Black Boy Peach & Raspberry Jam

There have been some exciting things happen here in Christchurch in the wake of the February 2011 earthquake.  Many interesting activities that have popped up around the city as a result of the Gap Filler project, quirky cafes and bars have taken up residence on demolition sites, and many of the city's broken buildings have become the canvas for unique artworks, all of which have given the city a real vibrance that it didn't have pre-earthquake.

But one thing that is very sobering is the number of whole suburbs that have disappeared, and have now become what we know as the Residential Red Zone.  In these areas the land became highly unstable and the Crown determined that it was uneconomic to repair or stabilise the land.  As a result the Crown acquired all the land from the home owners and all the houses were demolished.  What you see today is large areas of land now devoid of houses and people, but the gardens still remain, like a spectre of the neighbourhoods lost.  Walking around the red zone has an almost eerie feeling to it.  But to every cloud there is a silver lining, and these well established but abandoned gardens are a forager's paradise.

My home is less than 100 metres from the beginning of the red zone, and this week I have been gathering pears and several buckets of Black Boy peaches.  I also have my eye on feijoas, walnuts, figs, more pears, and olives - all yet to ripen.

Some of you may have never come across Black Boy peaches.  They are an old heritage variety, with a dark almost purple skin and pink flesh.  You generally won't come across them in supermarkets;  instead you are most likely to acquire some only if you know someone who grows them, or you might stumble across some at a farmers market if you're lucky.  Unlike other peaches, they are in my opinion better suited to stewing or poaching than eaten fresh, and they are also beautiful made into jams and chutneys.

This week at I Heart Cooking Clubs is Potluck Week, giving us the opportunity to cook with any one of our IHCC stable of guest chefs.  With the bounty of all the late summer produce around at the moment, preserving is high priority for me right now, and I've been spending a lot of time lately splattering the pages of Diana Henry's "Salt Sugar Smoke" with all manner of delicious sauces and jams.  I love Diana's approach to preserving and, seeking some inspiration for dealing with one of those buckets of peaches, this seemed like the ideal place to look.  I had been thinking along the lines of chutney actually, but then I stumbled across her recipe for White Peach & Raspberry Jam.  Since I had a stash of frozen raspberries to use up as well, I could go no further.

I made a few tiny tweaks to the recipe - firstly using these glorious pink fleshed peaches instead of white;  I included the zest from the lemons along with the juice, because why not:  and I added the grated flesh of one apple instead of the box of commercial pectin asked for in the original recipe.  Also once the jam has been made and bottled, Diana then puts the bottles through a canning process.  Personally, this is something I have never bothered doing with jam, and I've had no problem with them keeping for up to 12 months, but feel free to do so if you have concerns about keeping your jams for long periods of time.

The resulting jam, as you can see, has the most spectacular colour.  It's not overly sweet, has a softish set to it and incredible fragrance, giving this jam an almost seductive quality.  A dollop of this on top of some sourdough rye and carraway bread I picked up at the farmers market made the perfect start to the day for a Sunday morning breakfast.

If you're lucky enough to get your hands on some Black Boy peaches, I urge you to give this a try.

Black Boy Peach & Raspberry Jam Recipe
Adapted from recipe by Diana Henry
from Salt Sugar Smoke
Makes 4 large jars
Click here for a printable copy of this recipe

1.2kg Black Boy peaches (or whatever peaches you can get)
5 cups raspberries
grated zest of one lemon
juice of 2 lemons
1x apple, flesh grated
5 cups sugar

Place clean jars and lids into a low oven to sterilise them.

Meanwhile remove the skins from the peaches by plunging them briefly into a pot of boiling water.  Remove and plunge into a bowl of cold water.  The skins should then slide off easily.  Halve the peaches, remove and discard the stones, and cut the flesh into slices or chunks.

Put all of the peach flesh into a large, deep saucepan, along with the raspberries, lemon zest, lemon juice, and grated apple.  Crush slightly to start the fruit juices running, then set pan over high heat and bring to a boil.  Add the sugar, bring back to the boil, and continue boiling until setting point is reached (100 degrees C/220 degrees F on a sugar thermometer).

Allow jam to stand for 10 minutes to cool slightly, and then ladle into the hot jars.  Leave to cool before sealing with lids.

If you would like to get to know Diana Henry or any of our other IHCC chefs a little better, and to see all the wonderful Potluck dishes my friends have come up with, then do go visit I Heart Cooking Clubs and check out the links.

Jam Doughnut Muffins

Today is our Secret Recipe Club reveal, which means that I can now tell you the secret that I've been keeping for the last month ... the blog I was assigned this month was Food. Baby. Life.

I've had a month to poke around in Susan's blog, checking out lots of her posts, and getting to know her a little bit from afar.  And, actually as it turns out "afar" is not really that far, since Susan lives "just across the ditch" from me in Australia.

