Grape Jam

First, let me say that you have never tasted anything like jam made from the following recipe. It’s not even remotely related to the jam you get in the supermarket, but an intense blast of grape that takes your breath away. Making grape jam is a labor of love - and I do mean labor. If you aren’t serious about cooking and food, you don’t want to even contemplate this recipe. Every year I vow that it will be the last year I make it, but every year as we finish our stash of jam, I once again bring out all of my equipment and settle down for several days of jam making.

Nowadays, in the United States, you can get practically any fruit or vegetable at any time of the year, even if the quality might suffer a little. But if you live on the East Coast, Concord grapes, the kind needed to make grape jam, are only available September through October. For the best jam, it’s best to wait until early October when all of the grapes you get will be dark purple, sweet and plump.

Why is my jam so different from commercial jam? I believe it’s because I pop the pulp out of the skins and cook the pulp, but leave the skins uncooked. These I puree (almost) and then sieve them together with the pulp. I use much less sugar than commercial jam so that the grape flavor can shine through. But make no mistake, this is NOT low-sugar jam – only lower than the commercial variety. Because it’s got less sugar than normal, I do need to use low-sugar pectin.

Penny’s Incredible Grape Jam
Makes 8 wide-mouth 12-ounce jars

7 dry quarts of concord grapes
56-58 ounces sugar (8 to 8-1/3 cups)
3/4 cup water
63-66 grams (more than 1 box) Sure-Jell™ – No Sugar Needed Pectin (in the pink box)
dash of cooking oil

To make this quantity of jam, you are going to need a large canning pot in which to sterilize the jars and seal the jars. And you’ll also need a very large stockpot in which to cook the jam. If you decide to make a smaller quantity, you will need a pot that is 3 times larger than the quantity of jam you are making, as it bubbles up quite a bit as it cooks.

I also have some other canning supplies that are useful: special tongs with which to hold the jars, and a funnel that is especially made for jam making. I use a mesh lingerie bag to hold the lids and tops. A food mill is also essential.

To start, put the jars (without the lids and tops), into the canner and fill the whole thing so that the jars are covered by about 1-1/2-2-inches of water. Put the lids and tops in the mesh bag and put it in the canner ( tops can never be re-used, but the lids and jars can be used year to year, as long as the lids are not rusty) . Cover, and bring the pot to boiling. Turn down the heat and keep it at a simmer.

To make the jam, place the grapes in a colander and wash them well.

Over the cooking pot, squeeze each grape, forcing the pulp to pop out into the pot. Place the skins in a large processor bowl.

I usually process half of the skins at a time, for about 1 minute. They will get very liquidy.

Pour the contents of the processor into the food mill, which has been placed over a super-size measuring cup. Press the contents through the mill until only the dryish skins remain. Repeat with the remaining skins

Add the water to the pulp and set it on the stove. Boil the pulp for 5 minutes. Pour the pulp and liquid on top of the skin residue in the food mill, and press everything through , using a back and forth motion of the mill, so that you aren’t grinding up the seeds, but are getting the pulp to go through.

Discard the seeds and remaining residue. You should have approximately 9 cups of grape juice. Remove any extra or add a little water if needed so that you have exactly 9 cups of juice. Make sure that the cooking pot has no seeds in it. Pour the juice into the cooking pot.

Measure out the sugar (there's a range to allow for personal taste, but also the grapes vary in sweetness). In a small bowl, combine 2/3 cup of the sugar with the pectin (you have a range here too - also depending on how sweet the grapes are).

Gradually stir this into the grape juice. Add a dash of oil, so that the jam doesn’t get too foamy when it starts to boil.

Set the pot on the stove and bring it to a full-rolling boil – that is, a boil that can not be stirred down, stirring continuously ( the mixture will be a muddy, maroon color).

Dump in the sugar, all at once. Stirring continuously, cook until the sugar is completely melted, and then bring the mixture to a full rolling boil again. Boil hard for 1 minute, stirring constantly. At this point the mixture will triple in volume, bubbling furiously, and will change to a dark purple color (although the picture doesn’t show the color clearly).

When the minute is up, turn off the heat. If using an electric stove, you will need to slide the pot off of the burner, so that it doesn’t continue to cook. Skim off any foam and discard it.

