Delaware Girl Eats

Friends and Food intertwine - The Breakfast Club Toast

 

Years ago my future husband and I shared a communal beach house with a group of friends in Rehoboth, Delaware, congregating each weekend for fun in the sun.  Please don’t picture anything like The Jersey Shore television program.  This was different.  We found our fun cooking for each other and called ourselves The Breakfast Club. 

Our food was legendary among the other beach house groups.  Each year we kicked off the summer season with a Memorial Weekend Bash featuring our signature dish, the grand marnier injected, chocolate covered strawberries served on an elegant silver platter.  They never lasted long.  The strawberries and our other tasty offerings such as sliced mini-filet on toast points topped with mustard sauce set a high standard for the other groups to follow.

Our cooking ringleader was our friend Beverley who commanded the kitchen and who each week organized our Sunday brunches.   A typical menu included Dutch Baby pancakes, frittatas with herbs and vegetables, omelets and Delaware’s famous pork scrapple. Not your typical beach grub.  Invitations were highly sought-after, not just for the food but for our bloody mary and mimosa libations.  

The group has grown over the years as new friends joined. But eventually everyone became beach house alumni.  Nearly all of us married and many children came along.  But we always stayed connected through two traditions – our group Thanksgiving feast and our holiday champagne toast.

Beverley made it all about family.  And after all these years we remain that way.  This weekend, after a longer than normal interval, we gathered at Bev’s house for our traditional champagne toast.  We raised our glasses and celebrated over twenty years of being the Breakfast Club.

Spring in the Secret Garden

I enter the secret garden and the street sounds slip away behind me, replaced by robins warbling on this warm spring day.  The sun warms my back as I stroll its secluded paths.

 

The Goodstay Garden is among the oldest in Delaware, planted in the 1850’s along colonial designs,.  After languishing for many years, it was lovingly transformed by Ellen DuPont when she received the property from her father T. Coleman DuPont as a wedding present in the 1920’s.    She and her husband enhanced the original American Tudor  kitchen garden design to feature knot garden “rooms” bursting with tulips, iries, peonies and roses.  Today it’s mine alone. 

The magnolias are finishing, a few remaining blossoms mingle with tiny shoots of leaves, reaching up toward an impossibly azure sky.  I pause to rest on a bench under their shade, taking in beauty surrounding me and the garden’s coolness.

Later, as I move among the garden’s rooms, gravel crunches under my feet.  The rooms are partitioned by boxwood hedges so that the view surprises at every turn. In the iris garden, orderly rows of swelling buds are ready to spring into bloom.  Already, the scarlet red tulips and soft blue forget me nots are enjoying their afternoon in the sun and dappled shade.  The heads of English bluebells dance in the shifting light and breeze.  The sundial proclaims, “Let others tell of storms and showers, I count only the sunny hours.”  A bee buzzes near my face. 

Spring fragrances linger on this warm day.  The tangy sent of the boxwoods drifts past as I brush by.  In the potager garden, the spring ramps are flourishing, their pungent aroma wafting through that space.  It’s a perfect afternoon.

Inspired by the scents, I decide to bake something with ramps, which are wild leeks.  Stopping at our local market, I find ramps harvested from nearby forests.  They are not grown commercially, so are a rare spring treat.  Their deep earthy flavor imparts a peppery taste, and both their pearly white tubers and floppy green leaves can be used.

Enjoy this fleeting treat in a spring tart, its assertive flavor mellowed by baking.

Spring Tart

Ingredients

1 sheet of prepared puff pastry, thawed

½ cup baby spinach

8 spring onions

1 cup peas

1 bunch ramps

4 Tbs butter

1/3 cup heavy cream

1 egg yolk

¼ cup grated parmesan cheese

chopped herbs to taste, salt and pepper

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Roll out the puff pastry till about ¼ inch thick.  Place on a sheet tray, crimping up the edges to form a border.  Top with aluminum foil weighted down with dry beans.  Bake 15 minutes.

 While the pastry is baking, cook the peas till just soft, 2-3 minutes. Dice the whites of the spring onions and ramps and sauté in butter.   Let the vegetables cool. Tear the spinach and green leaves of the ramps into large pieces.

