spring in a jar: rhubarb syrup

The rhubarb has been waiting patiently for me.

Just before running out the door to catch my plane out of Comox, I remembered the rhubarb. Dad rushed out to cut me some big, happy stalks. We pushed them into a plastic bag, and carefully laid them in my carry-on next to the kale and stinging nettles.

That was the end of April.

Since then I have planned a live radio show on board a streetcar and gone to Saskatoon to celebrate my sixth wedding anniversary. It's been a busy few weeks.

But, as I mentioned, the rhubarb has been a model vegetable,* quietly waiting at the back of the fridge.

Yesterday, I chopped it up and turned it into a slightly-sweet, ruby-red syrup.

In other words: spring in a jar.

I make this syrup every spring because it's such a nice way to process rhubarb and looks so pretty. It's also incredibly easy – about 20 minutes from stalky start to syrupy finish.

What to do with the syrup?

Well, it would be a darn good excuse to make panna cotta. I also like it drizzled on a dollop of thick Greek yogurt. And, in just three days, the weekend will be here and we'll try it dibbled on pancakes.

bonus photo: this is rhubarb just pushing out of the ground in February

Really, you could spoon it over anything . . . what food isn't happier with a bit of pink syrup on top?

*You may call rhubarb a fruit. That's OK, too.

one year ago: mango love on oahu
two years ago: dutch marzipan cookies
three years ago: putting asparagus on pizza and chocolate nut balls

rhubarb syrup
slightly adapted from Canadian Living

makes about 1 cup / 225 ml syrup

500 mL (2 c.) fresh or frozen rhubarb, chopped
125 mL (1/2 c.) white sugar
125 mL (1/2 c.) water
1 strip lemon peel

Put all the ingredients in a pot with a heavy bottom. Bring to a light boil over medium-high heat. Turn the heat down a bit so it can simmer comfortably and stir every so often. Cook until the rhubarb has broken up, but isn't a dead pulp, 8 – 10 minutes.

Strain through cheesecloth or a fine-mesh sieve suspended over a bowl. If you like your syrup a bit thicker, return the syrup to a clean pot and simmer for 8 – 10 minutes. It will reach the consistency of maple syrup once it's cooled. (Simmer it longer if you want it even thicker; but don't simmer it so long that it loses its fresh flavour.)

Cool and refrigerate. Keeps for at least a week. Lovely on yogurt, panna cotta, anything that needs a little injection of spring.

cherry peach jam

Dear readers:

I am moving tomorrow.

And I just made jam. In a heat wave. 

It's a bit crazy. (In fact, I sense distinct disapproval emanating from my fellow mover.)

Boxes are my life

Anyway, the jam's made now. I've settled it happily in a box, taped it up and labelled it (jam! heavy!). I am sure we will enjoy it in Edmonton, where I don't think either cherries or peaches grow.

I don't have too much to say, because I'm really thinking about how I need to call the mover first thing tomorrow morning, and return my last novel to the library, and go help my mom clean the stove, and – oh, yes – convince my husband that I'm not frittering my time away writing a post.

But I know I promised  you this recipe and possibly some of you even did pit and freeze cherries in anticipation of making cherry peach jam.

It's a wonderful jam: bright, pinky red from the cherries and melting peach flavour. My dad's friend Betty makes a jam like this, not to mention cherry blueberry and raspberry peach. She lives in the Okanagan, where this kind of fruit most definitely does grow.

After a bit of tinkering, I've come up with this recipe. Spread it on your morning toast – try not to upset the husband and mother as they're just sitting down to breakfast surrounded by boxes and you're taking pictures, of all things – and be happy.

The next little while will be overwhelmed by cardboard and packing tape, but I'll try to check in again soon.

One year ago: German groceries
Two years ago: peach crisp and tomato zucchini gratin 


cherry peach jam
yields 10 – 11 cups

114 g. (2 57-g. packets) pectin
8 c. sugar (1/2 c. + 7 1/2 c.)
3 c. cherries, pitted and roughly chopped
6 c. peaches, peeled* and chopped**
1/2 c. lemon or lime juice


In a small bowl, stir the pectin and 1/2 c. sugar together. Set aside.

