Kitchen Jam

Image via Wikipedia

Do you ever think about tastes in your head, combine foods in your imagination, just know that different foods will mix perfectly into a wonderful unique taste?

That’s what happened to me when I was researching recipes for this month’s CanJam, part of the Tigress’s year-round canning challenge. March’s Iron Jam ingredient is alliums – and while even the ramps and green onions and chives aren’t quite in season here in central New York, the onions and garlic from last fall have wintered over nicely. This morning’s farmer’s market was filled with tables full of onions and garlic mixed in among the root vegetables. Read the rest of this entry »

Image by Fighting Tiger via Flickr

March’s CanJam ingredient – alliums – is a serious challenge. Although I’ve got a pretty good recipe for Red Onion Marmalade, I wanted to try something a bit different.

It’s not local (unless it can grow under snow?) but beautiful ruby-colored stalks of rhubarb have been showing up in the produce section for a couple weeks. So I’ve got a cup of rhubarb ‘coins’ (finely diced rhubarb) macerating in two tablespoons of organic brown sugar for the first microbatch of March jam. I’m counting on the rhubarb to bring its high-acid to a party of red onions slowly cooked in blood orange juice and spices. I’m going for a brilliant red onion-rhubarb jam with a hit or orange.

Stay tuned.

February CanJam: Chipotle Carrot-Apple Butter

At the end of each month, the can-jammers participating in Tigress’s Can Jam are delivered the news – a “secret ingredient” for the next’s month designed to extend their canning repertoires. January’s challenge was citrus, and I tried Roasted Lemon Marmalade. But the February challenge ingredient would be a tough day’s work for an Iron Chef – carrots! Read the rest of this entry »

Image via Wikipedia

Some cookbooks have truly impressive titles. John Ash’s Cooking One on One: Private Lessons in Simple Contemporary Food from a Master Teacher has a heckuva title. I was led to the book by a simple recipe for Roasted Lemon Salsa, which I first found here (with attribution to Ash’s work.) Read the rest of this entry »

Image by adman_as via Flickr

Traveling around the ‘net, I found at www.cdkitchen.com, a recipe for Pink Champagne Jelly (Recipe ID 5806.) Read the rest of this entry »