MLM – Meyer Lemon Marmalam – 3 January. Bob and Elva, Gloria’s neighbors up in Santa Rosa, gave me a box of Meyer lemons from their tree. Delightful old couple and very good gardeners. Nothing in this recipe but their lemons, some water to get it going, and sugar.
KPJAL – Kiwi, Pasilla, and Jalapeño Jam – 4 Jan, 16 Jan, 27 Jan. For 4 Jan, i didn’t have quite a full two liters of kiwis but i went ahead and put in three big Pasillas and three big Jalapeños (both seeded and deveined), which made it pretty hot. For the usual lemon juice i substituted the juice of two Meyer lemons and four Mexican limes. For 16 Jan batch, i cut the jalapeños down to one, used Arkansas Black apples from a favorite vendor, and nine Mexican limes, which produced a better balance of chile taste and “hotness” for most people. On 27 Jan i used two jalapeños, otherwise like the 16 Jan batch.
Pickled Herring – 27 Jan, 1 Feb. See the 27 January and 1 February entries in the Journal 2013 for pertinent information.
GBOM – Gloria’s Blood Orange Marmalam. 25 February. Last weekend Gloria brought me a bag of blood oranges from her tree. Thus, this marmalam.
CRLM – Carol’s Rangpur Lime Marmalam. 8 March. Carol invited me over the other day and presented me with a big bag of her Rangpur limes, so i made a batch of marmalam. Here’s what they look like at the Heart of the City Farmers’ Market. Aren’t you sorry Carol doesn’t supply you?
KM – Kumquat Marmalam. 14 March. This is from a bag of cosmetically challenged kumquats Glenn Tanimoto gave me.
KMLM – Kumquat Meyer Lemon Marlamam. 21 March. The rest of Glenn’s kumquats plus some Meyer lemons to make up a five pound batch. Actually, this may be a better marmalam than the 100% kumquat version. It’s certainly as good.
Pickled Sugar Snaps – 3 April. I offered to bring something to Stephen’s birthday party this weekend, and he got back to me that some pickles would be good. The only pickles of mine in the house were old and tired, so i made a big batch of these. It’s the wrong time of year for fresh little Thai chiles, so i used a dried chile pequin in the small jars and several in the large.
AL – Apricot Jam – 10 May. Arata had these nice looking little apricots, so i bought a box. Cooked ’em down with lemon juice and sugar until the jam was thick. Made only five jars, so speak up now as the hindmost will get none.
SALC – Strawberry Jam – 10 May. Yerena’s strawberries are sure good this year, so i bought a whole flat, forgetting that a whole flat makes four batches. Did two today and overcooked them a bit to the point that the sugar was starting to caramelize. Actually, i quite like the taste of the jam that way, but the last few jars may be so set you’ll have to chip the jam out. Oh, and the jars are mislabeled SALC, as there’s no apple pulp in this double batch. The “C” is to indicate the caramelization.
SAL – Strawberry Jam – 11 May. This double batch is from the other half of that flat from Yerena, and this time i was careful not to overcook it. In fact, i was so careful that it’s a little runny even though it does have both the apple pulp and the lemon juice, maybe because i cut back the sugar by 25%. Tastes good, though.
Chocolate Sauce with Paradiso Chile Powder – A couple of teaspoons of the Paradiso Chile Powder from Tierra Vegetables sure does brighten up the chocolate sauce, especially for use over French vanilla ice cream, the coldness and fattiness of which cut the “hotness” of the chiles.
BB – Blackberry Jelly – 31 May. A flat of Yerena’s blackberries, a shredded apple, the juice and pulp of a lemon, and lots of sugar.
RBBB – Raspberry Blackberry Jelly – 8 June. A flat of Yerena’s raspberries, a shredded apple, and the juice and pulp of a lemon yielded only a quart of strained juice, so i went ahead and cooked a quart of frozen blackberries from Gloria and the juice of another lemon…and of course the sugar. This is a good combination.
TB – Tayberry Jelly – 16 June. Ahhh, the first of the season’s tayberries from Yerena, who’s the only one who sells them at any of the markets i go to. Sure do make fine jelly. And alas, i was not up to cooking for the last half of June and thus missed the remainder of the tayberry season, so this one’s it for the year.
Blackberry Vinegar – 31 June. From the steeped seeds and pulp from the 31 May Blackberry Jelly.
