Surprise Apricot Sorbet!

Since the cherry plum tree in my backyard is about a week away from 20 gallons of plums being ripe all at once, I reached into my freezer to see what I could use and make space for this season's fresh fruit.  One quart size bag of something somewhat orange or gold had a smeared label - I couldn't tell what it said at all.  Pumpkin? Persimmon? What?  I let it defrost and was delighted to discover - I had 3 cups of delightfully sweet apricot puree in my hands!

Last summer, I picked a pile of amazing apricot's from my friend L's house - the skins are so delicate that I don't even bother to remove them when I make jam.  I filled my Breville blender with pitted apricots and froze the puree to use later.  The apricots were so sweet that I didn't even add sugar!

Easiest sorbet ever - I reprocessed the defrosted puree in the blender to aerate it a bit, then poured it into 9" x 9" metal baking pan.  Put into the freezer.  Stir every 20 minutes or so to keep it from sticking to the sides. 

Spoon it into  bowl when firm enough and eat with great contentment.

Apricot & Red Pepper Chutney

APRICOT CHUTNEY for 2009 follows a modified recipe based on last year's recipe. I liked the spice combination from the fig-tomato chutney, so left out the tumeric and star anise this time.

Fruits & alliums

• 12 cups (7.5#) fresh apricots, pitted and chopped (no more than 1/2 inch thick)
• 4 large (3#) white onions, finely chopped
  
• 5 (1.25#) red bell peppers, chopped
  
• 2.5 oz finely minced fresh garlic
  
• 16 ounces mixed mixed raisins and currants

Spices

• 2.5-3 oz ginger root, peeled and grated
• 2-4 big sticks of Ceylon cinnamon
• 3 Tb salt
• 1 Tb chili flakes
• 2 dried dried Ancho chilies, toasted lightly in the oven so that they can be crumbled, include seeds for extra zing but omit any stems

Toasted and ground together:

• 1 tsp allspice berries
  
• 1 Tb brown mustard seed
• 1 Tb white peppercorns
• 2 Tb fenugreek seed
  
• 1 Tb coriander seed
  

Sour & sweet

• 2.5 cups apple cider vinegar
• 1.5 cup malt vinegar
  
• 1.5 pounds Sucanat
• 4 lemons, both zest and juice

Method

1. Lightly toast the spices until they start to get fragrant. Remove from pan quickly and put into a cool dish to cool a bit, then grind coarsely with mortar and pestle.
   
2. Put apricots, garlic, onions and spices into a large stock pot with a heavy bottom. Turn the heat onto medium high. Pour in enough vinegar to prevent mixture from stick to bottom of pot. Bring to simmer then lower the heat to medium.
3. Add more vinegar as the mixture simmers to prevent it fairly mobile - you don't want it to erupt like molten apricot lava out of the pot. You should have used more than half of the vinegar by now. Continue to stir to avoid sticking, lower the temperature to maintain a gentle simmer.
4. After about 1 hour, stir in the raisins, lemon zest and lemon juice.
5. Stir in the brown sugar as soon as the apricots look like they are nearly falling apart. Add the sugar gradually, stirring and letting it dissolve. Alternate with remaining vinegar or additional lemon juice if needed.
6. Simmer and stir occasionally another 45 minutes or until the chutney has a thick jammy consistency.
   
7. Turn off of the heat, and set aside overnight on the stovetop or cool and put in fridge if you plan a longer delay.
8. To finish, stir and taste your chutney!
   
9. Bring the chutney to a simmer over medium high heat, then lower the temperature to medium low or low to maintain a gentle simmer.
   
10. Add any additional spices, vinegar or sugar to desired taste and viscosity. Cook for 1 hour.
11. Ladle the hot chutney into the jars and process (10 minutes in hot water bath).
12. Store in a cool location at least 2 to 3 months before serving.
    

YIELD:
2 - 12 oz jars apricot chutney
16 - 8 oz jars apricot chutney
14 - 4 oz jars apricot chutney

Tomatoes, Figs & Peppers, oh my!

