's Instant Fruit Pectin (1.59 oz.)


Instructions

1. Stir sugar and pectin in a bowl.

2. Add crushed fruit and stir well.

3. Ladle jam into clean jars and let it stand for 30 minutes.

4. You either eat it then or freeze it.

5. Freezer jam can be frozen for up to 1 year. Once thawed, it must be kept in the fridge and it's good for up to 3 weeks.