In a big pot with a heavy bottom, stir the cherries, peaches and lemon juice together. Stir in the pectin and sugar mixture. Bring it all to a boil over medium heat. If it seems slow, turn up the heat a bit, but keep a close eye on it and keep stirring. While you're waiting for it to boil, get out a cereal bowl and soup spoon for skimming and set it aside.

Once it's boiling hard, stir in the 7 1/2 c. of sugar. Bring it back to a hard boil, stirring often. Once it reaches a hard boil, let it boil for 1 minute. Stir often and watch it doesn't boil over!

Take it off the heat (slide it off the element because it will be too hot and heavy to move anywhere else). Take your bowl and spoon and bring it closer. Stir (to prevent floating fruit) and skim the foam off for about 4 minutes or until there is no more skim or you get incredibly bored.

Fill sterilized jars to 1/4 inch from the top, screw on the lids and process in a boiling water canner for 10 minutes.


* Easy way to peel peaches: drop them in boiling water for one minute. Use a slotted spoon to take them out, and run cold water over or place in a bowl of ice water. Slip the skin off.

** I was too lazy to chop the peaches very finely. If you are, too, just use a potato masher or pastry cutter on them in the pot. Works like a charm!

loganberry vinegar

Did you look carefully at those berries?

They're actually frozen loganberries because loganberry season doesn't start for another three weeks or so. (Yes, I am counting.)

A few weeks ago, I bought these berries at our favourite farm in Deep Cove, Smyth's. We'd just gotten back from Hawaii and I was desperate for interesting fruit – so far, rhubarb is the only ripe fruit on Vancouver Island.

Seeing as our freezer is roughly the size of a very small shoebox, it was quite the commitment to buy a big bag of frozen loganberries. But, oh, what fun they are! Definitely worth carving out a space in the miniature freezer for them.

So far, I've used them for waffle and ice cream toppings, deep-dish apple-loganberry pie, rhubarb-apple-loganberry crisp and now, loganberry vinegar.

This vinegar is easy as pie (actually, speaking from recent experience, easier). Just purée the logans with simple white vinegar, leave them to join forces in a cool, dark place – with a daily shake, for fun – strain, and voilà: loganberry vinegar at your service.

I know you might not have logans in your part of the world and I am genuinely sorry for you if you don't. (If you've never heard of a loganberry, it's a cross between a raspberry and a blackberry and it is, hands down, the most scrumptious berry in the world.)

However, I do believe this vinegar would work for most summer berries: strawberries, raspberries, blackberries . . . What kind of berry will you have growing near you?

In any case, with this little labour and the dirt-cheap price of white vinegar, what have you got to lose?

What to do with your loganberry vinegar? Tonight, I made a simple salad dressing with it – loganberry vinegar, walnut oil, honey, mustard, salt and pepper – and besides being a lovely pinky-red colour, it really did taste like loganberries.

I envision a summer of logan-y salads and marinades to come.

one year ago: tomato cheddar soufflé with asparagus
two years ago: chili pasta


loganberry vinegar
slightly adapted from Sherri Brooks Vinton via Brett Smyth

glass jar that holds 4 cups
2 c. berries
2 c. white vinegar

First, sterilize your jar. Boil water in the kettle. Fill the jar and let it sit. After 10 minutes, pour out the water.

Use a blender or immersion blender to purée the berries and vinegar together. Pour into the jar.

Let it sit in a cool, dark place for 5 to 7 days (or longer, if you're away). Shake every day to blend the flavours.

Strain it through either a double cheesecloth or a very fine sieve (not both, or nothing happens). You might need to use a spoon to stir it and encourage the liquid to fall through.

Pour the strained vinegar into a sterilized jar or bottle. Keeps at room temperature for up to 1 year. (Please note that I haven't tested whether it keeps at room temperature for a year or not yet. If you're a nervous type, keep it in the fridge.)

 

star anise plum jam

It’s a melancholic time of year.

I stopped to stare at three different kinds of plums at the store on Sunday. I felt this whoosh of regret: soon, the plums will be gone and I won’t be able to eat nearly enough of them before the oranges and grapefruit have recolonized the store for winter.

That sad thought made me think of my pretty little gold sandals, peaking up at me in the back room . . . not knowing they've been sent there because I can’t bear to put them away for winter yet. (But there is no question I won't wear them again this year. When a girl puts on mittens to drive to work in the morning, she does know that open-toed footwear will have to wait for spring.)

