Jammin'

Sunday was the first day of the PYO strawberry season around here and we just couldn't resist. We spent the morning filling quarts with juicy, ruby red berries while we plotted what to do with them.

Talk of pie, turnovers and sorbet occurred, but we kept coming back to: jam. While I've made fridge/freezer jam before, I've never actually made canned jam, and I was eager to try. I was also a little nervous. While canning is amazing stuff, it's also intimidating...making sure you do everything properly so you can correctly and everything preserves. I figured jam was an easy place to start (who knows...are pickles next?!)

And you know what? It was. So much so that I can see myself making another batch of strawberry jam and probably some blueberry as well. And who knows...perhaps some jelly is in our future as well.

The process was pretty simple. (but, it helped I had a second pair of hands to help in the form of my friend Hannah)

I destemmed and hulled about 2.5 quarts of freshly picked strawberries. We then mashed them (with a potato masher) to the consistency we wanted (still a bit chunky!).

After adding a packet of pectin (we went with the "no sugar needed" kind), cup of apple juice and a few squeezes of lemon juice we brought the mixture to a rapid boil, stirring the whole time.

While the strawberries were cooking, we prepped the jars, steeping the lids and jars in warm water so they wouldn't cracked once we added the jam.

Prepping the jars

After adding about 1/2 cup of sugar to the strawberry mixture, we stirred and cooked for another few minutes. I shut the mixture off and got to working prepping the jars. I already had a huge pot of water boiling away on another burner, reading to process the jams.

I filled each jar almost all the way to the top, leaving about a 1/4" of space. I carefully placed the lid and then twisted on the band. I gently dropped the filled jars into the pot of boiling water. Once all jars were in, I added a bit more water so it covered the jars by 1-2" and brought it back to a steady boil.

Jam filled jars ready to be processed.

Covering the pot, I let it go for 12 minutes. Once done, I shut off the water, let it cool down and then placed the jars on a towel to finishing setting.

I was happy to see that all but one sealed properly, and one more dip in the boiling water bath with a second batch of jams solved that problem easily. In the end we had 10 jars of jam, ready to sit up on our shelves (or to be consummed asap, which is the more likely scenario!).

 

Upon first taste, I've decided that the consistency is more like a really thick topping rather than a fully firm jam, but I think it's because we used too many strawberries. It still tastes absolutely phenomenal and works perfectly on toast and drizzled over ice cream, so overall, I'd call my first experiment with canning a success!

Forcing Springtime

I really do my best to eat in season...meaning that I walk right by the peaches, plums and cherries that are currently at the end cap of the produce section at the big chain grocery store. That means that I get my fill of butternut squash dishes in the fall and wintertime and it means that I usually wait until Spring hits for that first farm-fresh, local asparagus.

But...I failed. I just couldn't do it.

Blame it on the week of school vacation my son had (while my husband continued to go to work as usual).

Blame it on the frigid temps and grey skies.

Or blame it on the snow and ice we just got today.

Around 4PM as cotton ball like snow fell

Regardless of the reason, all willpower was set aside as I grabbed the prettiest bunch of asparagus at the store the other day.

See? Can you blame me? I know it wasn't local or even organic, but it was calling to me. It was reminding me that soon little shoots will be making their way through the frozen ground and the sun will be shining longer and warmer...no matter how impossible that seems now.

I then took that beautiful asparagus and turned it into a meal fit for the Equinox. Using Eating Well's Lemony Asparagus Pasta as a template, I made a dinner rich in flavor that helped to remind me that (hopefully) Spring is right around the corner, no matter what the forecast says.

Ingredients:

1 box penne pasta

1 bunch asparagus, trimmed and cut into 1" pieces

3/4 cup milk (I used 1% and it still came out creamy!)

1 teaspoon brown mustard

2 teaspoons flour (oops, forgot to include that in the pix!)

1/2 teaspoon salt

a few grinds of pepper

1 teaspoon olive oil

2 garlic cloves, minced

1/2 teaspoon of lemon zest

Juice of 1 medium lemon

1/2 cup of Parmesan cheese, shredded

Preparation:

Bring a pot of water to boil and add pasta. Cook for 6 minutes. Add asparagus and cook for 3 more minutes. Drain water and set aside.

Pasta & asparagus cooking together harmoniously

In a bowl, whisk together milk, flour, mustard, salt & pepper and set aside.

It helps to have your sous chef on hand

Heat oil in a small saucepan and saute up the garlic until lightly browned. Add in milk mixture, whisking the entire time. Bring to a simmer and continue to stir until it thickens. Add lemon zest, juice and 1/4 cup of Parmesan cheese and stir to combine.

Add sauce to pasta and asparagus, and mix well. Sprinkle the rest of the Parmesan cheese in, right before serving.

nom.

Cupcake Craziness

Continuing in our celebrating milestones at potluck theme, last night was another festive occasion. We celebrated my son's 4th birthday, even though it's not technically until tomorrow. Since we're already planning an actual party for the weekend that will include cake, I decided to try my hand at cupcakes. I made a yellow cake batter from Smitten Kitchen and my own strawberry "frosting" per the request of the birthday boy. 

The cupcakes themselves turned out incredibly tasty and we actually pretty simple to make. I 1.5'd the recipe, since I wanted to make sure that everyone got their own cupcake. For the regular measurements, pop on over to Smitten Kitchen.

Start by creaming some butter and sugar (I actually used  3 sticks, yikes!)

Creamy!

Once creamed, add some vanilla & a bunch of eggs to the butter/sugar mixture

Then sift together all your dry ingredients

Sifted! 

Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix till just combined. The batter yielded 36 cupcakes, so I baked them (for about 28 minutes at 350*) in shifts.

