Recipe: Jalapeno Jam with Canned Jalapenos

A friend who gets food once a month from a local food bank mentioned a while back that they always get a few jars of jalapenos, and she can't do spicy foods. My kids don't do much spice either, but I said I would take them and see if I could 'do something' with them. I didn't have time just then, so I put the jars she gave me in the pantry. As well as the jars she gave me the next month. And the next month. This past weekend, I was straightening out the pantry and realized..

it was time to actually do something with them!

That's 22 jars and one stray can. That's a lot of nachos. I needed some other ideas.

Last year I made jalapeno jam with some fresh jalapenos, and gave it away for Christmas. Yummy on cream cheese and crackers! I wondered if canned jalapenos could be used the same way, so I started searching for recipes. Mostly I found recipes for jalapeno jelly, with someone in the comments asking the same question I had! Time to start experimenting.

I looked at the ingredients list, and as I thought, there was a lot of water, so I decided to drain them well first. Then I tossed them in the blender and chopped them up nice and fine.

Okay, that doesn't look terribly appetizing. But it sure smelled good!

These were labeled "hot and sweet", and a quick taste test told me they weren't lying on either part. Most recipes would call for a ton of sugar for this much pepper, but I just added a cup of sugar and a cup of honey. I also decided not to add vinegar, since that was already an ingredient in the jars. Yes, I had drained them, but they had obviously soaked a lot up. So, basically, the canned (drained) peppers, sugar, and honey. Bring to a boil, then cook and stir for ten minutes.

It really bubbled and popped at this point, so I put a lid partway over my pot, and actually put a glove on the hand I was using to stir! Before I did that, a small amount popped out and landed on my thumb, and I automatically licked it off. HOTHOTHOTHOTHOTHOTHOT!!! But yummy:)

I added three packets of low-sugar pectin, cooked for five minutes more, and then canned. It made about 12 pints, although I put most of it in half-pint jars.

It looks a lot like salsa verde, but is definitely set like jam. Of course, we have to taste test, so let's break out the Ritz...

Please ignore absolutely EVERYONE'S shoes in the picture. It was a big moment.

Yum!! Enough bite to make Daddy happy, not so much I couldn't stand it. The cream cheese really brings out the flavor, so you don't just taste hot.

Verdict: canned peppers will work just fine. If you want it to be more jelly-like, you could add juice to the peppers and reduce it a bit. Apple or cranberry might add interesting flavors. These will appear in a few Christmas baskets this December - if they last that long! This seems to be our new bedtime snack!

Slow Cooker Bear Roast

A friend gave us several cuts of bear a few months back, and since I have never cooked it before, I hit the internet. What I mostly found were a lot of really dumb comments about cavemen, gamey meat, tough meat, etc. - from people who 'heard' about it, or were guessing. Seriously? It's a meat, guys, just like cow or pig. 

I made the bear roast for Thanksgiving (in addition to turkey), and it was so good there wasn't much left! The taste of bear meat supposedly depends on what it eats. This bear lived in southern NM, and probably ate both meat and plants. It wasn't gamey at all - and we have eaten several cuts of it now. The meat itself does not have a strong flavor, and isn't tough. I have done the roasts in a slow cooker, but we cooked backstrap in the oven (stuffed with cheese and peppers, wrapped in bacon...yum!), and that wasn't tough either. The only thing I wasn't impressed with was the bear sausage, which had little flavor - the next time I cook it, I will probably add some of the same seasonings as I do to the roasts, and simmer it for a while.

