.strawberry-orange-ginger jam.

My sister, Marcia (pronounced mar-cee-uh), came to visit me last week and brought her two children, Samantha and Jacob along. Samantha is 7 months younger than Paige so they get along great.. and fight like sisters. Jacob had a lot of fun playing with Perry, despite the age difference. Marcia's expecting baby #3 (another boy!) in March and she knew if she didn't come visit now, who knows when she'd get out this way.



Makes it hard. I wish I could live back in Washington state, especially when I hear about all of the fun get togethers they have, but I know I will enjoy living here in New York. It's always been a dream of mine to see The Big Apple (which we did venture into while she was here)!



Anyway... while she was in town, I didn't make a lot of new dishes. Marcia isn't much of an adventurous eater and her kids are the same so I had to stick with tried and true family stuff. You know what I'm talking about, right?



One thing I did make the morning they arrived was some strawberry jam. But not just any strawberry jam. Strawberry jam with orange and candied ginger. Yummy!



If you've never made jam on your own, it is SO EASY!!! What are you waiting for!?!?! (Yes.. this is me subtly coaxing you into making some.) All it takes is fruit, sugar, lemon juice, and pectin. Of course, I did add the orange and candied ginger but you don't have to go all crazy like me.




Since fresh strawberries this time of year are expensive, I bought a couple of these little babies. Frozen strawberries. It doesn't change the flavor or anything so don't worry if they're not fresh. These strawberries came sugared already. If the strawberries you buy aren't sweetened, add 3 cups sugar. (You really don't know how full of sugar jam is until you make it!)

Let them thaw completely before making the jam.








Dump the strawberries into a soup pot. You need one that's big because the fruit does boil up as it cooks.


I mashed up the strawberries a little bit. I hate when I get a big ol slimy piece of strawberry. If you don't want them mashed up, then skip this step.



Measure out 1 tsp or so of candied ginger. You can make your own if you can't find it in the grocery store. Just google "making candied ginger" and there are a few places that give step by step instructions. I took the easy way out and bought mine. You can find it in the spice aisle.

Add the ginger to the pot. Add a squirt of lemon juice too while you're at it. :)



Take one orange, and using a vegetable peeler, peel the skin off. This is an easy way of zesting.



Cut up the orange peel into very thin pieces. We don't want the orange flavor to be distorted at all so hold this off to the side until after we add the pectin. Once I sliced up the zest, I did squeeze in the juice of the orange into the pot though.



Put the pot on the stove and bring to a boil. The fruit will start foaming a lot on top. Take a large spoon or ladle and carefully skim the top to remove as much foam as possible.






Let this boil for about 2-3 minutes. Add the contents of the pectin packet. Stir and then bring to a boil again. Let boil one minute and remove from the heat.














My jam is going into the freezer so I'm using these rubbermaid containers. If you want to have this shelf safe, use clean jars with new lids. Fill the containers up but not to the top. Make sure you leave a little room at the top for a vacuum seal.

If you're using jars, as soon as you fill, wipe any jam that may have gotten on the lip. Place the lid and then tighten the ring on. Flip the jar upside down and leave it that way until the jam has cooled completely. Turn the jars over and press in the center. If it doesn't pop or move, your jar is perfectly sealed. If it *does* pop, you're going to have to keep it in the fridge or freezer. I don't think I've ever had any trouble with unsealed jars doing it this way.



That's all there is to it! Homemade jam is AWESOME and so much more delicious than the stuff you buy in the store (in my opinion). Inside the box of pectin you will find a sheet of directions. They have recipes for every kind of jam you can think of.

So again, if you've never made jam before, you'll see that it really isn't very intimidating and you don't need any special equipment except for a box or two of Ball jars and lids. No pressure cooker or anything! Good luck and I hope you let me know if you make some for yourself. Do me proud!

.berry cream puff.

I had a luncheon today with some girlfriends. We all had our babies within a month of each other. We all had GIRLS! So we get together every month to hang out and eat and let our babies play together. It's a lot of fun. Today we had lunch at my house. I fixed some grilled chicken, grilled vegetable pasta salad (recipe below), greek salad (recipe to come), and for dessert...... berry cream puffs.



My husband insisted we didn't need a dessert for lunch. Puh-lease. I told him what I was thinking of making and he quickly jumped on board. LOL I guess you can have dessert with lunch!



I didn't want to do your typical strawberry shortcake, but I did want a fresh, fruity type dessert that screams SPRING! When I was at the store picking up supplies, I saw blueberries and blackberries with the strawberries. Mmmmm.... oh yah.



We made cream puffs daily at the bakery and filled them with pastry cream folded in with whipped cream, and topped the puff off with some ganache. Very popular. Making cream puffs isn't difficult, and they don't take very long to make. You will get a great upper body workout though from working in the flour and the eggs. Let me show you how to make them.



