Cardamom

End-of-Summer (5 Ingredient) Refrigerator Plum Jam with Calvados

~ Teresa Blackburn ~ 21 Comments

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Plums have been plentiful this summer and when just ripe, but still firm, they make the best jam. Jam you will appreciate a few months from now when days are shorter, darker and summer flavors just a memory.

I love plums and have often shared recipes and plum stories with you here at Food on Fifth.  There have been Plum Clafoutis, Plum Yum Almond Cake and Stone Fruit Skillet Cake with Maple Drizzle among others.

The plums you see in the photo below were ones left unused after a photo shoot. They had time to sit out on the studio counter ripening all week and went home with me at week’s end.

DSC_6245Three simple ingredients and two special ones, Calvados and Cardamom! Calvados is a good flavor-pairing with fruits when making cakes, pies or jams, due to it apple origins. It is a French apple brandy, starting out as apples, fermenting into a cider, aged in oak casks to become Calvados. Cardamom…I cannot say enough good things about this spice… with its strong spicy sweet taste adding seductive aromatics with just a pinch!

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Four pounds of plums with peels left on…making this recipe even easier!

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Sugar, ground cardamom…plums cooking down….Calvados & lemon zest added at the end of cooking time…

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Spooned into clean glass canning jars, topped off..ready to give away or refrigerate until ready to use. By the way…very yummy spooned over sponge cake or ice cream while still warm! And how about serving this with your roasted hen or turkey instead of cranberry sauce for Thanksgiving? Nice!

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Beautifully messy.

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From my summer travels: “Plums in Budapest” # 1 and #2 iphone images

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Simple Summer (5 Ingredient) Refrigerator Plum Jam with Calvados

  • Servings: 8cups
  • Difficulty: easy-as-pie
  • Print

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Ingredients:

  • 4 lbs plums, pitted, unpeeled and chopped
  • 2 cups sugar
  • 2 tsp ground cardamom
  • 1/2 cup Calvados
  • 1 TBSP fresh lemon zest

Directions:

  1. Put chopped plums & sugar in a large non-reactive saucepan. Bring to a low boil over medium high heat. Reduce heat to low and simmer for about 25 minutes or until mixture begins to thicken and plums break down.
  2. Stir in cardamom and continue cooking for another 15 minutes. Stir often and skim any foam from the surface of the mixture.
  3. Add Calvados & lemon zest. Simmer another 10 minutes. Remove from heat. Place pan on a cooking rack so air can circulate around the pan to cool it down faster. Let cool for 10 minutes.
  4. Spoon plum jam into sterilized glass canning jars. Wipe rims of jars clean, top with lids and allow to cool completely.
  5. Jam will keep in refrigerator for up to 1 month.  If you do not give some of this fine jam away to your friends (they will be forever grateful I promise) then freeze for later.

Note on freezing: If you plan to freeze some of these jars of jam then fill jars leaving a 1″ head space to allow for jam to expand when frozen. I did not do this many years ago and upon opening my freezer I found jars of jam exploding out of the top of the glass jars! The lids had been pushed completely off! Now I allow for that!

 

Teresa Blackburn        www.foodonfifth        www.teresablackburnfoodstyling.com

Resources:

Red and White hand towel – http://www.ikea.com/

Canning jars – http://www.jarstore.com/Jelly-Mason-Salsa-Jars_c_41.html

Vintage glass canning funnel, silver spoons, Vintage Kobe Turquoise saucepan – my prop collection but check out Etsy or ebay for similar items

Blue enamel colander – World Market  http://www.worldmarket.com/category/dining-kitchen.do?nType=1

Travel Budapest – http://www.afar.com/travel-guides/hungary/budapest/guide

Cardamom Blueberry Butter & Seckel Pear Tart

~ Teresa Blackburn ~ 21 Comments

A very fine “Cardamom Blueberry Butter & Seckel Pear Tart”

Recently a small package, neatly wrapped in brown paper arrived at my home. It was post-marked from Victoria, British Columbia. A bright red “fragile” sticker was prominently displayed on the front. I knew immediately that my “prize” had arrived. And indeed upon tearing open the box I found, nestled snuggly inside, cushioned with bright turquoise tissue paper, 3 beribboned jars of “Cardamom Blueberry Butter”. Two of favorite flavors melded into one knockout treat!

The lovely trio of jars was homemade using fresh Canadian Blueberries by another blogger-friend, Kristy Lynn, who has a great blog at: gastronomicalsovereignty@blogspot.com. I have been following and enjoying Kristy’s blog for a while now and recently she did a “giveaway” of three jars of her homemade blueberry butter & I was the lucky winner. British Columbia to Tennessee….a long trip for some little glass jars.

Lucky I was indeed! The first thing I did was grab a spoon, open a jar & eat it straight from the jar. Mmmmm. It was so delicious & unlike any fruit butter I’ve ever had.  Beautiful color & texture, a definite fresh blueberry taste with just a hint of the cardamom. I love thinking about how far these berries-turned-into-butter traveled….where they came from,  Kristy making the butter and canning them in her kitchen far, far away. Here I was in Nashville enjoying the flavor of British Columbia right in my own kitchen. Two degrees of delicious separation.

Next…a few days later, my toast test….slices of buttered toast with a smear of Kristy’s blueberry butter. Oh yes…the perfect venue. Kerrygold Butter & Blueberry Butter on hot toast…if it’s good on toast, then it’s good.

Not nice to hoard my treat not sharing with others…even though that thought went through my head. This week I used some of Kristy’s Cardamom Blueberry Butter as the main ingredient for a tart I developed. I had some sweet little ripe Seckel pears and a tub of Mascarpone cheese which seemed like a nice pairing with the butter along with a sweetened pastry crust.