Here is the basic recipe I followed for the roast, although I don't use exact measurements:

Ingredients:

1 bear roast

1 can beer

3T butter

1 head garlic, separated into cloves

1/2 cup soy sauce

1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce

salt and pepper to taste

(Optional - chunk up some onions and spread them around the roast)

Directions:

1. Melt butter in frying pan and sear roast on all sides. 

2. Cut slits all over and stick garlic cloves in (or you can also just sprinkle with minced garlic from a jar, if you are lazy like I was the second time)

3. Place in slow cooker and pour beer over top. 

4. Sprinkle with other ingredients.

5. Cook on high for about two hours, then on low 4-5 hours more.

That's it! Basically how you might cook a beef roast, although you want to think of it like pork in terms of done-ness (like pork, bear meat can have trichinellosis). It smells SO GOOD, you will be tempted to taste early, just make sure the internal temp is 160 degrees (as per CDC). As you can see, it is falling apart in the end, and the flavor is amazing (as per local critics!)

Jammy Dump Cake

As I have mentioned a time or two before, I am slightly addicted to Bountiful Baskets. All that glorious produce, at such great prices! This weekend is our local cherry festival, and cherries are going for around $4 a pound, $3.59 in the stores when I looked this week, and on BB? Around $2 a pound. 

Sometimes, however, I order a teensy bit more than I can deal with in a week, and I have to make something quickly. There is only so much you can stuff into a freezer, so the fruit often becomes jam.

I have a lot of jam.

You can only eat so many PB and J sandwiches, and laws have made it ridiculously hard to sell things you have made at home, so I am always looking for new ways to use it. Today I got to thinking about dump cakes, and wondered if they would work with jams as well as with pie fillings. I couldn't find anything on line, which left me with one way to find out:

I remember when my old rafting group made dump cake, we used the squirt bottles of butter and put a ribbon on top, but that's one thing I don't generally buy. 

Layer half the cake mix, a pint of jam, the other half of the cake mix, and thinly sliced butter. Into the oven at 350 for about half an hour, and...

then completely forget to take a picture of it before you eat it. Think VERY rich brownies, perfect with cool whip or ice cream! I think next time I might give it one quick stir, as a couple spots stayed dry - or, maybe just use more butter. Otherwise, it was great! 

Now, what cake mix would go with the pina colada jam...

Recipe: High Altitude Pumpkin Bread

I have one freezer out in the garage that is entirely dedicated to fruits and vegetables to be used in future baking projects.

Until the power goes out and we don't realize it for 24 hours, in which case - the future is now!

I lost the top shelves - bananas, shredded zucchini, pears (organic! sob), and the bottom shelves (corn, pumpkin) were still mostly frozen, but I still had a large plastic tub full of things that something needed to happen to quickly. Refreezing is an option, but that starts to do bad things to texture, and I wanted to bring some treats to work anyway...

There was one bag of pumpkin chunks on a different shelf that had completely thawed. I love pumpkin bread, but any kind of bread at our altitude (almost 7,000 feet) can be tricky. I have been fiddling with recipes, and this one turned out pretty well, so I wanted to pass it along!

(Feel free to halve - I measured this to match the amount of pumpkin I had to use)

In one LARGE bowl, mix:

4 cups white sugar

2 cups brown sugar

2 cups applesauce

8 eggs

4 cups smooshed pumpkin

In another LARGE bowl, sift together:

7 cups of flour

4 teaspoons baking soda

4 teaspoons salt

3 teaspoons cinnamon

2 teaspoons baking powder

2 teaspoons nutmeg

2 teaspoons ground allspice

1 teaspoon ground cloves

I never used to bother with sifting, but it really makes a difference at this altitude. Plus, you don't have to worry about biting into a clump of baking soda that made it past you - blech! You also want to stir the wet dough as little as possible, to keep it from getting gluey, so it helps to start with all the dry ingredients already well-mixed.

Add the first bowl to the second, stirring gently with a wooden spoon. Again, you don't want glue! Optional: When it was mostly mixed, I put half of it back into the first bowl, and finished stirring with a bag of chocolate chips in one batch, and raisins in the other. You could also add your favorite nuts.

Preheat oven to 350 while you drop the mixture into muffin tins or little bread pans (on top of cookie sheets, in case of overflow). I filled these about halfway, and baked until the good old toothpick came away clean:

Perfect!

