Canning is Cool Again, Redux: Peach Jalapeño Bourbon Jam

Yep, another rerun, but I just got the most wonderful late peaches and a bag of Jalapeño peppers at the Farmers Market. Guess what I'm making again? Too good to not have a few jars stashed in the pantry.

Canning is cool again. At work, we have just about run out of canning supplies. I think there are just two jar lifters lurking on the shelf, and most of the jars are gone. Canning is cool again, really. Not just because Marisa McClellan's new book Food in Jars is out, but even Rachael Ray has given over a two-page spread in her July - August 2012 issue of her magazine to canning. I hate to admit it, but I think my canning pot and rack are older than either of them are. They came used, from a yard sale in about 1982, and have been dragged out each spring with the first good berries ever since. I even have gone so far as to need and use a pressure canner, too. Seems like everything comes in cycles, and canning is back.

If you garden, you'll likely have to start canning once the freezer is full. That's how I started. We bought our first home with enough room for a decent garden at the side, and suddenly there were beans and tomatoes. Lots of beans and tomatoes. No one on either Hub's side of the family or mine ever canned anything, so armed with a copy of a Ball Blue Book, and another book called "Putting Food By", I dove in. Made plenty of messes, got a few splatter burns, but turned out lots of good food in jars. I wrote copy in an ad agency in those days, and the owner's wife, Josie Renner, shared her bread and butter pickle recipe and a lot of old-fashioned canning tips with me back then. While Josie Renner is long gone, I like to think that she knows how much her pickles are still loved 30 years later. I was lucky to find a good canning mentor. Now you can Google excellent canning instructions, though it isn't the same as having a real person to help you.

This year, everyone seems to be making strawberry jam, a worthy endeavor indeed, but around here, strawberries are just about kaput for the local season. The peach season is coming up fast, though, and if your garden is at all like mine, just about the only crop with NO insect or animal munching on it is hot peppers. This jam is a triple delight; sweet, spicy and just a bit boozy. It's also quick to make, and if you are just starting out as a home-canner, it'll make you look like a real pro. The only down side is that everyone will love it so much, they'll expect it every year, so be sure to stash a jar or two for yourself.

Peach Jalapeno Bourbon Jam

Peach Jalapeno Bourbon Jam

Notes: Leave out the pepper seeds for a less hot end result, for even less heat cut back to two peppers without seeds. Some of the technique and most the proportions here are straight off the pectin package; don’t fool around with that or your jam won’t set up properly. Fiddle with it and you’ll end up with Peach Jalapeno Bourbon Syrup, not Jam. Ask me how I’ve learned this. Ahem.

If you don’t have a food processor, coarsely hand-chop your peaches and peppers, cook with everything except the pectin until soft, and run through a food mill fitted with the medium disc. Then bring back to a hard boil and add the pectin and proceed as in step 4. Won’t be as “purty” but it’ll taste swell.

Two canning tools that will make your life easier: A water bath canning pot and a set of canning tools.

Ingredients

Makes 8 half-pints and a taster jar. Nice with creamy cheese on a slab of homemade bread, or on a bland turkey sandwich, lol.

• 3 1/2 pounds ripe peaches, blanched and skinned
• 7 1/2 cups granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 1/2 cup good quality bourbon
• ½ teaspoon almond extract
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 3 whole cloves
• 3 whole red jalapeno peppers
• 1 teaspoon unsalted butter
• One half (6-ounce) package liquid pectin (one foil packet)

Procedures

1. Place six half-pint jars on a rack in a large pot. Add enough water to cover the jars, and boil over high heat. Boil for 10 minutes, then turn off heat and allow the jars to rest in the hot water. Bring a small pot of water to a boil, and slide in the bands and flat tops. Turn off the heat and let stand until ready to use. Bring an extra medium pot to a low boil and keep simmering.
2. Pit and coarsely chop the peaches. Place in a food processor and pulse just until just short of a puree.
3.  Cut the stems off the jalapenos, remove the seeds if you want milder jam, and then chop roughly in the food processor. You want 1/8” pieces.
4. Tie the cinnamon stick and the cloves together in a single layer of cheesecloth. Add everything except the pectin to a big, heavy pot, and cook the mixture until the peaches are soft. Bring the peach mixture to a rolling boil over medium-high heat, stirring. Add the pectin, and return the mixture to a full rolling boil. Boil hard for one minute. Remove the pot from the heat and skim any foam from the surface with a metal spoon. Discard the cinnamon and cloves in their cheesecloth wrap.
5. Ladle hot jam into hot sterilized jars, leaving 1/4-inch headspace. Wipe rims of the jars with a damp paper towel, cover with the lids and screw bands, and gently tighten by hand. Place the jars on the rack in the large pot and cover completely with water from the medium pot you’ve had on simmer. Cover pot and bring to a boil over high heat. Start timing when the water boils hard. Boil for 10 minutes. Turn off the heat and let the jars rest in the hot water for 5 minutes. Remove the jars from pot with a jar lifter or canning tongs and allow them to rest undisturbed on countertop for 6 to 8 hours or overnight. Processed jam will keep for about one year in a cool, dark place. Unprocessed jam will keep in the refrigerator for about six months.