It is getting cold and windy and rainy and summer is done. There: I’ve said it out loud. Alas.

But there is still a little window to do something with all these lovely plums. 

My jam idol, Marisa at Food in Jars, suggested Italian plum jam with star anise and – after putting up a small batch – I must report that she was spot on.

In fact, she was so spot on that I didn’t change the recipe one bit, except to double the goodness.

I grew up eating Italian prune plums every day in September and October. We had a tree in the front yard that always gave us lots to take in our lunch. They are not the juiciest of plums, with a thin purple skin and almost green flesh. But when they’re ripe, they’re sweet. And – since I have an intense aversion to sticky hands – really easy to eat without making a mess.

I had no idea prune plums would stew up to be dark and deep and altogether more romantic. The star anise brings out an almost amaretto quality in the plums, which I found surprising and just right.

I like Marisa’s ideas of eating this jam with cheese and crispy bread or a cracker. Marisa had a nice truffle goat cheese. My unfortunate nostrils think goat cheese smells like a dirty barn, so I would also recommend Taleggio. Really, anything creamy with a hint of sharpness would do, I think. Just do something before all the plums are gone!

Last October: Mrs. Doucet’s apple chutney and finally yummy brussels sprouts

For Marisa’s original recipe, see here.

italian plum jam with star anise from food in jars

yields almost 3 cups

5 c. Italian prune plums, chopped

1 1/3 c. sugar

6 star anise blossoms

Put a small plate in the freezer. Leave it there.

Stir the plums, sugar and star anise together in a good-sized pot with a heavy bottom. Cover and set aside for about an hour or until it has created a syrup and/or you can’t bear it any longer.

Remove the star anise blossoms if you don’t want your jam to be too star anise-y. (I left mine in for the cooking process and don’t find it’s too much. But I leave that up to you.)

Place the pot over medium-high heat. Bring to a boil. Boil, uncovered, for 10 – 15 minutes. The jam will thicken and darken. When the time is almost up, take your small plate out of the freezer. Dollop a bit of jam on the plate. Leave it for one minute. Use the back of a spoon to push against that bit of jam. If it wrinkles a bit, it has set. Remove the jam from the heat.

If you haven’t already, remove the star anise blossoms now! Remove any skim on the jam.

Ladle into sterilized jars and process in a hot water canner for 10 minutes.

blueberry rhubarb rum jam

When we went to the farm the weekend before last, we found a vast selection of rhubarb and greens. Everything else is behind, due to our incredibly rainy spring.

But we also found last summer’s blueberries in the freezer. I couldn’t resist buying them, if only because I have eaten enough grapefruit for breakfast and oranges for snack time to last me well until next winter.

And then, as we drove home along the water, inspiration struck: blueberry rhubarb jam! Yes, I thought, I’ll do one part rhubarb to two parts blueberry – basically, enough rhubarb to perk up the blueberries but not so much that it’s chalky.

For a little while, I was very proud of myself. Imagine inventing such an unusual combination!

Turns out – according to the Internet – lots of people beat me to it. There’s even a name for it: blubarb jam. It seems possible I am not so creative after all. (I am also quite certain I would never have thought of the word blubarb.)

However, I did not let that dissuade me and I plowed ahead, washing canning jars and chopping rhubarb.  I found a recipe attributed to Canadian Living Magazine on lots of sites, but it wasn’t actually on Canadian Living’s site. It didn’t call for pectin – which always makes me nervous – but Canadian Living has proven itself so trustworthy and reliable (like a good Canadian) that I gave it a go.

Because I relish alcoholic jam on toast in the morning, I also stirred in a bit of rum at the end. The jam came out like an intense blueberry on a late summer’s day, with just a hint of rhubarb and rum rounding it off. Even without pectin, it set perfectly.

I hadn’t actually planned to share this jam with you, because it is so close to the original. But as I slather it on my toast every morning, I feel guilty that you might not know about it yet.

That’s why you don’t see any pictures of the whole jam-making process. Those little chopped rhubarb up above are actually body doubles. They’re just hanging out until I stew them this evening. And there are no pictures of frozen blueberries, because I put them all in the jam. Who wants to see a picture of a frozen blueberry, anyway?

