Myself As Another

My Ph.D. exams are over, and now I have a desperate need to ground myself in the experience of my everyday life again. Exams, for instance, require that all attention is paid to the content of study. I have a hard time balancing that impulse while not actually studying. So yesterday, I looked in the fridge to see what I needed to get rid of. Carrots. Hmmm. Alright. I don’t yet have all the missing parts for my pressure cooker, so chicken soup was out. Jam? Yep.

I found a recipe for carrot cake jam in the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving. (I’ve included the recipe below.) It’s an absolutely stunning collection of canning recipes and tips-n-tricks about the process.

Taste: It actually tastes a lot like Carrot cake. So far, I’ve only tasted it on saltines, but the taste is really, really strong. Unfortunately, the carrots get a little overpowered by the pineapple, and the overall quality is a little too sweet, but maybe this will change when I spread it over a nice thick slice of homemade whole-grain bread.

Texture: I might have cooked the pectin a little too long, and I might have gone a little heavy on the pineapple, so it’s a tiny bit on the runny side for jam.

Look: Nice robust orange color. The specs of carrot remind me of the gelatins my Grandma Bjugstad used to make back in Sheyenne, North Dakota when I was growing up (late ’70s, early ’80s). This would look beautiful served in a small, white porcelain bowl with a wooden spreading spoon. For some reason, I can’t help but visualize the vinyl, yellow-checkered table cloth in my grandma’s kitchen.

Here’s the recipe. I can’t recommend any adjustments at the moment:

Carrot Cake Jam

1 1/2 cups grated, peeled carrots
1 1/2 cups cored, peeled pears
1 3/4 cups canned pineapple, including juice
3 T lemon juice
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsb ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1 package of powdered pectin
6 1/2 cups sugar

In a large saucepan, combine carrots, pears, pineapple with juice, lemon juice, and spices. Bring to a boil over high heat, stirring frequently. Reduce heat, cover and boil gently for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat and stir in pectin until dissolved. Bring back to a full boil, add sugar all at once, bring back to another boil and boil hard for 1 minute.

Remove from heat, skim off foam. Ladle into prepared jars with 1/4 inch headspace. Process jars in a BWB for 5 minutes for sterilized jars, or 10 minutes for unsterilized jars.

Makes 6 half pints.

Here’s one of my comfort food recipes from my childhood. Totally representative of the cooking philosophy in our house: simple, fast, cheap, standard cookware, common ingredients, less than healthy. So, it’s perfect for a graduate student. Perfect for a bachelor. Perfect if you’re in a pinch, needing a something to contribute to that dinner invitation to a friend’s house on short notice. Here’s the recipe (thanks to my niece, Taylor Trauman, and my sister-in-law, Sheri Trauman):

Trauman’s Chocolate No-bake Cookies

Bring the following ingredients to a boil:
2 c. sugar
1 stick margarine (eight tablespoons)
½ c. Milk
3 tbls cocoa

Once you get a roiling boil, stir constantly for 90 seconds. Remove from heat. Add these ingredients immediately:
½ c. peanut butter (creamy or chunky)
2 tsp. Vanilla
2 ¼ c. Quick Oats

Spoon out dollops onto a pair of cookie sheets covered with non-stick spray or wax-paper. As far as I know, it’s a family recipe, but that doesn’t mean it’s not floating around out there somewhere else on the internet.

Postmodern ecology. Not a great subject to start the day’s reading. Much better to procrastinate. I’ve been meaning to raid my friend’s cherry tree (with permission) for some cool jam. Maybe canning is a form of postmodern ecology.

There’s something I’m really attracted to about jars of food. Low-tech-traditional. A craft to learn. Creativity. Making foods I can’t get anywhere else. All good reasons to boil-and-seal.

Cherries are not easy to pick. Abrasive branches. Thick foliage. Eric and his roommate had already picked a bunch of the “gettable” cherries, leaving mostly those hard-to-reach varieties. I’m so thankful for the cherry-charity, and the cuts and scratches were actually totally worth it. I picked for two hours. Beautiful morning. Sunlight through branches. Thought of Robert Frost’s poem “After Apple Picking”:

… and there may be two or three
Apples I didn’t pick upon some bough.
But I am done with apple-picking now.
Essence of winter sleep is on the night,
The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.