Peachy Keen Cobbler Cake: Another Grainless Wonder

Another "bean" cake? Yep. It's absolutely peachy good, too. Cross between a peach cobbler and a cake. When you turn it out of the pan, the top has the soft, juicy texture of a cobbler with cake at the bottom. Homely looking like a cobbler, but you can slice it like a cake, and so, so delish. Add some whipped cream, or some (low carb??) ice cream and it's peachy heaven. I also ran some nice raspberries through a sieve and covered the plate with the puree. Kind of a "Melba-ish" flavor, with the tart berries offsetting the sweet peach dessert.

Deprivation.  One of the things that drives people back to their less healthy eating habits is deprivation. If I didn't have one of these cakes or cupcakes lurking in the fridge, I'd really feel deprived. It's hard to stick to a no sugar, no grain eating plan when you're constantly surrounded by breads and cakes at home and at work. And then, gluten free desserts available are generally loaded with sugar and calories and the sugar-free options generally on the market are shot full of artificial sweeteners. That puts those of us who avoid grain and sugar either in the "no dessert category" or we have to find something else equally delicious. This, I think fills the bill. It ain't pretty, but boy, is it good.

While still low carb, this peach dessert is not as low as some of the others I've made, but I was starting to see the end of the peach season looming, and peaches, luckily, are not so high in carbohydrate that we can't indulge every now and then. The peaches I used today are from a local orchard, Highland Orchards, and they are BIG, as big as a baseball, and sweet. Go now and look for some local peaches before they become extinct until next summer. The other nice thing is that this is largely made in the blender, so the clean up post baking is easy.

Peachy Keen Grain-Free Cobbler Cake

Peach Cake, raspberries and whipped cream. No grain.  Life is good.

Ingredients:

1T Lime juice
1T honey
2T water
2T granular erythritol
2 Large peaches,  peeled, halved, pitted and sliced 1/8" thick
1/2 tsp. fresh ground nutmeg
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
pinch of sea salt
7T coconut flour
5 large eggs, plus 1 yolk
1 15 oz. can of navy beans, drained and rinsed
4 tsp. natural vanilla extract.
2 tsp. almond extract
3/4 cup granular erythritol
1/2 tsp. pure stevia extract powder
6T melted butter, cooled slightly

Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Spray a 9" round cake pan with cooking spray, and then place a round of cooking parchment into the bottom and spray it, too.

2. Place he lime juice, honey, water and the 2T of erythritol in a small saucepan and bring gently to a boil stirring to dissolve the erythritol when the erythritol has dissolved, carefully pour the syrup over the bottom of the prepared cake pan and arrange the sliced peaches in concentric circles over the syrup. Set the pan aside.

3. In a small bowl, mix together the nutmeg, cinnamon, baking soda, baking powder,sea salt and the coconut flour with  whisk or fork until blended and set aside.

4. Into your blender container place the eggs and yolk, the drained beans, the vanilla, the almond extract,the erythritol and the stevia and process until smooth. add rhe melted buter and process again for a few seconds until mixed. add the dry ingredients from the small bowl and blend until the mixture is completely homogenous, about 1 minute. Stir if necessary and blend again until smooth.

5. Carefully pour the batter from the blender container over the peaches,  smack the cake pan on the counter a couple of times to release any trapped air, and place it in the oven. Bake for 45 to 55 minutes, until a cake tester or a toothpick comes out clean.

6. Cool the cooked cake on a rack for about 30 minutes before inverting onto a flat serving plate, and carefully peeling off the parchment. Garnish with whipped cream and raspberries if you like. Serves 8. if you aren't too greedy.

The Bottomless Jar of Crème Fraîche

I wanted to re-post this because, well, it's MAJOR berry season, and there is nothing better than plain or lightly sweetened crème fraîche over fresh berries, or berry desserts. Then consider it over peaches, nectarines...Makes simple food what our family calls "RQ" – Restaurant Quality. Everyone is just so shocked that you can make this wonderful stuff so easily and cheaply at home. Enjoy!

I’m cheap. Well, sort of, but there are a few things I won’t spend a lot of money on even if I consider them essential. So many of my favorite cooking tools, my cars and my dogs have been bought used (except for the current dog), and even my husband is second-hand, although I DID get him in a kitchenware store. 

In the food department, I’m willing to pay good money for goodies like maple sugar and olive oil --- things I can’t or don’t have the time or skill to make myself, but it kills me how expensive something as delicious, easy to produce, and useful as crème fraîche can be when you like to use it by the glob.  It has a wonderful, nutty-tart flavor, it doesn’t separate when you boil it, makes a wonderful easy addition to pan sauces and can make a no-cook sauce in a flash with just a few herbs, spices and a dash of salt. It whips beautifully, and lightly sweetened, it is much better on many desserts than basic whipped cream. 