Take a moment to admire the lovely paper plate. Nothing but the most sophisticated tableware, here.

Now, about those frozen, grilled peaches...

Recipe: Pomegranate White Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies

I made these up last year when pomegranates first appeared in my Bountiful Basket, and they disappeared almost immediately! As soon as I saw the poms again I knew I needed a repeat - it just took me a while to get to them. Fortunately, pomegranates keep pretty well just out on the kitchen counter (and make a pretty decoration in the meantime!)

First up is getting the seeds out. Now, before you send me the link, yes, I have seen the video of the attractive young man playing whack-a-mole with the pomegranate halves to get the seeds out. I've tried it, and I usually end up playing whack-a-thumb. This method works just as easily for me - slice off the very top, just so you can see where the sections are:

slice down each section:

separate:

and rub your thumbs over the seeds to get them out. Easy-peasy.

This is seven pomegranates-worth of seeds, and I only used a cup for the cookies - they freeze really well if you end up with more - or, just eat them while you bake!

For now, set them aside and mix:

1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
1/4 cup milk
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup shortening

Sift in and mix:

1 1/2 cups flour*
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda

Add:

3 cups rolled oats

Stir in just until mixed:

1 bag white chocolate chips

1 cup (or more) pomegranate seeds

Drop spoonfuls on cookie sheets and bake at 350 until golden brown on the bottom. These stay pretty soft and chewy, and can stick to the pan, so removing them quickly is important but tricky. If a few crumble, don't sweat it - you now have a bag of yummy granola to keep in your car! Those that make it off in one piece -

- may not be especially attractive, but boy do they taste good! A little bit sweet, a little bit tart, and a whole lot of yum. The red makes these a festive addition to your Christmas platters, or you can convince yourself the pomegranate seeds make them healthy, and just eat them year-round.

*I am at an extremely high altitude, so I actually use 2 cups of flour

Bacon Wrapped Asparagus and an Accident

One of this week's Bountiful Baskets add-ons was asparagus - 11 pounds for $16.50. Since it is currently running $3.48 a pound at the local grocery store, I bought two! This is one of the few vegetables Daddy will eat cooked, and the kids and I all like it, too - score! Before I froze most of it, I wanted to find some new (to us) ways to prepare it, so I scoured the internet for recipes - and then, as usual, ignored them all and did my own thing.

 

I saw lots of prosciutto-wrapped asparagus recipes, but I wanted bacon. We all want bacon in this household. The bacon I have is pretty thick, but I was still worried about chewy asparagus, so I cooked it a bit first:

 

1. Melt a dollop of butter in a skillet (if the word 'bacon' didn't clue you in, this is not a heart-healthy recipe.)

2. Add a lot of minced garlic (exact measurements are so important to me), a couple pounds of asparagus spears (ends trimmed), and some grape tomatoes, halved. I actually used the mini heirloom tomatoes from several baskets ago - I love how long everything lasts! - but I'm usually more likely to have grape tomatoes around. Drizzle on some lemon juice, cover, and simmer until asparagus is just tender.

 

Make sure your assistant is alert and attentive.

 

3. Let cool slightly. Line a baking sheet with foil (unless you want to be scrubbing forever). Wrap 3 spears in a slice of bacon, then sprinkle the tomatoes and garlic over the top.

 

Now, that's just purty!

4. Bake in the oven at 350, until bacon is cooked.

 

Now, here's where the accident comes in. I still had half a package of bacon, so I decided to cook the rest of it up, because - you know, bacon! And, because I am too lazy to wash more dishes than absolutely necessary, I cooked it in the same skillet that previously had asparagus, etc. in it, without rinsing out the remaining lemon juice/butter/garlic. Because, garlic goes great with bacon, and because - lazy!

 

When the first slices cooled, of course I bit into one, and - oh. my. gosh. You guys.

