Farm Fresh Harvest Pasta Sauce

Just days before our trip, while I was in fact hip deep in Concord grapes, cherry tomatoes, and other fresh produce that wouldn't wait for our return, we stopped to chat with a neighbor while on a walk through the neighborhood....

This neighbor, who has a small farm, was busy that day harvesting everything she possibly could before they moved. They were being forced out, not by a giant food conglomerate, and not by the government policies that hobble small farms. No, it was the simple act of their rent being raised to the point where they could no longer afford to remain. It's a sweet little farm with a tidy little house to one side with contented cows, happy pigs, and chatty chickens wandering about. The kind of sweet little farm that could only exist because of the hard work and commitment of two conscientious and genuinely nice people.

She asked if we'd like some tomatoes
Well, we couldn't say no. Who can say no to homegrown tomatoes? We may have had a truckload of cherry tomatoes this summer, but it's a little hard to make a BLT with tomatoes the size of marbles. So we finished our walk and Hubby went back over with a bowl. What he returned with were the most glorious Roma tomatoes I'd ever seen. There were a couple of big heirloom beauties also, and an onion that left me speechless, it was so fat and healthy looking.

Concord Grape Jelly (and the errors of my ways)

So.... I mentioned having a ton of grapes the other day. Well, it wasn't really a ton... it was 13 pounds. I exaggerated. I can't even say that it seemed like a ton of grapes. I've actually had hands-on experience with what an actual ton (or twenty) of grapes is like when Hubby and I help with the wine crush at our favorite winery each autumn.

Our harvest of Concord grapes was like a drop in the proverbial bucket (barrel?) compared to that. But since my backyard is a far cry from ever being called a vineyard and my kitchen is certainly no winery... those 13 lbs. still seemed like a whole awful lotta grapes.

Making the most of what we've been given
The vines came with the house, stealthily growing under the ivy on the back fence. And although we didn't plant them, pay them any attention, or even want them... there they were: fat, juicy, sweet, abundant, and free. They were a truly a gift to us, and I wasn't about to waste them.

Freezer Jam Of The Golden Sun

Forget the moonbeams and butterflies, or catching falling stars that will fit in your pocket... that's just the stuff of sappy love songs. You can however, catch the summer sunshine and keep it in a jar. At least that's what this jam tastes like to me. Tomato sunshine.

Picture yourself in the middle of winter... it's cold, it's wet, the weather is miserable. You take a jar out of the freezer to thaw. You toast some rustic bread until it's crisp and golden, add some good flavorful cheese—maybe an aged cheddar or smoked Gouda—then pry off the lid of the jam jar and dollop this golden orange stuff over the top. You're transported. You suddenly remember the smell of your hands after picking tomatoes last August. You get a flashback of a warm ripe tomato bursting sweet in your mouth and forever defining the word "summer". It could happen. In fact, I'm planning on it.

Harvest Gold
I've got Sungold cherry tomatoes practically coming out of my ears right now, and while I love them, I know this gloriousness won't last much longer. So I'm "saving for a rainy day" the only way I can right now and capturing the very essence of summer sunshine in a jar for later. 

When I read this recipe, I just knew it would be amazing made with our Sungold cherry tomatoes. Some of them are so sweet, they stop tasting like tomatoes at all and say with assurance, "You see, we really ARE a fruit!". I made one batch at first just to try it out. I filled two half-pint jars, lidded them, labeled them, and stuck them in the freezer. With the bit that was left over, I dolloped it over toast with brie. Two or three times. The creamy pungency of the brie with the sweet, earthy tomato jam... my, oh my... oh my.

Sungold {Cherry Tomato} Freezer Jam

adapted from: The Vanilla Bean Blog

4 cups Sungold cherry tomatoes
1-1/4 cups sugar
a pinch of sea salt

1. Wash the tomatoes and cut them in half.
2. Put them in a heavy pot with the rest of the ingredients.
3. Bring mixture to a boil then drop the heat down to a simmer.
4. Cook the jam until thickened, 60-90 minutes, stirring frequently.
5. Jam is done when you can swipe a finger across the back of your spoon and the path remains.
6. Blend briefly with an immersion blender if you'd like a smoother texture.
7. Let cool and transfer to jars.
8. Refrigerate for up to two weeks, or freeze for 6 months.

Yield: 2 to 3 cups.

