Stewed Drupes

I wanted to call this post "Plum Jam" but that is not really what I ended up with. So I am going with the much catchier title, Stewed Drupes.

We had a pint of plums from Trader Joes that had been sitting on the counter for two weeks and were still as hard as cannon balls (I guess it's because I didn't put them in the fruit bowl as they recommend. My bad, because obviously they would have ripened magically in those radically different conditions).


I considered roasting them with sugar, butter, and cinnamon, but when I took a bite of one, the flesh was so hard and, quite frankly, tasteless, that roasting did not seem a sufficient measure to coax some flavor and pleasing texture out of them.

Instead, I chopped them up into small pieces (8 plums in all), put them in a pot, added 3 cups of water, 1/2 cup of sugar, and embarked on an evening of making jam.


This is when they had already been stewing for a while - the flesh was originally very pale. The rich jewel color comes from the skins.



I brought the mixture to a boil and then simmered it for two hours. This is the right thing to do if you are watching television and you do not want the sugary mixture to burn or boil over (making a horrible mess and / or catching fire) as you can only pop into the kitchen during commercial breaks.

This is the wrong thing to do if you want jam.

In order for the boiled fruit to become jam, the fruit has to boil at a high temperature for long enough to release the fruit's natural pectin (I only looked this up after the fact). The pectin changes the consistency of the fruit from runny to gelatinous, which you can determine by spooning a small amount onto a plate (necessary because everything is runny at high temperatures, including fully-set jellies and jams). If the spoonful of fruit runs everywhere, all you have is stewed fruit. If it blobs into a discernible shape, you've got jam, baby.

I had stewed fruit. Jam it isn't, but it's pretty, no? That's my favorite color in the world.



You can serve the stewed drupes with ice cream, a la the Barefoot Contessa (and her recipe doesn't take two hours). Spread it on toast, scones, or between layers of a cake. Dollop onto freshly-made rice pudding. Or my personal fave - mix it in with yogurt topped with fresh granola and nuts.

Besides the consistency, the other distinction between jam and stewed fruit is it doesn't last forever. I took the "preserve" out of "preserves." No matter. It's too sweet and delicious to last long.

Aspirational Kitchen - Part 1

Recently, I received the most amazing catalogue ever, full of restaurant-grade tools and appliances. I felt a rush of validation. Someone out there, someone who sells my name and shopping history to other companies, knows who I really am.

*silence*

Um. You know. An accomplished chef.

Only, my receiving this catalogue is a little bit like a child who has played Operation getting a surgical kit for Christmas.

Many of the objects are intimidating.

Like this:

"Alright, alright, I confess!"

Or this:












Others have brilliant marketing names. I present the VinoVault:

"Honey, Harold had too much wine again."

"What are we doing to do? Wait! Let's lock him in the VinoVault, and he'll be ready to drive in no time."

Okay, so it's not for cooling down winos, but for keeping your bottles of wine at just the right sipping temperature. Beautifully aspirational. But given that we rarely spend more than $5 for a bottle of wine (thank you, TJs), I'd rather buy 80 bottles of plonk than spend $400 on this.

Tea Time

After years of carting suitcases full of tea back from family trips to England, I have made an amazing discovery. PG Tips is now available on Amazon.com. With free shipping.

Rejoice.

Mulled Wine

It's freezing outside. Which means it's time to fire up the stove and start mulling wine. After all, what better antidote is there to a biting wind than a glass full of warm spicy wine? It goes down particularly well with guests.

1 bottle of really cheap wine (I'm serious. Everything we add after this point would completely disguise a nice wine, so there's really no point - in fact if you have a half open bottle you don't know what to do with, why not chuck it into the pot?)
1 or 2 cinnamon sticks (or 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon)
1/4" piece of ginger root (or 1/4 tsp ground ginger)
sprinkling of allspice
sprinkling of nutmeg
1 tbsp honey or sugar (or more if the wine tastes acidic)
1 or 2 shots of rum

Combine all ingredients in a soup pot or saucepan. Heat on medium low until honey / sugar is dissolved and liquid is warmed through. Alcohol evaporates quickly, so be careful not to boil. Strain before serving.

What could be better than that? Maybe this recipe for chocolate wine, which I will have to try one of these days.

C'est Toujours Delish

Welcome to my blog!

I love to cook and my shutterbug husband snaps pics of the results, so I'm going to take a leap into the blogosphere and chronicle my adventures and discoveries in the kitchen. Restaurants, gourmet stores, and any opportunity to discuss fresh food will also make its way into this discussion as they are all relevant to delicious eating.

My qualifications as a cook are scant, except that I went off the meal plan my second year in college and have been feeding myself ever since, with greatly improved results over the years.

I cooked on my honeymoon having booked a self-catering villa on the Amalfi Coast for a week. Nothing beats being able to make a cup of tea and an egg in the morning.

Our little local convenience store was an unlikely but fruitful source of fresh ingredients:

It was incredibly easy, with ingredients like those, to whip up a full-fledged meal - I present scialatielli pomodoro (with lacryma christi in the tumblers):

Yum.

Scialatielli Pomodorini:

1 package fresh pasta (sciallatielli are long, thick noodles)
1 pint cherry tomatoes
butter
cheese
parsley
olive oil

Cook the pasta for a very short time.

Slice the cherry tomatoes in half and fry them, slice side down, in a dollop of foaming butter until slightly softened. Toss with the cooked pasta, adding leaves of parsley, freshly grated cheese, and a dribble of olive oil over the top. Salt to taste.