 Stir together the cream, cheese and egg yolk, adding the peas and sautéed onions and ramps.

Lay the spinach and ramp pieces on the puff pastry and top with the cream mixture.  Add the chopped herbs, and season with salt and pepper.

Bake the tart for 8-10 minutes and serve warm or at room temperature.

Heritage Peppers Connect to Family Past

In the early spring when the snow is hardly off the ground I’m already dreaming about my summer garden bounty.  My thoughts are stirred by the warming soil and by seed starting.  Chief among these are the heirloom sweet peppers whose seeds have been carefully nurtured from one season to another since my grandfather brought them with him from Italy in 1915.  They are the peppers of his village.  More than that I never knew, although I discovered this varietal in general is called Corno di Toro (Bull’s Nose) for their elongated shape.  

The bulls nose peppers

One thing is sure. These seeds have had a well travelled history.  After being brought from Italy, the peppers were a perennial fixture in my grandfather’s kitchen garden in Wellsburg, West Virginia.  My father grew them in his garden in Northeast Ohio when he moved our family there in the 1960’s.  Here in Wilmington, Delaware I grow them in my tiny garden plot alongside the house. 

For many years my father and I were partners in this annual exercise that links me to my ancestors.  He coached me at every step of the growing process, following his own father’s traditions.  Now I am the custodian of these seeds.

Pepper seeds ready for germinating

It takes patience to coax the life out of them so that they will germinate but it is a joy.  Unlike today’s hybrids, I can’t simply toss them into the ground, sprinkle with water and voila, they sprout.  Right now I’m in the third week of anxiously watching them sit moistened with a damp paper towel on my sunny windowsill.  I am waiting to see the tiny white tails emerge that signal I can finally start the planting process.  This in itself is another exercise in patience.  First I tuck the seeds into dirt filled little cups.  Then a few weeks later, green sprouts appear.  Finally, in May I can plant them in my garden whose southern exposure and location alongside the house’s brick wall mimic the hot, sunny climate they enjoyed in Italy.

I never question whether it’s worth the effort.  The connection to past generations is why I undertake this ritual year after year.  And, the fact of the matter is that the peppers are delicious.  Their fruity taste and delicate thin flesh are unlike anything I can get at the grocery or farmers market.  And they are can be prepared in many ways – sliced raw in salads, sautéed with onions on a crusty roll or stuffed with ground meat and tomatoes.   We hoard them during the summer harvest and freeze them so we can enjoy them during the winter.

On Sunday, I listened to Seed Savers Exchange founder Diane Ott Whealy talk about that organization’s efforts to preserve our gardening heritage for future generations.  She said that seeds and people are linked and that they each have a story.  I certainly have mine.

Opening Day at Chestertown Farmers Market

The first hopeful green shoots are sprouting in my garden, confirming what my calendar says – that spring is on its way.   I’m grateful because come March it’s no longer possible to be inspired by root vegetables and I’ve made butternut squash every possible way.

Last weekend’s opening day of Chestertown, MD’s farmers market was filled with harbingers of the season to come.  Native Daughter Flowers, who in summer offers pails of foxgloves, gladiolas and dahlias, was bundled in a heavy wool coat and cap, and presented only daffodils and potted tulips. But my reliable vegetable dealer from Cedar Farms arrived with spring peas and hothouse lettuces.  Stamping their feet in the cold, the folks from Lockbriar Farms were offering tempting tastes of their jams and honey.

The thing I had missed most over the winter was talking with the growers.  Each always has a tip or two to share about how to prepare what's fresh that week.  And then there's the purely social aspect of chatting with others after the long winter home alone.

Taking a break from my browsing,I strolled over to the bakery to get a cup of coffee.  Then I went back out to the market to buy the remaining ingredients for my dinner dish.  But stung by the brisk cold breeze, everyone had already packed up and left.

I am wildly impatient for spring, but just like those who grow things, I need to learn the art of patience.  The market will return next week, and as spring progresses it will continue to blossom.