Susan started her blog nearly 5 years ago as a creative outlet during some major life changes, including the loss of her mother to cancer.  Since then she has married and has three wee boys, and what originally started out as a mostly baking blog has developed into a lot of family friendly fare, and a more healthy approach to her baking.

I have bookmarked a load of recipes on Susan's blog that I can't wait to make:  Kumara, Chilli & Coriander Soup, Beetroot Ravioli with Walnuts and Goats Cheese, Chickpea Salad with Curried Yoghurt Dressing, Curried Carrot & Chickpea Burgers, and Leek & Cheese Tart with Olive Oil Pastry, not to mention Soft Pretzels, No-Bake Lemon Slice, Peanut Butter Squares, and Panforte Ice Cream.

But, in the end, it was Susan's Jam Doughnut Muffins (and I love the fact that she spells doughnuts the same way I do) that stole my heart.  Let's face it, a muffin is great for breakfast, or a snack on the run.  A doughnut is even better ... actually, a whole lot better, but they can be a bit of a faff to make, and you have to wait a good deal longer for satisfaction, and I have to admit that delayed self gratification has never been my strong suit.  On the other hand, something that cooks up quick and easily like a muffin but tastes like a doughnut has got to be the best of both worlds.

I made a couple of small changes, replacing caster sugar with brown sugar, and melted butter in the muffins with coconut oil.  Coconut oil does solidify at low temperatures, so chances are you might have to dissolve it first - no biggie.  What I did discover though, was that as soon as I added the cold milk, the coconut oil started to solidify a bit - not completely, but a bit.  The upshot of that was that when I added the liquid ingredients to the dry ingredients, there wasn't quite enough liquid, so I added another 1/2 cup of milk.  As it turned out, I don't think this was a bad thing - the combination of the coconut oil and the extra milk delivered a muffin with a beautiful, moist texture and which tasted just as good the second day as they did straight out of the oven, and this my friends, as you probably know, is a rare thing in the muffin world.  (The quantities given in the recipe below are what I actually used.)  I also froze half of the batch, and I can tell you that once thawed they are every bit as good as the fresh ones were.  Only other changes I made ... I didn't have any buttermilk, so I used a combination of regular milk with a bit of natural yoghurt;   and I used homemade plum jam instead of strawberry jam in the middle - really any jam would be great, or even a dollop of nutella if you wanted to go the chocolate route.  Lastly, Susan says the original recipe was for six large muffins, and that is what she made.  She did however recommend making smaller ones, and since I knew that I would want to eat two of these babies in one sitting (no matter what their size), I decided it would be more prudent to make the smaller, regular-sized ones - smaller ones also give you, I think, a better jam to muffin ratio, which makes me smile.

Once the baked muffins are brushed all over with melted butter, then rolled in sugar and cinnamon, they seriously do taste for all the world like a doughnut, and I know for sure that this has become my go-to muffin recipe.

Jam Doughnut Muffins Recipe
Adapted from recipe from Food. Baby. Life.
Makes 12
Click here for a printable copy of this recipe

300g (10-1/2 oz) self-raising flour
pinch of sea salt
2/3 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup coconut oil
1 large egg
1 cup milk
1/4 cup natural yoghurt
1 tsp vanilla extract
good-quality plum jam
100g unsalted butter
1/2 cup caster sugar
1-1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C (350 degrees F) and grease a 12-hole regular-size muffin tin.

Sift the flour into a medium-sized bowl.  Add the salt and brown sugar, and stir to combine.

In separate bowl, combine the coconut oil, egg, milk, yoghurt and vanilla extract.

Add wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix until only just combined.

Put a spoonful of mixture into each muffin hole and make an indent in the centre. Fill each indent with a generous dollop of jam.  Top with the remaining muffin mixture and bake in the preheated oven for 20 minutes.

Remove from the oven and set aside to cool slightly.

Meanwhile, melt the butter.  Combine the caster sugar and cinnamon in a large bowl.

As soon as the muffins are just cool enough to handle, brush each muffin all over with the melted butter, then roll in the cinnamon sugar.

Serve while still a little warm (the jam in the middle really holds its heat so watch out!).

Hope you enjoy this dish as much as I did, and visit the links below to check out all the other great dishes my Secret Recipe Club friends made.

Also linked to Foodie Friday hosted by Designs by Gollam, Weekend Cooking hosted by Beth Fish Reads, and Sweet New Zealand hosted here at Couscous & Consciousness.

An InLinkz Link-up

Chocolate & Dark Cherry Jam Roly Poly

I've told you a bit before about the wonderful Indian family lunches we used to have at my grandparents' home when I was a kid, which may have had you wondering a little, since you can probably tell from my photo that I'm not Indian.  You see, my grandparents (and my mother), although of British descent were all born in India, and like many other Brits living in India at the time they chose to leave at the time of Partition.  Knowing that, when they arrived in New Zealand, they would have no servants here, my grandmother (who most likely had never boiled an egg in her life up to that point) called upon her cook to teach her how to ... well, cook!  Needless to say the cook taught her how to make a variety of Indian dishes which formed the basis of my grandmother's culinary repertoire.  This clearly sparked something in her, for she continued ever after to explore and experiment with different dishes, but in the end not many dishes escaped getting a bit of her "curry" treatment.  I can recall even wiener schnitzels which received a smear of curry paste either side before getting their egg and breadcrumb coating!