Take three of the jars out of the boiling water, using the special jar holder (so that you don’t get burned), emptying the water back into the pot. Turn the jars upside down onto a towel, and then using oven mitts, turn them right side up. Remove the tops and lids from the boiling water and let drain on the towel, as well.

Place the funnel in one jar, and ladle in the hot jam, filling the jar as high as it will go without touching the funnel.

Remove the funnel. If there is any jam on the rim of the jar, wipe it off with a clean, damp cloth.

Place the top on the jar and then screw on the lid. Repeat with the remaining jars, and then take out three more hot jars and repeat the process.

Tighten the lids, and using the jar holder, place the jars back in the boiling water. Cover the pot, and simmer the jars for 5 minutes.

Remove the jars from the simmering water, and set them aside to cool. As they cool, you should here the lids pop down. To make sure that each jar is well sealed, press on the top of the lid. If there is any movement, the jar is not sealed, and should be placed in the refrigerator. The remaining jars can be put in the pantry for 12-18 months. To use, remove the screw lid, and use a beer bottle opener to pry up the top. Store in the refrigerator once opened.

You can see in the photo that the jam on the back muffin is redder and thicker and the jam on the front half is more grape-looking and runnier. Both were made with the exact same recipe. Logically you would think (or I did) that the darker one would be sweeter. But in fact the darker one was more tart and runnier. Cooking might be science, but sometimes you don’t know what the parameters are until you are into it! At this moment I am recooking the runny jam with another half cup of sugar and 4 tablespoons of pectin/water mixture (ratio is on the box of pectin). Always an adventure!

Making the Best Apple Pie

I'm almost done with this post, but need a few more photos which will be coming tomorrow (needless to say I am making this again). Check back tomorrow for my saga of making the best apple pie, and a recipe.

Greek Ostrich Burgers

My husband and I don’t eat beef, and for the last 20 years we’ve been using ground turkey to make burgers, meatballs, etc. At our local farmer’s market, I discovered ostrich, a low-fat healthy meat that tastes a lot like beef. It tastes so much like beef, that at first we thought it was too strong tasting. As we’ve eaten it more and more, we’ve grown to really love the rich taste and the firm texture. That’s one of the drawbacks with turkey – nothing ever seems to have enough “chew”.

Our local ostrich farm can be reached at http://www.birdbrainranch.com/. We buy the meat frozen at the farmer’s market, but maybe they ship.

Here’s a comparison chart (lifted directly from BirdBrain’s website) of ostrich to other popular meats.

per 3 oz. meat

	Calories	Protein	Fat	Cholesterol
Ostrich	97	22	2	58
Chicken	140	27	3	73
Turkey	135	25	3	59
Beef	240	21	15	77
Pork	275	24	19	84

Obviously, this is a little skewed, because you can get lower fat ground beef and pork. But, you can see that regardless ostrich is a very healthy meat. Because it’s sold by small farmers, it’s also usually hormone and antibiotic free.

When we first started eating ostrich burgers, I though it would be fun and informative to do a comparison taste-test. I made turkey burgers, ostrich burgers and one that was half and half

The turkey burgers are on the top, the pure ostrich burger is on the bottom left, and the mixed one is on the bottom right. I knew from the get-go that ostrich tastes best when cooked medium-rare, and that would be a problem with the mixed burger (since turkey must be cooked to at least 160-degrees), but decided to go ahead anyway and just cook that burger longer. I was really surprised that we liked the ostrich burger the best, the mixed one (even though it was cooked through) second best and the turkey burger the least. It just seemed to have so much less flavor than the ones with ostrich, and the texture wasn’t as firm either. I cooked the first ostrich burger rare-ish (140 degrees), which we didn’t like as much as the ostrich that was medium-rare (about 150 degrees ). I’m sure if you’re used to rare meat, you’d find the rare ostrich just fine, but since we are used to fully cooked turkey, it was a bit of a shock to us. In any case, I cooked the burgers on my Cuisinart Griddler and the ostrich exuded a lot of juice, which I removed by tilting the Griddler so the juice could flow out and into the cup that comes with it. I had to do this so that the burgers wouldn’t steam. A cast iron pan might have been better, but mine was all rusty, so this was the best choice available (without using oil in another pan). The ostrich was done in less than 3 minutes, and the turkey took about 3-1/2-4. Very quick and very tasty!!

