Thursday, September 17, 2009

Bread and Butter Pickles


I started cultivating a plot of vegetables at my neighborhood community garden a year ago. I'm enjoying the experience of producing my own food, but it's a venture rife with uncertainties. Sometimes the seeds won't germinate. Or the birds will wipe out the seedlings. Perhaps the tomatoes will thrive, but the eggplant will refuse to set fruit.

I was fortunate to get a good crop of cucumbers. To utlilize the abundance, I put up a few quarts of bread and butter pickles using Elise's recipe. Here are the cucumbers coming up to boil with onions (also from my garden), vinegar, sugar, and spices. (A special thanks to my friend, Suzanne, for giving me the mandoline with the fancy crinkle-cut blade!)


In addition to the Blenheim apricot jam from my previous post, I've also home-crafted Santa Rosa plum jam, Black Tartarian cherry jam, August Flame peach jam, Mark Bittman's tomato jam, pickled green beans, and tomato sauce with garlic and basil this season.

Thursday, July 2, 2009

Blenheim Apricot Jam


Blenheim apricots are a food treasure of the Santa Clara valley. Although they're small and often pale skinned with a green tinge, they're widely regarded to be the superior tasting apricot variety and have an incredible fragrance and intense flavor. Blenheim apricots are too delicate to ship and difficult to find even in California, but they're well worth seeking out.

I bought two flats of "jam quality" imperfect fruit from the C.J. Olsen Farmstand in Sunnyvale, CA last weekend. Andy's Orchard in Morgan Hill, CA is another local source for Blenheim apricots, and there are some farmers' market vendors who offer Blenheim apricots.

Since the harvest season for Blenheim apricots is only a few weeks for each orchard, I preserved my Blenheims by making jam. I learned to appreciate artisanal jams from buying small batch conserves and fruit butter from June Taylor's stand at the San Francisco Ferry Plaza Farmers' Market and eventually taking a jam making class with her last year.

I'm very pleased with the fresh-tasting but intensely flavored result of my jam making labors:


If you're interested in trying Blenheim apricot jam, June Taylor's very limited availability Blenheim apricot conserve is amazing. Although I haven't tried their product, welovejam offers an apricot jam, which has gotten great reviews.