Just make some jam and spread it on your toast in the morning and be happy.

last june: chocolate peanut butter oatcakes

blueberry rhubarb rum jam

slightly adapted from a recipe attributed to Canadian Living Magazine

Makes about 8 cups of jam

8 c. blueberries

4 c. rhubarb, chopped into 1/4-inch pieces

1 tsp. lemon rind

2 tbsp. lemon juice

1 c. water

4 c. sugar

1/4 c. rum

Bring the blueberries, rhubarb, lemon rind and juice, and sugar to a boil in a heavy pot. Stir often while you’re bringing the heat up.

Turn the heat down and simmer, stirring often for about 25 minutes – until the rhubarb is very tender and your spoon can easily break through it against the side of the pot.

Turn the heat up to medium and add the sugar. Bring to a boil, stirring often. Once it has reached the setting point,* remove from the heat. Stir in the rum. Stir for a couple minutes to move the fruit pieces. Use a spoon to remove any skim.

Fill sterilized jars. Process in a hot water canner for 10 minutes.

*For me, the setting point was about 210 degrees Farhenheit, although the original recipe called for 218 – 220 degrees Fahrenheit. Another way to test the jam is to dollop some on a small plate that has been in the freezer. Use the back of a spoon to push against the jam. If it wrinkles, it’s ready.

whisky marmalade

Winter is a hard time of year for a canning addict.

Because I'm not craving pickled squash, it seems like there’s nothing local to preserve.

In desperation, I must look south.

Luckily, California is just one international border and three states down the coast. (Let's call it “local-ish.”) And it’s citrus season!

When I saw Seville oranges all bright and orange in the grocery store, I knew they longed to be canned and that only I could help.

This was my first time making marmalade and it’s a very satisfying process. Kind of like taking all that California sunshine and distilling it in a pretty jar.

I started with a recipe from the always reliable Canadian Living. I couldn’t resist adding a tumbler of Laphroiag whisky. The deep bitterness of whisky seems to be a natural companion for these sharp oranges. Not to mention, it’s more fun to eat whisky marmalade than to eat regular marmalade.

It seems very civilized to slather my toast with butter and spread on a good dollop of whisky marmalade at breakfast.

May the canning continue, unhindered by season.

last february: ugly vegetables make beautiful soup

whisky marmalade

adapted from Canadian Living

2 lbs (907 g.) Seville oranges
1 lemon
6 1/2 c. sugar
1/4 c. whisky

Wash the fruit and cut off stems, blossoms and blemishes. Cut all the oranges in half. Squeeze out the juice, saving the rind, pith and seeds. Use a sturdy spoon to scoop out any white pith that's left next to the rind. Put the pith and seeds into a square of double-layered cheesecloth and tie tightly with string. Let's call this the pith bundle. Set aside.

Cut each half-orange rind in half again. Slice paper thin.

Pour the juice into a large heavy-duty pot, such as a Dutch oven. Put in the pith bundle and sliced rind. Add 8 cups water. Heat to a good simmer, stirring often and using the spoon to squeeze juice out of the pith bundle. Simmer, uncovered, for about 1 hour, until you can mush up the rind pieces between your fingers. (The original recipe called for 2 1/2 hours, but I found it was concentrated and soft after 1 hour.)

Turn off the heat and carefully pull the pith bundle out. Once it's cooled, squeeze as much goopy liquid through the cheesecloth as you can back into the pot with the juice and rind. Discard the pith bundle.

Measure how much liquid you have in the pot. Add water or boil it down to make 6 1/2 cups. Add sugar and stir until dissolved. Add whisky. Stirring often, bring to a rolling boil over medium heat. Keep stirring every minute or two and boil for 12 to 15 minutes, until it reaches the gel stage.

Fill and seal jars. Can in hot water bath for 10 minutes.

pear ginger jam

One day a few years ago, I was eating breakfast with my now infamous friend Angela in Halifax. (Best known around here for her apple chutney and yellow split pea dahl.)

We were having toast, and she had a jar of her mom’s pear ginger jam. I buttered my toast, spread a liberal dollop of jam over it, and bit in.

It was pure toast perfection: tart ginger with sweet and soft autumn pears, mingling with melting butter.