 

Farfalle with Peas, Asparagus, Mushrooms and Cream

This simple pasta combines the flavors of spring with a rich creamy sauce

 

1 ½ cups shelled baby peas

1 lb asparagus, trimmed and shaved

1 shallot, chopped

16 oz mushrooms, including button and fresh or frozen porcini, chopped

½ cup chicken broth

¼ stick butter

2 cups heavy cream

2 tbs olive oil

½ cup grated Parmesian cheese

1 lb farfalle pasta

salt and pepper

 

Preheat oven on broil.  Brush asparagus with olive oil.  Broil for 5 minutes.  Set aside and cut into 1 inch lengths.

Melt butter in sauce pan. Cook mushrooms till tender.  Add broth and continue to cook for 5 minutes. 

Set aside.

In a large pan sauté shallots till golden.  Then add peas, asparagus and mushrooms.  Add cream and reduce for 5 minutes.  Season with salt and pepper.  Stir in parmesian cheese.

Heat water for pasta and cook according to directions.

Combine ingredients and serve sprinkled with parmesian cheese.

 

This is my contribution to Weekend Herb Blogging edition 376, hosted by Simona's Kitchen http://simonaskitchen2.blogspot.com/

Delaware’s Favorite Breakfast Meat Gets a Makeover – Scrapplegasme

Delaware’s favorite breakfast meat – scrapple -- is unique to the Mid-Atlantic States.  Its roots stem from the Amish who clustered in this area and their marrying of German cooking traditions with New World ingredients.  Scrapple is mostly unknown elsewhere across the US.  Folks from other parts of the country are apprehensive about trying the dish thanks to its dubious reputation for containing every part of the pig except the squeal.  But it’s the best kind of comfort food, perfectly paired with a plateful of fried eggs.  Biting into a thinly cut golden browned slice slathered with ketchup is breakfast heaven.

Traditional scrapple is a humble dish, originating in rural areas where frugal farmers made imaginative use of their butchering scraps.  But it’s a Delaware delicacy.  Each maker’s singular choice of spices and seasonings yields a distinctive taste.  Fans like my native Delawarean husband relish scrapple’s complex flavors and are tremendously loyal to their favorite recipe. 

We would be perfectly happy to go on keeping scrapple a Delaware secret but yet, in response to all those skeptics out there who shudder at the dish, I think it deserves to be seen with a different lens.  Scrapple uses many of the same ingredients and preparations as pates, rillettes and terrines.  It certainly fits with Julia Child’s description of terrine and pate, being “ground or cubed meat mixtures with spices and organ meat cooked and molded in a baking dish”.    

                   Chef Robert Luhlier, right, in elegant Hotel DuPont Green Room

So I decided to support two upscale local chefs who took up the challenge of reimagining scrapple traditions using high end ingredients at the MidAtlantic Food and Wine Festival’s Scrapplegasme event last weekend.    Hosted in Wilmington’s elegant Hotel DuPont Green Room, Scrapplegasme featured these chefs squaring off with their take on today’s scrapple made with goose, rabbit, antelope and chorizo paired with imaginative  egg dishes. 

In presenting his dish, Chef Robert Luhlier said that when the event organizers recruited him for an haute cuisine scrapple breakfast, he thought the idea was insane.   But then he thought about how much Delawareans love their scrapple and he signed on along with his sous chef Drew Ramage.  Ironically, Scrapplegasme turned out to be a very popular idea.  Of the Festival’s 40 events, the scrapple breakfast was among the first to sell out.  And that really put pressure on the chefs, he said.

He and Drew riffed on what would be cool to present.  They came up with a version based on chorizo, which is also pork, but served with a Mexican mole made with chocolate, sugar and black pepper so that diners experienced a hot, yet sweet taste.  He also prepared a rabbit scrapple whimsically paired with a carrot tartar quenelle.  His egg dish was a quiche incorporating black truffles and mascarpone cheese.  What’s not to love among that trio?

Chorizo scrapple with truffle quiche

 Chef Keith Miller, the Hotel’s executive chef, said he signed on to the breakfast to honor local heritage.  “People think of scrapple is a low dish and I wanted to show that one could use truly high end ingredients to make this a dish that would blow peoples’ minds,” he said.  His preparations included antelope scrapple and a scrapple made with goose, orange, sage and thyme.