They came out perfectly

Then it came time for the frosting. My son asked for strawberry frosting, and I decided to take my tried and true cream cheese frosting and doctor it up a little instead of looking for a recipe online.

Yeah.

The first part turned out great.

Mix together 1 stick of softened unsalted butter and 1 8oz package of softened cream cheese

I then added 1 lb of powdered sugar and a couple tablespoon's of milk. The cream cheese frosting turned out perfectly. Now it was time to add in the strawberries.

I started with about 1.5 cups of chopped strawberries

And using my hand blender, mashed it down to this strawberry puree.

It was then added to the cream cheese frosting

I didn't take into account that when mashed, the strawberries would be very liquidy, thereby turning what was once a perfectly textured frosting into, well...

More of a sweet, strawberry sauce-like-topping.

So, of course, I thought I could salvage it. I added more cream cheese, but it was still pretty thin. I added more butter, but all that did was fleck the frosting with bits of butter that would not incorporate into the mix.

Mmm...buttery deliciousness

I even tossed it into the fridge to see if it would firm up. It didn't.

So, in the end, instead of piping beautiful designs onto the cupcakes (which had been my intent), I ended up taking each cupcake and dipping them into the "frosting" to coat them.

Toss a few candles in and *voila* - birthday cupcake!

After all was said and done, it didn't even seem to matter. Despite their somewhat sloppy appearance, the cupcakes were eaten, the frosting was eaten (and praised!) and even more frosting was eaten when folks realized they could dip their cupcakes back into the bowl. If I had put spoons out surrounding the bowl of frosting, it would probably have disappeared.

While my strawberry frosting didn't turn out as expected, it still managed to do its job, and the birthday boy was very pleased with it, so in turn, so was I. 

The meal proceeding the cupcakes, by the way, was extraordinary... we dined on chili, muligitawny stew, coconut rice, broccoli slaw, chips & salsa, homemade nachos and popovers. It was quite the array of food but it certainly provided for a festive feel.

Cozy Cooking

It's yet another Monday where the weather has conspired against me. Instead of a crisp, cool fall day, it's one more gray, rainy 'blah' of a day where all you want to do is hunker down on the couch with a warm blanket and mug of hot cocoa.

While I don't necessarily have that luxury, I do have potluck to look forward to later this evening, and it will have to be my surrogate blanket and cocoa. I do find that the weather tends to dictate how I cook. When it's hot and muggy I veer towards raw or barely cooked dishes, and winter time is usually rife with filling casseroles, soups and stews.

So...what does one make on a day that just lends itself to lazying around and keeping cozy?

Cozy food.

In my mind cozy food is something that isn't too difficult to make and warms up both your home and your body. In that spirit, I decided to make a baked rice dish...one that I've been making variations of for a while now.

It's super easy and basically cooks itself. I chop up a bunch of carrots, onions, celery and garlic and saute in a large dutch oven. Add 3/4 cup of lentils, 1 cup of rice and 3.5 cups of broth and seasonings of your choice.

Rice, lentil & veggies before broth is added

Pop it into the oven at 350 for an hour. Then, add a a few handfuls of some chopped greens (we went with dino kale) and your favorite shredded cheese, stir and bake for another 10 minutes.

Steamy casserole, right out of the oven

In addition to the casserole, my friend Rachel - who stayed the weekend - decided to prolong her trip and stay for potluck. We decided to bring an extra dish to feast on. There's something energizing about cooking with a friend and this was no exception. We tossed ideas back and forth before settling on roasted butternut squash and leek puff pastries.

We didn't have a recipe, and neither of us had made this before - but it came out perfectly. We roasted a butternut squash and mashed it, adding it to a bowl of sauteed leeks, cumin, salt and chili powder. After rolling out some store bought pastry dough, we made little pockets of awesomeness and brushed them with and egg wash before baking them at 400 for twenty minutes.

Both dishes fit in with everything else that showed up tonight. We dined on ribs, garlicky potatoes, a squash/walnut/lentil dish and to top it all off a delicious chocolate cake in celebration of a birthday that just occurred. I'm currently sitting here stuffed, satiated and already looking forward to next Monday night!

Yum.

A Bit of Background...

I've never been much of a cook. It's not because I don't want to. In my head I think up all these wonderful recipes and meals. I watch enough cooking shows that you'd think I'd at least absorb some sort of skill through the television. But the reality of the matter is that when it comes to whipping stuff up in the kitchen, it is not an effortless, easy task for me. Sometimes, it's not even (dare I say it) enjoyable.

During my post-college years, when I was teaching high school and my husband was a full time student, you would have been more apt to find take-out menus and old pizza boxes scattered around, than you would dirty dish pans and recipes.

When I got pregnant, I had all these hopes of harnessing the innate cooking skills that my mother, grandmother and mother-in-law posses and somehow, overnight, would turn into a goddess in the kitchen. I thought that maybe it was some gene that only kicked in once you pushed out a baby.

Sadly, it wasn't the case. Food still burned, wasn't flavorful enough or was just too tedious to make. It wasn't for lack of trying, however. I attempted a variety of recipes, and while we had some successes, most were big flops. My heart just wasn't into it.

Fast forward almost four years and I now cook with vegetables and herbs from my own garden, am a member of a local meat CSA and prepare (on occasion delicious!) meals on a regular basis. One of my goals with this blog is to take a look at how I went from being a master of ordering in to somebody who strives to cook on a daily basis...and might actually be enjoying it.

Monday night potluck was one of the most influential reasons behind this change, and so while I document and reflect on these current weekly dinners, I hope to also investigate the other reasons for my culinary switch. So, be on the look out for recipes, pictures of tantalizing dishes and musings on food, community and my journey to being an almost-chef.