I knew I could happily eat this for breakfast for the rest of my days.

Her mother, Mrs. Doucet, shared the recipe with me and now I can have toast perfection any morning I like over here on the other side of the country.

I’ve also discovered that pear ginger jam is a perfect accompaniment for a sharp cheese. In this case, a blue cheddar that my mom brought up from the Okanagan. Dinner was cooking – and taking way too long – but we were happy to nibble on crackers, cheese and jam, and sip our Okanagan wine while we waited. I warn you, though, you might just want to eat this for your whole dinner.

Breakfast or dinner, pear ginger jam will see you through.

pear ginger jam

yields 5 – 6 cups

10 c. pears, peeled, cored and sliced

6 c. sugar

1/2 package (about .86 oz. or 25 g.) Certo pectin crystals

2 lemons, rind grated and juiced

2 tbsp. grated fresh ginger root

Mix pectin into 1/2 c. of the sugar. Place in a canning kettle with pears, lemon juice and lemon rind. Let sit for 2 to 3 hours. (You are not heating it up at this point, just letting it sit on the counter.)

Add ginger and rest of sugar and bring to a boil. Leave uncovered and stir frequently until it’s thick and the pears are clear (about 1 hour).

Ladle into sterilized jars, seal and can for 10 minutes in boiling water.

Serve with toast and butter for breakfast, or with crackers and sharp cheese before dinner.

This post is part of Fall Fest 2010, which is a community food blogging event to write about (and eat!) seasonal produce. For more pear ideas, check out:

Pinch My Salt: Sour Cream Pear Cake
Eating From the Ground Up: Pear and Cheese
San Diego Foodstuff: Pear, Pecan, Parmesan Scones
The Sister Project: A Gingery Pear Crisp
Gilded Fork: Harvest Risotto with Caramelized Pears
White on Rice Couple: Making Pear Galette
A Way to Garden: Of Pears and Cookbooks, a Delicious Giveaway
Cooking Channel: What to Pair With Pears
Food2: 5 Ways to Warm Up to Pears
Healthy Eats: Vanilla Poached Pears, With Variations
Food Network: Baking Up Pear Desserts

mrs. doucet's apple chutney

Fall has arrived and you might be wondering two things:

1. What will I do with all the blemished, ugly apples on my tree?
2. What will I bring to parties for the next few months when I don't have time to make anything?

The answer to both questions: apple chutney.

Yup, take a few hours to whip up a batch and then sit back and relax. When it's party time, just pull a jar of apple chutney off the shelf. Stop by the store on the way to the party and buy some fancy crackers and chèvre (or cream cheese if you're averse to goat stink) and get ready to impress the crowds with a homemade appletizer.

Who came up with this brilliant idea? Not me, although I have co-opted the idea so fully that I almost think it's my own.

The brilliance comes from my friend Angela and her mother, Mrs. Doucet, in Nova Scotia. They are two of the best bakers and cooks I know, and have contributed many invaluable recipes to my repertoire. (Remember that lovely yellow split pea dahl?)

And just how did they come up with this chutney? Well, a while back, Angela was at a friend's house for dinner and tried some apple chutney there. She loved it so much that she took the rest of the jar  home to her mother. Angela explained how much she loved it, and asked if her mom could make a recipe for it.

Mrs. Doucet tasted it and created this recipe. Angela says it's exactly like the chutney she first tried. This chutney is dark and thick, with plump raisins and the surprise of fresh cardamom. In short, it is perfect dolloped over a cracker spread with a creamy cheese – all ready to adorn your party plate.

P.S. If you were at the Brigden fall fair in Ontario a few years ago, yes, this is the apple chutney that won the prize. 

mrs. doucet's apple chutney

yields 5 1/2  cups

1/4 c. lemon juice

1/4 c. cider vinegar

24 dates

1/2 c. raisins

2 large cloves garlic, minced

2 tsp. cardamom seeds, crushed

1 tsp. ginger

8 c. apples, peeled, cored and chopped

4 c. sugar

Mix lemon juice, cider vinegar, dates, raisins and garlic in a big pot with a heavy bottom. Cook over medium-low heat until dates and raisins are soft.

Add cardamom, ginger, apples and sugar. Bring to a light simmer. Turn heat down to low and cook slowly for one hour, until thick. Stir often.

