Has anyone been in a jam exchange?

During our Christmas cookie exchange someone came up with the fabulous idea of having a canning and jamming exchange. I've agreed to organise it, but I have no idea as to how it would work.

I think I'll send out a note to the cookie people (and a few others I know to can and jam) to gauge interest (with a September date as the actual exchange date) but I'm not sure what sort of "rules" these things have. If anyone has organised or participated in one, I'm interested in knowing how you set it up.

- Did you limit participants?
- Did you ask for them to let you know what they want to provide (to avoid having 12 types of strawberry jam)
- What size jars did you exchange (one cup, two cup, four cup bottles?)

Any suggestions are appreciated...

cheers!
jasmine

What I'm reading: The Children's Book by A.S Byatt

I'm a pen for hire!

Blackberry pan jam

Every once in a while I wonder why some produce in the mediumscarymegamart is relegated to the 50 per cent off rack.

Some things I can understand--apples that look as if they were stuffing from Muhammad Ali's punching bag, capsicums so wrinkly no amount of Botox would save them, bags of salad greens that look as if they were dredged from the local patch of wetlands.

Last week I rolled by the rack--they usually have giant bags of still-good mushrooms begging to be sent to a good home. No mushrooms, but four containers of absolutely lovely and almost blemish-and-fuzz-free blackberries (no, not the RIM crackberry). It could have been a mistake--whether "on purpose" (as in staff trying to get cheap food for friends who show up at the *exact* right time), or overzealous stockers trying to get rid of them for whatever reason (really, let's not guess)). But they had the neon pink triangular stickers screaming their affordability...I couldn't say "no" to that, so I bundled four containers into my trolley and went on my merry way to ponder the universes of sweet potatoes, roasting chickens and freezer bags.

Apart from nibbling on them here and there, or tumbling them on ice cream, I realised that I was a greedy guts and bought more than I could realistically finish before they really deserved to be on the discount rack. What to do what to do...

I suppose I could have frozen them, but nah. I came up with something better (well, for me at least)

Pan jam, that lovely makeshift jam perfect for small batches of fruit. I suppose you could sterilise a bottle or two and properly preserve them, but when you only have about a cup or two's worth of jam, it's just easiest to keep it in the fridge and have it with your morning toast, on ice cream or enrobe it in bits of leftover pastry (waste not, want not, I suppose).

And yes...whenever I think of or make "pan jam" Ram Jam starts running through my head...always Black Betty...which then makes me crave apple brown betty...with dollops of jam.

The recipe is rather loosey goosey. It is done to taste and is totally based on the sweetness of your fruit. My ratio of fruit to sugar is 10:1 by weight. So, in other words, for 100g of fruit, add 10 g sugar and then adjust if you want it sweeter.

Blackberry pan jam

300g blackberries, rinsed

30g sugar (plus more, if necessary)

a squeeze of lemon, lime or orange

a splash of vanilla

Add fruit and sugar to a pan over a medium hob. Stir together, eventually the fruit gives up its liquid and starts to become...jammy. Taste for sweetness and add more sugar if you want. Stir for about five minutes, add the citrus. Stir for another five-ten minutes, depending upon how thick you want the jam. Stir in the vanilla and decant to a bowl. Store unused jam in the fridge.

cheers!
jasmine

Sweet, spicy and just a little tart...y

Gosh...that title could be a bit of a self-descriptor, couldn't it?

Well, maybe not tarty...

How about "cognisant of her gods-given feminine attributes and will occasionally dress the part?"

Hmmm...tarty scans better...especially after some of the bordering-on-lascivious glances I got today. Lascivious in both senses: certain women disapproved of a particular blouse while certain men appreciated today's wardrobe choice.

Every once in a while it's good to do things like that. Stress on "once in a while" -- I'm sure if I dressed like that every day I'd either get a talking to about distracting the boys from their work while making the more body conscious slim-everythinged girls painfully aware that a thin middle isn't part of the universal definition of attractiveness, the lack of "professionalism" or "genuine concern" that I've gone off the deep end and am going through some sort of crisis/depression or have been taken over by the spirit of Cher.

So...why do I do it? I'm not sure I have a good reason--or any reason really. Do I need one?

Maybe part of the reason lies within a search for balance (or rebalance). I think I live a rather quiet life--I don't fly jets, swing from trapeezes or work for CSIS (even though I did consider applying)--so every once in a while I do something that brings out a different side to the usual Jasmine that most people have come to expect: take off (by myself) to a different country where I don't speak the language, be nearly deafened at a rock concert or wear something that's technically within the office dress code but would probably more appropriate at a bar, a concert or in a different country where I don't speak the language.

I guess the same can be said for cooking. Take a sweet, juicy and luscious tree-ripened fruit, and turn up the heat and add spices and a couple of hits of acid until you get a nice balance of sweet, tart, salt and sour. It's still recognisable as derrived from that original fruit, but it's got an injection of attitude that lets it play nicely with meats or a good wodge of cheese.