Perhaps I overcompensated but... the tomatoes were so friendly at Mariquita's U-Pick day, and their skins so warm and compelling to my touch... I ended up bringing home 67# of San Marzanos, and 60# of mixed heirlooms, Early Girl, Beefsteak and Green Zebra tomatoes. Along with 2# of pimientos de padron (including a big bag that Julia warned were "too hot" to sell because most of her customers fail to appreciate the charm of super spicy pimientos de padron), several pounds of red and yellow bell peppers, 20 (more) bunches of basil (because I just can't get enough pesto!),

I still have to put up the figs and am looking over fig chutney recipes to occupy my afternoon while the tomatoes cook down... some ideas are fig & tomato chutney, fig chutney with Meyer lemon zest & (canned) pineapple, fig & red pepper chutney, and fig & persimmon chutney. I'm also going to try my hand at tomato jelly this week, as well as defrosting the apricots to make up some apricot chutney.

Pesto-riffic!

Mariquita had basil "shares" for $1 a bunch - I took the bait and bought 20 bunches of basil.

James came over and we spent all evening pulling the leaves to make pesto. 20 bunches = 1.5 lbs of leaves = 3.25 lbs of pesto. We split the goods and froze up our pesto in muffin tins as well as ice cube trays this time. We also managed to eat 1/2 # of pimientos de padron and lots of tasty fresh tomato bruschetta instead of an actual meal - but it all worked out.

Looking in the freeezer, I have little space but need more pesto to get me through the winter. I still have 20 cups of frozen chopped apricot that wants to be chutney, and a 1.6 gallon tub of fresh figs from James' friend's home in Rio Vista. I am going to be busy this week!

YIELD: 20 bunches basil = 1.5# leaves = 3.25# pesto

Half of 3.25 lb of basil-pine nut-garlic-olive oil pesto:

12 - 1/2 c muffin tin size frozen portions
24 ice cube tray size portions

Apricot Infused Vodka & Sorbet

Today I finally decided to decant the 4 half-gallon jars of vodka, apricot halves and apricot pits. I was able to totally fill both of the original 1.75 ml vodka bottles and ended up with 1/2 gallon jar of puree. I pulled out the Kitchen Aid food mill again - after first using the chinois (aka "Foley Mill" - it looks like a cone with holes and sits on a wire stand over a bowl or pot). I also let the pulp sit in the jelly bag all evening to drain out as much clear infused vodka as I could.

When I got tired of the mess in the kitchen, I put it all away, pulled out some frozen chunks of very ripe honeydew and threw it into the Cuisinart with 2-3 cups of apricot infused puree that wouldn't fit in the half-gallon jar for a really delicious smoothie/sorbet which I also shared with my neighbors.

YIELD:
3.5 L apricot infused vodka
1/2 gallon jar of vodka infused apricot puree
1 qt apricot-honeydew sorbet

Apricot Jelly & Apricot Butter

Yesterday I opened up a gallon of apricot halves - mind you, these are peach size apricots - and started to simmer them down. I decided I wanted to make a really nice clear jelly like the white peach jelly I made last season. So, I used a wire strainer to get some juice and then put the fruit into the jelly bag in batches. I ended up with 6 cups of juice. Next, I got out the trusty food mill attachment for my Kitchen Aid (I'm really finding this useful!) and pureed the rest of the fruit - running it through twice - and ended up with about 7 cups of very fine puree. I put aside 3 cups of puree in the freezer for sorbet later and set up the pots to make jelly and apricot butter!

YIELD:
7 - 8 oz jars of apricot jelly
6 - 8 oz jars of apricot butter

Many many thanks to Larissa for generously inviting me to clear off her fruit tree when it was going nuts - hopefully our work clearing the tree will allow it to produce even more next year! She always has the choicest apricots - I've never seen any on a tree or Farmer's Market that compare to hers!

