A Winner, and more Fig Jam!

Hey! It took me a few days (due to a blasted cold that just. won't. quit!) but I finally got out the trusty random number generator and found a winner of Food Heroes by Georgia Pellegrini: Christine from Fresh Local and Best! Congratulations, Christine! Big thanks to all who participated. I can't tell you how engaged I was by all of the comments. Being the chatty person I am, I really had to restrain myself from responding to every single one of them. Not only did I glean some good reading ideas from all of the comments, but it also made me think about my food heroes.

There are many, but the first ones that come to mind, and the first ones who made an imprint on my mind, and continue to be my food heroes, are my parents. From day one, I was by my mother's side, cooking, baking, gardening and discovering. She made breakfast, lunch and dinner, almost every day without fail, and had the energy to discover how to make croissants, grow currants and make jelly from them, all the while teaching me endlessly, while continuing to be curious and open to new things. My father, though at work during the week, would cook on the weekends, and alongside him I learned the art of a fine gravy, how to make pasta, and that sitting down to dinner was one of the most important times of the day.

One of the greatest things I learned from my parents about cooking is being creative. They consulted cook books but didn't hover over them. Working with what you have on hand is how some of the best meals have come about. The other day, I had a few figs leftover from my big haul. They weren't in a condition to eat out of hand but certainly not out of service. I threw together a quick compote, and it was amazing on a pork tenderloin the other night. What I love about this one, is that there is no sugar in it. Leave it in the fridge, and it should last a month.

Pint of fresh figs, stemmed and halved

Put in a small pan and almost cover the figs with apple cider. Add a small handful of golden sultana raisins, a half of a handful of crystallized ginger (mine was in slices). Bring to a simmer and keep it there for about ten minutes, or until desired consistency. Store in fridge.

Fig Jam with Fennel and Vanilla

Here in the Hudson Valley there are figs growing, but you have to really search them out. These local figs are usually in someone's backyard, attended to with care and dedication by a person who knows just how amazing a fresh fig can be. They usually have to be covered with burlap, or a rug, or newspapers over the long, cold winter. I'm planning on having my own tree one day, but at the moment I have to rely on other devoted fig lovers who might share the bounty. I was looking, but I didn't really expect to find figs this year. It was sort of a little joke I had with myself, that I'd look into someone's yard and see a fig tree. Amazingly, they popped up right under my nose! My local farm market/orchard had some for sale, organic, of course, right off of an aunt's tree. I only found out because I saw a lone price tag for them, but they were all gone.

"Some woman bought them all this morning!" the owner, Peter, said.

"Great," I said, "I'll be that next woman to buy all your figs." I left my number so that when they came in, I would take them all.

Once I came home with the bucket, I ate about ten of them. They were transformational. The perfect size, a fig filled your mouth, soft with some resistance, honeyed and sweet, with a lightly acidic finish. Man, they were good. Peter had asked me what I would do with them. I said I would make jam. He and his father seemed skeptical. "We only eat them fresh off the tree," they said. The older man seemed to think I was nuts to add sugar to these perfect fruits. Maybe they're right, I mused, as I ate my sixth or seventh fig.

But with a bucket of figs, what is one going to do? Eat them all on the spot, and possibly get sick, like a friend of mine once did at his mother's house in France? He had to be admitted to the hospital. (The skin of a fig has a latex-like milky substance in it that some people have allergic reactions to. Especially if you eat a bucket-full.)

I do believe that figs turn into something else when made into jam, and that their delicate, transformative flavor gets lost when cooked. But then you've got to eat that bucket-full pretty dang quick! Here's the jam I made with the bulk of my figs. The rest I ate fresh, out of hand, as they say.

Fig Jam with Fennel and Vanilla

I love figs with fennel and vanilla (see this recipe from last year using dried figs). I used a whole teaspoon in my original recipe, which I thought ended up being too much. I've reduced the amount to 1/2 teaspoon. There is apple pectin stock in here which you can exchange for water. I used it to up the body of the jam. Water is just fine, though you will have a slightly softer set.

2 pounds of fresh figs

1 tablespoon of lemon juice

3 cups of sugar

1/2 teaspoon of fennel seeds

1 vanilla pod (mine was from my homemade vanilla extract)

1/2 cup apple pectin stock

lemon zest

Stem the figs and halve them. If they are large, quarter them. Put them in a pan with the rest of the ingredients and bring them to a boil. Let the mixture boil for about fifteen minutes, or when you think it has set to your liking. This will be a soft, or runny, jam, so don't expect it to set fully. Ladle it into hot jars and process for ten minutes.

Chocolate Cake with Figs in Sweet Red Wine

Okay, so this isn't chocolate cake. It's really vegan low-fat chocolate pear sauce (one word?) cake. It sure doesn't look like it, right? I hate to say, though, it tastes like it! By which I mean, it tastes like a cake with no fats in it. I mean, for what it is, it's good! Really good. And if you are vegan, or have little kids with constant cake cravings, or maybe big kids with constant cake cravings (or maybe it's just you, let's face it, huh?) but you want to curtail the fat intake, this might be the cake for you. And it's the easiest cake ever. Truly. I had lots of pear sauce in the fridge, and a bit of nice cocoa sitting around, so this cake came to the rescue.