My mother, on the other hand, who was also a good cook and could equally whip up a great curry, tended to be a little more "Kiwi-fied" in her general culinary approach.  Like most other Kiwi households in the 60s and 70s, we largely lived on a diet of British classics - meat and three veg most nights of the week, and always dessert to follow.  Steak & kidney pie, fish & chips, scotch eggs, bangers & mash, jam roly poly, scones and trifle (at Christmas) were all regular fare in our household.

So, I certainly felt a flood of nostalgia when faced with our I Heart Cooking Clubs theme this week of "Fit for a Brit".  We continue to cook with Nigel Slater, who has so many interesting takes on classic British dishes that I had a hard time choosing what to make, but after leafing through my copy of Tender Vol. II (in the US this is published as Ripe: A Cook in the Orchard), it was Nigel's "Black jam roly-poly pudding" that rekindled a lot of memories.

Traditionally a roly poly pudding is usually steamed - in fact, it was often steamed in an old shirt sleeve, so that it was also sometimes called "shirt-sleeve pudding" or "dead-man's arm".  You've got to hand it to the Brits, don't you - they really do have great names for some of their dishes.  Care for some "toad in the hole"?  "Spotted dick" anyone?  (Sorry, couldn't resist).  Anyway, back to the roly poly.  As I was saying, it was traditionally steamed, but Nigel says he prefers his baked, and certainly any roly poly I remember from my childhood was baked.  As Nigel says, "Yes, the jam leaks a little ...", and indeed it does, but I kind of like the oozey bit of jam that escapes and creates a bit of stickiness around the edges and on the bottom.  No matter whether this is steamed or baked, however, you want a really good, well flavoured jam here, and a rich, dark coloured one is best.  Nigel suggests damson, blackcurrant, loganberry or elderberry.  I'm pretty sure the roly poly of my childhood would usually have been made with homemade plum jam, or possibly blackcurrant.  On this occasion I used a St Dalfour's black cherry.

While on the subject of tradition, I should also tell you that this dessert is normally made with a suet crust.  Suet is raw beef or mutton fat - usually the hard fat found around the kidneys - which needs to be grated or shredded before use (you can usually get your butcher to do this for you), and which like meat needs to be kept refrigerated and will keep only for a few days.  You can also buy packaged suet (Shreddo in New Zealand), which has been dehydrated and mixed with flour to make it stable at room temperature.  Obviously then you need to take some care if substituting packaged suet for fresh suet, because the fat to flour ratio will be different.  It's not clear from Nigel's recipe whether he uses fresh or packaged suet, but I imagine from the flour to fat ratio of roughly 2:1 that he uses fresh.  Either way, I couldn't find suet at my supermarket (and given the small quantity required, I probably wouldn't have bought it anyway), so I substituted with butter.  I'm not sure in what way a suet crust would have been any different, or maybe better, but I can safely say that a butter crust worked just fine.  You end up with a dough which is something like a soft scone dough, but which crisps up a bit on the outside like a soft cookie when baked.

In one final departure from the original recipe, I added a pile of roughly chopped dark chocolate to the filling because ... well, just because!  And, really, what's not to love about a buttery crust filled with jammy cherries and chunky chocolate.

Chocolate & Dark Cherry Jam Roly Poly Recipe
Adapted from recipe by Nigel Slater
from Tender Vol. II
Serves 4
Click here for a printable copy of this recipe

175g (6 oz) self raising flour
85g (3 oz) very cold butter, grated
1 tablespoon caster sugar (I used vanilla sugar)
160 ml (5-1/2 fl oz) cold water
70g dark chocolate, roughly chopped or grated
250g (9 oz) dark cherry jam (or other dark red jam)

Preheat oven to 220 degrees C (430 degrees F).

Sift flour into a medium sized mixing bowl.  Add the grated butter and sugar, and add the water to make a soft dough - add more water or flour as necessary to achieve a dough which is not too sticky and can be rolled out without sticking to the rolling pin.

Tip out onto a well floured bench, and roll into a 30cm x 20cm (12" x 8") rectangle.  Spread jam over the dough, leaving approximately 2cm (3/4") clear on one long edge.  Sprinkle chocolate over the top of the jam.

Brush the long clean edge of the dough with a little water, then roll up into a long sausage and press the wet edge firmly to seal.

Lift the roll onto a parchment lined baking sheet .  Bake in the preheated oven for 35 minutes or until golden.  (Note the dough is very soft - don't be alarmed if it splits in places and flattens out - this is part of its rustic charm and, as Nigel says, "it is what it is".)

