Apricot Pit Vinegar

Yep. You saw that title right. Remember when I made this citrus cleaner? Well, this summer when I was up to my elbows in apricots, and their pits, I considered making that pit liqueur, Noyaux. As you might know, apricot pits (and cherries) are related to almonds, and impart an almond flavor when steeped. But, do you know how many little jars of strange liqueurs I have? And, you know, they just sit there. Because for the most part, I'd rather have a glass of wine at the end of the day than fussing with a cocktail, truth be told. But all those pits! What to do with them? I don't throw anything out unless I know I can't do anything with them.

So, I did what any crazy preserver would do: I filled a half-gallon jar with the pits and covered them with white vinegar. I stuck it in the basement and forgot all about it. Almost three months later I've given them a sniff and have declared them a success. Now along with my sour orange cleaner, I also have the option of an exquisitely almond-scented cleaner. The vinegar is a subtle secondary tang to the primary almond scent. And I love that smell!

I guess I could dress a winter salad with it as well---maybe a wilted greens salad with toasted nuts and some figs?

P.S. Do you know how hard it is to make a jar filled with pits and brown liquid look pretty?
P.P.S. As EL notes in the comments below, there is some controversy whether apricot pits are good or bad for you. Click over to the link for the liqueur above for more information on that topic.

Sugar-Free January

Right now I'm in our basement, which is actually the coziest room in the house. There's a wood stove right next to a rough-hewn bar, and a very 70's style rec room that has the TV, a dart board and an old Wurlitzer organ, the Funmaker edition. I like to call it the Honeycomb Hideout, for those of you oldsters who remember the old cereal commercials. The rain is coming down, freezing and slushy, drumming on the metal Bilco doors that go to the backyard. It's a miserable January day, which I'm not all that disappointed in, as the days have been quite forgiving of late. Since the new year, we've been taking hikes down along the Hudson river and up on the Shaupeneak Ridge, favorite local walks of ours. My son's latest fascination is ice, so we've been finding safe spots to poke with sticks and crunch with our boots.

Another thing I've been doing is staying the course on my New Year's detox. I have been given up meat, dairy, alcohol and the biggest one for me, sugar. The sugar rules are this: for two weeks, nothing but fruit sweetened things. At week two, I will introduce honey and maple syrup. I was encouraged to go a full month without refined sugar by Rebecca at Cakewalk; originally my goal was two weeks. We set up a Facebook page in order to discuss our sugar-free month. It's a place where we can post links to recipes we can make, or recipes we are looking forward to making when we can eat sugar again. Or maybe complain about how badly we are craving something. Or talk about the dreams we have about food. So far, I've had dreams about eating blackberry jam filled donuts and a large spread that included charcuterie and cheeses. My dreams lately have been fairly obvious.

Let's also note that as I've removed these foods from my diet, my son and husband are still eating them. That means, I'm still cooking things like chicken and dumpling soup, and personal pizzas that I can't eat. It sounds horrendous, doesn't it? But it's really not that bad. I just keep on thinking about how quickly two weeks pass. On New Year's Day, I made pan-seared duck breast with quince jam, and I didn't eat it. Not sure if I'm stupid or strong, but I really didn't feel denied. I had sauteed kale with preserved lemon and baked french fries, and they were incredibly savory.  (Did you read Mark Bittman's article and recipes in the Times magazine on going semi-vegan?)

I'm most fascinated by giving up sugar, probably because I've never done it before. Never crossed my mind! What's most interesting about it is how many things there are that you don't think have sugar in them. Like some of my homemade pickles. Oops! Forgot they have sugar. Or almost all condiments, aside from mustard and soy sauce or tamari. I realized that I pop a piece of gum or a pastille more often than I thought. And I knew this, but coming to terms with it was hard: how many muffins, pancakes, cookies or sweet breads I eat. I don't think the baked goods I eat are entirely bad for me, as they are homemade and I always lower the sugar, but they are pervasive.

One of the reasons I gave up sugar is that I need to be more responsible with it. This idea comes from watching my son start to have a similar relationship to sugar. I was starting to see how most of his diet was in some way sweet: toast with jam, peanut butter and jelly, yogurt with fruit. He used to eat everything, but slowly he's begun to refuse the savory items. In the short time I've giving up sugar, he's most certainly been eating better too.

