sprinklefingers

my love for cranberries grown (with love) by the vincent family is no secret.
i’m 100% positive they are grown in magic bogs. they are sprinkled with magic yummy dust each night by cranberry sprites. this kind of trickery is the only way i can explain the delight that is a cranberry from the vincent family farm.

honestly, they’re that good.

back when i first saw fresh vincent cranberries at the market, i nearly passed out. or started jumping for joy. i really can’t remember now - the happiness i felt sort of took over my brain. when i saw the fresh berries i promptly bought 4 bags…not because i needed them but because i wanted to stock my freezer with them (you know, for emergencies. hmmm.)

let me tell you, i’m so glad i plan ahead. it’s because of my planning ahead that i was able to whip up some cranberry jam first thing in the morning and then pack that very same jam into a delicious lunch that afternoon.

before i get to the jam recipe, i want to describe the experience of cooking with a vincent cranberry. those of you who’ve made even the simplest cranberry sauce before can agree with me that it’s an interesting experience - once the cranberries get hot enough they sort of pop open and then bit by bit melt down into the sauce. vincent cranberries? they do the popping - but the way they turn from whole berries into a jammy mixture is just - in a word - velvety. the beautiful cranberries seeds, the crazy beautiful rich red color - these berries put all others to shame with their amazing texture. no kidding.

so, vincent family, i don’t know what you’re doing to these berries to make them this way (cranberry sprites, right?) but you most definitely should keep doing what you’re doing. please.

amen.

orange & cranberry jam
makes approximately 24 oz

you need:

• 12 oz fresh cranberries
• 1 cup vanilla sugar
• 1 cup water
• 1/4 - 1/2 t cinnamon, depending upon taste
• 1 T freshly squeezed orange juice
• 1/2 - 1 T freshly grated orange zest, depending upon how orangey you want your jam to taste. 1 T will make it very orangey.

to make the jam:

1. rinse your cranberries well.
2. in a medium sized saucepan, combine the sugar, water, cinnamon, juice, zest and a pinch of salt. bring to a boil.
3. add the cranberries and stir to combine.
4. bring the mixture back to a boil then reduce the heat so that a light simmer is maintained. let the berries cook for 10-12 minutes, stirring occasionally.
5. after 10 minutes take a peek at the berries - they should be melting apart and getting all jammy. if you like the consistency you see, remove the berries from the heat. if you’d like the jam to be thicker, continue to cook for up to 2 minutes, watching that it doesn’t start to stick and burn on the bottom of the pan.
6. once your jam is finished, remove it from the heat and transfer it to glass jars. attach the lids and let cool on the countertop.
7. once cool, place in the refrigerator - the jam will last 4 weeks or more.

ps: no, i don’t know the vincent family. but i do admire them from afar.

this past spring i was crazy excited about strawberry season.

what did my excitement get me? flat after flat after flat of oregon strawberries. strawberries that have an extremely short shelf life and basically need to either be used or frozen upon returning home from the farm or market or farmer’s market.

and it’s not like you can just toss them in the freezer and be done with it. oh, no. you first must wash them. then hull them. then dry them. THEN freeze them. if i had allowed myself to buy just one or two flats of berries this season i wouldn’t be complaining. but i’m telling you, i have had some kind of strange compulsion when it comes to this stuff. i see them and something inside me clicks and i must buy them. i actually can’t explain it. but i’d be willing to have it checked out by a scientist if you know anyone.

thankfully, i just purchased my last flat of strawberries. half of which i froze. half of which i turned into this late summer strawberry jam.

late summer oregon strawberry jam
makes 8 half-pint jars

note: strawberries that grow in late summer in oregon are not the luscious hood strawberries of early june. most late summer varieties are puget summer strawberries. that said, jam made with late season berries is going to taste different than jam made with first-of-the-season berries.

you need:

• 1/2 flat (6 pts) strawberries - washed and hulled
• 4 cups sugar
• 4 T bottled lemon juice

make jam:

1. prepare your sterilized jars and water bath canner.
2. put the berries in a nonreactive pot perfect for jam making and partially crush them using a potato masher.
3. put the partially crushed berries over medium heat and allow them to warm up. don’t let them boil, just get them warm.
4. add the sugar to the warm berries and stir well to incorporate.
5. let the mixture come to a simmer and hold at a simmer for 10 minutes.
6. raise the heat and let the mixture come to a full boil. hold at a full boil for 1 minute - stirring all the while to prevent burning.
7. remove from heat and ladle into prepared jars leaving 1/2” head space.
8. process in your water bath canner for 10 minutes.
9. remove from canner and let sit 24 hours. check seals. store the sealed jars in the pantry. any jars that failed to seal can be stored in the fridge for 4 weeks.

until next june, glorious oregon strawberry!

storing food away for the winter…

…and i’m just getting started!

[uh, yes. that’s a cabinet specifically designed to hold canned goods. it’s pretty much amazing. and, if you look closely you’ll see that the previous (and only other) lady of the house lined it with linoleum flooring samples…most of which contain specks of glitter. awesome - and - thanks, mrs. bushey!]

i’ve had something on my mind for a while now, and i thought i’d share it with you. you are really lucky. you feel lucky, don’t you?

okay, here goes. i’ve been wondering whether or not it REALLY matters if you stir a kitchen concoction in one direction only as some recipes instruct. (clue #3429 that i have a lot of time on my hands AND clearly have no life.)

before turning to the internets, i thought i’d test the theory in my own kitchen. over the weekend i made 24 quarts of oregon hood strawberry jam…which means i was standing, sweaty and stirring for the majority of saturday. as i was stirring my 4th batch of jam, the whole ‘stir in one direction’ thing popped into my head.

slow-cooked jam making involves a lot of stirring - basically you want the fruit & sugar to boil without burning, so you want the heat to be gentle and you want to take your time arriving at the boil - which means stirring, stirring and more stirring. and the only way to make sure your jam has boiled enough is to wait until it is hot enough to boil so that stirring doesn’t make the boil go away.

here’s what i did to test the theory:

• just as the jam was about to reach the type of boil that wouldn’t go away with stirring, i stirred in the other direction a few strokes, then the original direction a few strokes.
• each time i did this, i noticed the jam would quickly reduce its bubbly/boiling action. it would take half a minute or so to come up to the boil again.

BUT, if i stirred in the SAME direction as the jam was about to reach the ‘big’ boil, it would:

• continue on its path to the type of boil that couldn’t be stirred away.

to further test the theory, i then waited for the type of boil that couldn’t be stirred away to be in full swing and i:

• stirred in one direction then quickly changed directions only to watch the boil wane a bit!

what do these tests prove? that stirring in one direction only simply stirs the pot, while continuously changing direction not only stirs but also incorporates more air - which can cool down your concoction enough to effect a rapid boil. incredible! and so scientific, right? yes, right.

just call me dr. sprinklefingers.

ps: when i finally did turn to the internet to prove my theory, there was a lot of talk about custards, dumplings & mayos, etc. and stirring in one direction. to be perfectly honest with you, i had already tested the theory for myself where temperature was concerned and didn’t really have the desire to wade through so & so’s crummy blog to find out what multi-directional stirring does (or doesn’t do, more likely) to custards.