Cut into thick slices to serve.  A dollop of good vanilla ice cream is a great accompaniment, as is a generous drizzle of runny cream or custard.

If you would like to get to know Nigel Slater a little better, and to see what everyone else has cooked up this week, then do go and visit my friends at I Heart Cooking Clubs and check out the links ...

... or check out Tender, Vol. II and Nigel's many other great titles available from Amazon USA, Amazon UK, or Fishpond NZ.

I will also be submitting this post to Sweet New Zealand.  Inspired by Alessandra Zecchini, and hosted this month by Marnelli at Sweets & Brains, Sweet New Zealand is an event for all Kiwi bloggers (whether living at home or abroad), or all foreign bloggers living in New Zealand, to link up their sweet treats.

I'll also be sharing this post this week at See Ya In the Gumbo hosted by the delightful Michelle at Ms. enPlace, at Weekend Cooking hosted by Beth Fish Reads, at Foodie Fridays hosted by Designs by Gollum, and at Cook Your Books hosted by the lovely Joyce at Kitchen Flavours.

                                 

Plum & Oat Bars

This week on our journey with Yotam Ottolenghi at I Heart Cooking Clubs, we're Going With The Grain.  I love all kinds of grains, and they form a significant part of my regular diet.  Flicking through my Ottolenghi cookbooks (Ottolenghi: The Cookbook, Plenty and Jerusalem: A Cookbook), all manner of quinoa, rice, farro, barley, freekah and bulgur wheat dishes appealed, but somehow this week I felt I wanted to get a little sweet with Yotam.

His recipe for Raspberry and Oat Bars from Ottolenghi: The Cookbook is one that I've had bookmarked for about three years and, deciding that oats were going to be my grain of choice, this seemed like the perfect opportunity to make it.

In the absence of some raspberry jam, I subbed in some of my homemade plum jam, and I found the tartness of the plum jam to be a good foil to the sweetness of the caramel nut topping.  Oh yes, there is caramel and there are nuts!  Came as something of a surprise to me too.  

Now I don't know about you, but when I come across something labelled as an "(anything) and Oat Bar", I'm mentally imagining something that has some kind of "oaty" topping, or which is vaguely akin to a muesli (granola) bar.  Even when I read through the recipe, I still didn't quite get what this was going to be like - quite possibly because I am not really a baker.  So when Ottolenghi says in the recipe introduction "Wonderful with a strong after dinner coffee", I was thinking "No way!"  Granola bars with morning coffee (possibly even for breakfast), yes, but with after dinner coffee, definitely not.  Were YO and I about to have our first disagreement - surely not.  Now, don't get me wrong, I was not for one moment doubting that these were going to be great, I just envisaged something that didn't quite fit with my idea of a postprandial sweet treat.

The end result is a light, shortbready, oaty base, topped with a layer of sweet-but-tart plum jam, and then the whole thing is topped off with a thick layer of nuts and caramel.  Oh, that topping!!  Gooey caramel and a mixture of macadamias, hazelnuts, almonds and cashews.  Seriously, this slice is all about the topping, so don't let that title confuse you - this is no dull little "health" bar - this is definitely a decadent little treat, and definitely lives up to its promise of being a great after-dinner treat.  I thought about changing the title to something which might more fairly represent what these bars really are, but then it occurred to me that, as long as I keep calling them "Plum & Oat Bars", I can convince myself that it's ok to eat them for breakfast!

I don't do a lot of baking, and so I don't have an extensive repertoire in that department.  I'm also a fairly "apprehensive" baker, so when something turns out great it both surprises and delights the heck out of me in equal measure.   Well let me tell you that these bars might just be the best thing I've ever baked, and it's exciting to discover that Ottolenghi can surprise and delight me in the sweet department as well as all the savoury dishes I've come to love.

I made a few small changes to this recipe.  Firstly, as mentioned I used plum jam instead of raspberry.  I adjusted quantities to fit the slice tin that I wanted to use, as opposed to the small square tin used in the original recipe.  And, I used a different combination of nuts:  the original recipe called for flaked almonds, pecans, hazelnuts and Brazil nuts.  Really you could use any combination you like.

Plum & Oat Bars Recipe

Adapted from a recipe by Yotam Ottolenghi

from Ottolenghi: The Cookbook

Click here for a printable copy of this recipe

For the base

170g (6 oz) plain flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

140g (5 oz) butter, cut into cubes

80g (3 oz) caster sugar

pinch of salt

110g (4 oz) rolled oats

For the filling

1-1/2 cups plum jam (I used homemade)

For the topping

400g (14 oz) assorted nuts, roughly chopped

(I used a combo of macadamias, almonds, cashews & hazelnuts)

140g (5 oz) butter

100g (3-1/2 oz) caster sugar

60ml (2 fl oz) milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees C (340 degrees F).  Lightly grease the base and sides of an 18cm x 32cm (7in x 12in) slice tin, and line it with baking paper.