I’m still a huge rookie when it comes to canning (or anything with food, really). I’ve made some memorable treats, though. Cinnamon ketchup. Ginger-Pear Jam.

I had already settled on a recipe for Almond Cherry jam. It’s recommended as a spread for the holidays, but for the life of me, I’m not sure why. Key ingredient: almond liqueur (I hate saying that word). But guy helping me the liquor (ah, that’s better) store was only “pretty sure” Amaretto is an almond liqueur. The last thing I wanted was a $20 bottle of zuchini liqueur (two ugly words) above my refrigerator. Something else, then. Something original and interesting. What goes well with cherries? Chocolate. Coffee. Ice cream. So… Kaluha? Close. Perfect! Mmmm. Kaluha “Mocha”.

Picked cherries are beautiful. I’ve included some pics below. However, to my eventual horror, it seems that picked cherries are not pitted cherries. And there’s really no short-cut to pitting them. Apparently, using a straw is a great way to get them out. I didn’t have one. After a few disastrously messy attempts with my fingers, I chucked the old-school sensibility and hit the internet. Cook’s Illustrated. Best cooking site ever. Great mag, too. Anyway, it turns out that a needle-nose pliers works wonders. Just so happens… Wow. That’s cool. Like I was doing arthroscopic surgery or something. Nose in. Open. Grab pit. Pull. Minimal ripping and tearing. I guess I’m not an arthroscopic surgeon. Luck for the injured. I prefer words. To pitting, then.

So I might have been a bit overzealous with my harvesting. It didn’t look like that much in the bucket. Two big bowls worth. I can promise you one thing. Pitting cherries takes a long time. Even if you’re genius enough to use a needle-nose pliers. I spent an hour at the sink. Only made it through half. When I measured the post-op fruit piles, I had a half-gallon. (Another half gallon still awaits pitting even now.) Lots of work. Lots of jam.

At this point, the story of my canning is pretty standard. Boil the cherries with pectin, lemon juice, and Kaluha Mocha(!). Then add sugar. Boil. Rolling boil. Fill some canning jars with the goodies. De-bubble. Clean. Lid. Band. Water bath. Boil. Boil. Pull and cool. Get this: fifteen pints. And I still have to pit and can the other half tomorrow!

I always leave one jar unsealed so I can cool it and taste immediately. All this wholesome-traditional-old-school-low-tech culinary coolness hasn’t exactly improved my sense of patience. So I wait an hour, toast a slice… and take a picture.

My dog, Rilke, is excited. A new smell. For me, too. The taste? Cherry, coffee, cream, chocolate, lemon. Mostly cherry. This might be a bit rich for breakfast, but I think it could really bring out the coffee-ness of coffee. Helpful if, like me, you eschew the expensive stuff for store brand breakfast blend. This spread is probably best consumed on toasted sourdough after dinner, just before that second glass of Shiraz.

If you’re curious (and happen to be reading postmodern ecology) I’ve included the recipe below. If you’re a friend of mine, bring over a cup of cheap coffee or a bottle of Shiraz. I’ll indulge you. I’ve got fourteen pints to go.

Mocha-Cherry Jam

36 oz Sour Cherries
1 pack powered pectin
¾ c Mocha Liqueur
4 ½ c Sugar

Finely chop cherries. Combine cherries, powdered pectin, mocha liqueur and lemon juice in a large sauce pot. Bring to a boil, stirring frequently. Add sugar. Stirring until dissolved. Return to a rolling boil. Boil hard 1 minute, stirring constantly. Remove from heat. Skim foam if necessary. Ladle hot jam into hot jars, leaving 1/4-inch head space. Adjust two-piece caps. Process 10 minutes in a boiling-water canner. (Originally called for sweet cherries and almond liqueur. I substituted same amounts.)(Recipe from: Ball Blue Book of Preserving)