For this recipe I used:

5 ripe Seckel pears, peeled & cored, cut in half lengthwise

1 (8oz) tub of Mascarpone cheese

4 generous tablespoons Cardamom Blueberry Butter (this recipe could be made with any really good homemade butter such as pumpkin butter)

1 pastry slightly sweetened

Raw or Turbinado sugar

Directions:

1.Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Roll pastry dough out  on floured board to about a 12 inch circle more or less. Fit into an 8 inch tart pan with a removable bottom.

                                                                      

2. Use a knife to cut away any pastry that overlaps the edge of the pan.

3. Spread the container of Mascarpone cheese over the bottom of the crust evenly.

4.  Top with Cardamom Blueberry Butter.

5. Peel pears with a sharp knife. Cut pears in half longways. Carefully remove core. I used the sharp edge of a small table-spoon to remove core as pears were very ripe and small. Place pear halves face down on top of the blueberry butter.

6. Sprinkle pears with a bit of the raw sugar. Bake for about 30 minutes or until mixture is hot and bubbly, crust is a deep golden brown & tops of pears are starting to brown. Remove from oven. Let cool on a rack for about 30 minutes to serve warm. This tart is also delicious served at room temp.

7. Serve cut into wedges with an additional sprinkling of sugar to add just a bit of crunch to each bite.

There were a few friends…the tart was cut, it was shared, it was eaten with Relish, it was enjoyed on a fall day at the end of October.

 A Small All Hallow’s Eve Gallery

adios October, hola November…..

“A Late August Four-Letter “F” Word To Savor!”

~ Teresa Blackburn ~ 34 Comments

My favorite four letter “f” word in late August is “Figs”. Finally we have some figs to play with. I have been watching the trees in the neighborhood, snooping around the farmer’s markets, just waiting, thinking on simple recipes using tree ripened figs.

“Brown Turkey Figs”

Sitting with a group of food friends the other day we started talking about foods we really were not aware of when we were younger, foods that we now know and love. For most of us Southerners it seems fresh figs just didn’t make it onto our radars until adulthood. I am not sure why. Fig trees thrive around here so it seems that figs would have been a summer staple just like peaches & late summer pears. I think I will do a bit of research to figure out why I never ate fresh figs as a child. As an adult I relish the arrival of this little, lush four-letter word.

“Fresh Figs-Pine Nuts Cornmeal Upside-Down Cake” 

 The corn meal gives it a bit of a crunch as do the pine nuts. The caramelized fig topping drizzled with maple syrup is luscious.

Ingredients: 5 to 6 fresh figs, 2 to 3 cups self-rising white or yellow cornmeal (I used gluten-free); 1 tsp ground cardamom; 1 stick good butter (Kerry gold of course!); 1 cup brown sugar; (divided into two 1/2 cups; 1/4 cups toasted pine nuts; 2 eggs; milk; real maple syrup

Directions:  1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Melt butter in a cast iron skillet, preferably, over medium high heat. Add in 1/2 cup brown sugar stirring until melted.

2. Wash & dry figs. Cut each one in half lengthwise. Place cut-side down in skillet in a circular pattern. Sprinkle toasted pine nuts over figs. Turn heat to low allowing the figs to caramelize somewhat for about 5-8 minutes.

3. Meanwhile in a mixing bowl whisk together the dry ingredients..cornmeal, second 1/2 cup brown sugar & cardamom. Add eggs & enough milk to make a batter.

                                                                   

4. Pour/scrape batter into the hot skillet with the figs on top of the stove. Transfer skillet to the pre-heated oven. Bake for about 20-30 minutes until cake is golden brown and set in the middle. Remove skillet from oven and let rest for about 5 minutes.

5. Place a plate over the top of the skillet and “flip” plate & skillet upside-down. Scrape any caramel left in the pan over the top of the cake. While cake is still hot drizzle generously with real maple syrup. Cool cake for at least 10 minutes before cutting. Serve slices with additional maple syrup on side if desired.


Bonus Recipe: “Figgy Pancakes”

Ingredients: Same as for the cake recipe with a few extra figs quartered.

It was morning when I was baking the cake and had a bit of batter left over after filling the skillet. While the cake was baking I whipped up some pancakes for breakfast!

Directions: 1. Heat some butter in a small non-stick pan or griddle over high heat. Add a few quartered figs.

2. Pour in batter. When batter is set on bottom and bubbly on top flip pancake and  finish cooking til golden brown.

        

3. Serve immediately with real maple syrup. This was one good pancake recipe!

EXTRA, EXTRA BONUS RECIPE…SEE BELOW…THE EASIEST MOST DELICIOUS WAY TO EAT FRESH FIGS…….DON’T MISS THIS ONE!

“Sea Salt & Raw Sugar Dipped Figs”

Take some wonderful fresh figs. Cut them into quarters. Sprinkle some great sea salt & raw sugar on a saucer. Dip cut edges of figs in salt-sugar mixture and eat.

A sublime treat.

Doesn’t the word “fig” conjure up an image of Adam romping around in the Garden of Eden wearing a fig leaf?

I wondered what figs would be like after they were frozen?

 FYI. Mushy, but aren’t they pretty frozen?

Some “f” word music I like. A little bit different, fun and peppy to help you get figgy.

Album, “The Figs”,  The Figs, 2007 Valcour Records

Album, “What Keeps Me Up At Night”, The Figs 2008

Songs, “Jumbo” & “The Long Goodbye”, Marseille Figs, 2009 Figs of London

Eat good stuff.