Yup...it's peach chutney. Thick and chunky, sweet and savoury with a gorgeous golden colour that will lift your spirits even in the dead of winter.

If you've never made chutney before, this is a really easy recipe and one you can do in an afternoon (as opposed to prep the night before). Even though it's okay to eat immediately, let it sit for about a month before spooning it out.



Lascivious peach chutney
makes approximately two litres

1.75 kg peeled, diced fresh peaches
2 tbsp pickling salt
675g sugar
375ml apple cider vinegar
2 dspn minced garlic
175g diced cooking onion
1 dspn powdered ginger
2 minced fresh red chillis (or to taste)
180ml lime juice
175g raisins
50g minced ginger, boiled in a simple syrup for about 15 minutes and then drained
20g plain flour
1 dspn dry mustard
1/4 tsp turmeric

Salt the peaches and let stand for about an hour (or longer, if you wish).

Simmer the sugar, vinegar, garlic, onion, ginger powder, chillis, lime juice and raisins. Drain the peaches (reserve the juice--you'll see why in the next post) and add to the pot. Bring the entire mixture to a good, ploppy boil.

Lower the flame and let simmer for about 30-40 minutes until soft and it begins to thicken, stirring occasionally. Add the boiled ginger and cook for another 10 minutes, stirring often.

Mix together the flour, mustard and turmeric. Take the pot off the hob and add the flour mixture to the chutney in several additions, stirring well between each spoonful. Return to the heat and stir for another five minutes until it reaches the thickness you want.

Ladle into hot, sterilized jars and store in a cool, dark place. I don't return the jars to the canner afterwards--I just wait for the lids to snap. If you get bottles that don't seal properly, then put the bottles into the fridge and finish those first.


Cheers!
j

In a jam

I've always found mindless repetition the panacea to the troubles that weight my mind. Washing dishes, polishing shoes, even alphabetising my shelves let my hands busy away, and my mind consider scenarios and reasonings, break through writer's block or even do simply nothing...to temporarily attain a much-needed respite from life's woes and stresses.

Easy and attainable therapy, I think.

A few months ago when I found myself as impotent in the kitchen as a eunuch in the Playboy Mansion, I turned to the restorative powers of automatic action. I tried favourite recipes--brownies, cakes--but the disappointing results added to my grief. It was late summer-early autumn when the markets were bursting with the last of hot season berries. Even though I could freeze them for later consumption, I felt as though I was admitting culinary defeat at a time when I should have been exploring my scullery's capabilities.

I suppose in such times it's easy to dwell on what one ought to do, as opposed to what one wants to do. This time, the ought and want melded into what became a bit of a tiger: instead of letting the last of Ontario's strawberry crop remain in their punnets for someone else more capable than I to handle, I bought the last remaining fruit and whisked them home to ponder their fates.

It had been years since I made jam or preserves of any kind. In fact the last bit of canning I did was in my last year at uni when I made some sweet and sour apple chutney as Christmas prezzies. Why on Earth I decided to get into jam-making escapes me. Perhaps it was a yearning to be part of something that was at once intimate and grand. Intimate because it happens in my kitchen with one other (in my case, Dear Little Mummy); grand because it carries both a sense of occasion (getting all the gear ready) and the knowledge that hundreds of other households also put away glinting bottles of sweet preserves.

After reviewing my books and my mother's clippings, I decided on Nigella's version for three reasons: it didn't use bought pectin; it offered the romantic potential of suspended berries visible through the jars' glass walls, and it used balsamic vinegar.

Quite honestly, I don't know how many bottles we made that weekend. Several batches, anyhow. It was easy and filled the kitchen with a heady almost candy-like aroma. Let's not overlook the decidedly therapeutic benefits of stirring and skimming.

The end results were jars filled with garnet jewels--not too sweet and nicely set. Many bottles were given as appreciation gifts to friends who helped me through these past few months, but between Mummy and I we held back about half a dozen bottles. Mine are squirrelled away and consumed carefully--sometimes on buttered toast or scones, sometimes on vanilla beaned ice cream, sometimes just on its own.

It will be months until we get such beautiful strawberries again.

Strawberry Jam
from Nigella Lawson's How To Be a Domestic Goddess

675g hulled strawberries (some can be chopped, others can be left whole)
700g sugar
2Tbsp lemon juice
1tsp balsamic vinegar

Sterilise four 200 ml jars and place a saucer in the freezer.

Put all the ingredients in a wide, heavy-bottomed saucepan and stir with a wooden spoon, until all the fruit is coated.

Put the pan on low heat and bring the berries to a boil, stirring occasionally. When it comes to a boil, let it blurble away for about eight minutes, and skim the froth off the top.

Check its set after five minutes and again every five minutes or so. To do this, put a bit of the jam on the saucer, let the jam cool a bit and give it a bit of a push with your finger. If it wrinkles and you can make a line with your finger, it's probably good to go (think of how you test custard using a wooden spoon).

Decant into sterilised jars.


cheers!
jasmine

JamsNigella LawsonPreservesStrawberries