In a pot, put 1 cup water, 1/4 cup butter (cut up), and 1/4 tsp salt. Bring to a boil.

While you're waiting for the water to boil, break open 4 eggs and put in a bowl or measuring cup. You want to have all of your stuff ready to go because it's going to go fast and you won't have time to do all of this.

Butter a cookie sheet (I took that pat of butter off after I took this picture).

You want to butter this because those cream puffs will stick horribly bad if you don't.

When the water comes to a boil and the butter is melted, dump in 1 cup flour. Stir immediately using a wooden spoon. Stir until the flour is cooked and it begins to pull away from the sides of the pan and form a ball. Remove from the heat.

Add the eggs, one at a time, stirring well between each addition. This is what it will look like when all the eggs have been added. The reason why you want to add one at a time is if you dumped all of them in, it would cool your dough down too fast and you will get the wrong consistency and your cream puffs won't "puff" up the right way.

Spoon the dough into a pastry bag and pipe in a circular fashion little "hives". I made these puffs big today. Normally you can get about 8-10 regular sized puffs out of this recipe. You can easily double the recipe to make more.

Bake in a 375* oven for 35 minutes or so. You want them to be nice and golden brown. If you pull them out too soon, they will collapse as they cool. Big concern is you want to make sure the centers get cooked. Pull too soon and it'll be doughy inside. Our motto at the bakery with these were overbaking was better than underbaking.

Allow to cool.



In a bowl, mix together your berries. Like I said earlier, I used blackberries, blueberries, and sliced strawberries. Add a little sugar and some lemon juice. Let the berries macerate for awhile.

To assemble, cut the top off your cream puff. Take some whipped cream (which you can whip up while the puffs are cooling) and put a large dollop on the bottom half. Spoon some berries on top of that, then add another little dollop on top of the berries. Put the top back on.

Using a sieve, put a little powdered sugar in it and then tap lightly on top of the cream puff to dust them.

Garnish with a sprig of fresh mint.

[Chef's notes: Cream puffs are great for parties. Make the puffs a lot smaller and fill with chicken salad, or with pastry cream or just whipped cream. You can make them up ahead of time and freeze.]

Printable version:
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dg2vfjqm_43c9tqv6cp

.fruit salsa w/ cinnamon tortilla chips.

I went to a party once when I lived in Virginia where this dish was served. My friend, Jenna, said she got it out of the Better Homes and Garden cookbook. Well, I looked in mine and it's not in there.... but she's a lot younger than I am so she probably had a newer addition. I loved it. Not only was it a really light, fresh appetizer, it was really pretty and tasty! Good food is usually very visually pretty. ;)



This is also a very low-fat/low-cal recipe so you can't go wrong with this dish! Here's how we make it.



Take 10 fajita sized tortillas. Cut in half, then in half again. Then in half again. We're quartering them to make our baked cinnamon tortilla chips.

Arrange the tortilla wedges on a baking sheet. You'll need to use about 3 sheets, or just keep cranking them out using one. You don't want them to overlap or else they won't get crispy in the oven.

Melt 1/4 c. butter in the microwave.

Brush the wedges lightly with some of the melted butter.

Sprinkle lightly with cinnamon sugar. Put in a 350* oven for 10 minutes. After those 10 minutes are up, turn the oven to 400* and bake another minute. This will crisp up those chips!








Pull chips from the oven and let cool. These can be made the night before and put in a ziploc to keep fresh.


[TIP: Instead of throwing out your spice jars, clean one up and put some sugar and cinnamon in it. Shake well. Mark the lid with a STAR for easy finding. You'll always have cinnamon/sugar ready for toast or other things like this!]



While the tortilla wedges are in the oven we're going to make the salsa.

Peel and finely dice one mango.

Peel, slice, then finely dice 2 kiwi.



Make sure when you buy the kiwi that they aren't too squishy. They need to be firmer or else they will be nothing but mush when you go to dice.

Dice about 2 cups strawberries.



Put all the fruit in a bowl and mix together.

Using the small grate on your cheese grater, zest one lemon. Only grate once or twice in the same spot. You don't want any of the pith (the white stuff under the pretty yellow skin). Add to the bowl.

Cut the lemon in half and squeeze into the bowl. Take any seeds out that might have fallen from the lemon into the bowl.

Sprinkle in about 1 Tbsp shredded coconut. Stir everything together.



This salsa is adaptable for anyone's taste. Pineapple would be a wonderful compliment to this, but my husband doesn't care for pineapple. I added a little diced banana to my bowl. If you use banana, make sure you add it at the very last minute because they brown quickly.



You can also add plum, peaches, and some chopped mint!





[TIP: When you only need half of a lemon, use the other half to bleach and sanitize your cutting boards. Sprinkle some salt on the flat side of the lemon and then rub in a circular motion. Let sit for 1/2 hour before washing.]