More honesty: it's dry. But that's where this fig compote comes in! I had no idea how nicely figs and chocolate pair together. Maybe it's the wine that brings it all together. Fresh organic figs (from California, but I'm still poking around people's yards, and looking for some nice Italian folks who might have a fig tree around here) with sugar and a red dessert wine. I halved the figs, covered them in the wine, added a half cup of sugar and boiled for about ten minutes. They are incredibly good and dress up this cake perfectly. A little mint doesn't hurt, too! Just remember for your next photo shoot: figs, booze and mint. You'll look great.

Marm: Orange Fig and Orange Earl Grey

Well, we all have our problems, don't we? Mine is marmalades. Can't get them out of my kitchen. I guess I've had worse problems in prior days. Making preserves is keeping me off the streets. Keeping me honest. Keeping me real.

Okay, so enough of that. I have been doing micro batches, and it's been so much fun. Check it:

I had four cups of peels and pulp that I brought to a boil with two tablespoonfuls of lemon juice and then let cool overnight in the fridge. The next afternoon I measured two cups and added 2/3 of a cup of sugar per cup of orange. Then I added 8 ounces of chopped, very soft dried mission figs. The resulting marmalade is gooey and rich, the figs add a smooth texture and a mellow to the peel's bitterness. This made three pints.

The next day, I used the balance of the oranges with the same 2/3 cup sugar per cup ratio, but as it reached the jel stage I poured in eight ounces of very concentrated Earl Grey tea (four bags, opened). It took forever to get it back to the jelling point, and I still think it's closer to a syrupy consistency. But how inspired is marmalade with tea in it? And Earl Grey, no less. I mean, really. To be sure, it's not my invention, I lifted the idea from Christine Ferber.

I have to admit this is a rushed post with uninspired photos. Today was a gorgeous day and I spent the good part of it out of doors, chopping up the many downed branches from our latest spate of storms. I dug among the beds, pulling back the warm blanket of leaves to see so many shoots coming up, some of which perplexed me: what did I plant here? I also sprinkled some buckwheat seed in one of the beds just because I wanted to plant something. I tidied the shed. I pruned all of the ornamental grasses. I played in the thick mud by the barn, daydreaming about the chickens I plan to get next week. I did a lot of dreaming, actually, listening to the stream gurgle by, watching the ice melt on the pond, wondering where I could squeeze in all the squash I want to grow. Lots of planes growled by, hawks swirled soundlessly on thermals. How am I ever going to find time to write once this season is in full swing?

Fig Lemon and Fennel Jam

I've had some dried organic mission figs I bought on sale from the health food store that have been patiently waiting while I got swept away with all this citrus. I didn't forget about them, I just knew how patient they could be, sitting there, all wrinkly in a jar, quiet, thoughtful. I saw a great recipe for dried figs from Consider the Pantry that I will make one day, probably with Calmyrna figs. In describing the jam she mentions the taste of Fig Newtons. That sounds just blessed to me. I was also completely smitten with The Laundry's Can Jam entry, Lemon, Fig and Lavander Marmalade. It had me swooning. I was there.

But then I was twiddling through the Joy of Cooking and in the fruit section there was a little gem called Fig Compote with Lemon and Ginger. I had everything on hand. All the right amounts. Of course, I had to change a few things. And it came out heavenly. It perfumed the house. Not too sweet due to the lemon which candies, ever so slightly vanillin, and the fennel just takes it back from being completely dessert-y. It is close to a compote because I left half of the figs whole and the rest are split so those nice little seeds squoosh out. The syrup they float in is thick. I am planning on getting some incredible vanilla ice cream today so I can put a dollop on top. But it's definitely an eat-from-the-jar kind of thing.

Fig Lemon Fennel Jam

1 pound of dried figs, stems removed

3 cups of water

1 lemon, zest only, in strips

1 tablespoon of fennel seeds

1/3 vanilla bean pod, seeds scraped

Simmer until figs are plumped. About thirty minutes.

Add:

1 cup of sugar

2 tablespoons of lemon juice

Simmer for another thirty minutes or so until the syrup reaches your desired consistency. If you want, split half the figs with a flat edged utensil. Process for ten minutes.

NOTE: The original recipe does not water bath it. It is meant for immediate consumption, and will sit in the fridge for a month. However, I am a wild kind of soul and decided it was okay to can. (I felt it was similar enough to a few recipes that the acid was okay. I also raised the sugar.) However, I only made enough for me and will be the only one consuming it. There was no testing involved. So can this at your own risk.

It was miserable outside when I made this and the power went out just as I was finishing up. So I canned by candlelight. Very romantic.