The following recipe was adapted from a Bon Appetit recipe published in 1990.

1 pound ground ostrich
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1/4 cup crumbled feta cheese

Mix all of the above ingredients, and shape into patties, 3/4-inch thick. Refrigerate until ready to cook. Make the sauce first and have other ingredients ready, as the burgers cook very quickly.

Tzatziki Sauce
1 tablespoon grated cucumber
5 ounces Greek yogurt, fat free okay
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon chopped mint
1 teaspoon olive oil
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon chopped dill

Mix all of the ingredients together and chill until ready to grill the burgers. Leave the sauce at room temperature when you start to make the burgers.

Cook the burgers to desired done-ness. Serve with sauce, lettuce cucumbers, etc. on buns of your choice (we use low-fat whole grain buns)

Bumbleberry Cobbler

It's really hard being a dessert writer on a diet!!! Especially in the summer, when the produce beckons... and so another lowered fat recipe gets born! And when you're dieting, you sure don't want to spend hours in the kitchen working on that lowfat recipe, when you should be out jogging or playing golf - to work off the calories you are about to put into your mouth. It's back to the farmer's market to see what they have that would work well in my mixed berry (mostly) cobbler. I've loved the peaches and nectarines from Fruit Bat Produce. You can see Elaine's lovely peaches with the fruit pandowdy recipe (http://amazingdessertrecipes.blogspot.com/2009/07/summer-fruit-pandowdy.html) or the Magic Cobbler recipe (http://amazingdessertrecipes.blogspot.com/2009/08/magic-peach-cobbler.html), but today I'm just going to buy some of her beautiful, green, mountain apples. I think they'll work nicely to provide some texture to this berry dessert.
Here you can see Elaine, from Fruit Bat Produce, with her wonderful apples, apple butter, figs and barely visible, her peaches. She's at the Meeting Street Farmer's Market near Ballantyne, Charlotte, NC.

One of the problems with cooking berries (especially acidic strawberries and raspberries) is that cornstarch doesn't work that well to thicken it. Flour can get gummy, and tapioca isn't widely used or available. To help combat this, I've added more cornstarch, but also a little hot water which will dissolve the cornstarch and get it cooking faster. The cobbler needs to come to a boil so that the cornstarch can thicken. The pectin in the apple will also help a little to thicken the cobbler. But this is a runny cobbler - no doubt about that!! Because the cobbler has so little fat in it, I've used cake flour, which will help keep it tender, and I'm also making a very soft dough, which will rise higher, make it lighter and also more tender. Although light on fat, it's still got a lot of calories, so if dieting is your aim, eat less of the sauce and have only as a special treat!

1 pound strawberries -- washed, hulled and sliced
6 ounces raspberries – washed
1 pint blueberries – washed
1 apple -- peeled, cored and cut into 1/4-inch dice
5 tablespoons cornstarch
1 cup sugar

1/4 cup hot water

Cobbler Batter
1-1/2 cups (150 grams) sifted cake flour
3 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon transfat-free shortening (Crisco not butter-flavored), cold or frozen
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, cold

3/4 cup buttermilk, cold
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup (32 grams) bleached flour, measured by fluffing, scooping and leveling
1 tablespoon skim milk
1 teaspoon sugar
Preheat the oven to 425°F., with an oven rack in the middle of the oven. Have ready a decorative 2-quart casserole dish.
Combine all of the fruit, cornstarch and sugar in the casserole dish, and stir to combine. Let macerate while you make the cobbler topping. Just before placing the biscuits onto the fruit. stir in the hot water.

To make the cobbler batter, mix the cake flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a large bowl. Using a pastry blender or two knifes, cut the butter and shortening into the dry ingredients until the mixture looks like coarse meal. Use your fingers to break up any lingering lumps.

In another bowl, mix together the buttermilk, and vanilla extract. Make a well in the center of the flour mixture and pour in the buttermilk, while stirring with a fork and to make a mixture that looks like cottage cheese.