Antelope and goose scrapple with grits and sunny side egg

 The breakfast concluded with a clever surprise.  Hotel DuPont executive pastry chef Michelle Mitchell’s desert was presented deceptively as a breakfast plate, but crème brulee made up the scrambled eggs and grilled pound cake took the place of toast. 

Surprise breakfast dessert

 At the conclusion of the meal, diners were asked how they liked the morning’s menu and they responded with rousing applause.  The chefs glanced at each other ruefully.  They had succeeded in rescuing scrapple’s reputation, but now they will be on the hook to do it again next year.

 

Debating Authentic Mexican Cooking in Austin Heats up Longhouse Food Revival

Austin, Texas is quirky and decidedly low key.  More important, it’s sunny and warm in the midst of winter and I gave thanks for those warm Texas breezes as I stepped off the plane on arrival.  I was bound for a weekend food fest hosted by former New York Times writer and cookbook author Molly O’Neill and the timing couldn’t have been better.

In Delaware we still were engulfed in winter’s numbing cold and a spate of parental care crises had been emotionally draining.  It was time to get away.

Molly’s event, called Longhouse Food Revival, is a series of salon dinners that draw like-minded food writers and enthusiasts for an evening of thought-provoking discourse.  And of course, the food, which was as tantalizing as the evening’s speakers.  As dusk settled over the city we entered the dilapidated freight loading dock transformed into a fairy land for the evening and tched Kiko Guerra tend his fire pits, roasting goats known as cabrito.  He spoke passionately about the proper way to tend the coals and the exact temperature needed to get the char he was looking for from the burning embers.  We munched on spinach tomales slathered with fiery salsa.

Kiko Guerra tending his firepit

Personal-sized mugs ready to be filled with salsa

The discussion  that night was about authenticity of Mexican cooking, with provocative lectures by local professionals.  Some like chef Iliana de la Varga of El Naranjo Mexican restaurant argued that she would rather leave something off her menu than try to recreate it with ingredients non-traditional to her Oaxacan heritage.  But others such as Gustavo Arellano declared that “authentic” is a false notion because all foods are shaped by place and time. 

As a child of Italian immigrants, I straddle this discussion.  Most of my recipes come from my grandmother who relied on the dishes her mother made and which have been passed on to me.   I make them faithfully to her instructions.  But I live in Wilmington Delaware not Giulianova, in Italy’s Abruzzo province.  So the ingredients I cook with are similar but not the same.  The flavors differ as a result.  But the dishes still have their roots in Italy.  So I ask myself what really is authentic?  My husband presses me to add garlic to the zucchini dish that my grandmother made every week.  I resist because it doesn’t’ seem right to change her recipe. I’m the custodian of that tradition but maybe his approach would make it tastier.  Where is the fine line between being slavish to a tradition and making a dish your own, and who would know anyway?

I guess I am a traditionalist.   I strive to keep my dishes culturally intact in honor of my grandmother.  Is it nostalgia?  Partially.  Are the dishes tasty?  For sure.  Is it authentic?  Who is to say.  My family in Italy were “Contadini” which means farmers.  They did the best with what they had.  I’ll bet they would have added garlic if they had it.  Go figure.

Here is Iliana de la Varga’s recipe for salsa verde

Salsa Verde With Avocado

10 tomatillos, husked, rinsed and cut into pieces

2 serrano chiles, stems removed

1 clove of garlic

¼ small white onion, chopped or sliced

½ cup cilantro leaves

1 avocado, halved, pit removed and peeled

Kosher salt

In a blender or food processor, combine the tomatillos, chiles, garlic and onion.  Pulse but leave a bit chunky.  Add the cilantro, avbocado and a pinch of salt.  Pulse once more.  Serve at once.