Sour cream doesn’t hold a candle to this stuff, except maybe in a baked potato or on top of a nacho. Crème fraîche is so simple, and soooo good!

Crème fraîche is one of those essential things. If there isn’t any in my fridge it requires an immediate trip to the market. Not to actually buy crème fraîche, just to get the ingredients to make it at home. I have bought the culture to make the real thing, and it does make a product closer to what I’ve eaten in France, but buttermilk, and pasteurized heavy cream are enough to make an endless supply, so I can wallow in the luxury of having as much as I want. When it's nearly all gone I can use the last bit in my jar to make more by transferring it to a small bowl, washing the jar thoroughly, mixing the remaining crème fraîche with two cups of cream and start the fermenting process again.  Fabulous and...cheap.

Time to start another batch of Crème Fraîche!

Homemade Crème Fraîche

1 pint of heavy cream pasteurized (NOT ultra pasteurized)

¼ cup of cultured buttermilk

Tools: spoon, measuring cup, and a very clean quart or liter glass jar with a cover

How: pour the ¼ cup of cultured buttermilk into the bottom of the jar, pour in the cream, stir gently and thoroughly, and either partially cover the jar, or leave off the lid and cover the top loosely with a clean cloth or a paper towel. Set it aside at room temperature for 8 to 36 hours (depending on how warm your kitchen is, and how thick you want the finished product). Stir gently once or twice a day if you think of it, and while you are stirring you can judge how thick it’s getting. Try not to lick the spoon, although I am totally unsuccessful at it. Just don't double-dip.

When it’s nearly as thick as you’d like (somewhere between the thickness of yogurt and commercial mayonnaise), seal the jar with the lid and pop it I the refrigerator. It’ll keep about two weeks, and if you notice that you’re down to your last half to quarter cup of the stuff, you can use your already made crème fraîche as the starter for your next batch. So you can fearlessly use up all that excess buttermilk in pancakes, pies and cakes, and keep that crème fraîche jar going just about forever. It’s bottomless. Really. 

The Good and the Ugly: Bourbon Peach Braised Pork

Bourbon Peach Braised Pork. Good, but well, homely

Some things are so pretty AND delicious that I have to post them. Some things just taste so good that I have to post them, too. Some things are so, so yummy that I HAVE TO POST THEM even if I can’t get a good picture of the dish. This is one of them. It’s actually pushed me to look into some food styling classes. Not kidding. Ugly food with a fabulous-I-can’t-stop-eating-this flavor. This braised pork dish is IT.

Foods that end up being largely brown at the end of the cooking time present a real problem to people like me. If the dish isn’t inherently pretty, I don’t have much idea how to gussy it up for a photo. A sprig of parsley won’t do.  And look as I might at good pictures of stews on other sites and in magazines, nothing clicks. Sometimes I think I’m “Plating Impaired.” I look longingly at the photos that Helene, aka Tartelette, posts to her blog, and while they look deceptively simple I know in my heart of hearts that in a million years, mine will never look like that. I even bought her book. Lucky for me, I do have a good palate, and this dish, I will immodestly say, is lip-smackin’ fabulous.

This pork dish isn’t BBQ or pulled pork,-- maybe a kissing cousin, but  it really is a stew, redolent of sweet peaches and smooth bourbon. While it really doesn’t have any roots in any particular cuisine, it does pull a bit of this and that from practically every continent that has a cuisine. And it all gets along just fine together.

Bourbon Peach Braised Pork

Note: if you don’t eat pork, this is wonderfully good substituting turkey thighs for the pork. Just remove the skin and bones before shredding the meat to  serve.

3-3/4 -4 lbs. Pork Shoulder butt strips or country style ribs

3T Kosher salt

½ tsp hot smoked paprika (pimentón)

2T safflower oil

½ cup bourbon whiskey

¼ cup soy sauce

1 lb frozen peaches

¾ cup dark brown sugar

¼ cup balsamic vinegar

 3 cups coarsely chopped red onion (about 2 large)

3 garlic cloves, minced

1 teas. ground cinnamon

½ teas. ground cumin

At least 6 hours before you plan to cook the pork, mix the kosher salt and the hot smoked paprika (hot pimentón) in a small bowl. Rub the pork thoroughly with the salt mixture, place in a zip bag and refrigerate, at least 6 hours and up to 12 hours.

Preheat the oven to 300°F. Mix together the bourbon, the soy sauce, the balsamic vinegar and the brown sugar. Remove the pork from the fridge, and heat the oil in a large Dutch oven. Brown the meat thoroughly on all sides, in batches. Add the onions and peaches to the pot and stir.

Add the garlic, cinnamon and cumin and stir. Pour over the brown sugar mixture and stir.  Bring to a simmer, cover, and place in the oven for 2 to 2-1/2  hours, stirring  and turning the meat once halfway through to submerge the meat in the sauce. The meat should fall from the bones. Remove the bones and serve over grits or over chunks of fresh cornbread.

Serves 6.