Begin by making the base.  Sift the flour and baking powder together and put into your food processor.  Add the cubed butter, and blitz together until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.  (You could rub the butter into the flour by hand, but I'm an inherently lazy cook, so I'm happy for the food processor to do the work).  Remove to a bowl, add the salt, sugar and rolled oats, and mix to combine everything well.

Press this mixture (though not too hard) into the base of your tin, and bake in the preheated oven until lightly golden - about 20 minutes.  Remove from the oven and allow to cool.

Once the base has cooled, spread with the jam.

Now make the topping.  Place the chopped nuts in a bowl and set aside.  Put the butter, sugar, milk and vanilla paste in a small saucepan set over medium heat.  Stir constantly until the butter is melted and the sugar has dissolved.  Remove from heat, pour over the nuts and mix well.

Spread the nut mixture over the jam and return the pan to the oven until the nuts are golden brown - about 30 minutes.

Remove from the oven and leave to cool completely before removing from the tin.

Slice into bars or squares and serve.

If you would like to get to know Yotam Ottolenghi a little better, then do go and visit my friends at I Heart Cooking Clubs and see what they've all cooked up ...

... or check out Ottolenghi: The Cookbook and Ottolenghi's other great titles available from Amazon USA, Amazon UK or Fishpond NZ.

         

And while we're on the subject of Going With The Grain, check out these other grain-filled recipes from Ottolenghi I've shared before:

Aubergine & Lemon Risotto

Fried Zucchini, Pea & Quinoa Salad

This will be my submission this month to Sweet New Zealand, inspired by Alessandra Zecchini and hosted this month by Bridget at After Taste - can't wait to see what sweet treats everyone has come up with this month.

I will also be sharing this post at Food on Friday hosted by Carole at Carole's Chatter and at See Ya In the Gumbo hosted by the lovely Michelle at Ms. enPlace.

Fig, Vanilla & Chocolate Jam (Bayildi ev Kadini)

One of my favourite dishes is an aubergine dish called Imam Bayildi.  I love it not just for its deliciousness (what's not to love about aubergine, tomatoes, garlic & onions simmered in copious (and I really do mean copious) amounts of good olive oil), but I also love the name of it and the story behind it.  Loosely translated it means "the imam fainted" or some say "the imam swooned".  Opinion is divided, however, on whether the imam fainted with pleasure at the flavour of the dish, or whether in fact he fainted when he discovered the cost of the ingredients his wife had used in the dish (olive oil then being a very prized and expensive ingredient).  Either way, it's a "swoon-worthy" dish.

So why am I telling you this, and what could it possibly have to do with Fig, Vanilla & Chocolate Jam? Well, quite simply, when I scooped up a big spoonful of this jam on a hot, flaky, buttery croissant, I almost swooned myself with the sheer pleasure of it.  If only, I thought, I could come up for a name for this that might convey such delight.  If a magnificent aubergine dish can be called "the imam fainted", could this wonderous jam then perhaps be called "the housewife fainted"?  With a little bit of help from Google Translate then Bayildi ev Kadini is what I came up with - of course, I've placed a huge amount of faith in the translator here, so if this really says something horribly inappropriate in Turkish then you will let me know won't you?!

Fig, Vanilla & Chocolate Jam Recipe (Bayildi ev Kadini)

Makes about 3 cups

Click here for a printable copy of this recipe

1 kg (2 lb) fresh figs

500g (1 lb) sugar

2x vanilla pods

100g chocolate of your choice, roughly chopped

(I used Whittakers Hazelnut)

Cut figs in half and place in a heavy-bottomed, medium-sized pan along with the sugar.  Split the vanilla pods in half, scrape out the seeds, and add the seeds and the pods to the pan.  Stir a few times.

Set the pan aside and allow to stand for about 24 hours.  By this time the sugar will be mostly dissolved, and the fig juices running.

Set the pan over medium heat and stir constantly until the sugar is completely dissolved.  Now turn up the heat and boil rapidly until thick and gloopy and "jammy".  Towards the end you need to keep an eye on it - you want to take it to a stage where it is well reduced and it is just about to catch on the bottom.

Remove from heat and bottle into sterilised jars by putting a spoonful or two into the bottom of the jar, then add a layer of chopped chocolate.  Continue alternating layers of jam and chocolate until the jar is full.  The heat of the jam will melt the chocolate a little allowing it to ooze through the jam a little, but without melting it completely, so that when you dive into the jam you get some nice big chunks of chocolate.

Now you know what I'm having for breakfast tomorrow ... what will you be having?

This will be my submission this month to Sweet New Zealand, inspired by Alessandra Zecchini and hosted this month by Monica at Delissimon - can't wait to see what sweet treats everyone has come up with this month.

