Hedonia

Jam session

Work has been kicking my butt the last couple of months, likewise DPaul, and so we've not had quite as much time nor inspiration in the kitchen as normal. But it is summer, and with such gorgeous fruit exploding in a riot of color and fragrance all over the farmers market each week, I find myself repeatedly returning with armloads of the stuff. I cannot help myself. The season for perfectly ripe summer fruits is so fleeting and ephemeral, I am always compelled to capture that moment in time and preserve it.

Preserve. Preserves. The act of taking that impeccable piece of fruit and locking it in stasis, like an ant encased in amber. I'm obsessed.

Pear butter

Nick had worked out an arrangement with one of the vendors at the Galleria farmers' market to buy off all her bruised fruit for a song. "Don't be alarmed by 50 lbs. of pears," said Nick. "We don't have to peel them." Grand. Still, we did have to core, chop and cook them down. The pumpkin butter was sealed and done, and the fig jam was well underway by the time we even began dealing with the pears. Russ and I set to work, converting ourselves into pear coring machines, filling container after container with 1" cubes of slippery pear flesh. In the end, we barely got through half the pears before deciding we wouldn't have the time -- or energy -- to finish the job all in one shot.

Some of the pears got a little scorched, but as we lovingly ladled the puree into our jars, being careful not to dislodge any actual burnt bits from the bottom of the pot, it had a dedidedly not unpleasant burnt-sugar aroma, so we joked that they became caramelized pear butter. Truth be known, we're into one of the jars of scorched stuff now, and in fact it has a delicious caramel flavor. I wouldn't recommend attempting this deliberately, but if it happens know that all is not lost.

This recipe comes to us from our friend George, or more accurately from his mother, Peg. As far as I'm concerned, any canning recipe that comes from a little old lady in Nebraska simply has to be good. Like the fig jam, this recipe uses only citrus rind for pectin. The resulting pear butter has a pleasantly creamy texture. It bursts with citrus and spice flavors, but still screams "pear" throughout. We're already well into consuming our second jar of the stuff. Glad we canned so much of it.

(Photo: DPaul Brown)

Fig jam

Is there anything more beautiful and mouth-watering than a juicy, perfectly ripe fig? It seems to me the fig would be a far more appropriate symbol of temptation than the apple, but I wasn't consulted on the matter.

Fig preserves are not only delicious but versatile. My favorite application is a classic Bolognese dessert, paired with squaquerone, or a good fresh (read: homemade) ricotta.

This recipe calls for no commercial pectin, instead relying on the natural pectin in lemon rind for thickening. We adapted from a recipe on Cooks.com, replacing some sugar with honey to accentuate figs' natural honey notes.

You soften the figs first by steeping them in boiling water, then mashing them and cooking them down. The water turns a gorgeous, brilliant magenta color. I so wanted to figure out something to do with it, but in the end it was just fig water, and down the drain it went.

The resulting jam is glossy and purple-black, with constellations of tiny seeds throughout. I can hardly wait to crack into one of the jars.

Pumpkin butter

I don't know what made me think of pumpkin butter, nor can I think of when I first (or last) had it. Although like most fruit butters its roots are almost certainly Southern, I'm pretty sure I had it growing up in the Northeast. All I know is that I love all things pumpkin-y and squash-y, and the idea of having a jar or two of pumpkin butter around just sounded like a very nice thing indeed.

I cruised the intertent, and ultimately settled on a pumpkin buttter recipe on About.com. Many recipes out there called for canned pumpkin, which struck me as being really beside the point. I prefer to start with whole, unprocessed foods, and wanted to make this from actual pumpkin. This recipe also was relatively simple, and had few ingredients. It did call for pumpkin pie spice, which I don't stock, so I used a modified version of another About.com recipe for pumpkin pie spice, which used spices I had on hand. We doubled the recipes to make 12 half-pint jars.

We used sugar pumpkins, which in my mind are the only true cooking pumpkins. They have a pronounced pumpkin flavor and are not too fibrous. Carving pumpkins are best left for that purpose only. I suppose this recipe would translate well with butternut, Hokkaido or kabocha squash, as they too have an innate sweetness.

Perhaps the most interesting part of this process was watching the transformation of the pumpkin from chunks of soft, yellow flesh, to a thick paste, to a smooth purée and finally a glossy, rich, orange butter. And hooboy, does it smell good.

