Plum Brandy Jam!

One of my new goals is accomplished: I successfully (I think) made a batch of plum brandy jam this afternoon. I learned how to do this at my last cooking class, and this was one of the recipes that I was most impressed with. I have to say I was still very intimidated by the idea of making jam, and all the discussions on how to avoid botulism growing in my jam certainly added to that nervousness! I am surprised now, though, at how fast and easy the process ended up being. I'm sure there are much more complicated recipes (this one didn't require a pressure cooker or anything other than a lot of dishes and food) but this seemed like a pretty good one to start with.

I modified this recipe a little bit, because I couldn't find the the particular type of pectin that the recipe I got called for at Cub, Target or EconoFoods. I also added a little bit more sugar to get closer to the recipe on the pectin, and a little bit of lemon juice to avoid my new paranoia of giving people botulism. I spread the remaining jam from the pan that didn't go into a jar on some toast, and it tasted pretty good (and I'm still not paralyzed), so my recipe adjustments seemed to have worked.

Plum Brandy Jam
This makes about 2 pints, so I only got 2 jars out of it. It also take a lot of pots, preferably really big tall ones. Next time, I would probably choose to use smaller jars (1/2 pint), but I couldn't find those anywhere that was open last night at 8:30! This would not only give me a few more jars, but would mean I could use smaller pots.

Ingredients

• 4 cups plums (this was about 1 pint)
• 3/4 cups brandy
• 3/4 pacakge sure-jell no sugar needed pectin (the original recipe recommended Pomona's universal pectin)
• 2 cups sugar (original recipe called for 1 1/2 cups)
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice (I added this because I was using sweet plums, while the original recipe called for sour plums)

Equipment

• 2 really tall pots (big enough that you can fill them with boiling water, put the jars in and have the water cover them by an inch or two)
• 2 normal sized pots (one to boil the lids, which can be pretty small, and another just big enough to fit all the ingredients)
• 2 pint-sized jars or the equivalent, with rings and new lids
• A jar lifter (not necessary but really, really helpful)
•  A magnetic thingy to pull the lids out of the water (again, not necessary but really helpful)
• A funnel (I didn't use one. I should have--there would be a lot less plum jam all over everything right now)
• A thick towel with some pot holders underneath it or a wooden cutting board
• A potato masher or just a big spoon to squash the fruit with
• Normal cooking tools (cutting board, knife, measuring utensils, bowls)

Process

1. In one of the big and one of the small pots, add water. Put the lids for the jars you'll be using in the small pot, and the jars themselves in the big pot. Bring the water to a boil. This will sanitize the jars--make sure they are boiling for at least 10 minutes. I learned that it's probably a lot easier if you put the jars in with the mouth facing down--otherwise, you have to worry about pouring the water out later when you really just want to worry about getting your jam in!

2. Fill the other big pot a little over half full with water and start to bring it to a boil. You will be putting the filled jars into this pot to help them seal, so be sure there's enough room to add a jar without overflowing the pot, but enough water to cover the jar. It might help to make some extra hot water in a teapot to add later if the jar isn't covered.
3. Make sure there is a wooden cutting board or a thick dish towel on top of some pot holder nearby. This is where you'll be setting the hot jars both to fill with jam and to cool.
4. Pit the plums and chop them coarsely. You don't need to peel them.
5. Put the plums in the remaining small pot and heat them up. If they aren't juicy enough, you may need to add some water to soften the plums. It took me about 10 minutes to soften them up so I could smash them with a spoon, until they were almost liquid.
   