I still have 24 cups of chopped apricots in the freezer - that's going to be split between apricot chipotle jam and apricot chutney. Or maybe just apricot chutney since that stuff is so good!

Vegan Doughnuts & Candied Apricots

Just as I was pulling out the last jars from the hot water bath, my friend Eric popped over with a half dozen doughnuts from Voo Doo Doughnuts in Portland as my reward for visiting his kitty while he was on a road trip. Putting aside my excitement - I actually managed to chocolate dip a tray of candied apricots first - but have to do it in two batches because I ran out of chcolate.

YIELD:

• 38 dark chocolate dipped candied apricot halves
  

DOUGHNUTS! Eric confessed two things - there's nobody over 35 in Portland, and they have a bizarre passion for doughnuts in general. Though he isn't generally a doughnut person, he said he likes what they're doing with vegan doughnuts and brought me 6 yummy confections in a pink box (as we all know - "good things come in pink boxes") -- a maple bar (my favorite!), a crazy purple fantasy frosted concoction, a yummy looking chocolate covered mystery, one covered with crushed oreos and vanilla frosted with coconut flakes.

And, yes, I did take pictures.

Close...

I suppose it counts in canning - today I ended up with apricot infused vodka to set for a few weeks, apricot jam, plum-serrano jelly and chopped the more firm apricots into 24 cups of coarse dice for chutney (frozen).

YIELD:

• Apricot Infused Vodka - 4 half-gallon jars of apricots, pits saved from other chopped and processed apricots and vodka (two 1.75 L bottles)
• Apricot Jam - 9 8 oz jars, 1 12 oz jar
  
• Plum-Serrano Jelly 6 4 oz jars, 5 8 oz jars

Apricots & Plums

Last week, I picked 10 gallons of plums in my backyard - that resulted in 3 gallons of juice and nearly 2 gallons of puree - and I picked about 150 apricots on Wednesday. Today is going to be a big canning day. If you'd like to visit to see how I do it - drop a line here!

In priority, this week's projects will include:

• Apricot infused vodka (first because it's the easiest!)
  
• Apricot jam (plain apricot, apricot chipotle)
  
• Apricot chutney
  
• Apricot fruit leather
• Candied apricots (they can hang out on the back burner)
  
• Plum fruit leather (might be tart, though!)
  
• Plum jelly (plain plum, plum serrano, plum habanero)
  
• Plum sauce

Before I get started, I want to inventory current preserves still on the shelf. Then, Wash and prep all the jars. Next, a quick trip to BevMo to get the vodka, and then I will swing by Oakland's Chinatown to get the ginger (you can't argue with 50 cents a pound and ginger is not a highly pesticided crop, so...).

These apricots are massive - they are the size of small peaches! I put some into the dehydrator last night, so we'll see how they come out, if at all dried!

HOLY CHIPOTLE!

APRICOT-CHIPOTLE JAM is going to be a big hit. Small yield, but I'll do a batch of peach chipotle, too. I let the jam cool overnight on the stove with one chipotle pepper (it softened to about 3" in length).

This morning, I reheated it, added 1/2 c. lemon juice and 1/2 c. boiling water before adding the sugar and pectin to get it moving because it was very dense. I added the sugar and pectin, let it heat up and added a bit more water and boiled it to about 195 degrees. At this point, it tasted good but not too spicy -- smoky chipotle and a tiny bit of spice.

I simmered about 5 minutes more (hey, I'm on a schedule here, I gotta get to work!) and put it in the jars. I tasted it after I put it all in the jars and, let me tell you, that extra couple of minutes really added some zing!

It's not as spicy as the Plum Habanero Jelly, but it's got a bit of kick. I snipped up the chipotle pepper into 9 pieces into each of the jars to ensure a bit more zing.

YIELD:
5 - 8 oz jars
4 - 4 oz jars

I still have 3 cups of juice in the fridge, so plan to experiment a bit more. Apricot Chipotle sorbet, anyone?

