Honeyed Fruit Preserves

This recipe came about by accident but its a happy accident and may end up being one of my favorites. I bought some plums and peaches last week. These are my favorite fruit and I'm always tempted when they first show up in the stores. I should know better. These fruits are smaller and often mealy or sour. Sometimes they don't even have much taste. But I didn't want to throw them out, so I decided to try to save them in a jam. They were also very ripe which I think is what ended up making this a good jam.

I also had a big bag of cherries that I pitted last yr. I remember sitting on my back deck in the sun all day doing those. I forgot about them till now. I don't want to lose them so I decided to toss some in this jam. It was a good idea. The combo of fruit tho was very tart. I didn't want to just add sugar tho, I wanted more flavor. So I taste tested some fruit with honey in a sm. dish. Good idea!

The honey enhanced the peaches so they tasted more peachy. I wanted more tho. So I added a touch of vanilla to it and found that the cherries tasted more cherry like too. I often add a touch of vanilla to the end of my jams. I find it mellows the flavors. You could can these in smaller jars. I just used the pts. because it was all I had here right now that I had lids for. But honestly the cherries stay whole and I think smaller jars would just end up with all cherries . The cherries do make this a nice rosy colored jam.

Honeyed Fruit Preserves Makes 4 pts.

5c. of juicy peaches, plums and cherries, must be very ripe
Juice of one lemon
1 tsp. butter
1 box of low sugar pectin
1c. honey
1/2 tsp. vanilla

At this point I hope you have your jars ready and the water bath canner boiling.

Peel peaches and plums, remove pits and cut into chunks. Rather than add juice to this recipe as Ball suggests, I suggest using very ripe fruit so it makes its own juices. Pit cherries if they are fresh. I had frozen ones ready to use. I used about 3c. peaches and plums, 2c. cherries for this recipe. Mix together in a lg. pot and turn on heat.  

 Add lemon juice and stir. Add pectin and stir well. Bring to a hard rolling boil you cant stir down. When you reach that point add the honey and stir well. Bring back to a boil and boil 2-3 min. Skim foam if it appears. Add vanilla and stir well. Take off the heat. Fill jars, wiping rims well and top with lids. Water bath 10 min. Let sit in water bath canner for 5min. more to ensure a good seal. Remove and put on a towel on your counter to cool. Check seals and store.

Don't panic when you see how loose it is after canning. I was afraid perhaps the pectin wasn't enough because it actually was more watery after canning than before. But I do know many times it takes some time to jell........sometimes up to two wks. So I let these cool overnight on the counter and this morning they are fine. So give it time if you see that with yours.

Honey Butter Glazed Cornbread

The family had a BBQ this past weekend and I was asked to bring my baked beans. I wanted to make something else to bring too and thought cornbread would be nice. My bf loves bread with every meal. Now I have pkg. mixes on hand for when I'm in a hurry. And Ive tried other cornbread recipes but was never really happy with the results. They were either too dry or bland.

Now I know there are cultural differences when it comes to cornbread here in the USA. But I personally like a moist bread that's a bit sweet. This bread is that. I looked for recipes online and printed out a few. This one however kept calling me and I'm glad I listened to that. I also saw online some folks drizzle honey on the bread before baking. And I talked to a few friends and one of them told me about making a glaze with honey butter. That sounded totally yummy. And because there were going to be alot of kids I didn't want a bread that I had to have extra butter for . Kids would make a mess.

So I doubled this recipe and baked it in a 13 x 9 pan. I have a convection oven and so in mine it baked for about 25min. I tested it and it was done and a nice golden brown. Then I topped it with the honey and butter and baked it a few min. more. I decided to cut the bread into squares here so there would be less to do there. This way I knew everyone would get a piece too. The bread was a hit and everyone had several pieces. This one is a keeper for me. The only thing Ill do different is perhaps use just a bit less sugar because with the honey glaze its sweet.......not too sweet but sweeter than I thought it would be. But it doesn't need anything more, just cut and serve.
 
Honey Butter Glazed Cornbread

1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs  
1 cup buttermilk
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup cornmeal (I used Bobs Red Mill)
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt  
Honey to drizzle  and extra butter

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). You can make in an 8 inch   square pan or cook in a cast iron or other oven proof skillet. 
2. In a medium sized bowl, combine the cornmeal, flour, salt and baking soda Meanwhile, melt the butter in a large skillet. Remove from heat and stir in the sugar. Quickly add the eggs and whisk until well blended.  Whisk in the  buttermilk. Stir in cornmeal, flour, and salt in 3 portions until well blended and few lumps remain. Pour batter into the prepared pan.
3. Bake in the preheated oven for 30 to 40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. 