Visiting Nearby "Oreo" Cows on a Snowy Day

I occasionally visit our nearby “Oreos”, AKA Belted Galloway Cows, on my drives around the Brandywine Valley.  The prize winning herd is a local attraction and their owner proudly displays their many awards along the fenceline of the field where they graze.  We affectionately call them “oreos” because the white band around their middles bisects their black hides like an Oreo cookie sandwich.  They are actually a rare breed and the only herd in Delaware.  While Galloways are normally raised for their marbled beef, this herd’s primary purpose is to adorn their pasture and wow passerbys with their striking appearance.  Normally, I just cruise by, enjoying the sight of them grazing in their field. This day I was on my way to the winter farmers market in nearby Centreville DE as snowflakes floated gracefully, starting to cover the ground. 

With the snow falling and no one about, I felt adventurous.  So I parked the car along the side of the road and went for a stroll.

The snowflakes stung my face but it didn’t matter.  It was exhilarating to have the scene all to myself while everyone else was at home enjoying a warm crackling fire.  As I walked, the falling snow muffled the usual sounds and the landscape was still.  Off to the right I could see a dark swatch where I hadn’t known there was a road.  A gently swelling incline revealed a hidden copse of trees.  It was totally silent.

The cows eyed me as I neared the field. The male in particular seemed to take exception to my visit with his herd.  He stared.  Then he started to approach.  The others followed.  This was not what I had bargained for.  They were scarily larger close up than when viewed from the car.  But I held my ground long enough to snap a few photos before retreating to the side of the road.  Satisfied that he had defended the herd, the male dropped his advance and resumed chomping on the blades of grass still sticking up among the snow.

Just as I turned away, a red pickup emerged on the crest of the field and slowed to a stop among the cows.  A young man dressed in heavy winter garb got out and climbed into the truck’s bed.  The cows surrounded his vehicle and jostled each other as he tossed out mounds of hay.  After he had emptied the truck he paused to watch the cows eat with a look of satisfaction.  Today they would weather the snowstorm in fine style.

For my part, I was relieved to reach the warmth of my car and continued on to the farmers market.  My outdoor adventure had prompted the appetite for something warm and substantial.  I was lucky to find a prepared bolognese sauce from one of the vendors and headed home.

When I have the time I prefer to make my own bolognese sauce.  Enjoy with a warm fire.

Bolognese-style Pasta Sauce

This preparation is more delicate than typical Bolognese meat sauces

 2 28-oz cans Italian plum tomatoes, San Marzano is best

3 tbs extra-virgin olive oil

1 small yellow onion, minced

1 medium carrot, grated

¼ lb crimini or button mushroom, chopped

1 lb ground pork and veal (meat loaf mix)

4 slices pancetta, diced

2 tbs tomato paste

1 tbs sugar

2 tbs heavy cream

2/3 cup red wine

2 cups chicken broth

¼ loosely packed fresh basil, chopped

Salt and pepper to taste

Parmesan cheese

Dried or fresh fettuccini or other long pasta

Puree tomatoes and set aside.  Heat oil in a large heavy pot.  Fry the pancetta and set aside.  Add onions and carrots.  Cook over low-medium heat till onions are golden. Increase heat and add mushrooms, cooking for 5 minutes.  Add ground meat.  Brown for 8-10 minutes.  Combine tomato paste with the wine and add to meat mixture along with the chicken broth, stirring till absorbed.  Reduce heat to low-medium, add cream, season with salt and pepper and gently simmer uncovered for 40 minutes.  Add basil at the end.  Serve over pasta, adding Parmesan cheese to taste.

 

Secrets of Holiday Food Traditions

A few days before Christmas, friends came to my house to share holiday treats and stories of their family food traditions.  Their recipes hold long-treasured memories kept alive by us for the next generation.  While we come from different places -- Hungary, Italy, the Ukraine, Poland, or Puerto Rico -- the stories are similar.  Some of them are about great cooks, some about those who could not cook at all.   Some of the stories are wistful, like longing for the crusciki recipe that died with my friend’s mom.  Some are joyful, like enjoying rice pudding with coconut and cinnamon.

 It’s the rare family that doesn’t have some tradition to share, from sitting around the table all day making pierogies, to sharing twelve dishes for the twelve Apostles on Christmas eve, to enjoying a whole roasted pig wrapped in green banana leaves.

 For me it’s all about my mother’s Hungarian pastries. 

