eat make read

This weekend I did something super exciting… I pulled out all the fruit I’ve been hoarding over the summer and made jam. And oh did I make jam. Lucky for me my friend Erin came over to join in the undertaking of turning apricots, raspberries, strawberries, blueberries and cherries into five different kinds of jam.

A while ago I got super inspired by this article written by Molly Wizenberg in Bon Appetit. The recipe that goes along with the story sounded pretty basic, but still allowed for some experimentation. We went ahead and came up with some of our own fruit combinations, but stuck with her directions on canning since neither of us had done it before. Making the jam is pretty simple, you basically mix the fruit up, add a little sweetner (sugar or honey) and a little citrus and let it sit for a few hours. We ended up with Strawberry, Strawberry & Raspberry, Raspberry with cayenne pepper, Blueberry & Sweet Cherry and Apricot & Raspberry. Whew, that’s a lot of jam. While the fruit was hanging out, we started the sterilization process, which takes a lot of time. I didn’t buy any special equipment for this, I just used my stockpot that has a strainer insert and it worked pretty dang good. There are special canning pots and gadgets that you can pick up, but unless you’re planning on doing a lot of canning, I think my way works pretty well.

Once the cans were sterile, we put the fruit on the stovetop and brought it to a boil. That’s when things started getting good. Scent is one of my favorite aspects of cooking and it came out with a bang when the fruit started boiling. Oh the sweet, sweet smell of fresh strawberries, then came the raspberries and the blueberries… I mean is there anything better? It actually took quite a bit longer than the directions called for to get the fruit to a more jam-like place, but we just rolled with it. After we filled the jam jars, we sealed them by boiling them one last time.

I tried out the strawberry jam Sunday morning and it just made me happy. You can just taste the freshness in it and it’s kind of perfect. There are many more jars to be opened, some of which will go to friends, but some will be saved for those cold winter months when thoughts of fresh fruit can be savored with a little piece of toast with some fresh jam spread over top.

All recipes follow the directions of this recipe for
Mixed Berry Jam

Below are my fruit variations:

Strawberry Jam
4.5 cups fresh strawberries
2 cups sugar
2 Tablespoons lemon juice

Strawberry-Raspberry Jam
2.5 cups Strawberries
2 cups Raspberries
1 cup sugar
1 Tablespoon sugar

Blueberry Cherry
4 cups Blueberries
2 cups Sweet Cherries
1 Tablespoon lemon juice
1 Tablespoon lime juice
2 Tablespoon honey
1 cup sugar

Spicy Raspberry
4 cups Raspberry
1 Tablespoon Cayenne (we actually used 2 and it was tooooo spicy, but taste to your liking)
2 Tablespoons orange juice

Apricot Raspberry
this one produced more jars due to the extra fruit
8 cups Apricots, cut into 1/4″ pieces
2 cups Raspberry
1 cup sugar
1 cup vanilla sugar (i’ll be posting this recipe later this week, but basically sugar flavored with a vanilla bean)
2 Tablespoons Lemon juice

Things have been a little crazy around here, so busy that i haven’t had time to enjoy a happy hour. That’s just sad. I did collect a few recipes, any of which I would gladly imbibe.

Raspberry Limeade Cooler

Summer Fruit Sangria

Citrus Arnold Palmer

I hope you have the best weekend ever. I also hope maude doesn’t sit in gum ever again. It’s kind of a bummer.

Cheers!

This weekend we finally made it to the restaurant James. It got a lot of good press when it first opened about a month or two ago and it immediately went on our list of new restaurants to visit. After eating there, both Aaron and I agreed that the good press was well deserved.

There was a small wait when we arrived around nine on a Saturday, so we took a seat at the bar and perused the drink list. The cocktail list was quite lovely, with about 10 cocktails and they also had a selection of beer and wine. I went with the Ginger Fizz and Aaron chose the James Revenge (which is kind of like a Brooklyn). Both were good stuff.

Our table opened up in about five minutes, so we took our seat beneath their beautiful modern chandelier. The waiter took a while to visit us, but when he did we liked what he had to say. All the specials sounded delicious, but one stood out and I had to have it for dinner. Roast pork served with bacon and pear with a pork jous, I mean come on, how could I not get it. Aaron also picked a pretty dreamy sounding choice, pine nut and rosemary crusted loin of lamb with a summer bean stew. The thing is, just about everything on their menu sounded really, really good. That just doesn’t always happen at a restaurant, especially because, as much as I hate to admit it, I still have a little bit of a picky streak that runs through me.

Our entrees arrived and we were both more than ready to taste them. My pork was super tender and juicy, with tons of flavor. The bacon and pear weren’t quite what I expected because they were cut into small pieces and scarcely scattered around the plate. That being said, when I did get a piece of bacon or pear on my fork, it was so good. I actually couldn’t believe how much flavor a little piece of bacon could have. We switched meals half way through (this is something we almost always do at dinner… super nerdy and a little uncooth, but it adds excitement to every meal) and I couldn’t wait to taste his choice. Oh boy… I was not prepared for the goodness that entered my mouth with that first bite. I guess I hadn’t had that much experience with eating lamb, and it’s not that it tasted like I was eating something out of the ordinary, but it was just so flavorful. It was kind of like flavor squared, it took the normal flavor senses to a new level. Really, the meat had such good, rich flavor and then since it was topped off with rosemary and pine nuts it had a great textural thing going on. Yummmm.