I use buttermilk powder that you reconstitute. I get it at the health food store but I think some grocery stores carry it too. I doubled this recipe since I made it for a big BBQ. I only had 1c. of real buttermilk in my refrigerator so I made up the second cup with the powder buttermilk and milk. They say to use water but I wanted milk in it.

When the cornbread was almost done, I put several pats of butter on the top of it and drizzled it with honey, then returned to the oven for about 5min. of so to glaze the bread.

Honey Pear Conserve & the evolution of a recipe

Ive been canning like crazy. I don't know why. I haven't done it in yrs. But I know there's lots of berries and stuff up here and I planned with the move here to take advantage of it all. And so I'm doing all sorts of things. I canned peaches the other day in a light syrup. The recipe I found it at tho had another for peach honey. You save the peels for that. Well I had to make pickles too and just didn't have time to make the peach honey. I almost tossed the peels then I thought....freeze them till I need it. Duh!

And then I had 5lbs of pears to process. Ive waited the last few days for them to get really ripe, they were like rocks when I bought them. And so I thought......well I could make pear honey! Then I thought maybe I should use honey instead of sugar. And so in my search to see if it could be done and if it was good... I found this recipe...

http://www.foodnetwork.co.uk/recipes/honey-pear-preserves-with-ginger-ru298348.html

But I post all this to show you the evolution of a recipe. I just cant leave things alone. Guess that's why I'm a chef. And so now Ill post my version of that recipe.

So it went from peach honey to pear honey to honey pear preserves with ginger to finally Honey Pear Conserve.

Honey Pear Conserve Makes 16 half pts.

5lbs of pears
2 1/2c honey
1 lemon, finely chopped (whole lemon) (seeds removed)
2 in. piece of peeled ginger root
1/4 tsp. vanilla
1 box Ball No Sugar Pectin
1/2c. lightly toasted pine nuts

Peel and core pears and chop into chunks. Sprinkle with Fruit Fresh or Vit. C and toss to keep from turning brown.  

Add honey to pears and mix. 

Chop nubby ends off lemon and toss. Chop whole lemon, finely and make sure all seeds are removed. Put in pear/honey mixture. Let sit overnight.

Next day put mixture in lg. pot and put in ginger. Cook 15-20min. I taste tested this as it went along. At the beginning it reminded me too much of Honey lemon cough drops. While I like that flavor .....not for my jam. yuck. I decided instead of adding the ginger to the jars to steep, I would cook it with the jam. This way I could control just how much ginger flavor I wanted. I suggest you do the same.

I found the flavors do blend and taste better and when it hits the level of ginger you like, remove the piece. Then add 1/4 tsp. vanilla or a bit more if you like. I found it took some of the bite out of the ginger.

Get water bath canner ready and wash jars. Put lids in a pan to boil and stay hot. I like to heat my oven to 200 degrees once the jars are hot and clean so they stay hot. Once the canner is ready, put pot of jam back on stove. Whisk in one box of the pectin and cook and stir till its beginning to thicken......then for 3min. more.  

 I can never leave things alone,,,this flavor reminded me of something Italian I had long ago so I thought why not pine nuts?  So I took some out raw and tasted it and they weren't bad but I thought toasted might be richer. So I put them in a fry pan and toasted lightly. Be careful not to do too much to them. I did taste a couple of nuts that got browner than I wanted and it over powered the delicate flavors. Toss them into the jam and stir. 

Fill jars and leave a half in. space. Wipe jar edges and put on lids and seal. Process in water bath for 10min. Remove and let cool, check seals. 

Feta with Rosemary Pepper Honey

I adore feta cheese, its creamy and salty and goes so well with so many things. This sounds heavenly with the salty cheese, the herbal flavor, the bite of pepper and the sweetness of honey. What a feast for the mouth. Add some figs or even oranges and yum!

FETA WITH ROSEMARY PEPPER HONEY Serves 8
1/2 Cup Honey
1/4 Cup Water
2 Teaspoons Chopped Fresh Rosemary Leaves
1 Teaspoon Black Peppercorns, cracked coarse
1 Pound Feta Cheese, rinsed and patted dry

In a small saucepan combine honey, water, rosemary, and peppercorns and simmer, swirling pan occasionally, until reduced to about 1/2 cup. Cool honey to room temperature. Cut feta into thin slices and serve drizzled with honey.
You could also try other herbs such as thyme or even mint.