Notes: Flavor is the name of the game here, so obviously you'll want to use only homegrown or farmer's market cherry tomatoes. This recipe doubles well. My first (single) batch made just over 2 cups. The next time I made it, I doubled the recipe and got just over 5 cups. Can't wait to try this on a grilled cheese sandwich, panini, cheeseburger... hmm, what else?

Sub Lime

Project: Use It Or Lose It (Lime Edition) finally came to an end early last week, and it was none too soon. There was one lime left and Thanksgiving was looming large on the horizon. It was time to gear up for holiday cooking. Still hovering over me was the all too recent memory of The Great Lime Marmalade Disaster of 2010*. One lime left... make it good.

I love the idea of blackberry and lime together, so I adapted a favorite cookie recipe from last year and delighted in the result (that means we ate a whole lot more of them than we probably should have). It might be a good idea to wait for a party before making these.

Limes Fly When You're Having Rum

A well crafted Mojito can be a beautiful thing. Tropical yet bracing with a hint of sweet, a wisp of sour and a kiss of mint. Tall, cool and refreshing, it's the perfect quencher on the hottest of muggy summer days. Those are precisely the kind of days when I feel most like a slug however, and slugs don't have the energy (or thumbs) to make a well crafted... anything. What's a thirsty girl to do? Short of hiring a cabana boy (which might get awkward if she doesn't have a cabana), she can quickly mix up the ultimate "Faux"-jito. Basically it's little more than a spiked Italian soda, and I will admit here and now that it will fool no one (unless maybe they've never had a real Mojito before). What my Mojito Syrup does best is to approximate a Mojito. Go ahead and call it a lazy-girl's Mojito. For that is exactly what it is... and I am that lazy girl.

Why am I talking about tropical drinks and heat waves in November? It's because of the 5-pounds of limes I bought of course. I made up a double batch of this Mojito syrup... so that's 6 more limes used up and the last of the fresh mint too (at least until next spring when it will miraculously revive and dominate the side yard once again). Don't ask me how many fake mojitos this makes... I could figure it out, but I don't think I want to know.*

Next Lime, Things'll Be Different

Yesterday there was a big bowl of limes on my counter. I found a Lime Marmalade recipe in a book I have on preserving, and there was a Lime Curd recipe on the facing page. Between the two of them, I felt I would make good use of the limes and have a couple of tasty treats to stash in my pantry to boot. So much enthusiasm, so much eagerness and optimism. There's only one place for all that unabashed positiveness to go... yep, right into a brick wall.

You see, the Lime Marmalade turned out beautifully except for one little detail... it's bitter. B-I-T-T-E-R. And I can't stop moping like a small child. Out came the old "kick me, I had a food-fail" mental whine-list. It goes something like this: What a waste of... time, fruit, sugar, canning lids, electricity, and oh, all that clean-up afterward... for nothing! Ugh! (now repeat multiple times)

Was it any wonder that I had major amounts of trepidation about making the lime curd today? I dragged my feet for as long as I could but I knew that if I didn't make it today, it just wasn't going to happen. I hung what little hope I had on the stick of butter that goes in it. Marmalade has no butter in it, but curd does... and butter makes everything better, right? With a stick of butter as my shield and banner, I marched myself back into the canning-arena (formerly known as my kitchen).

Meyer Van Marmalade

Marmalade. Just say it slowly a few times: mar-ma-lade. Slightly exotic sounding, it's name reveals a somewhat more complex nature than its sisters, Jam and Jelly. They're both sweet girls of course, everybody likes them, but marmalade has seen a little of the world, lived life, and has come home to tell you about it.* Both the dark and the light of it; the bitter with the sweet.

Traditional orange marmalade was essentially born from someone making the most out of what they had: in this case, a boatload of inedible bitter oranges. In a country that is not exactly known for its sunshine and citrus, they were probably happy to get whatever of those exotic fruits that they could.

My favorite store-bought marmalade was from Scotland and came packaged in white glass jars. It was an occasional special treat when our budget allowed. I would keep the jar in the fridge and only use it on weekends, when I wasn't in a hurry and could appreciate it more. It has virtually nothing in common with the domestic brands available, and is a world away from the little plastic single-serving packets found in diners and chain eateries in this country. Good orange marmalade is like dark sunshine in a jar. And it is at its best when smeared thickly on top of crispy hot sourdough toast that's been slicked with butter... and accompanied by a big mug of strong hot tea.

From Pâte de Fruit To Plum Jam

Today I recooked the two big jars full of failed Pâte de Fruit from two weeks ago with half of a split vanilla bean until all the sugar from the outside of the candies dissolved. When it reached temperature I filled pint jars and processed them in the water canner according to directions in the Ball Blue Book Guide.