6. Smash the plums with a potato masher or a spoon until the mix is very liquidy. Mine already looked a little bit jam-like here.
7. Bring the plums to a boil, stirring constantly. Add the brandy and lemon juice. (If you are using the Pomona's pectin, you can add the calcium water during this step, too.)
8. Mix the sugar and pectin together in a separate bowl. Add the mix to the plums and stir vigorously for 1-2 minutes to dissolve the pectin. Return the mix to a boil and remove it from the heat. Don't cook this mixture for too long, or the pectin will break down and your jam will end up being pretty soup-like.
9. Take the first jar out of the water bath and make sure the water is out (jar lifter is very handy here). Also pull a lid out (this is where the magnetic thing is really useful!) and set both on your towel or cutting board. Carefully pour the jam into the jar. This is where a funnel would have come in really, really handy for me; as it was, I used a big spoon and poured it in a little bit at a time. It took a long time and I have a very messy dish towel, but most of the jam ended up in the jars! I filled my jars to about 1/4" below the metal ring line.
10. Place the lid back on the jar and tighten the ring with your fingers (not too tight--otherwise the expanding and contracting that happens with the heat can cause some problems).
11. Using the jar lifter again, place the filled jar into the second large pot with the boiling water. Make sure the water covers the jar by an inch or two. If your water isn't quite boiling yet, it's ok--just get it there as fast as possible and don't start timing until it has started boiling. Boil the jar for 11-12 minutes (this is at an elevation for the Twin Cities area in Minnesota--you may need to adjust this based on your own elevation). While this jar is boiling, you can go ahead and fill the next one.

12. Pull the first jar out of the water bath with the jar lifter and place it back on your cutting board/towel. You can put the second jar into the water bath and start timing it. Let the first jar cool for awhile--you should hear a little popping sound after a bit indicating that the seal worked. My first jar took probably 5 minutes to pop--the second one popped within a minute. The seal is based off of the time and heat of the water, which is why it's important not to start the timer until the water is at a slow boil. If it doesn't pop, you can also toss it back in the boiling water for another 11 minutes. However, if it's been long enough to let the jam cool, it's better to put it in a new, re-sterilized jar.
13. Take the metal ring off at least long enough to ensure there's no water underneath, so it won't rust. You can also test your seal here (carefully) by picking the jar up by its lid. If it sealed correctly, it should stay. If not, the lid will come off and the jar will fall...so be careful!
14. Enjoy your success!

"Yes, you Can Can!"

I know. It's cheesy. But "Yes, you Can Can" is the name of the class I took today to work on one of my new goals of learning to can. It was taught by Jill Jacoby at the Cooks of Crocus Hill, and while going into the class I wasn't sure if it was worth paying for (after all, there are so many books and websites on canning, plus so many people who already know!) I was thoroughly impressed. I learned more in this class than I have in probably any other cooking class I've taken. I'm sure it helped that I knew absolutely zero about canning going in, but now I have enough of a foundation to feel like there's a possibility I could successfully make something this fall. The instructor was really knowledgeable, excited about what she did and very clear. The only drawback I saw to the class was that it was only scheduled for 2 hours, and with the amount of material she covered we could have easily filled a normal 3 hours session.

It was a "methods" class, so it focused much more heavily on how to can than the recipes to use. I did get a few fantastic recipes, which I'll share when I hopefully successfully make my batches of plum jam and apple butter, but more than that I went from knowing zero about how to safely put food in jars that will last for a year or so to having a pretty good idea. Some of the most important things I learned were that you need very little equipment, really--a really tall pot, a few more heavy pots for boiling the ingredients and sterilizing the jars and lids, a ladle, the jars themselves and a good colander. I also came out with a list of cool gadgets that would be handy, but it's nice to know that I can start experimenting small and cheap. I also learned the the basics of canning are just timing (so the food doesn't boil to short and not kill all the bacteria, or too long and not jell correctly), enough acid to keep botulism from being a problem and a whole lot of sterilization by boiling water.

My last few weeks have been pretty disgustingly busy with little stuff that keeps popping up, but I'm really hoping that in the next 2-3 weeks I'll be able to set aside a weekend day and try to make a batch of plum brandy jam. Cross my fingers (and yours, if you want to get any!) and I'll make sure to take some pictures and write some specifics if that day happens.

Book: Physics of the Impossible

After about a month of working on it, I finally finished Michio Kaku's Physics of the Impossible. It was an interesting book and well-written, and I'm a little bit sad that it took me so long to finish. Compared to many of the physics books geared towards a general audience that I've tried to read, this one was remarkably fun and easy to read. (Last week Steamboat Willie was having trouble sleeping, so I gave her one of my previous attempts at a readable physics book. After a few weeks of laying awake for 2 or 3 hours a night, she read 2 pages and not only slept through the night, but overslept the next morning. This book was much more interesting than that!)

Unfortunately, it was still a physics book for me. As much as I really am interested in physics, when I'm reading about it my attention span is even shorter than normal (which is hard to achieve). If I'm in a quiet room by myself, I can read for hours. If I'm anywhere else, I tend to get distracted by just about anything going on, which is why it took me so darn long to finish the book.