Tomato Basil Jam & Tomato, Feta & Basil Tarts

The wet and blustery, autumnal start to the day this morning notwithstanding, we are still blessed with glorious, sunny weather and tomato season continues unabated.  Sure, the great tomato harvest of 2013 in my own garden has now finished, other than now gathering the mass of green tomatoes which I know are not going to ripen - more of this amazing Green Tomato Cake coming up this weekend I think, and probably some pickled green tomatoes, which I will no doubt share with you.  In the meantime, I wanted to share with you this Tomato Basil Jam I made a few weeks ago using my own tomatoes, but tomatoes are still plentiful and cheap at the farmers market for those of you who want to try this before the season finishes.

This is another recipe I adapted from the book A Passion for Preserves by Frederica Langeland, which I told you about a couple of weeks ago.

Tomato Basil Jam

Adapted from recipe by Frederica Langeland from

A Passion for Preserves

Click here for a printable copy of this recipe

 

3 kilos (6 pounds) tomatoes

3x lemons

2x generous handfuls of basil leaves

3 cups sugar

Remove skins from the tomatoes - cut a small cross in the base of each tomato, put into a large bowl and cover with boiling water for 30-60 seconds.  Remove and plunge into cold water.  The skins will slip off easily.

Cut the tomatoes into quarters.  Set a strainer over a bowl and then, working over the strainer, scoop the seeds and juice out of the tomatoes into the strainer.  Put the tomato flesh directly into a large pot or preserving pan.  Using a wooden spoon press any of the pulp through the strainer, extracting as much juice and pulp as you can.  Discard the seeds that are left behind in the strainer, and add the extracted juice and pulp to the tomatoes in the pan.

Slowly bring the contents of the pan to the boil.  Then reduce the heat and simmer for about 45 minutes or until the volume has been reduced to about half.

Add the sugar to the pan, stirring constantly until the sugar has dissolved, then increase heat and boil fairly rapidly for about 10 minutes, until thick and "jam like".

Meanwhile, cut the lemons into quarters and flick out any pips.  Put the lemon quarters into a food processor, skins and all, along with the basil leaves, and blitz to a puree.

Now add half of the lemon-basil puree to the pan, stir to combine well, and then taste.  Then add more of the remaining lemon-basil puree, a little at a time, according to your own taste.

Spoon the hot jam into sterilised jars, until filled to about 3mm (1/8 in) from the top.  Seal with a sterilised screw lid.  Once opened, store in the fridge.

This makes a delicious accompaniment to an antipasto platter, to cold or grilled meats, slathered in a sandwich, wrap or burger, or anywhere that you might otherwise use something like chilli jam or sweet chilli sauce.  You could also use this on a pizza as an alternative to a traditional tomato sauce.

I love it on these simple tomato tarts.  Now, much as I love to make things from scratch, I did not make my own pastry and, in the immortal words of Jamie Oliver, I can think of no circumstance in which I would make my own flaky pastry.  That said, if you feel up to the challenge - then knock yourself out.  You can find a great recipe for making flaky pastry on this post from the lovely Alli at Pease Pudding, which post incidentally inspired these tarts.

Tomato, Feta & Basil Tart

Vegetarian

Click here for a printable copy of this recipe

Quantities are not critical here - this is really more of a method than a precise recipe

For each person, you will need:

1x square ready-made flaky pastry

generous dollop or two of Tomato Basil Jam (recipe above)

or substitute with a tomato pasta sauce or similar

fresh tomatoes, thickly sliced

feta cheese, approx 75g (2-3 oz)

fresh basil leaves, roughly torn

olive oil

flaky sea salt

freshly ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 200 degrees.

Use a bowl or plate to cut a circle from the square of flaky pastry.  Place pastry circle on a sheet of non-stick baking paper, and set on a baking sheet.  Without cutting all the way through, lightly score a second circle in the pastry, approximately 1cm (1/2 inch) in from the edge.  Using a fork prick the inner circle of the pastry all over.

Smear a generous dollop or two of the tomato basil jam all over the inner circle of pastry.  Now arrange tomato slices decoratively on top of the jam.  Crumble the feta and sprinkle over the top, and strew with torn up basil leaves.  Drizzle with olive oil and season with flaky sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Bake in the pre-heated oven for approximately 20 minutes, until the pastry is golden and puffed up around the edges.

Of course this is delicious straight out of the oven, but personally I like it served at room temperature.  If not serving immediately, slide the pastry off the baking paper and cool on a wire rack.

I'm also sharing this post at See Ya In the Gumbo hosted by the lovely Michelle at Ms. enPlace.