 

Bacon! With garlic! And lemon juice! It's AWESOME! I didn't think you could make bacon any better, but - lemon juice - whoda thunk it?! So, now you know how those famous chefs came up with their delicious but off-the-wall combinations: laziness. I cooked a whole 'nother pack the same way, and none of it made it to supper time.

 

My assistant even woke up for it!

 

As for the original recipe, it would have been perfect if I had used regular, thin-sliced bacon instead of thick-sliced. The asparagus cooked much faster, and I had to take the bacon off and finish cooking it separately, which kind of defeats the whole prettiness thing. You might also try them on a broiler pan (but baking them, not broiling) to drain some of the grease off. However you do it, though...it's bacon! So, it's all good!

 



Dancing Naked Covered in Pear Jam

See, that's where commas become really important. Those are actually three different events from the weekend - sorry for any disappointment!

 

Hooray for three-day weekends! I wanted to spend a lot of time with the kids, so first order of business was getting the rest of the Bountiful Baskets haul taken care of and out of the way. After Sunday's Cooking Marathon, I was only able to pick at it here and there (darn job getting in the way!), and still hadn't really touched the 38 pounds of pears.

 

So, I made a huge batch of Bartlett Harlequin Jam, an equally large batch of Apple Pear Cranberry Relish, and this Pear Honey.

 

 

Fortunately, they all required lots of simmering time, which gave me a chance to play with the kids in between. The Pear Honey was really good over confetti cornbread muffins - just regular cornbread with leftover corn on the cob, bell peppers, and hot peppers that hadn't already been used up. Those will both be going to the fire department meeting Tuesday (assuming there are any left).

 

I made this Pina Colada Jam with the pineapples, but I haven't tasted it yet due to the rum in it - I know, most alcohol may have been cooked out, but I don't take chances there. I'll have some in January:) I did have to add a lot more pectin than it said, but it looks and smells good!

 

Having pesto on hand is proving...well, handy, so I was happy to find this recipe for Spinach and Kale Pesto (not to mention a new blog to follow!). It even used up the half bag of slivered almonds that has been sitting in the cupboard since Christmas. I froze a bunch and used some with a medley of potatoes, tomatoes, bell peppers, celery and onions, which I baked for supper this weekend:

 

 

Yum!

 

Okay, enough heating up the kitchen, time to go play outside!

 

 

 

Yes, I used to be one of those childless people who shook her head at other people's children's mismatched outfits. But I love her sense of style! Why NOT wear snow boots with your halter dress?

 

We spent a lot of time climbing around and using C.'s tools to measure things,

 

and making sure they were level (um...they're not.)

 

Saturday night there was a street dance in a small village north of here. We told the kids we were going "some place special", and they drove me NUTS all day trying to guess. Next time, I just pack them into the car and start driving! They were pretty happy with the surprise once we got there, though.

 

Of course, L. is not fond of loud noises (unless he is creating them), and shares my taste in music. He spent the first twenty minutes like this:

 

And C. pretty much concurred:

 

L. loosened up a bit when he discovered he could dance with pretty girls, though!

 

And even more so when he got some 7-Up in him.

 

Dang, kid, it didn't even have caffeine in it!

C. discovered places to climb and jump off of and swing around, so he was good. S., on the other hand, ran around and demanded dances most of the evening:

 

 

She even made Daddy dance with her to "Cotton-Eyed Joe", which for some reason didn't wear her out as much as it did him. All three littles fell asleep on the short drive home, and I don't think S. fully woke up until the next morning. As I was getting her out of her car seat, she stumbled to me saying, "Mommy, I want to dance with you," then collapsed into my arms.

 

In 'school', we are learning the letter "N", which of course is easy to confuse with "M", so this weekend we did a lot with both letters. We still haven't put the new flooring in, so I had the perfect canvas for a game:

 

I call out a letter or a word, and they all have to stand on the right one. You can do this with tape or chalk if you don't want red enamel paint everywhere:)

 

C. has started school again - second grade! - and brought home his first spelling list of the year. We came up with sentences together, trying to include words that started with "m" or "n".