Before we started the meal we decided to skip the small plate and save some room for dessert instead, so once our plates were cleared we were eager to try something sweet. We opted to go for one of the specials, a lemon curd tart topped with fresh blueberries from the market (bonus points) and a berry compote. When it arrived we both had to stop our drooling for a second to admire the beauty of the dish. But then we got over that and stuck our forks in. It was just as good as it looked. The crust was super buttery and delicous and gave a nice contrast to the tart lemon curd. The blueberries and compote brought in a lovely sweetness that topped everything off.

I was expecting good things when we went to James and it really exceeded our expectations. Everything is really fresh and flavorful with a few surprises lurking around to keep things interesting. I highly recommend a trip if you haven’t already been.

Given my new found luck with squash, I thought it was time to try out a new recipe. I found this one for squash and onions with brown sugar on the Kitchn and it sounded like a tasty but safe bet. Brown sugar, carmelized onions… now that’s my kind of dish. I whipped it up with ease the other night and it couldn’t have been simpler. Everything gets deliciously bronzed by the brown sugar and butter just as the texture starts to loosen and become soft.

The verdict: pretty tasty. The onion and brown sugar and a really nice richness but they still allow the flavor of the squash to come through. Definitely a good dish to if you’re just warming up to squash, but even if you’re not, you’ll still enjoy it.

Squash and Onions with Brown Sugar
from thekitchn
serves 21 large yellow squash (or 2 medium)
2 small onions (or one medium)
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 1/2 tablespoons brown sugar

1
Slice the squash into 1/2-inch rounds, cutting large ones in half. You should end up with roughly 2 cups of cut squash. Cut the onions into similar-sized slices.
2
Add the butter to a wide sauce pan that has a lid and heat over medium heat. When the butter has melted, add the onions and cook until soft, about 4-5 minutes. Add squash, salt, pepper, and brown sugar. Stir, then cover and cook for about 20 minutes, until squash is very soft.
3
Remove the cover and continue to cook for about 8 minutes, just to give the juices a chance to evaporate slightly. There will be some liquid in the pan, but it should be thicker than water, almost like a glaze. Season with more salt and pepper, if needed, and serve immediately.

Last week my friend Tom launched his new web site, The Scout. He explains it as “a city guide that features restaurants and shops that we support with a focus on design.”

It has great current events, like this workshop series that coincides with the recently released Beautiful Losers plus interesting articles about people who make really amazing things like the Nueharts. But I have to say, the thing that got me most excited was the bacon tour. It’s just such a brilliant idea, I can’t wait to try some of recommendations.

Congratulations Tom!

I think about 10% of my posts on this blog are dedicated to ginger. I have no shame, I just love the stuff. When Aaron and his officemates had a brilliant idea concerning ginger last week, they suggested I try it out. Originally it was suppose to be ginger ice cream with homemade ginger ale over top, but I didn’t have the dedication to make ice cream this weekend so I took a slightly easier route.

I picked up a pint of vanilla ice cream at the store and pulled my candied ginger out of the cupboard. After chopping a few pieces of ginger into small pieces, I mixed it in with my vanilla ice cream to make vanilla ice cream with ginger chunks. I put it back in the freezer for a bit to let it regain some consistency and got to work making my most favorite drink ever, homemade ginger ale. Once everything had cooled off, assembled my ginger float. All I did was add a few scoops of my chunky ginger ice cream, poured a little ginger syrup over it and topped it off with a little seltzer water.

The result was really, really good. I wasn’t sure if I’d like the vanilla/ginger combo as much as the straight ginger ice cream, but I think I like it even better. The vanilla really cooled the candied ginger down, so it became more of a creamy cool combination, rather than something spicy. I’m a fan of floats to begin with, but this is certainly a great variation of the classic root beer variety.

Ginger Float

1 pint vanilla ice cream
1/4 cup candied ginger, chopped
homemade ginger ale

1
Empty ice cream onto baking sheet with sides and spread out.
2
Cover ice cream with candied ginger and begin folding in. Once ginger is incorporated, put it back in the container and let it harden in the freezer.
3
Put 2 scoops of ice cream in a glass. Pour ginger syrup until it fills the glass 3/4 of the way full. Top it off with seltzer water and eat up.

Here are a few good articles for your reading pleasure this weekend:

Most Stained Cookbooks

The Farmer As Cult Hero

In Search of the Perfect Burger

I spotted this recipe for ginger infused limeade yesterday and thought it sounded like a good drink to try for this week’s happy hour. The problem is I’m a little bit lazy sometimes, so instead of getting limes, I picked up a jar of lime juice. And instead of fully reading the directions, I pretended like I memorized them. But apparently I didn’t. I concocted a beverage that consisted of ice, water, lime juice, a little chopped ginger and some rum, which ended up tasting a little like sour lime rum juice. I even told Aaron, you know, this would be much better with a little simple syrup or something, which if I had read the directions, I would have seen the recipe calls for agave which would have fit the bill perfectly. Whatev, we still drank it and it was ok, but I think you’d be better off following this recipe and adding a little tequila or rum. You win some you lose some.

Cheers! Have a great weekend!

I saw this recipe for baked french fries in the latest issue of bon appetit and thought I’d give it a whirl. For some reason I’ve always been intimidated by making french fries. I think every time I’ve made them they’ve don’t get done enough or are soggy… quite a bummer when it comes to fries. I feel kind of silly now though because these were super easy and the fries came out all golden and crispy. I skipped the coriander that the recipe calls for and used cilantro, but to be honest it didn’t really add much. Just some salt and pepper would be perfect.

You can find the recipe here or in the latest issue of bon appetit.