Yellow Tomato & Ginger Conserve

I need to make a small confession.  I’ve spoken much in recent posts about our fabulous tomato crop, which might lead you to believe that I’m quite the gardener.  In truth, I have a profound fear of pretty much anything bigger than an ant and smaller than a cat.  Not only does this include any rodents and rodent-like critters (e.g. hamsters, rabbits, ferrets, etc), but all manner of insects and garden creatures.  Creepy crawly things, such as spiders, cicadas, worms, caterpillars, earwigs, and so on, while seemingly harmless to most of you I’m sure, fill me with abject terror.  I also have quite a phobia about the feeling of dirt on my skin - yes, I know you can wear gloves in the garden, but I seem to have smallish hands and gardening gloves (even the small size ones) always seem so large, so that my hands seem to flop around in them like the proverbial in a bowler hat!

So, the long and the short of it is that my gardening prowess extends to supervising (something for which I’m convinced I have an absolute gift), staking up the tomato plants (it’s creepy and scary, but I can just manage that bit), and harvesting, which is of course the great joy of any vegetable garden.

As part of my harvesting duty, I’ve been gathering bowl after bowl full of these babies ...

Little yellow, tear-drop shaped, cherry tomatoes.  I like to eat these straight off the vine while I’m harvesting other things - it’s kind of like eating candy and feels like a bit of a treat for being brave enough to go into the garden.  I love them also tossed into salads and pasta dishes, and I’ve discovered that they make great jam.

I came across a recipe for Yellow Tomato Conserve in A Passion for Preserves by Frederica Langeland, which seemed like a great way to use up some of the surplus.  I adapted the recipe only slightly, adding some crystallised ginger in at the end, and the results were so good I couldn’t wait to make a second batch, which I made without the ginger (since not everyone is a ginger lover).  Both variations are exceptionally good.  The colour is gorgeous and I’m loving it on crumpets in the morning for breakfast, although I think there are enough savoury notes in the flavour that it could be paired with other foods in the same way you might a sweet chutney.  I’m thinking that this could be quite a nice accompaniment to Indian food.  Either way, I hope you’ll give this a try.

Yellow Tomato & Ginger Conserve Recipe

Adapted from recipe by Frederica Langeland from

A Passion for Preserves

Click here for a printable copy of this recipe

1kg (2lb) yellow tear-drop cherry tomatoes

1 lemon

4 cups sugar

1/2 cup water

knob or two of butter

1/4 cup crystallised ginger, very finely chopped (optional)

Trim the stem ends from the tomatoes and cut them in half.

Cut the lemon into quarters.  Flick out any seeds, and then cut the quarters into very thin slices.

Put water and sugar into a large pan, stirring constantly until the sugar is dissolved and you have a syrup.

Add the tomatoes and lemon slices to the pan, and cook until thick about 40-45 minutes.  Towards the end of the cooking time, stir in a knob or two of butter to disperse any scum.

Remove from heat and stir in the crystallised ginger if using.

Fill hot, sterilised jars to within .5cm (1/4 inch) of the top.  Using a damp cloth, wipe the rims of the jars clean, and put on the lids and screw on firmly.  Turn jars upside down for a couple of minutes, then turn upright again and leave to cool completely.

Chilli Jam

A friend at work recently loaned me her copy of Annabel Langbein the Free Range Cook, and one of the first recipes that I stumbled on that I just had to try was the Chilli Jam.

As luck would have it I had all the necessary ingredients on hand - red chillies, ginger, garlic, limes, kaffir lime leaves, rice vinegar - so I was good to go.

This is an absolute doddle to make.  The garlic, chillies, ginger and kaffir lime leaves are blitzed up in the food processor for a moment or two until you get a coarse paste.  The paste is then added to a saucepan with water, sugar, lime zest, rice vinegar, soy sauce and fish sauce.  All of which is then brought up to the boil, and then allowed to boil for about 10 minutes until reduced and "jammy".  Lastly the finished jam is poured into sterilised jars.

The finished "jam" carries a bit of warmth from the chillies and ginger, but being balanced out by the sugar is not excessively hot by any stretch of the imagination, and gets a good bit of "zing" from the lime.

Annabel suggests this as making a great dip for vegetable crudites, or tossing chicken pieces in the jam before baking.  I think shrimp would be great bathed in this jam before cooking and serving on some rice, and I think a good dollop would also be a wonderful accompaniment to corn fritters (or any other kind of fritter, actually).  It also tastes incredibly good just devoured by the spoonful straight from the jar!!

As I didn't make any changes to the recipe whatsoever, I'm not going to post it here, but direct you to Annabel's website where you can find the recipe here.

The Free Range Cook is a great book for busy cooks - simple recipes, with minimal ingredients, and with a strong emphasis on using fresh, seasonal, local produce - now that's my kind of book.

Available in New Zealand from Fishpond, in the US from Amazon, and in the UK from Amazon UK.

I am sharing this Chilli Jam at Cookbook Sundays, where my friends are delving into their cookbooks and sharing their recipes.  Hope you'll stop by and see what they've been cooking this week - maybe you'll even feel inspired to link up a recipe from one of your own cookbooks.

I'm also sharing this at See Ya In The Gumbo hosted by my friend, Michelle, at Ms. enPlace and at Foodie Fridays hosted by Designs by Gollum.