 

We seem to be partial to the word "naked" for "n".

 

Getting C. to write is like pulling teeth, so I just made him write the actual spelling words:

 

 

then S. went over all the "m"s and "n"s with her own markers.

 

"M" is for "mailbox", so we made these to leave each other notes. I picked the kits up a week after Valentine's Day for something like 30 cents each.

 

 

I LOVE when kids do the Picasso thing.

 

Back outside again! The kids dug for dinosaur bones for a while (you'll want to be careful walking around our property), then S. decided she wanted to come back in and help me make dessert. We used up some leftovers and made individual brownies,

 

with the cans of frosting that only had an inch left each, and the malted milk balls that everyone seems to pass over.

 

S. is very generous with her toppings. These definitely did not lack for sweetness; holy sugar coma, Batman!

 

And then back out again, where we found a new friend.

 

Poor guy wanted to run (slither) away, but wasn't sure which direction was safe. Every time he thought he could make a break for it, C. had to go check to see if he was still there.

 

He finally headed downhill and away from the crazy noisy place.

 

Monday started with coed naked math:

 

 

Try that in public school! Over the course of half an hour we had sorting, patterning, bartering, and greater-than-less-than.

 

Then they suddenly remembered the mailboxes, and there was a frenzy of coloring pictures for each other.

 

 

Um...hello? Where'd everyone go? Mess on the table?

 

 

Busted! And you two, don't even try to act like you weren't standing on the bed, too, when I walked in.

 

Do your kids do this? When you remind them they are supposed to pick something up when they are done playing with it,

 

 

they just decide they aren't done playing with it after all? We went back and forth with the shapes all day, interspersed with play-do and books. It rained on and off ALL DAY. We did go out and play in the mud in the evening, followed by much-needed baths, then chili for supper. Kind of a lazy day after all the activity over the last two! Sometimes we need lazy days, though. Back to work tomorrow - except for poor Daddy, who has been 'back to work' all weekend:( Hope everyone else got to enjoy at least some time off!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Bountiful Basket Fun

I had to work Saturday during the BB pickup, so Daddy got to go collect our food. Gee, some of his favorite things - standing in line...in the heat...down in the valley. Fortunately, the truck was EARLY, and the amazing volunteers had everything sorted so quickly he was out of there in record time - and got to visit with a few people, which is one of my favorite parts.

 

I, on the other hand, had to wait until I got home to sort through the bounty:

 

 

 

Three regular baskets

 

and five juicer add-ons. I also got 38 pounds of Bartlett pears and a bag of granola.

 

Such happy fruit! I couldn't resist drawing eyes on this one to go with the smile. L. immediately decided it was his new friend. What's funny is, I had just brought this book home from the library, and hadn't even read it to the kids yet:

 

 

Absolutely adorable, and already scheduled for an upcoming story time!

 

Sunday I tried to get most of my cooking knocked out, focusing on things that would go bad. One basket got packed back up for Grandma, and the yellow pears and bananas were nibbled on throughout the day. I prepared the night before by googling recipes and getting the kitchen cleaned. I also tried to plan things the kids could help with, since this is my one day home with all of them. Then spent all night coughing! That cut out some of the handling I was willing to have them do, but they still got to have some fun.

 

We made:

Hatch Chile Salsa

Orange Glazed Carrots

Parsley Pesto (from the Food Network)

Pickled Beets

Candied Ginger Slices

Guacamole

Pioneer Woman's Onion Strings*

 

*yes, I know, we didn't get onions this week - but we got a bajillion last time, and I still have most of them left!

 

I also shredded the zucchini and froze it for later - we already have summer squash bread on the counter!