Apricot Jam, pt 2

This round of apricot jam was much smaller apricots that were not entirely ripe, so I had to cook them a bit longer. Despite admonitions, I did scorch the bottom of sweetie's big pot, but since it is teflon and it was only fruit (no sugar) it came right off. I ended up with 24 cups (that's 1.5 gal) of apricot -- no added water or anything.

After it simmered quite a while, and made a gorgeous apricot tinted white foam on top of the pot, I divided the batch into 10 cups and 14 cups in two different pots, added the pectin to a mixture of unrefined cane sugar and demerara sugar -- the demerara gave the apricot jam a much darker orange color.

YIELD:

APRICOT JAM:
10 - 16 oz jars
8 - 8 oz jars
1 - 4 oz jar

Peachy Keen...

Tonight was the night to finish up the white peach jam and jelly -- my brother came over to help with the solar dehydrator, and says he'll return to complete it. Tonight, I didn't scorch the bottoms of any pans badly and it all seems to be setting well. I also used my food mill attachment for the first time to pulverize half the peach flesh for the jam. I think it came out quite well. When the rest of the neighbor's peaches are ready -- I'm going to make peach chutney and canned peach slices (big jars of 'em!). I find myself eagerly anticipating the availability of Concord grapes -- two neighbors have those and I have always wanted to make grape jelly! I need to build a garage to store all these jellies!

WHITE PEACH JAM
1 - 4 oz
7 - 8 oz
6 - 16 oz

WHITE PEACH JELLY
9 - 4 oz
10 - 8 oz

My home is filled with the plink-a-licious sounds of success. I still have to cut up and cook down some apricots so there is room in my fridge. Yes - more apricot jam tomorrow night. I'm just going to put this all in 16 oz jars -- these are the apricots from my sweetie's neighbor's tree. I have a feeling that this batch of apricot jam will be going to the homes of the kids in James' neighborhood!

CANDIED APRICOTS

One of my fondest memories of life in New Orleans is from the summer I worked as a bike messenger. Every time I had a job that would take me into the heart of the French Quarter, I would go into a great candy store called Laura's. It had more space than it needed for customers and was always dark and quiet as a church, except for the hissing of the air conditioning. It was also freezing cold, like walking into an ice box.

I'd lean my bicycle against the wall by their door on a quiet street a few blocks from Jackson Square so I could see my front tire and go in and buy a single, dark chocolate dipped candied apricot. It was always so cold and satisfying - rich candied fruit and dark chocolate. I would always start eating it inside the store to get the cold chocolate & apricot sensation, and then take it outside for the big, gooey melt down in the 100 degree afternoons of New Orleans in the summer. Then, I'd lick my fingers, wipe them on my black tshirt and shorts and hop on my bike back to the fountain plaza at the New Orleans Board of Trade where my best friend Lara and I would wait for her brother to radio our next job to us on walkie talkies. Sometimes, if she was going to be there when I arrived, I would bring her a treat, too.

APRICOT CHUTNEY

CHUTNEY is a great way to make up savory fruit meal complements - I think this will go well with a moroccan tagine. I mostly followed a recipe from Iwaruna.com, with some modifications.

Fruits & alliums

• 4 pounds fresh apricots, pitted and chopped (no more than 1/2 inch thick)
• 2 large yellow onions, diced
• 8 garlic cloves, minced
• 8 ounces mixed raisins, cranberries and dried blackberries since that was all I had in the refrigerator!

Spices

• 3 inches ginger root, peeled and grated
• 2 big sticks of Ceylon cinnamon
  
• 2 tablespoons brown mustard seed
• 1 1/2 teaspoons black peppercorns
• 1 1/2 teaspoons whole cloves
• 1 teaspoon whole allspice
• 2 teaspoons ground turmeric
• 2 teaspoons sea salt
• 2 dried dried Ancho chilies, crumbled, including seeds but omitting any stems
• 3 star anise
• 1 tsp fenugreek
  

Sour & sweet

• 1 cups apple cider vinegar
• 1 cup fig balsamic vinegar
  
• 12 ounces Sucanat
• 3 lemons, both zest and juice

Method

1. Lightly toast the spices until they start to get fragrant. Remove from pan quickly and put into a cool dish to cool a bit, then grind coarsely with mortar and pestle.
   