 My mother’s mother brought the secret of these specialties with her when she immigrated to the US many years ago and the recipes were never written down.  So when my mother set up her own household, she had to experiment to recreate them.  She must have tried twenty versions, trying her friend Gabi’s recipe and those of others before she felt she had matched her favorite, the nut rolls.

 I was luckier.  I became my mother’s baking helper and in so doing learned her nut roll secrets.  Along the way she offered pointers, saying “here’s the way I like to do this” while demonstrating each step.  For silky smooth dough she instructed “stretch and fold it until the surface shines.” Or to avoid a gritty filling, “a splash of hot milk does the trick,” she advised.

 These days my mother supervises while I do the heavy lifting.  Each year the nutrolls turn out a little differently but we look for success in a golden brown crust and uniform pinwheel shape.  No matter how they turn out, we congratulate ourselves on another year of keeping this family tradition alive.

 

Hungarian Nutrolls

 Dough

For yeast - 1 packet yeast, 1 Tbs sugar and 1/4 cup hot water.  Set aside to foam.

5 cups flour

5 Tbs sugar

1/2 Tsp salt

2 sticks butter somewhat softened,

3 eggs

1/2 pint sour cream. 

Combine the butter, salt, sugar and butter till clumps the size of small peas form then add wet ingredients.  Knead till no longer sticky.  Place in buttered bowl, with softened butter spread on top and cover tightly with plastic wrap.  Refrigerate overnite.  It will rise a little but not much.

Next morning set out on counter for 30 minutes.  Divide into 5 balls.  Fold each over again and again till silky.  Add additional flour if necessary.

 Filling for 3 Nut Rolls

1/12 pounds walnuts chopped coarsely, divided into 3 bowls. 

In each add 6-8 Tbs sugar and 1-2 Tbs hot milk.  Combine.

 Filling for 2 Poppyseed Rolls

2 jars of Bakers Secret poppyseed filling

 Assembly and Baking

5 Tbs melted butter

1 orange, with grater

Roll dough ball into rectangle.  Spread with melted butter .  Spread filling mixture and top with grated orange peel.  Roll up lengthwise.  Set aside on greased baking pan, covered by a cloth, to rise.

Let rise for 1 hour. 

Glaze each roll with beaten egg mixed with a splash of water for a glossy surface. 

Bake on greased pans in 350 degree oven, about 35 minutes.  Done when rolls are golden brown.

Remove from oven and spread with softened butter.  Cool.  Cut into pinwheels to serve. 

 

 

Making Hearty Winter Soup on the River

In the rural world surrounding our Hollywood Beach river community, different sounds herald the time of year.

 Winter sounds are muted.  On a cold winter day stillness washes the landscape with silence.  There is no breeze or wind but still the landscape moves with a purpose – the honking of low flying geese and the trill of small birds, ducks paddling softly by, water lapping against the pier.

 The sounds of man are present too but subdued -- an occasional car passing down the street, the deep throbbing of motors as ships approach on the river. 

 Winter is peaceful in Hollywood Beach but lonely.  The place echoes with hellos from neighbors who have left for the season and squeals of children who played in the park. So I cook, and the sounds inside our cottage contrast with the stillness outdoors.   I particularly favor hearty soups and stews that restore the warmth that is absent outside.

 Making dishes like my minestrone is a little like a symphony -orchestrating ingredients in the process of going from raw to cooked – chopping of kale, grating of garlic, jangle of spoons, clinking of pans, gurgling of hot liquid - that all come together with an Ahhh as my husband gets his first taste of the steaming soup at the dinner table.

Minestrone

 2 13 o cans cannellini beans drained and rinsed

1 13 oz can white beans drained and rinsed

10 cups chicken broth

4 garlic cloves

1 chopped onion

3 carrots and 3 celery, sliced

2 ½ cup diced tomatoes

2 cups diced potatoes

1 cup red wine

½ cup chopped parsley

1 lb chopped kale

1 ½ cup diced zucchini

½ cup parmesan cheese

fresh basil leaves

 Cook the cannellini beans in 5 cups chicken broth.  Puree beans and add back to broth.  Saute Garlic, onion, carrots and celery.