 

 

One way the kids helped was by arranging the Hatch green chiles in pans to be roasted. This was my first time roasting chiles of any sort, so it was a big part of my googling last night. I was happy to see an over method, so I didn't have to run back and forth to the grill. I like to do steps of several recipes at once, so while these were under the broiler on low,

 

bacon (already cut up) was sizzling on one burner,

 

 

and ginger slices were simmering on another:

 

 

In between stirring those and turning the chilis, I peeled avocado, and diced onions and tomatoes

 

for guacamole.

 

Some of the bacon was crumbled into that, too. I have made some pretty spicy things lately, so I just went with flavor (i.e. no heat) for the guacamole. The kids took turns mashing and stirring:

 

We always cook naked, don't you?

 

while I got the peppers out. I put them in a bowl...

 

with plastic wrap on top...

 

and let them steam. They were pretty easy to peel and deseed after a short time, although I think I should have roasted them a little longer. I was afraid of burning them! I timidly tasted one and decided it was actually pretty mild - perfect for the wimpy Anglo from Ohio. If you aren't familiar with Hatch chiles, they are named for where they are mostly grown - Hatch, NM - and can run the full range of mild to hot. These went into the food processor with the tomatoes, last basket's onions, garlic, cilantro, lime juice, salt, pepper, and a little sugar.

 

Not a pretty picture, I promise it looks better in real life! Emboldened by my earlier taste, I tried half a spoonful.

 

HOLY MOTHER OF...................!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Okay, these aren't mild. Not by a long shot. When Daddy came home, he tasted a bit and concurred, which made me feel better. I pressure canned the majority in half-pint jars, most of which will probably go as Christmas gifts!

 

Next round: cut tops off beets and send those out to the sulcatas (they love BB weekends), put bottoms in water to boil.

 

Oops - got the camera too close to the steam. 

 

That's better!

 

Ginger slices partially drained, and sugar added.

 

When the liquid was almost gone, I spread them on a drying rack with parchment paper underneath. When they were completely dry, I put them in a baggie and froze them for future Asian recipes, and crumbled the sugar that dripped through into another baggie, to add to tea.

 

By this time the littles were napping, so C. helped pack 10 pounds of baby carrots into quart jars,

 

while I cooked up the sauce (brown sugar, water and OJ). There may have been a pound or so eaten in the process, judging from the continual crunching I heard.

 

Now, every time I make these (so simple, and so yummy), I forget that the sauce simmers along quietly and then suddenly erupts like a mushroom cloud all over your stove. DO NOT LET IT BOIL. It won't hurt the sauce, but man, what a smell! Of course, I had the pressure cooker with the salsa going on another burner, so brown sugar and OJ were bubbling away all over in a sticky nasty mess before I could blink. Fortunately, the pressure cooker's time was up anyway, but man...

 

This was after the clean-up. It just wasn't pretty, trust me.

 

Scrubbing done, I filled to an inch of head space,

Please disregard the beet juice in the back. I can't throw anything away.

 

and processed in the pressure cooker (once it had cooled down and been cleaned) for half an hour.

 

Beets were canned in a solution of cider vinegar, mustard, sugar, salt and pepper, and processed in a water bath.

 

While the canner was doing its thing, I put onion slices in milk to soak (for the onion strings), and made the pesto in the food processor. The pesto went into small containers,

 

 

which in turn went into a freezer bag, and into the freezer for future use.

 

Time to start supper - pineapple lime chicken from the freezer, a cucumber-tomato-onion salad with feta cheese, and PW's onion strings.

 

She is not kidding about needing to make more because you ate the first batch. These are so light and addicting, they are like potato chips - you keep eating just...one...more...

 

S. is pointing out that Daddy got a LOT more onion strings than she did, and she's not quite sure that's kosher.

 

In fact, Daddy skipped the chicken entirely and ate an all-vegetable meal. I don't think that has ever happened before! I even took a picture of it for proof, and have spent the past five minutes trying to get it to attach here. For some reason, it just will not transfer. Very suspicious.

 

I still have tons of fruit and veggies - I haven't even touched the case of pears - but I think that's enough for one day!