CSK – Cherry Jam with Sukhi’s Hot Lime Relish – 2 July. Sukhi is an Indian company over in Hayward that makes excellent Indian condiments. Thought i’d try using some of their lime relish instead of Patak’s, but it’s the same idea for those who love cherry jam with Indian spices. And it worked.
Chocolate Sauce with Guittard cocoa powder and Dandelion solid chocolate. 5 July. I do not record the all the times i make the chocolate sauce merely with a good cocoa powder, which flies off the shelves, but adding a fine boutique solid chocolate takes it to a higher level. And there is no chocolate finer than Dandelion.
CNL – Cherry Nectarine Jam – 7 July. The cherry flavor overwhelms the nectarines here, and this one has no peppers or strange tastes in it. For the kids….and the Yankees.
Raspberry Blackberry Vinegar – 7 July. From the seeds and pulp from the 8 June jelly.
BBJ – Blackberry Jalapeño Jelly – 8 July. Put four seeded and deveined Jalapeños in this, which ramped the pepper flavor up to a good level. Not for the kiddies.
Fresh Cranberry Beans – 8, 11 July. Shelled, blanched, and froze a pint of fresh cranberry beans. These are my favorite bean, and if you blanch them before freezing them, the taste is indistinguishable from fresh….and definitely better than dried.
Pickled Thai Peppers – 9 July. I bought both yellow and green Thai peppers on Sunday and pickled them today with carrot disks and baby leek stalks, not that most folks would be able to taste anything, considering the capsaicin level.
BBSUJ – Blackberry, Sukhi’s Lime Relish, and Jalapeño Jelly – 10 July. Just experimenting here, but it turned out good for those who like Indian spices. Didn’t want to over do the Indian taste, so i added a jalapeño to increase the hotness.
NL – Nectarine Jam – 11 July. The first nectarine jam of the year. Nothing but nectarines, sugar, and lemon juice in this one.
NCJL – Nectarine and Candied Jalapeño Jam – 14 July. Sybil smuggled in a quarter-pint jar of Candied Jalapeños from Portland, so i dumped half of ’em into this batch of jam. Tasted and decided it should be a little hotter, so threw in the other half. It was downright duplicitous of those folks to hide the really hot slices in the lower half of the jar, so this one is definitely not for the kids. Hell, giving this to a kid would be child abuse. Yow! This is hot stuff, but fine, and every pork chop in town is screaming, “Slather me now!”
Tayberry Vinegar – 16 July. From the 16 June tayberry jelly.
BBNM – Blackberry and New Mexico Chile Jelly – 17 July. I used four whole New Mexico chiles in this and it turned out a light chile flavor, not nearly as hot as that NCJL above.
NNMJL – Nectarine, New Mexico Chile, and Jalapeño Jam – 18 July. To the nectarines i added a shredded apple (not indicated in the code), the usual lemon juice, three seeded and deveined New Mexico chiles and one very large seeded and deveined jalapeño. You can taste the chiles, but it’s much gentler than that NCJL above.
NJAL – Nectarine and Red Jalapeño Jam – 2 August. I used three seeded and deveined red Jalapeños in this, and that made it moderately hot….for me.
Pickled Beans – 5 August. At Yerena’s booth the other day i saw pretty yellow string beans and beside them a box of purple ones. Wow, i thought, what a nice color combination. So i bought some of each and arranged them in jars, alternating the colors along with strips of New Mexico chile, green onion, a few thin carrot disks, and some dill and mustard seeds. Cut back on both the vinegar and salt in my standard brine this time as an experiment. You can imagine my disappointment when, as i poured the boiling pickle into the jars, the purple beans all turned dull green, the bright yellow ones turned dull yellow, and besides, i was wrong when i decided they’d be so tender they wouldn’t need processing. A rich source of fiber.
Blackberry Jalapeño Vinegar. 6 August. From the 7 July jelly.
BBNMJ – Blackberry, New Mexico Chile, and Jalapeño Jam – 7 August. For this one i used a combination of New Mexico chiles, for the chile flavor, and Jalapeños for the capsaicin. Coulda used another Jalapeño in this batch.
NNMJ – Nectarine, New Mexico Chile, and Jalapeño Jam – 8 August. The New Mexicos and the Jalapeños both come through nicely in this one.
Blackberry, Sukhi’s Lime Relish, and Jalapeño Vinegar – 10 August. From the 10 July jelly.