Ladle into sterilized jars, seal and can for 10 minutes in boiling water. 

Serve with a creamy cheese on crackers.

This post is part of Fall Fest 2010, which is a community food blogging event to write about (and eat!) seasonal produce. If you’d like to see other Fall Fest recipes for apples, try these:

To Market, To Market with San Diego Foodstuff: Revised Medieval Apple Tart
The Wright Recipes: Apple Stack Cake and Dark Caramel Apples
Eating from the Ground Up: God and Apple Pie
Simmer Till Done: Louisa May Alcott's Apple Slump
Food2: 22 Awesome Ways to Use Your Apples
Cooking Channel: Apple Dessert Recipes
Gilded Fork: Apples—Sweet Seduction
Food Network: Pick the Perfect Apple
White on Rice Couple: Apple picking, and Broiled Leeks with Apple Vinaigrette
Food Network UK: Five English apples you should know and love
Healthy Eats: 31 Days of Apple Recipes
Pinch My Salt: Favorite Apple Recipes
The Sister Project: Third-Prize Apple Pie

 

a bowl full of jelly

As long as I can remember, loganberry jelly has been my favourite.

I could only have it in the summer and at Christmas time when we went to Vancouver Island to visit my grandparents.

My grandma always had loganberry jelly in tiny baby food jars. (She and granddad liked them in small jars so they could eat different jellies and jams more often.)

My family gawked as I spread extremely thick layers of loganberry jelly on my toast every morning. But I was in heaven, so they let me be.

The loganberry is a cross between a raspberry and a blackberry. Apparently, my great-grandfather planted this loganberry. I’m guessing that would put it somewhere in the 1920s or 1930s.

That loganberry is still growing, on the edge of my grandparents' old garden outside of Courtenay. I visit it when I go up to see my uncle and aunt and cousins who still live on that land. These days, it only produces a few berries, but I still get pretty excited about it.

I know how to make my own loganberry jelly now, so I can have it year-round. My great-aunt Marjorie, my grandma’s sister, learned this jelly recipe from her mother. Marjorie taught me how to make it a few years after my grandma passed away.

This year, my husband and I picked berries and made jelly with our friends Catherine and Guthrie.

We boiled and strained and listened to records and boiled some more . . .

By midnight, we had this gorgeous, ruby red jelly. It tastes as good as it looks.

A note: This recipe looks inexact, but that’s only because you never know how much juice you have until you strain it. Once you strain it, the recipe becomes very exact. Read through the whole recipe first, and you'll have a sense of how much sugar and pectin you’ll need.

loganberry jelly

or raspberry or blackberry jelly

loganberries

water

powdered pectin

sugar

cheesecloth

Pour the loganberries into a giant pot. Add just enough water to come about halfway up to the height of the loganberries in the pot. (For raspberry jelly, you can add enough water to almost cover the raspberries.)

Bring to a boil, stirring every so often. Simmer until the berries are mushy and their juice is coming out, about half an hour.

While they are simmering, set up your straining station. Our family tradition goes like this: balance a broom handle across two chairs, which are back to back. Leave enough room for a giant bowl to sit on the floor in between the chairs. Cover the floor in between the chairs with newspaper to catch any splatters. Place the giant bowl on the newspaper.  Above the giant bowl, use the cheesecloth to make a sling that is at least three layers of cheesecloth thick. Knot the cheesecloth onto the broom handle twice. The empty cheesecloth sling then sits suspended over the bowl, ready for your berry mixture.

Once the berries are done simmering, very carefully pour or ladle them into the sling. (It’s good to have someone helping you at this point.) Leave them to drip for one to twelve hours.

Once the juice has dripped through, throw out the cheesecloth sling with its dried-up berries. Measure the juice as you return it to the pot.

Look at your pectin instructions and stir in the amount of pectin you need for the amount of juice you have. (For example, we had 16 cups of juice and used 4 packages of pectin.) Bring the juice to a boil.

While you’re waiting for the juice to boil, measure one cup of sugar for each cup of juice into a bowl. Once the juice is boiling, pour in the sugar and stir often. Bring it back to a rolling boil. Boil for 4 minutes. (For raspberry jelly, only boil 1 minute.)

Pour into sterilized jars and can.