       

Making the most of summer's bounty

Well it's that time of year when my love affair with asparagus has given way to summer fruit. Really nothing says summer to me more than an abundance of apricots, peaches, nectarines, raspberries and strawberries, and this year (perhaps because the summer weather has actually been pretty crappy!) the fruit seems to be especially good. Interesting parallel - worst summer I can remember for about 15 years, best summer fruit I can remember for about as long.

So, needless to say, I have of course been indulging in plenty of unadulterated fresh fruit - big bowls of it every morning, but I've also been cooking with them and trying to set some aside to enjoy a bit of summer in the middle of winter.

I've made lots of sorbet ...

... raspberry, white fleshed nectarine, and apricot. My apricot sorbet is made using this recipe from Stone Soup. For my nectarine sorbet I used David Lebovitz's recipe - David is after all close to Godliness, in my opinion, in matters of frozen desserts! That's my nectarine sorbet in the top right corner of the picture above, which as you can see is quite a lot paler than that in the picture on the recipe link. I suspect that is because the nectarines I had were white fleshed ones, and that yellow fleshed ones would deliver a deeper pink sorbet, though I still think my pale pink version is very pretty. My raspberry sorbet is made using the following recipe adapted from the "River Cafe Italian Kitchen" cookbook. This has really intense flavour, and the colour is just drop-dead gorgeous.

Raspberry Sorbet Recipe

Makes about 1.5 litres

vegan, gluten free

800g fresh raspberries

1 whole Meyer lemon, preferrably organic, plus

juice of 1/2 lemon

350g caster sugar

Wash the lemon thoroughly, and if you are not using an organic lemon give it a good scrub to remove any wax that might be on the skin. Then cut the lemon (skin and all) into smallish pieces, discarding any pips, and put into a food processor. Put the caster sugar into the processor with the lemon, and blitz until you have a thick puree with little bits of lemon peel still visible. Add the raspberries and blitz again until everything is combined. Add the lemon juice, and taste. At this point you may add a little more sugar if the raspberries are too tart, or you may want to add a little more lemon juice - the lemon flavour should be noticeable but not overpowering.

Chill the puree for several hours (I like to leave it in the fridge overnight). Then pour the puree into an ice-cream maker and churn according to your machine's directions.

First note: You may want to strain the puree before churning to remove the pips. Personally I don't - I think it is inherent in the nature of raspberries to have pips, and I like the slightly more rustic nature and texture of an unstrained sorbet.

Second note: If you don't have an ice-cream maker - go and get one today before summer is over. I promise you won't regret it. Contrary to what you may think, this does not have to cost you a lot of money. Whilst it is true that I covet a "serious ice-cream machine", with a built-in refrigeration unit, that might set me back $1,000-$2,000, Mr Snowy here does the job just fine and he only cost about $40. I think normal retail for this is about $80, but I picked this up in one of those 50% off electrical goods sales that Briscoes have just about every second weekend. Or there are literally dozens of similar machines available on TradeMe at almost any time.

Of course the sorbet you make now is not going to keep all winter - after a while it starts to go all icy and the texture changes. But I'm very excited to have come across this recipe for Roasted Apricot Sorbet on Couldn't Be Parve. I haven't actually made this recipe yet (though I did pass the link on to a friend who has made it and declared it to be "absolutely divine"), but I have roasted several batches of apricots (6kg in all) and put them in the freezer to make into sorbet during the winter. Let me tell you that when I had a wee taste of the first batch I almost went weak at the knees - they taste soooooo good!! I know that these are going to make the most heavenly sorbet, but they would be divine as they are on good vanilla ice-cream, or dolloped on top of crumpets instead of jam, or used to fill a tart ... or just eat them straight out of the pan when no-one's watching.

I have plans to also roast some nectarines and some peaches this week, as I see no reason why I shouldn't be able to treat them exactly the same way. Will keep you posted on progress.

And speaking of jam, I've made some Apricot & Vanilla Jam using this recipe from Trish Deseinne.

I made this jam, exactly according to the recipe and I will definitely make this again. There is absolutely nothing that I would change about this - it is probably the best apricot jam I think I've tasted for years. It is not too sweet and the set is just perfect - I think it's the lemon juice that helps on both these fronts. I ended up with about a dozen jars, and don't you just love my special labels I produced ....

I'm so excited I have been labelling everything in my pantry!! These are relatively inexpensive, and available in any quantity - even very small quantities (just half a dozen, or even just 1 or 2) if you want them. If you're interested in some labels of your own for your pantry ingredients or preserves send me your query via the "Contact Me" box on the sidebar of this blog. I know that's a little bit Martha, but then for someone who is obsessive about folding (my folding of fitted sheets is legendary), this should come as no surprise.

I hope this has inspired you to do something with all that beautiful summer fruit that's out there right now. Please leave me a comment and let me know what you've been doing with summer's bounty.