Jam tomorrow

Well. maybe I'm exaggerating a bit..

My jam-making exploits of late summer have been well documented on this blog- and I've returned home to the UK with a good selection to take us through Christmas. However, there were quite a few jars of shop bought jam and chutney in my cupboards that I discovered on my return.

But obviously they need to be used up- and as quickly as possible! Who wants to spread those on their bread when they can have the real thing?

I began with a quick jammy fruit crumble- frozen red berries mixed with 2 tbsp bramble jelly and a little fruit juice and topped with a sweet crumble topping:

Stir jam into frozen berries..

The remaining bramble jelly I used up in jam tarts- here used as part of an autumn cafe gourmand with creme anglaise, mini crumble and blackberries.

Autumn Cafe Gourmand

And in 'Apples in Dressing Gowns'- a German dish:

Apples in Dressing Gowns

Peel and core a dessert apple and lay out on some leftover shortcrust pastry

Fill with chopped dates, sultanas and a good squirt of golden syrup

Paint with jam all over

Wrap up well in the pastry and bake at 180 degrees

Marmalade went into a Sticky Marmalade Cake

Sticky Seville Cake

http://lizsleftovers.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/marmalade%20cake

and into Rum Punch sauce for ice cream.

http://lizsleftovers.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=rum+punch+sauce

Next, I used some leftover mango chutney and fruit chutney (half a jar each) to make Chicken and Chutney Tagine. Here is the recipe:

You will need a selection of chicken quarters ( drumsticks and thighs), 1 lemon, 4 tsp tagine spice (I buy mine from a spice seller in the market but you can get it anywhere- or make your own combination), 1 tsp chilli, 1 tin chopped tomatoes, half a jar each of mango chutney and other fruit chutney, 1 onion, 1 fat clove of garlic (crushed) and any of the following that you like or have in the store cupboard- 1 tin chick peas, handful green olives, handful dried apricots or dates, handful sultanas....you choose.

Skin the chicken quarters and marinade overnight in the juice and grated rind of the lemon mixed with the tagine spice.

Marinade the chicken

The next day, fry the chopped onion and garlic and place in a slow cooker or tagine pot. Then fry the chicken quarters to brown them

Brown quickly

Add these to the pot, then deglaze the pan with the chutney and a cup of water

Deglaze the pan with the chutney

Pour over the chicken, add the chilli, tomatoes, and your chosen extra ingredients.

Cook in the slow cooker for 4-6 hours on low, or in the oven at 160 degrees for 2 hours or so.

Chicken and Chutney Tagine

Leftovers can be wrapped in filo or feuilles de brick, sprinkled with sesame seeds and baked at 180 degrees to make Chicken Pastillas.

Chicken and Chutney Pastillas

And finally- if you need some ideas for using up honey, there is a whole blogpost here for you to peruse featuring some of my favourites like Sticky Sausages and Caviare of Aubergines,

http://lizsleftovers.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/honey

So, contrary to the popular saying, we did have jam yesterday, jam today and- yes- probably
tomorrow!

                             

Says who?

Herby-dacious!

.

Herby-dacious!

"Herby-dacious!" was the password that opened the gates to the magic herb garden in Oliver Postgate's 'The Herbs' back in the 1970's. It featured Parsley the Lion, Dill the Dog, Sage the Owl et al


In those days, I didn't even know dill was a herb.

Now I have my own magic herb garden.

Mint has its own bed

Thyme aplenty

Rosemary galore

And a bay tree too!

And the annuals are in full leaf- parsley, chives, lemon balm....

So my thoughts have turned to how to preserve these treasures to add to soups, stews, sauces....you name it...throughout the year ahead.

As I was busy with preserves, I added thyme to my apple jelly- which featured in last month's blog but it also enhances marmalade too- as here:

Orange and Thyme Jelly

Ingredients: (to make 4lb of marmalade)

6 oranges

1 lemon

1.2 kg sugar

570 ml water

1 bottle liquid pectin

1 tbsp fresh chopped thyme

1. Wash the oranges and lemon, halve them and squeeze out all the juice

2. Chop roughly and place in a heavy pan with the water

3. Bring to the boil and simmer for 10 minutes

4. Strain the fruit and put the liquid- 

made up to 570 ml again with the fruit juice, along with the sugar, back in the pan.

5. Cook over a low heat and dissolve the sugar then bring up 

to a rolling boil and boil for two minutes.

6. Add the thyme and continue to boil for another two minutes

7. Add the pectin and boil for a further minute

8. Test a spoonful of the mixture on a cold saucer to see if it is setting.

9. If not, continue to boil, testing every minute or so for a 'set'.

10. Skim the surface and strain the mixture once again to remove the thyme

11. Pot up in sterilised jars and label

Mint is another herb that goes well in a jelly- to serve with lamb or mix with yogurt for a dip for poppadoms.

Keep a container in the freezer for lemon shells, and when you have squeezed the lemon juice out, freeze them to use for flavour and added pectin for your jellies.

Leftover lemon shells

To make mint jelly ( or rosemary jelly- equally good):

Ingredients:

A good bunch of mint

4 lemon shells

750 ml water

6 tbsp white wine vinegar

500g sugar

1. Chop the lemon shells in a food processor and then simmer in the water in a saucepan for 15 minutes

2. Strain the mixture through a clean jelly bag for 3-4 hours

3. Make the liquid back up to 500 ml if necessary

4. Put back in the saucepan with the sugar and vinegar and heat until the sugar dissolves

5. Chop the mint, add to the pan and bring the mixture to the boil for 3 minutes

Chop the mint 

6. Strain off the mint and continue to boil until the mixture reaches setting point (as in above recipes)

7. Quickly skim and pour into hot sterilised jars, then seal.

Mint jelly

An obvious way to keep herbs handy over the winter is to keep bunches of dried leaves in the kitchen- thyme, rosemary, bay, sage and oregano survive well like this.