Place a thick sprinkling of the bleached flour on a plate. Using an ice cream scoop, scoop up a ball of dough and place it on the floured plate. Sprinkle the top liberally with some of the flour.

Flour your hands, pick up a dough ball, and rock it side to side in your hands to both coat it with flour, and knock off any excess. Gently transfer it to the top of the fruit. Flatten it slightly. Continue shaping and placing the biscuits until the whole top is covered.

Bake for 20 minutes. Remove the cobbler from the oven and lightly brush the top of the biscuits with some of the skim milk, using just enough to moisten the tops and brush away any residual flour. Sprinkle lightly with the sugar. Return the cobbler to the oven and cook another 5-10 minutes until the biscuits are crisp and dry and the juices are bubbling up. The juices must be bubbling or the cornstarch will not thicken the berries and the filling will be too runny. Remove it from the oven and cool on a wire rack for at least 30 minutes. Eat the cobbler while still warm. The cobbler can be made 1 day ahead and stored in the refrigerator. Cover with foil and bake at 350°F. for about 15 minutes. Uncover and cook another 5-10 minutes until the filling is warm and the top is firm.
Per Serving: 319 Calories; 4g Fat (10.9% calories from fat); 4g Protein; 69g Carbohydrate; 4g Dietary Fiber; 5mg Cholesterol; 298mg Sodium.

Zucchini Stuffed with Corn, Mushrooms, Roasted Tomatoes and Fresh Herbs

We have a great farmer’s market, The Meeting Place (at Cedar Walk near Ballantyne) that’s open on Tuesday afternoons. It’s 5 minutes from our house – so much more convenient than the Saturday morning markets scattered around town. Here’s my favorite farmer, Bill, the owner of The Specialty Farmer, from Waxhaw, NC

I always buy tomatoes, corn, zucchini and potatoes from him (sometimes watermelon, too) . The last time I was there, he had these globe zucchini that I’ve never seen before, and which I thought would be great for stuffing.

Usually, I might choose a stuffing with rice or another grain, but because I’m on a diet, I thought corn might be a better choice. His corn is not very starchy, and it just pops off the cob with a very crunchy sweetness. Paired with his tomatoes, it’s really delicious.

1 medium zucchini or 1 medium globe zucchini
2 teaspoons oil
6 medium mushrooms – sliced
2 medium ears of corn, husked and cut off off of the cob
4 medium roasted tomato (see recipe) or sundried tomato slices –diced
fresh herbs to taste(1-2 tablespoons basil, thyme, lavender, etc)
salt and pepper to taste

1 tablespoon breadcrumbs
2 teaspoons parmesan cheese

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. with a rack in the upper middle position. Place a rimmed baking sheet on the lower rack.

Halve the zucchini tip to stem. With a small spoon, scoop out most of the flesh so that the walls of the zucchini are 1/4- inch thick. Dice the flesh and set aside.

Season the cut sides of zucchini with salt and pepper, and brush with oil. Set the zucchini halves cut-side down on the hot baking sheet on lower rack. Roast the zucchini until tender, about 20 minutes. Using tongs, flip the zucchini halves over leaving them on the baking pan.

Heat the remaining oil in a large skillet over medium heat until shimmering but not smoking. Add the mushrooms and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened and beginning to brown, about 10 minutes. Increase the heat to medium-high; stir in the zucchini flesh and corn and cook until almost tender, about 3 minutes. Stir in the tomatoes, herbs and salt and pepper to taste.

Divide the filling evenly among the zucchini halves. Sprinkle on cheese and breadcrumbs. Place the baking pan with zucchini on the upper rack, and bake until heated through and the topping is spotty brown, about 6 minutes. Serve immediately.

Slow Roasted Tomato Slices

I’ve finally found a vendor at my local farmer’s market that has tomatoes that taste like old-fashioned tomatoes. You remember – tomatoes that smell great, are juicy and flavorful without being too acidic. These were the kind of tomatoes that we had in Italy, and I bemoaned the fact that they were no longer available in this country. They’re delicious on their own or paired with fruity olive oil and mozzarella. My husband, however, doesn’t really like tomatoes – especially juicy ones with lots of seeds. Slow roasting tomatoes, especially really good tomatoes, might seem like a waste, but roasting them brings out even more of the sweetness and is especially nice for those who like the flavor, but not the texture of regular tomatoes. They’re like sundried tomatoes, but more fleshy and not oily. You can use oven roasted tomatoes in salads, sandwiches, with couscous and other grains, and any time you might use sundried tomatoes. My next post will be a stuffed zucchini using these oven roasted tomatoes.