2. Put apricots, garlic, onions and spices into a large stock pot with a heavy bottom. Turn the heat onto medium high. Pour in enough vinegar to prevent mixture from stick to bottom of pot. Bring to simmer then lower the heat to medium.
3. Add more vinegar as the mixture simmers to prevent it fairly mobile - you don't want it to erupt like molten apricot lava out of the pot. You should have used more than half of the vinegar by now. Continue to stir to avoid sticking, lower the temperature to maintain a gentle simmer.
4. After about 1 hour, stir in the raisins, lemon zest and lemon juice.
5. Stir in the brown sugar as soon as the apricots look like they are nearly falling apart. Add the sugar gradually, stirring and letting it dissolve. Alternate with remaining vinegar or additional lemon juice if needed.
6. Simmer and stir occasionally another 45 minutes or until the chutney has a thick jammy consistency.
   
7. Turn off of the heat, and set aside overnight on the stovetop or cool and put in fridge if you plan a longer delay.
8. To finish, stir and taste your chutney!
   
9. Bring the chutney to a simmer over medium high heat, then lower the temperature to medium low or low to maintain a gentle simmer.
   
10. Add any additional spices, vinegar or sugar to desired taste and viscosity. Cook for 1 hour.
11. Ladle the hot chutney into the jars and process (10 minutes in hot water bath).
12. Store in a cool location at least 2 to 3 months before serving.
    

YIELD:

6 - 8 oz
11 - 4 oz

Freecycle Apricots, Apricot Jam & Catnip Mystery Solved

FREECYCLE FRUIT: I put a call out on Freecycle and made contact with a woman with an apricot tree full of ripe apricots, falling to the ground. I made a quick trip over there and picked up 12# of very large, ripe, gorgeous apricots. She also offered quinces when they ripen in late August, and persimmons in the fall ("the squishy kind," she said). She has a small apple tree, so I'm going to check on that as well.

While I started prepping the apricots for jelly and jam - a neighbor came by, and we had a chat. I gave him a jar of plum jelly and he promised to bring me some Santa Rosa plums, and offered me picking privileges when his fig tree ripens in a month or so.

APRICOT CANNING GOODNESS: Last night, I made up:

YIELD:
1 - half gallon of vodka & 14 apricots for Apricot brandy
3 - 12 oz jars apricot jam
2 - 16 oz jars of apricot jam
5 - 16 oz jars of apricot jelly

This morning I set to simmer a big pot of apricot chutney using about 4# of apricots, and I have about 28 choice apricot halves which I am going to candy tomorrow, and then dip in chocolate. Hopefully my kitty/housesitter won't eat all of them while I am on vacation!

I love Freecycle. I love neighbors and neighborhoods with fruit trees.

GARDEN: This evening, I returned at the same time as a neigbor just to the other side -- offered her some volunteer tomato plants. I gave her the three I dug up and put in water last Thursday, and dug up 3 or 4 more. I apologized that they were volunteers so I couldn't tell her if they were cherry or regular tomatoes and she said, "That's the fun part -- it'll be a surprise!"

The baby basil sprouts are looking great. The catnip isn't looking so great - but I found out why: George. Here, I thought I had over fertilized it or under or over watered. I caught him bent over into the pot, cleaning the last leaves off the thing. He's pretty darned ferocious when it comes to catnip and feathery toys. He could totally kick Dobson's butt, and yet he's so gentle with him and often ends up losing tufts of fur in their wrestling matches.

Time to round up the kitties and bike to Berkeley for dinner with my sweetie. I promise a post on a recent rash of thefts in this neighborhood due to war and recession.