Jam Session: It's all about timing

One of my favorite food blogs is Amateur Gourmet. You may have seen the link on our blog and I definitely recommend checking it out. Adam Roberts is the blogger and he documents his cooking adventures and most recently his new gig on the Food Network.  He had a great post a few weeks ago about making jam and he made it seem so easy.  Easy enough for me to want to attempt it! 

So when I was at Findlay Market in Cincinnati a few weekends ago and there were beautiful cherries at the market for very cheap - like 2 lbs. for $5 cheap - I had to buy them and instantly thought of using them to make jam.  So the next day my friend Mo came over and helped me make cherry jam.  To make this quicker and easier I decided to buy a cherry pitter.  What a great idea!  Who knew for like $11 you could have such a fun kitchen tool!   The pitter stabs into the cherry pit and shoots it out the bottom...and also creates a kind of gory splash of cherry juice that resembles a blood bath.  So Mo was in charge of pitting the cherry's while I sterilized the jars.  I decided to do what Adam did when he made jam and I cleaned the jars with soap and water and then put them in a large pot filled with water and brought the water to a boil to sterilize. 

When Mo was done pitting all of the cherries I roughly chopped them and put them in a large pot and cooked them on medium to high heat with the zest of one lemon and the juice of one lemon.  This is one of the instances in jam making when it's all about timing.  We cooked the cherries until they released their juices and became sloshy.   The smell was amazing!  An intensely sweet cherry aroma filled my tiny kitchen and we were getting excited.  Once the cherries are sloshy, it's time to measure how much cherry slosh we had because that is how you know how much sugar you need.  

I'm not much of a mathematician but this is pretty easy. If I can figure it out..you can. You measure the cherry slosh and you multiply that by 3/4.  We had about 2 1/2 cups of cherry slosh and after we dumped the slosh back in to the pot (sounds appetizing right..sorry for my choice of words) we added about 1 1/2 cups of sugar.  We cooked the cherry slosh and sugar over medium heat and this part is where timing is crucial.  As the cherries and sugar cook it will begin to bubble up and foam and you have to stir often so it doesn't burn on the bottom.  

I was nervous about overcooking it so we tested the jam way to early, but I'm glad we did because you can always put jam back on the heat to cook if it needs more time, but you can't save burnt, overcooked jam. To test, it's really simple. At the beginning of the jam-making process put a small plate in to the freezer and when you are ready to test, put a drizzle of jam on to the cold plate.  Wait for it to set and then push the circle of jam and if it wrinkles when you push it, it is ready.  If it's slippery and gooey still, put it back on the heat and keep stirring. 

Since we cooked it on medium heat, we cooked the jam for about 15-20 minutes before it was ready.  Once the jam was ready we ladled it in to the jars and let them cool to room temperature before putting them in the fridge.  

The jam turned out really tasty!! Next time I am going to chop the cherries a little smaller but other than that the flavors are great.  I've gotten some raised eyebrows and giggles when I told friends and family I made jam.  My sister had the best comment though..she called while I was making the jam and when I told her what I was doing she said "God Erin what else you are doing, churning butter?"  haha..we are so different it's funny. :)   Making jam was so easy I definitely want to make it again and with other fruits.   It's definitely better than my Smucker's jam I've bought before and they also make great gifts!

Easter Feast

Ryan and I made a lamb feast 2 years ago for Easter for our friends and it was a hit, so we decided it was time to for Easter Lamb: Round 2. This lamb recipe is from Ryan's mom so it was a nice way to bring family aspect to our Easter away from home.

We needed about a 10 lb. leg of lamb for the recipe and lamb is pretty expensive, especially around the holidays. So I decided to be the meat investigator and call around to various grocery stores and butchers to see who had the best price per pound. The butcher on the west side of town was definitely the most expensive, but they probably had the better quality leg than say, Kroger who had the cheapest. In the end it didn't really matter because when we went to go out and buy the lamb and other ingredients (we were out a little late Friday night and didn't get moving right away on Saturday) and Kroger and Bigg's were both out of lamb legs. Luckily, Fresh Market had plenty of lamb legs left and we were able to get a 6 lb. leg that worked out perfect for our Easter feast.

I'm going to let Ryan take it from here, he was the chef in charge of the lamb and I of course, was the sous chef, beautifully chopping the onion, potatoes and LOTS of garlic.

What's up, its Ryan...
So the lamb recipe is my Nonna's, given to me by my mom. I remember the tender, meaty, delicious lamb every Easter sunday, usually in Florida at my Nonna's home. Basically, its a meat roast, but it puts all the pork and beef roasts ever cooked to shame. We had the butcher at Fresh Market cut the leg into one inch thick "steaks". This allows you to get that tender, delicate texture without having to cook it for 6 hours. I cut away alot of the fat from the steaks once at home.


With Erin's cutting skills we lined a large roast pan with celery as a bed, then added the meat, potatoes, a couple cans of crushed tomatoes, some garlic (a couple cloves diced, a couple whole), onion, capers (chopped), and fresh mint (this was not in my grandma's recipe). I seasoned everything with some salt and pepper and cooked the roast at 400 degrees for about 1.5 hours. While we were waiting we had some panaconzata.

It came out pretty good. The lamb was pretty tender and very flavorful. The ingredients worked awesome together. It wasn't quite as tender as my grandma's. The other slight problem was that some of the potatoes could have used a few more minutes.

We had some friends over to help us eat this feast and celebrate Easter with us. Craig brought beer, JJ made a tasty green bean caserole, and Mo a great peanut butter pie. We also made a salad. The simple oil and vinegar dressing (really it was just some cheap balsamic, extra virgin olive oil, salt, and freshly cracked black pepper) that I learned from my mom was a hit.

We even had an Easter egg hunt... Erin won.

Happy belated Easter. Sorry this post is so late, we have had busy week. Check back soon for more posts. I'm going to guarantee 2 posts per week!