3-4 ripe tomatoes, washed
1 tablespoon olive oil (you’ll use much less, but the pastry brush will soak up the oil)
salt
fresh herbs of choice (basil, thyme, lavender, etc)

Preheat the oven to 275 degrees F. Line a rimmed baking pan with non-stick foil (sometimes called grilling foil)

Cut the tomatoes into 1-inch wedges – maybe 8 for large tomatoes and less for smaller ones. Using a small paring knife, cut out the seeds and flesh so that you are left with a tomato wedge that is a scant 1/8-inch thick. If there is a lot of flesh once the seeds are discarded, you can roast this flesh, as well (it depends on the variety and size of tomato).

Set the wedges on the foil, fleshy side up.

Brush the fleshy side lightly with the olive oil. Sprinkle with salt and herbs. Bake for about 2 hours until the slices are browning, but are not completely dried out.

You can see whether you like them less done, as in the top picture, or more done, as in the second.

Let the slices cool and then place them in a storage container and refrigerate for up to 2 weeks.

Ma’amoul or Klaicha

Recently, a friend of mine had an exchange student from Iraq staying with her, and she thought it would be nice to make some familiar food for him. She really didn’t have much time to cook that week, and I remembered that I had a Middle Eastern cookie in my cookbook, Light Jewish Holiday Desserts. My recipe was adapted from a Lebanese Jewish recipe, and not wanting to be an American lout, I thought it would be a good idea to do some Internet research to see if these cookies were also eaten by Iraqis (of any faith). Sure enough, a very similar cookie came up under the name Klaicha or Kleicha. The student was touched that I went to the trouble for him, and all of the guests enjoyed these sweet treats. Like many other recipes, there are regional and familial versions of this cookie, some being so remotely alike that it’s hard to believe it’s called the same thing. In any case, to be most authentic, you’ll probably want to follow the higher fat version (below) using orange flower water instead of orange juice. Since I don’t like orange flower water, I always make them with orange juice. My lower-fat version follows at the end of the recipe.

Makes 25 cookies

Pastry
2 cups (260 grams) unbleached all-purpose flour, fluffed, scooped and leveled into measuring cups
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom, optional
11 tablespoons unsalted butter, cold and cut into 1/2 inch chunks
3 tablespoons orange juice (or 2 teaspoons orange flower water and the remainder water)

Date Filling
8 ounces whole, pitted, dates (about 1/2 cup, packed)
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
2 teaspoons melted unsalted butter

For the Pastry
Place the flour in a processor bowl. Add the cardamom, if using it. Scatter the butter on top of the flour. Pulse-process until the butter is cut into the flour to resemble coarse meal, about five 3-second bursts.

Sprinkle the orange juice over the flour. Process until the dough forms a ball. It should be very soft and moist.

Remove it from the processor, wrap in plastic wrap, and set aside, at room temperature, for 1 hour.

While the dough is resting, make the date filling. If the dates are very soft, they can be processed without cooking them. Place them in the processor, add the cinnamon, and process until finely chopped. Add the butter, and pulse-process to incorporate (if you continually process instead of pulse-process, the paste gets very soft, and changes to an unpleasant color). If you have miscalculated the moistness of your dates, and feel they need to be softer, remove the metal blade and set the processor bowl in a microwave. Heat on medium-high for up to 2 minutes. Pulse-process again to smooth out the paste. Set aside.

Preheat the oven to 350°F., with the shelves in the upper and lower thirds of the oven. Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper.

Divide the dough into 30 balls. Press your thumb into the center of each ball to form a cavity. Form the dough into a little “pot” with the sides being about 1/16^th inch thick. If the dough flattens while you are trying to make the pot, knead in a little bit of flour. If the dough is a little too sticky, sprinkle the work table and your hands with a little flour and then work the dough. Fill each pot about three-quarters full with a rounded half-teaspoonful of filling. Press the dough to seal in the filling and then roll the dough between your hands to form a flattened ball.