I ended up with just under two and a helf pints of Plum Vanilla Jam. The vanilla is not super noticeable, but it was only an afterthought after all. The jam is a little on the thick side (due to all that extra time in the cauldrons), but it tastes pretty good, and slathered on a crispy hot piece of buttered toast... you'd never know it was once a botched batch of Pâte de Fruit.

psst... I won't tell if you don't!

• Plum Jam adapted from Plum-Vanilla Preserves recipe, page 308, Williams-Sonoma Holiday Favorites, 2004.
• Remake instructions for "soft spreads without added pectin", page 122, The Ball Blue Book Guide to Preserving, 2009.

Blackberry Syrup

I am over my love of real maple syrup. When we needed to take out a loan in order to buy some, I said, "That's it. We're breaking up." Who needs it anyway? (Shush! Me too, I'm just not admitting it.) I don't think I've ever heard of a year when the blackberry crop was set back by a bad winter. Certainly not in California. Heck, have you ever even tried to get rid of a blackberry vine growing in your yard? God love 'em, they just keep coming back, year after year, after year. You know that saying about lemons? Well, it applies here too: If life hands you a ton of free blackberries, maybe think about making syrup with them. Make a big batch of it for all the pancakes, waffles, oatmeal, yogurt and ice cream you'll have in the coming year. And while you're at it, blow "raspberries" at those maple-tapping syrup producers and their high-priced tree sap.*

• Blackberry Syrup (also Blueberry Syrup and lots of other good canning info to check out)

*Yeah, I know... when prices come down I'll probably be in front of you in line to buy it. But that doesn't diminish in any way the total summer-in-the-middle-of-winter goodness that is homemade blackberry syrup on a stack of hotcakes in January. In fact, while you're at it, throw a vanilla bean in with it.

ER Jam Session

It's 1:30 a.m. and I just finished making a batch of ER jam. Yes, emergency jam. The strawberries we bought just two nights ago needed to be used "stat!" (right away), and the blackberries that we picked this morning were so ripe they were falling apart while we were picking them. Oh, and it was a scorcher today. Surely, the kitchen (and I) would get over-heated during this whole thing, so I waited until late at night to start. The fog never came in, and it never cooled off. Bad weekend for this venture, I'm afraid.

Overall, it went pretty well. Most of the delays and hitches were due to my attempts at coordinating everything this first time out (in other words, my not knowing what to do). Who can you call after midnight with jamming queries? There is no 24-hour jam-support hotline that I know of (unless you have a Mom who is a jam-making night-owl). I just did my best and prayed it would all work out and not end up being a colossal waste of time, money, fruit, water, utilities, and oh yeah, sanity. In the end, the lids all "pinged", signaling a good seal. The next day all the seals passed their test and were holding tight. All was right with the world. Except for this darned heatwave.

Triple Berry (ER) Jam
I followed this recipe for Bumbleberry Jam, substituting blackberries for raspberries and doubling all the quantities. The final yield was 1 quart (divided between 1/2 pint jars).

Notes: I had read that wild blackberries had more seeds than proper varieties, so I ran mine through a food mill (medium) before I did anything else. Got rid of most of the seeds and ended up with a bowl of opaque purple slush (some might call this "dye"). Then I picked over and washed the strawberries. I had a little more than 4 cups of them and the recipe called for 2 cups, so I decided to double it. There was certainly plenty of blackberry "slurry" and I had lots of blueberries. The jam came out a little thick, but it's spreadable. The blackberries kind of steamrolled the other berries in terms of color and even flavor, but they all add to the overall taste of it.

Bumbleberry Jam

What else can you do with a whole bunch of fruit? Make jam! Sometime in the next week or so, I will make my first batch (ever) of jam. I like the idea of making an entire year's worth of something in one afternoon. Sweet!

This recipe I found on gardenopolis looks like the front-runner so far... Blueberry-Strawberry-Raspberry No-Pectin Jam. We're starting to see blackberries ripening on the roadside, so I may use those instead of the raspberries (free is always the most cost-effective option afterall). And then I can call it "Brambleberry Jam"!

Strawberry Jam

A smattering of pectin-less strawberry jam recipes...

• Easy Strawberry Jam recipe at intimateweddings.com
• a simple strawberry jam recipe that I found at Allrecipes.com
• Classic Strawberry Jam plus a recipe for Lemon Scones to go with it!
• Berry Jam Formula from the NCHFP.