 Add to broth plus the white beans, tomatoes, potatoes, wine and parsley.  Add the remainder of the stock.  Simmer one hour

 Add remaining ingredients except parmesan and simmer 30 minutes longer.

 Add salt and pepper to taste and sprinkle parmesan to serve.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Absolutely Wonderful Red Pepper Jam

 

I have been lusting after jam – not sugary Smuckers but jam that offered rich intense flavors with the fruit’s essence shining through.  My grandmother made such jams.  She hoarded summer’s bounty in neatly labeled mason jars stacked in orderly rows in her pantry – like soldiers – golden orange marmalade next to spicy apple chutney next to sweet berry jams. 

 When it came time to choose one for our breakfast she softly fingered them, contemplating which flavor suited her mood that day.  To me the choice didn’t really matter.  Each one was wonderful and I impatiently waited for her to pop the lid so I could spread some on my toast.

 That taste in the dead of winter -  smooth and sweet, melting on my tongue - made up for the complicated and sweaty business of jam making in the heat of summer.

 On those days, my grandmother and I hauled out huge copper kettles, gleaming glass jars and mysterious wire racks from the depths of the basement.  We piled crates brimming with fruit on every possible counter space.  As we peeled and pitted, enticing aromas surrounded us – the sweet flesh of the fruit and the tangy vinegar that tickled my nose.

 Our foreheads glistened while we stirred pots bubbling away on the stove.  The heat in the room fairly shimmered as the ingredients cooked and the water gurgled to a boil in the heavy kettles. After much stirring she made a test and watched intently as the jam coated the spoon.  “It’s ready” she said and we ladled the jam into all those jars, When she cracked open a jar, inspected the set and tasted the flavor, my grandmother’s wide smile said she was satisfied with her results – as always.

 As an adult I had never made preserves, feeling sure in my heart that I could never match up to my grandmother’s and more than a little intimidated by the process.  But last summer, posts from home preservers flashed across my browser, luring me with photogenic images of exotic jams and the promise of simple preparations.   One day, just about the time of my pepper harvest, a post about savory jams caught my eye.

 Just three ingredients and less than an hour later, red pepper jam was simmering on my stove.  The spicy bite was softened, but distinctly present.  The flesh was wonderfully candied.  The essence of pepper was powerfully concentrated in both aroma and taste but balanced with intense sweetness. 

 I sat the table and spread a bit on my toast.  Although my grandmother was long gone, I could feel the generational torch being passed.  I had measured up after all.

Red Pepper Jam

Ingredients:

12 sweet red peppers (~4 pounds)

1 ¾ cup cider vinegar

2 ½ cups sugar

 Directions:

Remove seeds from peppers and chop in a food processor.  Sprinkle with a little salt and let stand for one hour.  This will quicken the cooking time.  Squeeze out liquid.

 Put the drained peppers, sugar and vinegar into a non-reactive pan large enough to hold the ingredients while boiling

 Bring to a boil then turn down the heat so that the mixture is still bubbling gently but not at a high boil.  Stir occasionally and cook until the mixture has a spreadable, jam-like consistency -- 30 to 60 minutes depending on degree of moisture in the peppers.

 Let cool and spoon into jars.  This will keep for weeks in the refrigerator or can be frozen.  Or this can be canned in a boiling water bath following standard canning directions. 

 Note:  A rich source of information and recipes for home preserving can be found in Marissa McLellan’s Food in Jars Blog and her new book, "Food in Jars, Preserving in Small Batches"

My peppers are an heirloom varietal brought by my family from Italy in the early 20th century.  They are Bull's Horn sweet red peppers from Southern Italy.  They actually are not ripe until they turn red.  They have a thin flesh and sweet flavor.  I have seeds to share if anyone wants some.  Please help me preserve this wonderful varietal. 

This is my contribution to edition #362 of Weekend Herb Blogging, an event started by Kalyn of Kalyn's Kitchen, now organized by Haalo of Cook (almost) Anything at Least Once.  The host this week for  both the English and Italian editions of Weekend Herb Blogging will be the delightful Cinzia from Cindystar.