Indian Masala Strawberry Jam

I've been canning strawberry jam today - we are getting a bunch of late season strawberries in from a local farm and I've got a whole flat to work with. And, since you know I don't like making plain, straight-up jams I've added a little bit of flair to this one.

So, come check out the recipe for my Indian Masala Strawberry Jam over on Crunchy Chicken Cooks.

Tomorrow I'll be making a Chocolate Rum Strawberry Jam, so look for that recipe as well!

Drink your roses - make rosolio

I'm reading another book by the same author from whom I got the Asparagi alla Milanese recipe. This one is called, Libation: A Bitter Alchemy and, no surprises here, it's about the origins of different drinks, written in a series of essays.

And wouldn't you know it, before you even hit page 50, there's already a recipe I want to try out using my roses. You see, I've already made rose jam and rose potpourri and I'm hankering to try something new. So, when I ran across the recipe for making rosolio, an Italian liqueur made with rose petals, I knew I wanted to give it a whirl. My brother is the master of making his own lemon liqueur, limoncello, and I've always wanted to try doing it. I've never had rosolio, but it sounds rather tempting and, most importantly, super easy to do. There are other recipes online for making rosolio, but this one sounds way more tasty to me.

Here's the instructions from the book (p. 37):

Pick roses at the hottest point of the day - red roses, for they will impart more color and flavor to the alcohol. (If you do not have your own rose garden, I recommend procuring your roses from a friend or a local grower so that you can be certain that the blooms have not been treated with any chemicals.)

Separate the petals from the flower. Trim the white edge at the base with a knife or scissors. Weigh out 1.75 ounces petals, then steep the petals in a jar of 190 proof (95 percent) pure grain alcohol with a vanilla bean in a large canning jar. Close the jar and set aside in a dark place for two weeks. After two weeks, strain the liquid, removing the rose petals and vanilla bean.

Prepare a simple syrup by dissolving 1 pound sugar and 3.25 cups water. Add the simple syrup to the alcohol, return the mixture to the jar, and store for another two weeks. At the end of those two weeks, filter and bottle. After your first tasting, more simple syrup can be added if desired to cut the hotness of the alcohol and suit your taste.

If you get cracking now, you'll have enough rosolio to give away for holiday gifts this year!

Do you need to try no knead bread?

The New York Times has been posting recipes for something they call a "no knead" bread where you leave the dough to an extensive rise to avoid having to bother with kneading this homemade bread. Several other publications have picked up on this no knead bread recipe, adding their own spin on it.

When I first read these recipes, I was quite excited to give it a try since, not only was it easier not having to knead the dough, but since it required a long rise, you could start it at night and bake it in the morning, thus fitting baking bread around a relatively busy schedule without babysitting multiple rises all day long.

The original No-Knead Bread Recipe was an abject failure around our house. It barely rose and ended up being a flat, hard disk that took forever to bake to get to temperature. It was edible, but certainly not something I wanted to invest the time in repeating. Since then, I've seen other adjustments to the original recipe, but haven't given it a try again.

When the NYT published an updated recipe a few weeks ago, this time for a Fast No-Knead Whole Wheat Bread, I was excited to give it another try since the recipe was totally different, the rise time was shorter and I prefer whole wheat. Plus, you bake it in a loaf pan and didn't need to mess around with a dutch oven like the original. (They also posted an updated, even faster Speedy No-Knead Bread.)

I tried baking a loaf of it yesterday, but when I cut and pasted the recipe from the website, Windows mysteriously ejected the salt part of the ingredients list and I ended up with a inedible hockey puck of a bread loaf. It went into the compost. When I was eating it I immediately realized that something was missing: salt. So, when I went back to check on the recipe, lo and behold, there it was. The missing salt. So, I'll have to try it again.

Have any of you tried making the no knead bread? I hope you are having better luck with it than I.

Some of you have asked what my favorite homemade bread recipe is. I've posted it over on Crunchy Chicken Cooks, if you'd like to try it out.

Related posts:
Make your own yogurt
Holy cow! I made my own butter

Project Nowaste - Candied orange peels

Lately, I've been analyzing everything that goes into our food waste bin, making sure that food that is edible gets eaten before it goes bad. I've already discussed in great detail my butter making forays. But now I'm looking at things that generally aren't considered edible and seeing what I can do with them, too.

This one isn't too hard a stretch of the imagination, but when my husband got a bug in his ass about making Harvey Wallbangers (thanks, NY Times), we had all these orange peels leftover as a result. Not one to just want to throw them in the compost, I decided to make candied orange peels instead.

So, I took a recipe by my husband's favorite Italian food personality and adapted it a little.

The recipe and blow-by-blow instructions are available over on Crunchy Chicken Cooks if you want to see what it takes to make these delectable little chunks of food waste.

For those of you wondering what I did with the sugar syrup that the peels were boiled in, well, waste not want not! I strained the sugar syrup (that is now infused with some serious orangeness) and bottled it. If you do this yourself, make sure you refrigerate it. This can be used as an orange-infused simple syrup in a number of drinks or cocktails.

Peak oil butter

Do you have leftover (or just about to spoil) cream that you don't know what to do with but don't want to throw out?

Additionally, if Sharon is right about peak oil and you end up buying a cow (see #3), you'll want to make butter.

However, if you can't spare the electricity to make the butter with your Kitchenaid, I've posted step-by-step instructions on how to make butter using just a Mason jar and your two hands over on Crunchy Chicken Cooks.

Thirty minutes or less, start to finish! Check it out!

Plum crazy

I've gone plum crazy. I can't stop thinking about those plums I "saved" from the neighbor's tree a few weeks ago. They were falling off the tree onto the sidewalks and making a mess out of things, so I did some community service by picking them. And stuffing my face with them. Well, actually the kids inhaled them before I ate much of the 20 or so I rescued.

But I wish I had saved enough to make at least one batch of jam since they were the sweetest plums I have ever eaten in my life. They had a hint of pineapple or something I can't quite put my finger on. (I did manage to make a great plum and port wine reduction from some of the leftovers so all was not lost.)

But now. Tons of local, organic plums are available on sale at my local grocery store. And I can't stop thinking about them.

Do I have time to squeeze in at least one batch of plum jam? Should I attempt drying some for my signature Crunchy Chicken Marbella (new recipe posted on my Food Blog)? Do I need a dehydrator? The sun has been non-existent around here this summer, so sun dried plums are out of the question.

How about plum wine? Have any of you had success in making plum wine? Oh, the misery - the choices are endless!

Crunchy Chicken Cooks!

Hello all,

I've decided to start up a new blog and I wanted to invite you to come check it out.

Crunchy Chicken Cooks will be comprised of recipes that focus on seasonally inspired, local and organic foods.

Since most of the recipes will have some history behind it, whether it be ingredients originating from my garden or something I picked up at a farmer's market, I'll be posting a short description of the new recipe on this blog with a link to the recipe so you can check it out if you are interested.

The first recipe posting is a result of the jam canning jamboree from over the weekend. I made several different flavors of peach jam and was so excited, I wanted to share them with you. I found some delightful organic peaches originating from an orchard down by the Wenatchee River and went to work. There are three recipes in this posting:

• Cognac Vanilla Peach Preserves
  
• Cacao Peach Preserves
  
• Ginger Peach Preserves

I'll still be working just as hard as ever on this blog, but since I talk so much about the food I'm growing and cooking, this is a great outlet to share exactly what I'm doing.

I hope you enjoy!

[Stay tuned for Part 3 of my Back to the Basics series tomorrow!]