I think the best thing I've learned, so far, from giving these things up, especially the sugar, is that you become more thoughtful about them. I think a big problem with how people eat today is that they are attached to craving something. People used to eat the same thing everyday, with special things every once in a while. Now we can have those special things every day, whenever we want.

Another benefit of cramping your style is that you get out of your cooking ruts. I found that when I needed a quick snack I would most often melt cheese on top of something. If you're concerned at all about your weight, you'll agree that this is not a good idea. Now I keep a container of brown rice in the fridge. My quick indulgent snack is rice with avocado on top, sprinkled with a bit of tamari. (Not that I will ever give up grilled cheese sandwiches. They are one of the best things in life.)

The foods that I am allowed are better than I ever thought. The other night I was craving a sweet and I ended up with a banana. And it was one of the best bananas I've had in a long time. There's no doubt that the reason being was because of giving up sugar. My palate has been cleansed. My best friends for the first two weeks have been fruit and dried fruit. And it's amazing how sweet they are. Now I'm on to honey and maple syrup, and I must say I am breathing a sigh of relief. It's really easy to make things with those two, and I won't feel so denied. However, I'm still dreaming of that jelly donut.

Here's some of the things I had to sweeten things up:

Apple Cider Syrup: This is a brilliant thing to have on hand. Lots of recipes add sugar, but really all you need to do is boil down apple cider. I used 8 cups and boiled it down to almost 1 cup. It's not super sweet, and has tons of deep apple flavor.

Applesauce: I like to make a chunky version with a few pounds of mixed apples, a little  more than a splash of apple cider, a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar, and a sprinkle of cinnamon. The vinegar boosts the natural sweetness of the apples, and, along with the cider, also deepens the apple flavor.

Dried Fruit and Nut Balls: Sounds dismal, right? A handful of apricots and a handful of almonds thrown in a food processor, with a little cider syrup to bind are just amazing, actually. There are a ton of variations on the internet. I'm going to make some with some cocoa added today.

Banana Cocoa Muffins: This link is to a great article on NPR about baking with sweet alternatives. I made the muffins, scroll down to see the recipe, and they were great.

Fruit-Sweetened Jam: Whoah, this was a revelation for me. We eat jam everyday. It's my profession now! But you know what, that's a lot of sugar in there. I just made a strawberry raspberry jam with Pomona's pectin, and it does the trick. I can't believe I've never done this before. Now, our everyday jam is no-sugar, and my regular jams (for my personal stash I use about 60% sugar) are for special times.

Vegan Fruit-Sweetened Applesauce Cake: I ate this so quickly that I didn't even take a picture. My son loved it too! I want to develop a banana bread and carrot cake version, too.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a square 8"x8" pan.

2 cups white whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon of baking soda
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1/2 cup of vegetable oil
1 cup of applesauce
1/2 cup of cider syrup
1/4 cup of raisins

Add mixed wet ingredients to mixed dry ingredients quickly. Pour and smooth in pan, bake for about 30 minutes.

Did you give anything up? Have you given up sugar? What did you eat? I'd love to know.

My besties, clockwise from right: dates, prunes, apricots, and swoon, dates covered in coconut.

Apricots

When you get a huge box of fruit, your mind starts swirling around that particular fruit and it's possibilities, and then, fun things happen. Or at least that's how I feel about it. This is what happened when I picked up a 25-pound box of apricot seconds the other day. 

After I tweeted for apricot inspiration, I got a response from my friend, Sarah (SarahBHood on Twitter or Toronto Tasting Notes). Sarah has a delicious and creative new canning book just out, We Sure Can, that features one or two of my recipes, alongside some stellar jamming company too long to list (the link to the book goes to the publisher, Arsenal Pulp Press, and lists all the bloggers involved.) 

Sarah gave me a few ideas for my apricots--five to be exact-- but the one that stood out for me was rosemary. I never thought to do an apricot rosemary jam, but doesn't that make the best sense in the world? Sarah mentioned her jamming buddy Alec Stockwell says it's a must. Apricot rosemary jam was the first thing I made, and I tell you, Alec was spot on, but then I didn't stop there. An extra sprig of rosemary was sitting on the counter looking to be useful as I was making an apricot pie. While making the crust in a food processor, I pulled the needles off the rosemary stem and tossed them in. The pie crust was flecked with green and added such a wonderfully subtle flavor to my apricot pie. I'm thinking of doing a peach pie next, with a lavender flowers in the crust.