The basis of Physics of the Impossible is an explanation of the real physics of things that we've always considered science fiction, from interspace travel to telling the future. He divides the book into 3 sections, based on the probability of the event actually happening. One of my favorite parts of the book is that he is completely unabashed about the fact that many physicists got into the profession because they wanted to know about how Star Trek or Star Wars or even Batman could happen in real life. It made the whole subject more approachable to hear about the discoveries that were made because a physicist happened to read Jules Verne or watch Aliens. The author was also great at conveying some real physics information without confusing the issue by jumping into the very complicated issues too deep.

I would recommend this book to anyone who is just a little bit geeky (like me) and interested in both physics and science fiction. If you have a longer attention span than me, you'll be able to breeze through it--otherwise, plan a little bit of time when the tv is off and no one is around, and you'll learn enough physics to make yourself look like a good science geek!

Food Experiments: Made-up Zucchini Casserole

When I finally decided I wanted to learn how to cook, my experience came mostly in 2 waves. My mom taught me how to read recipes so they made sense, how to make the best rice krispie bars in the world, and basically got me started. My dad then took over and started to teach me how to make stuff up.

That's a skill I'm still learning, but it's coming easier as I cook more and get a better idea of what things go together and what I like. One of my biggest challenges is branching out--I have a few made-up recipes, but since I like so many of the same spices and ingredients so much, a lot of my new attempts end up tasting just the same. Last week, based on the produce from my garden and the farmers market, I successfully made up a casserole (that's a new attempt for me!) that was not only good, but different from my past experiments. And on top of that--not only was it relatively healthy (at least, most of the ingredients are good for you, although I have no idea on calorie count) but Henry even liked it. For healthy food, that's quite a compliment! Unfortunately, I cooked this in my father's style, which means I have only a very general idea at best as to how much of things I put into it. When you make it, just put in lots of the spices you like and not so much of the ones you don't. It works for me!

Made-Up Zucchini Casserole
I used a 9x9 ceramic casserole dish with a lid, and I think it was probably 3-4 inches tall. You could probably make it in a wider, shorter dish, but I liked the layers I added in this. They make it seem more casserole-y to me.

Ingredients

• Mixed brown and wild rice to cover the bottom of the pan (around 3/4 or 1 cup?)
• 1 large-ish zucchini, sliced into 1/4 inch rounds
• 1/2 large green pepper, diced
• 2 jalpenos, diced
• 1-2 tomatoes, diced
• 1 small onion, diced
• minced garlic (I used a lot. probably 2-4 tablespoons?)
• pepper
• cayenne pepper
• rosemary
• oregano
• 1 large chicken breast, cut into 1/2" cubes
• spaghetti sauce (about 3/4 of a normal sized jar)
• Cheddar cheese, enough to cover the top of the casserole and extra to sprinkle on before serving (1 cup?)
• Bread crumbs, enough to cover the top of the casserole (1/2 cup?)

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350.
2. Cover the bottom of the casserole dish with the mixed rice.
3. On top of the rice, layer the zucchini rounds, green pepper and jalapenos, tomatoes, and onion. Lightly cover with the spices (garlic through oregano).
4. Top the spices and veggies with the dicecd chicken breast and pour the spaghetti sauce over the top, making sure it covers as much of the casserole as possible. (I also added a little bit of extra water here for the rice, but I'm pretty sure I didn't need to. The finished product was plenty liquid-y.)
5. Cover with cheddar cheese and bread crumbs.
6. Bake covered for 1 hour. Remove the cover and bake for another 30 minutes. Top with more cheese for serving.

Tosca and trampolines

This weekend I had a completely new experience; I went to my first opera. It's one of those things I've been meaning to do for quite awhile, mostly out of curiosity and partly because it just seems like something you should try once in your life. I ended up dragging my sister and brother-in-law with me to see Tosca, put on by the Minnesota Orchestra. (I figured that as music professors, bringing them was my best bet as to someone who would enjoy it!)