Dried herbs for the kitchen

But softer herbs like parsley, basil, chives and mint are not so great dried. They do well if chopped and frozen in ice cube trays ready to use. Basil and oregano do well frozen like this, but also you can freeze them in olive oil so they can be dropped into pasta dishes.

Mint, chives and parsley for the freezer

Herb butters, sugars and vinegars make a little go a long way too.

Mix herbs of your choice with butter and place on cling film, roll up into a sausage using the cling film, briefly unroll it and slice into portions then wrap it up again and freeze it.

                                     Herb butter

Mint and lemon balm flavour sugar nicely, for adding to cakes and puddings. Simply pour caster sugar into clean jars and poke in some sprigs of your favourite herb. Screw the lid tightly and leave for the flavours to develop over the next few weeks.

               Mint sugar

Other herbs, like rosemary and thyme add flavour to vinegars.

Measure out some white wine vinegar to fill your sterilised bottles- bring it to the boil and pour into the bottles, press in a sprig of your chosen herb and seal. Great for salad dressings.

Rosemary vinegar

Now your herbs are all safely dried, frozen, jellied and otherwise preserved- it's time to make them the stars of your recipes.

 

Rosemary and Olive Sables

http://lizsleftovers.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/olives#uds-search-results

                         Lemon and Chive Hollandaise

http://lizsleftovers.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/oranges-and-lemons.html

                    Sage and Onion Cornbread

http://lizsleftovers.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/corn%20bread

And finally- work some fresh herbs into your next batch of pastry- either add them at the rubbing in stage, or press them into ready made short crust pastry.

You can then go on to make flavoursome quiches like this Courgette and Tomato Tart- very simple but the genius lies in slicing your courgettes thinly

then rolling them up cigar fashion to build your tart

then add three beaten eggs, salt and pepper, a dusting of Parmesan and bake at 170 degrees until set.

Courgette and Tomato Tart

No magic word needed!

Each Peach, Pear, Plum...

All this, and apples too.







It gives me huge pleasure to look out on my French fruit trees in my little corner of the Auvergne and see them all laden.

The view this morning

Despite a heatwave, I have been happily boiling, potting and labelling up jars of jam, chutney and jelly and making cakes, pies and compotes with it all.

For each of the recipes in this blog post, you can substitute peaches, pears or plums for the apple.

The peaches will be ready in a couple of weeks

Maybe another week on the pears

But the apples are plentiful!

When we drove up, the fireworks to celebrate Assumption Day lit up the path and showed bucketfuls of windfall apples already lying on the ground. Swift action was required.

I made my first batch of Apple and Thyme Jelly the next day.

You need 3lbs of windfall or cooking apples, 3 lbs of sugar,  a litre of water, 1 tbsp fresh chopped thyme and half a bottle of liquid pectin.

Wash and trim the apples of any bad bits, chop and core them but leave the peel on.
Put the fruit in the pan with the water, cover and simmer until the fruit is soft enough to mash with a potato masher.

Spoon the mixture into a clean jelly bag and leave overnight to drip into a bowl. You will collect a surprising amount of juice.

Drain through a jelly bag

Make the juice up to a litre again if necessary and put back in the pan with the sugar.

Bring to a rolling boil and boil rapidly for 2 minutes.

Add the thyme and boil for another 2 minutes.

Add the pectin and boil for another minute.

Place a spoonful of the mixture on a cold saucer and test for a set. It should part easily when you run a finger through it, without running back, and the surface should wrinkle. If not, keep boiling and testing until you are satisfied.

When ready to set, skim the surface and strain once again to remove the thyme. It will have worked its magic.

Pour into sterilised jars ( a hot wash in the dishwasher does the trick) and label.

Pour into sterilised jars

It will be set and ready to eat even by the following morning.

This recipe makes 5 lbs of jelly.

A huge thunderstorm brought down another bucket full of apples-

and these I made into compote (stewed with ginger, cinnamon and sugar and then mashed ) for the freezer.

Apple Compote

I also made chutney.

Here is my Curried Apple and Sultana Chutney recipe:

You need 500g of sultanas, 1.5 kg of peeled and chopped apples, 2 large onions (chopped), 3-4 big garlic cloves (crushed), 1 -2 dessertspoons powdered ginger, 1 heaped tablespoon of curry powder, 675g of sugar, 2 tsp salt, 1 litre of cider vinegar.
Put all the ingredients in a heavy pan and mix thoroughly. Bring to the boil and then simmer for 45 minutes or until you have the right consistency ( a wooden spoon scraped through a dollop of the mixture should leave a gap which doesn't quickly refill with liquid ).
Pot up in sterilised jars, seal and label.

Curried Apple and Sultana Chutney

This will be repeated when the peches de vigne are ripe- same recipe but I will leave out the curry powder and add some chopped crystallized ginger.

Poaching pears with star anise

The pears I will poach with star anise and keep in the freezer for trifles, tarts and other desserts.

Chocolate and Pear Tartlets

Any good eating apples will go into a tatin or a cake- as will the pears.

Apple Cake

http://lizsleftovers.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/week-11-cooking-for-crowd.html

Pear Trifle
http://lizsleftovers.blogspot.fr/search/label/Speculoos

Plum Tatin
http://lizsleftovers.blogspot.fr/search/label/tarte%20tatin

I am reminded of a French counting rhyme which used to delight my pupils- back in the mists of time when I was a teacher.

Pomme, peche, poire, abricot

Y'en a une, y'en a une

Pomme, peche, poire, abricot

Y'en a une qui est en trop.

Except in this household there is nothing ever en trop!

Happy fruit picking!