I also really wanted to make the Best of Both Worlds Jam from Mrs. Wheelbarrow's post on apricots four ways. I mean, does this woman keep giving, or what? Apricots, sour cherries and St. Germain. Wait, what?? But I got carried away with so many ideas, and what I did end up doing was making an apricot blueberry, and an apricot vanilla with noyaux (a jam I made last year and was disappointed by at the start, only to open mid-winter and fall in love with it), in addition to the apricot rosemary. 

Instead of a fourth batch, which I was tempted by, I did something new to me and dried a few pounds of apricots. What's really exciting to me about this idea is that I don't have a dehydrator. The best ways to dehydrate food are obvious ones: a dehydrator, the sun, and your oven. I used my cold smoker which is electric. It maintains a temperature of about 120 degrees. I kept it in a sunny spot (I have an outdoor outlet that gets full sun) to increase the heat. (Of course, I didn't put any wood chips in, but I'm seriously considering how wood-smoked fruit must taste like.)

My apricots dried in little over 24 hours. I sprinkled them with lemon juice prior to drying to prevent browning. Now, I know not everyone has a cold smoker just hanging out in their shed, but if you do, you might want to utilize it to dry your excess bounty. In my mind's eye, I already have that thing working overtime this summer!

What are you making with apricots? Here is a look at last year's apricot endeavors:

Apricot Nectar

Apricot Brandy

Apple Apricot Almond Jelly

And an Extension page from Utah University on Apricot Preservation that I consulted for drying apricots.

Noyaux Liqueur

Can I tell you this weird thing I did? You might frown upon this, but I infused some brandy with apricot and cherry pits. I've learned that this is what generally flavors almond extract, these seeds from fruit in the almond family, along with almonds. Instead of composting my pits, I decided to make a liqueur.

Why would you frown? Because there's debate on whether those pits (or the kernels, to be exact) are okay to ingest. They contain amygdalin, which breaks down into prussic acid or Hydrogen cyanide, a poison. When I was a child I remember my mom warning me to not eat the peach pit's kernel even though it looked like a tasty almond, because it contained cyanide. That scared the bejesus out of me. But, through heating or soaking, this poison is eliminated. There is a liqueur called créme de noyaux, made with these kernels. And I was intrigued by this post on making almond extract; I just dispensed with the whole cracking open the kernels thing. Throwing pits in a jar to make a tasty liqueur? Sounds like my kind of thing. Interestingly, apricot kernels and the amygdalin they contain are touted as a cure for cancer. I did some research and came to the conclusion that my mason jar full of pits wasn't a problem. I think I read that you'd have to eat 72 kernels to even get sick. So.

I filled a quart mason jar with the pits, both apricot and cherry (which also is in the prunus family), and topped it with brandy. A month or so later, after sitting in the dark basement and being agitated every so often, it turned into the most amazing smelling brew. I am partial to the smell of almonds, so it was swoon-worthy. Smelled like almond extract. I should have kept it where it was, but I added a bit too much simple syrup to it and diluted it a bit. Next year, when I make it again, I will leave it intact.

What am I going to do with all these liqueurs I have been concocting? Well, I don't sip cordials all day long, even though I should. I used some of this liqueur in canning some pears. Like brandied fruit, but a little lighter. Post to follow!

Apricot Puree

This photo just made me happy. It's nothing special, just frozen cubes of apricot puree. I popped them into a bag and they will rest in the freezer for whenever I need a dose. Needless to say, it's been hot as hell lately. We've been eating salads and icy things a lot. Watermelon aqua fresca to drink, and in ice pop form, too. I have begun to have fantasies of an autumn chill. It's a tad early, but these thoughts do come every summer...

Apricot Nectar

I recently bought a little over a 1/2 bushel of apricots. That's over 25 pounds. And you know what, that amount of fruit doesn't overwhelm me anymore. In fact, I wish I had another 25 pounds. Especially now that I am a proud owner of a chest freezer. I now say to the season: bring it!

The apricots I bought were a bit soft, and some were really soft. So, there was still a need to move quickly. First, I made five pints of apricot jam with the softest ones. A saucy jam with lemon, vanilla and almond brandy, it will do nicely on yogurt. I removed the stones from four quarts of apricots, and in the freezer they went. I planned on doing some apricot butter with some of the other really soft ones, but first I made apricot nectar. Apricot nectar can do lots of things, besides being simply delicious, and what is left over is half-way to butter!