I will not go into detail on how to can. It's more information than I can post here. I recommend two books: The Complete Guide to Home Canning and Preserving, by the USDA, and Canning & Preserving for Dummies by Karen Ward. They break it down for you, and provide a wealth of recipes as well. All I will say is that the dishwasher is your best friend. We used it to sanitize the jars, and when you're dealing with several dozen, it makes short work of it.

(Photo: DPaul Brown)

Put up or shut up

I've been threatening to can all summer long, but never got up the gumption. But when our friends Nick and Russ contacted us about canning up a bunch of stuff this past weekend, we jumped at the chance. That Nick chooses to spend his birthday weekend cooking and canning is but one of the reasons we love him so.

It was dirty, sweaty, steamy, grueling work, but the fruits of our labors were great: 12 half-pints of pumpkin butter, 28 half-pints of fig preserves and 38 half-pints of pear butter ... and we only conquered about half of the pears that they brought. (Nick is finishing the remainder today.)

I'll be posting notes, recipes and photos over the next few days, so stay tuned!

(Photo: DPaul Brown)

Apricot refrigerator preserves

I've been meaning to do a bunch of preserving and canning this summer, but just haven't gotten up the gumption to do it. But I can't bear to see all that lovely fruit pass by without doing something with it, so I'm being half-lazy and just making preserves and not canning them.

I love apricot preserves best of all, and use quite a lot of it, so that was the first and most obvious choice. I do also have a handful of very ripe prunes that are just screaming to be preserved, so that might be today's endeavor.

As usual, almost all my food inspiration comes from the blogosphere, so I took my cue from maki at i was just really hungry. I didn't have quite as many apricots as she, so I had to scale the recipe somewhat. I also, um, forgot to add the lemon juice toward the end.

The end result, though, worked out fine. I'm glad I forgot the lemon juice, as the preserves are still fairly tart. But they have a bright apricot flavor and a wonderful aroma. My permutation of maki's recipe after the jump.

Conserved lemons, cont'd

You know what? I'm not going to be one of those bloggers that states the obvious, noting that I haven't gotten around to blogging for the past few days. Nor am I going to be apologetic or contrite about it. Nope, not me.

Anyway, I haven't had much to report, certainly culinarily, and I've been damn busy it seems. Sunday's tour went very well, even with the throngs of people in the park. (Bravi Azzurri!) In fact, it added a nice element to the tour. I felt like I was being cheered on by the masses. Go Sean!

Meanwhile, the conserved lemons have slowly deflated due to the combined power of salt and periodic pressure. Today was day six, the point at which you cover with oil. And now we wait. For a month. Time to start planning a Moroccan feast in mid-August!

No matter. They smell fantastical, sweet and lemon-tangerine-y, like Froot Loops. Really salty Froot Loops. I can hardly wait for the final product.

When life gives you lemons...

Conserve them!

My friend Greg, his girlfriend and his brother recently purchased a home one scant block from my place. In their backyard is a glorious, well-established Meyer lemon tree, positively exploding with lemons. For weeks, I procrastinated dropping by to raid it, but finally had the occasion last week. I brought home a healthy bag full of petite and extremely fragrant yellow fruit.

A few went straightaway into an infusion. Knowing from past experience that the pith makes for a very unpalatable infusion, I just barely zested a couple of the lemons into a container, then set about supreming the fruit. As these are seriously tiny things, and the segments are quite thin indeed, it took nearly surgical precision to extract a few fleshy slices of pulp. But the deed is done, and there will hopefully be a small burst of lemony liquor in my near future. (No pic of the infusion -- it's not exacly photogenic right now.)

But the other thing I've been wanting to do with lemons is conserve them. I do like to make Moroccan/North African dishes from time to time, and it is the one ingredient I am always without. You can substitute fresh, but it just doesn't have the same zing. Besides, I think it will make a fabulous addition to nearly any recipe, regardless its provenance.

Pretty much all the research I've done on making conserved lemons says the same thing, but I did find one handy resource that came with photos here. And, so, that is pretty much the recipe I'm going to stick to. This is not instant-gratification food, though; I've got a month ahead of me, and several steps along the way, before I'll get to enjoy these babies. Luckily, I am a patient man.