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magidThis weekend I was gifted with lots of wonderful, locally-picked blueberries. I ate a lot of them :-), but wanted to do something just a bit more elaborate with the rest. I didn't want to make a dessert (I don't have people coming over anytime soon, so I'd be the one eating all of it...), so decided jam would be the thing. I don't have any luck whatsoever with pectin, though, and blueberries don't have enough pectin to gel on their own, so I decided to make a cran-blueberry jam; cranberries have lots of pectin. Plus I'm a cranberry freak (I have cranberries in my freezer pretty much all the time, just to have cranberries available when I want them).
I took the rest of the blueberries (about twice the volume of a bag of cranberries, I think), a bag of cranberries, and a cup and a half of sugar. No water, no liquid at all, other than the juice in the fruit itself, which was plenty! The mass boiled vigorously, and I canned the molten purpleness, getting a pint and three half-pints, plus a little extra, for tasting. It's not very tart, but not incredibly sweet, either. Hooray for cran-blueberry jam!
As I headed to bed, I thought about other local fruit I could make into cran-X jam. Peaches would work. So would apricots. If I ever got enough raspberries that I'd want to make jam, that would be a nice red combination. Apples are more for applesauce and apple butter, not jam. Hm. What about melon? I know it's incredibly juicy (when ripe), but maybe the cranberry pectin would be enough. Cran-cantaloupe jam, anyone? (Watermelon seems the wrong consistency. And I'm not dealing with all those embedded seeds, either.)
Sunday I decided to make king's rice, a Persian recipe I like a lot: it's a top-of-the-stove recipe, and has an interesting blend of tastes without having any incredibly exotic ingredients to find. Also, I had lots of farm carrots to use, and farm garlic, and most of the other ingredients. The original recipe is for beef or lamb, with a variant using pieces of chicken. No problem: I can get kosher chicken in eighths at Trader Joe's. Or not, on Sunday. What to do? I debated changing the menu entirely, but I'd already decided what I wanted to do, so... I got some ground turkey, and a couple of boneless skinless chicken breasts, and made the recipe anyway. Really, it needs the heartier flavor of fattier meat, but the people who ate it seemed to like it, so I suppose the experiment wasn't too bad.
The general idea: layer a pound of julienned carrots, then already-browned onions and meat, then another pound of julienned carrots. On top of this, sprinkle lots of raisins, cloves of garlic (at least 2 heads), and pistachios. Top with rice (2 cups works for my large soup pot) that has been soaked in hot water for a while. Salt and pepper, then add enough water to cook the rice. Cover and cook for 40-60 minutes. The rice steams, and more than one person has been surprised that I was serving such a large pot of rice... it hides the other things underneath.
Late Friday afternoon, I still didn't have any idea what to make for a main dish for Shabbat. It had been too hot to think about cooking much until the wonderful thunderstorm cooled everything down, and I didn't have much around the house, either. I remembered a friend making something with cream of mushroom soup and tuna, so asked for more info. I got an email with more details, and decided to enhance it into something that felt nice enough for Shabbat.
I sauteed farm onions (one of which had some purple in it. cool.), then added a bunch of mustard greens, chopped up. Once that had cooked down, I put in some hot sauce, black pepper, and capers, then put in a can of cream of mushroom soup and a can of tuna.
Next time, I'll add some fresh mushrooms to the saute mix and use fewer capers. A different green might work better, too (spinach!), though all in all, I was pretty pleased with the results.
I took the rest of the blueberries (about twice the volume of a bag of cranberries, I think), a bag of cranberries, and a cup and a half of sugar. No water, no liquid at all, other than the juice in the fruit itself, which was plenty! The mass boiled vigorously, and I canned the molten purpleness, getting a pint and three half-pints, plus a little extra, for tasting. It's not very tart, but not incredibly sweet, either. Hooray for cran-blueberry jam!
As I headed to bed, I thought about other local fruit I could make into cran-X jam. Peaches would work. So would apricots. If I ever got enough raspberries that I'd want to make jam, that would be a nice red combination. Apples are more for applesauce and apple butter, not jam. Hm. What about melon? I know it's incredibly juicy (when ripe), but maybe the cranberry pectin would be enough. Cran-cantaloupe jam, anyone? (Watermelon seems the wrong consistency. And I'm not dealing with all those embedded seeds, either.)
Sunday I decided to make king's rice, a Persian recipe I like a lot: it's a top-of-the-stove recipe, and has an interesting blend of tastes without having any incredibly exotic ingredients to find. Also, I had lots of farm carrots to use, and farm garlic, and most of the other ingredients. The original recipe is for beef or lamb, with a variant using pieces of chicken. No problem: I can get kosher chicken in eighths at Trader Joe's. Or not, on Sunday. What to do? I debated changing the menu entirely, but I'd already decided what I wanted to do, so... I got some ground turkey, and a couple of boneless skinless chicken breasts, and made the recipe anyway. Really, it needs the heartier flavor of fattier meat, but the people who ate it seemed to like it, so I suppose the experiment wasn't too bad.
The general idea: layer a pound of julienned carrots, then already-browned onions and meat, then another pound of julienned carrots. On top of this, sprinkle lots of raisins, cloves of garlic (at least 2 heads), and pistachios. Top with rice (2 cups works for my large soup pot) that has been soaked in hot water for a while. Salt and pepper, then add enough water to cook the rice. Cover and cook for 40-60 minutes. The rice steams, and more than one person has been surprised that I was serving such a large pot of rice... it hides the other things underneath.
Late Friday afternoon, I still didn't have any idea what to make for a main dish for Shabbat. It had been too hot to think about cooking much until the wonderful thunderstorm cooled everything down, and I didn't have much around the house, either. I remembered a friend making something with cream of mushroom soup and tuna, so asked for more info. I got an email with more details, and decided to enhance it into something that felt nice enough for Shabbat.
I sauteed farm onions (one of which had some purple in it. cool.), then added a bunch of mustard greens, chopped up. Once that had cooked down, I put in some hot sauce, black pepper, and capers, then put in a can of cream of mushroom soup and a can of tuna.
Next time, I'll add some fresh mushrooms to the saute mix and use fewer capers. A different green might work better, too (spinach!), though all in all, I was pretty pleased with the results.