Kitchen Jam

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I wanted to experiment with pickles, and the July Can Jam challenge’s focus on zucchini was going to give me a great opportunity. Zucchini is coming into the farmers markets and grocery stores, and the simple zucchini relish recipe in the 75th Anniversary Ball Blue Book from 2009 seemed like the perfect chance to try pickles.

Then, after I tried the relish – well, my pickling skills need work. I must have done something wrong, but the relish isn’t the crispy hot-sweet relish I was aiming at. It’s kinda mushy – so maybe I cooked it too long? Not sure, but not the taste or texture I wanted – a pickle relish ##fail.
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Local strawberries from Reeves and Gaerelick farms near Syracuse

Last summer, I was in a chipotle phase, adding a touch of pureed chipotle peppers in adobo to several jams. This summer, my low sugar jam experiments are going to include Pomona’s Universal Citrus Pectin.

I didn’t forget the chipotle – in fact, after tasting rhubarb mango and rhubarb strawberry (which became more of a sauce than a jam…note to self: do not use frozen rhubarb for jam!), I decided that the beautiful local strawberries that made their appearance a couple weeks ahead of schedule deserved at least one taste of chipotle.
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I went simple, and old school, this month for Tigress’s CanJam, where the secret ingredients were rhubarb and asparagus. The local asparagus isn’t ready yet, but the rhubarb is – and although mangoes aren’t local to central NY, they are in season, cheap and fragrant. So here goes:

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My mango jam recipe is very simple – mango, water, a bit of sugar, a splash of vanilla.

For this month’s secret ingredient – herbs – I changed things up a bit in my basic recipe. I’m not completely happy with the balance in my current proportions, but if mangoes stay this inexpensive (right now, they’re four mangoes for $5), I’ll be doing more experiments making this recipe again to get it right. Read the rest of this entry »

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I missed the deadline for posting a recipe for Tigress’s April Can Jam.

The secret ingredient – herbs – really got me thinking. We’re in a tempting phase right now…chives and lemon balm are up, but the rest of the garden herbs aren’t even showing themselves yet. I was going to have to reach deep into my freezer (I have a huge batch of frozen thyme) or into my dried herbs (pretty much all I have left from last year’s harvest is sage.)

And the fruit that was tempting me this month was decidedly NOT local – ripe mangoes have been sending hints of tropical times, soft scents of warm places that just cried out to me from their display in the fresh produce section at Wegmans. And I mean – seriously – organic mangoes were 4 for $5. Bananas, oranges and cabbage are the only produce cheaper at this time of year.

So I bought a bunch of fresh (imported from some Canadian greenhouse) organic dill, which is perfuming my kitchen counter as I speak. And I caved and bought two perfectly ripe fragrant mangoes. And a lime. Because I knew what I wanted to do – dilled mango jam. Or salsa, maybe, or a mustard or a chutney. But I knew those tastes – mango, lime and dill - would work together.

And then work happened. And each night since Tuesday my mangoes have gotten more ripe, my dill more fragrant - while I came home, ex’d dogs and crashed.

So, I’m sorry Tigress, but I missed the deadline for the herbs CanJam.

But I will post the recipe here, and I promise it will be brilliant. I’ll probably make it this afternoon – if I don’t crash again and take a nap in the sunny warm afternoon living room.

Now…back to burning my candles at both ends.