RB – Raspberry Jelly – 16 August. This is plain old raspberry jelly like grandmother made. No exotic additions. And you know, sometimes it’s refreshing to get back to basics.
Cranberry Beans – multiple dates. I list these here because these are my favorite shelling bean and throughout their long season i buy bags of them, spread them out on a newspaper for a day on my kitchen floor to make them much easier to shell, shell them, blanch them for a couple of minutes in boiling water, drain them, and freeze them in plastic bags. Then throughout the winter and spring i can cook these wonderful beans for guests…and gobble the leftovers all by myself.
Blackberry and New Mexico Chile Vinegar – 21 August. From the 17 July jelly.
RBNM – Raspberry and New Mexico Chile jelly – 22 August. I put six seeded and deveined red New Mexico chiles into this batch of jelly, and it still didn’t get very piquant at all.
PAL – Plectarine Jam – 24 August. OK, i’ll confess right off, i haven’t out-Zeigered Floyd Zaiger and crossed a Pluot and Nectarine to create the Plectarine. See, i was at Rodin Farms booth at the Castro Farmers’ Market chatting up Marie and buying some of her excellent yellow nectarines, and she gave me several handfuls of their latest Pluot to try. And yes, they’re quite tasty, but nothing beats a yellow nectarine. So i chopped ’em all up and then added enough nectarines to make a batch of jam.
FPAL – French Plum (AKA “Prune”) Jam – 31 August. I got so focused on berries and nectarines this season that i let the brief Greengage plum season slip right past me and almost missed the French Plum season. Luckily, Arata’s crop was a little later than the others, so i managed to snag some.
FPNM – French Plum New Mexico Chile Jam – 6 September. Couldn’t leave well enough alone, so i threw seven New Mexico chiles into this batch of plum jam. Lovely chile flavor if i say so myself.
NGJ – Niabell Grape Jam – 6 October, 15 October. This got a little complicated, because even though the Niabell grapes are one of the very best grapes i ever ate, they have big seeds and tough skins. See the Jams, Jellies, Marmalades, and Chutneys entry in the Recipes for details.
RAL – Raspberry Jelly – 9 October. Figured i’d better make another batch of plain raspberry jelly before the season is over.
Raspberry New Mexico Chile Vinegar – 10 October. From the 22 August jelly.
Pickled Mixed Peppers – 24 October. There have been gorgeous red Thai chiles in the markets recently, so i broke down and bought a bag. No no, not to eat, as the damn things are poisonously hot. I buy them so i can pickle them for friends with high capsaicin tolerance. To make the presentation interesting, i threw in a variety of other chiles.
Pickled Pimentos de Padron – 24 October. More and more vendors are growing these pricy peppers now, and there was a period this summer when there was a glut of them on the market and prices plunged. Did i avail myself of this opportunity? Of course not. I waited until prices were back to normal. Oh, and those white discs? White carrots.
PC – Piquant Peach Chutney – 31 October. The great variety of microclimates within range of San Francisco means that the season for most of our fresh produce is miraculously extended, and continual breeding of new early and late varieties extends the season even further. We’ve had a warm, dry fall, and Schletewitz down by Fresno has a late variety peach that was still utterly delicious Wednesday before last. So i went in three days ago thinking i’d get a bunch of ’em to have on hand when Rina arrives from Amsterdam tomorrow. Yes, to see her face when i hand her a delicious peach on the first of November! Alas, when i got the bag of ’em home i discovered that in the last week, they’d slipped pretty badly and were nothing to brag about. Which didn’t mean i couldn’t make chutney out of ’em. Threw in five New Mexico chiles and two generous spoonfuls of that hot Indian lime relish so as to make ’em piquant. Oh, and a spoonful of some pickled Jalapeños. Sr. y Sra. Yerena will smile.
Raspberry Vinegar – 9 November. From the 9 October jelly.
Pickled New Mexico, Aji, and Habañero Chiles. 30 November. With red onion, white carrot, garlic, and black and white mustard seeds. Beautiful jars, if i say so myself, but way too hot for most people. Ummm, i thought those chiles were Ajis but when i went to look for the botanical name i discovered that the Aji doesn’t look like these, so i’ll just call ’em very long skinny red peppers. And hot.
FC – Feijoa Chutney. 1 December. In both batches i used pomegranate-flavored dried cranberries instead of the usual raisins. Also, the thickness turned out just right. Love these little victories.
FKC – Feijoa Kiwi Chutney – 11 December. This was such a hit last year i decided to do it again.