To make the characteristic design in the cookies, you will need a special mold. An alternative is to score the balls with fork, or to use some sort of makeshift mold. I used an egg separator that had a very similar design to the traditional mold. This was floured, and then the dough ball was set in and pressed down lightly.

Flip the ball out of the mold, set on the parchment lined sheets and bake for 18 to 22 minutes, until lightly browned.

Slide the parchment onto cooling racks and let the cookies cool before storing.

VARIATION
To make lower-fat ma-amoul, use the following ingredients and the instructions listed above:

1 -1/8 cups (120 grams) sifted cake flour, lightly sprinkled into a measuring cup
1 cup (120 grams) all-purpose flour, lightly sprinkled into a measuring cup 1/2 teaspoon cardamom, optional
1/2 cup unsalted butter, cold and cut into 1/2 inch chunks
3 tablespoons corn syrup
3 tablespoons orange juice (or 2 teaspoons orange flower water and the remainder water)

Date Filling
8 ounces whole, pitted, dates (about 1/2 cup, packed)
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
2 teaspoons orange juice

Magic Peach Cobbler

This very homey and easy dessert has more biscuit than fruit and not much juice. In fact it’s almost more like a mix between biscuit, custard and warm cake. Some of the batter stays “uncooked” and contributes to the pleasing custardy texture. You’ve probably seen recipes like this on the Internet. It’s the one where the biscuit batter starts out on the bottom and then rises to the top. I made 4or 5 versions of it until I found one that worked – in most of them the center didn’t cook, leaving a soupy, doughy interior that wasn’t very pleasant. And if you try to make it with more fruit and more juice, it doesn’t cook well at all. The best recipe was from Paula Deen, but I found hers too sweet and too fatty for my taste (although the Southerners who ate it, loved it). My variation on her recipe is what you’ll find here. It’s still firm and cakey, but it has a little less sugar and butter.

Serves 8

4-6 peaches, to make 4 cups of sliced peaches (see instructions below)
1-1/2 cups sugar, divided
1/2 cup water
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon, optional
Fruitfresh®, or 2 tablespoons lemon juice
6 tablespoons unsalted butter
1-1/2 cups self-rising flour (or use bleached flour + 3/4 teaspoons salt and 2 teaspoons baking powder)
1-1/2 cups buttermilk

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. with a rack in the middle of the oven.

To peel the peaches, heat water in a pot to simmering. Have a bowl of ice water next to the stove, and a large bowl to put the sliced peaches in. Add the Fruitfresh or lemon juice into the ice water. Slide a few of the whole peaches into the simmering water and cook for 30 seconds.

Use a slotted spoon to transfer the peaches to the ice water. While you peel these, add the next batch of peaches to the simmering water. They’ll be done by the time you finish peeling the peaches.

It’s easier and safer to cut the peaches into slices while the skin is still attached (witness my bandaged finger!). Afterwards, you’ll easily be able to slide the skin off of the slices. Once the peaches are sliced and skinned, slide them back into the ice water.

Empty out the simmering water, place the drained peaches into the pot along with 1 cup sugar, and the water. Stir, and bring the mixture to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, for 10 minutes. Remove from the heat.

Put the butter in a 3-quart baking dish and microwave, covered for 1 minute.
Mix the remaining 1/2 cup sugar and the flour. Make a well in the center, and add the buttermilk, gradually drawing the flour mixture into the buttermilk as you mix it. It will be slightly lumpy. Pour the batter over the melted butter. Do not stir. Using a slotted spoon, spoon the peaches on top of the batter. Pour the syrup over the peaches.

Bake for 40-45 minutes until the cobbler is nicely browned and if you poke it a bit, you don’t see any uncooked batter rising up from below.

Let the cobber cool for 45 minutes, and then serve (ice cream is nice!). If making ahead, reheat the cobbler at 300 degrees F. for 15-25 minutes, or until just warm.

This peach cobbler will keep for 3 days in the refrigerator. Reheat it before eating.