It was interesting. I'm glad I went to see an opera once, but based on this experience I would have to say that I definiely prefer musicals. For starters, while I appreciated the screen with some English translations to help me understand what was going on, I found it ended up being similar to watching TV with the closed captioning. I was so busy reading the words that I didn't notice nearly as much of the music or acting. Also, it drove me a little bit nuts when they would continue singing with no captions occasionally! I should have expected it to be depressing, I suppose, but I was still surprised by the complete pessimism of the story!

One of my favorite moments, however, had nothing to do with this particular show. A man sitting next to my sister shared an article he had printed off with her, about mishaps that have happened during other stagings of the opera. Without ruining too much (hopefully), there is a scene in the play when a main character is supposed to jump off a parapet to her death. In the past, apparently there have been a lot of accidents resulting in broken bones, but the article focused more on the funny mishaps. In one staging, they placed a trampoline to break this character's fall, so the dramatic suicide plunge was followed by several re-appearances over the wall. In another, soldier supposedly pursuing this character had simply been told to "exit with the principals" and so all threw themselves off the wall immediately afterwards. While the performance I went to was extremely well done (the music was beautifully done and the staging, while basic, was nice) there was a little bit of me that regretted our performance not going just a little bit wrong, in a similarly funny (and non-traumatic!) way.

Re-thinking my goals

I started the new year with a lot of plans and goals, named so because I hoped that calling them that would make it easier not to just forget them, like I generally do with resolutions.

It didn't work.

My plans for the entire year have changed, putting off a lot of my ideas. Our trip to France and Italy has been postponed until next spring, I've temporarily lost interest in Web programming, and it appears another member beat me to creating a website for my hometown church. I tried malva pudding...not the same as I remember. And the difficult part is that it's such an incredibly rich dessert, I have a hard time convinving anyone to eat my almosts. However, my garden is doing well (I've eaten a few veggies out of it, as well as a lot of raspberries) and the other website I was planning is out there at least in its first stages. It still needs some tweaking, some more content and some extra features like email, but it's more progress than I make on a lot of new years goals!

It's a little over halfway through the year--I figure it's time to set some new goals. Achievable ones, and ones that will keep the experiments and adventures going.

• If my feet heal in time, run a 5K
• Read all the Sandman books or Les Miserables (bucket list items)
• Get down the basics of canning, and make a batch of something (jam, jelly, apple butter...not sure yet!)
• Go to a waterpark
• Go canoing or kayaking
• Go camping
• Start thinking seriously about writing fiction again. Maybe even come up with an outline for something.

There are so many more goals that I'd like to add to this, but I think I'm going to need to start relatively small and hopefully add on further goals as the year wears on.

Some food experiments: Grilling and sweet potato burritos

Since I found the list of 101 ideas for the grill, I've been experimenting with different grilled foods. My results: grilled asparagus, great, but don't overcook it. Grilled watermelon, not great. But my parents' dog Amos really, really liked that one--probably something about the bratwurst flavor that was infused in the watermelon after grilling. In fact, Amos liked it so much that he scarfed down all his food for the first time since I got here, with minimal coaxing! Grilled avacado is ok, but it didn't add a lot to the normal avacado flavor. Grilled peppers, very good. All in all, my favorite grill experiment so far is definitely the asparagus. I just tossed it in olive oil with sea salt (since my parents don't have kosher salt and I was house-sitting during this particular experiment) and a little bit of pepper, and grilled it for probably less than 5 minutes. The coals were super hot from the chimney starter (I'm not ready for gas or the green egg grill yet...they seem much more likely to blow up in my face when I don't know which buttons to hit) so the stalks directly over the coals were already burnt by that point.

My other experiment for the week was sweet potato burritos. I was very skeptical about these, even though they are labeled "addictive." I'm very picky about how I like sweet potatoes, and I wasn't entirely sure about the idea of a burrito essentially completely filled with smooshy food. I decided to take my chances since all the reviews were so positive, and I'm glad I did. I made all the fillings from scratch (no canned sweet potatoes or refried beans) since I heard that made a difference, and they were delicious. My cautions--they are best when you make sure the beans and the sweet potatoes are mixed well inside the tortilla, to make sure you're not getting a full bite of sweet potatoes and another full bite of beans. Make sure you have enough cheese, as the sharpness balances out the rest of the flavors. And, if you're using the smaller tortillas, make a few of these! They're good enough to eat several of and not as filling as they look. These are vegetarian, but I think you could easily add shredded pork or chicken to them if you wanted.