Adapted from The Joy of Cooking (although The Joy of Jams, Jellies, etc. by Linda Ziedrich also has a good apricot nectar recipe)

3 quarts of apricots, pits removed

3 cups of water

Add all to heavy pot or dutch oven. Simmer gently until fruit is soft (or softer than it was to start). Strain, and instead of pushing the fruit, be patient and let it drain on it's own.

You can can this in pint jars, in a boiling water bath for fifteen minutes. Or, you can freeze it. Or you can stash the almost two quart yield in the fridge to make sorbet, jelly, salad dressing, or just to drink. All of which are on my mind.

You will be left with a good amount of pulp. I had a quart, to which I added another quart of fresh fruit and started a slow cooker apricot butter, a la Food in Jars' blueberry butter recipe. Let the apricot games begin!

Buttermilk Cake

Since I've made buttermilk I haven't gone without it. It ends up going in a lot more things than I thought and makes all my baked goods more tender. The other day it was summertime hot, and we had dinner outside at a friend's house. I brought over this strawberry buttermilk cake and we served it with fresh whipped cream.

I had been meaning to make this for awhile; there was a version of it in Bon Appetit over the winter. Then I saw it, this time a version from Gourmet, on The Kitchenette, made with blackberries. It was time. I adapted both versions and came up with my own, made with olive oil, which I like to bake with. Nothing against butter, it's just that it's always that much easier! And I like to think it's healthier, which may or may not be the case.

1 cup of flour

1/2 teaspoon soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/3 cup olive oil

1/2 cup buttermilk

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 egg

A cup of fruit, more or less depending on your tastes or you can leave it out, add spices, be creative and use what you have!

Mix wet and add to dry. Drop fruit (sliced strawberries, whole berries--you get the idea) on top of the batter. It will sink a little; no worries. Bake in 350 degree oven for 25 to 30 minutes. I used a 10 inch spring form pan, and it seemed to be better on the 25 minute side.

This cake was so easy and delicious that when my in-laws came to visit this weekend, I decided to make it again, this time with the brandied apricots that I've had in the fridge sitting in a shot of their brandy. I pulled the apricots and arranged them on the batter, which I had added vanilla sugar and extract to. Then I downed the last bit of brandy. Waste not, want not! We finished it for breakfast the next day.

Apricot Plum Jam with Orange Pectin

Before full-on pantry raiding happens, the big freezer clean-out must occur. That is to say, that all the goodies in the freezer have to be canned or eaten. Particularly before a shipment of forty pounds of local chicken meat comes to roost. I'm a bit of a hoarder, so I still had two big bags of apricots and plums from last fall. Instead of doing small batches, I took them out in one fell swoop by combining the two. I feel that apricots and plums go incredibly well together. And because I had a jar of orange pectin in the freezer too, I figured I'd make the jam with that.

Apricots don't have much by way of pectin, but they have a nice level of acidity. Plums vary on pectin, and I've read a lot of varying reports on that. I think it's safe to say that if you have a sweet plum, say the black ones, you don't have a lot of pectin. I was working with a tart but sweet Santa Rosa, which are just a gorgeous pinky-peach color. I didn't want the orange pectin to overpower the flavor of the fruit, so I used much less than the ratio of the jelly I made with orange pectin, hence, it wasn't as firm.

This jam took forever to jell. It was sheeting like mad, however, not quite at the wrinkle stage, but I pulled it because it seemed to be overcooking and the flavor was changing from that fresh fruit stage to a more sugared fruit stage. After sitting, it still is a soft set but holds together nicely on toast. It's a real soft spread, as they say. It's a gorgeous carnelian color, and although sweet--even though the sugar ratio is quite low--it retained its punchy acidity, thanks to the fruit.

I thought about these measurements for a while and I'm still not entirely sure of them. I didn't add lemon juice, because the pectin has a bunch in it. I think if you are looking for a firmer set, you might want to have equal amounts pectin to fruit, so I should have had eight cups. That would have been too much for my pot. Next time I might make a much smaller batch.

4 cups plums, halved and drupe removed

4 cups apricots, halved and, or you can say, pits removed

4 cups of sugar

2 cups of orange pectin

Bring all to a boil. How long it will take? Who knows. I pulled this at about 219 degrees? I leave that up to you, mon frere. Process in hot jars for ten minutes.

Brandied Apricot and Almond Cake

It is bitter cold outside--blustery, snowy and f-f-freeezing. I am not going outside at all today, especially since I am nursing a cold. I have the help of a big pot of mushroom barley soup that has leeks and leftover chunks of that awesome lamb roast in it. And a big bowl of greek yogurt with walnuts and honey on top, as per my mother. We are going to make it through all right. Sometimes you have to do battle with a cold, and I am breaking out all the artillery. Citrus, lemons in particular, ginger and all sorts of tea are working their jujitsu on this congestion. It's a very restful war, but a war nonetheless. I hate colds.

Moving on. I want to quickly post this cake, because I love it. In thinking about it, I realized it's not quite a cake, although it could be with more refinement. Like with separated eggs and beaten egg whites, for example. It's more of a sweet bread or a tea cake. Or perhaps I can call it a rustic cake. It's the kind of cake that you can leave out on the kitchen table so when passing people can cut a hunk off and eat it right then and there. It's available. Not too precious. I like a cake like that.

I used my lemon curd cake recipe and just subbed in pureed brandied apricots for the curd. Then I made little balls of almond paste and studded the batter with them so each piece gets a bite of almond goodness. Blast, it's good!

So, with hunk of cake in hand, off I go to wrap myself in a snuggie knock-off and read the new re-vamped issue of Organic Gardening. They've done such a good job with it--you should check it out. Time to start dreaming about next year's garden!

Apple Apricot Almond Jelly

This isn't a picture of the jelly, but rather a picture of it's by product, artfully named jelly bag butter. I think I prefer the title apple-apricot sauce, but that's just me. I got savvy to this when making my quince jelly. That the pulp left over from jelly making can be put through a food mill rather easily and ecco, you have another two jars of loveliness. I used my apple plum star anise recipe as a guideline, subbing apricots for plums.

The numbers looked like this:

2 1/4 pounds apples

2 1/4 pounds apricots

8 1/2 cups water

The apples were Ida Reds, and they were quartered. Apricots were halved and pitted. Simmered for thirty minutes. Juice strained from the fruit mush. I let the juice sit in the fridge overnight whilst it strained a second time.

Meanwhile, I put the fruit through a food mill. The puree measured about five cups; I added one cup of sugar and a few cloves, and let that all simmer a while. Tart and tangy. Mmm. I didn't process it, but instead put it in the fridge. Not only will it be good just spooned right out, but also in some recipes I've got swimming in my head.

The next day, I measured out 4 1/4 cups of the juice and still had 4 1/4 to freeze for future jelly. I love that. In a pot with 4 cups of sugar, and 2 tbsp of lemon juice, it simmered until almost jelling, when I added one tablespoon of apricot brandy and one teaspoon of almond extract. I was looking for that marzipan scent. Reached the jelling point and canned it. The end.

I didn't take a picture of the jelly because who needs another picture of gorgeous golden jelly all nice and pretty in a jar? Besides, it's rainy and I have several things on the stove to tend to, oh, and I hear someone waking up from their nap!

N.B.: All my jelly recipes are written pretty loosely, mostly for my own documenting purposes. If you have any questions, by all means leave a comment or e-mail me. Jelly is dangerous. Make your jelly responsibly.

Apricot Brandy

Thank god for Apricot Brandy! Because of my low spirits I needed some high spirits, so I entered the basement larder and decided it was time to see how the apricot brandy came out. I was scared; it had been a gamble back in the summer when we bought a bunch of beautiful apricots from our local orchard market. They were so perfect with their peachy blush and smooth skin. And there were so many! I decided to make brandied apricots using the easiest recipe in the Joy of Cooking. It's basically jamming as many apricots (or your selection of stone fruit) as you can into your jar, adding a copious amount of sugar and then topping with brandy. I used an inexpensive (read: cheap) brand; I think it was E&J. The fruit to sugar ratio is one pound of fruit to 1/2 cup of sugar. Then I wrapped them up in brown paper bags (fitting) and put them in the basement, every few weeks turning them a bit to let them mix up.

I really did this for the fruit but it ends up the alcohol is what I'm in love with. The apricots when ripe were just gorgeous, packed into the jar. I've been seeing some images around (Quince Brandy from Not Without Salt and the Times did a bit on brandied fruit recently, too, I'm sure there's many more), and they always look so lovely. Well, not surprisingly, when they are done the fruit are small and shriveled, and sometimes brown. Some of the apricots are still somewhat orange-y. They don't look like gift-giving material to the uninitiated, but let me tell you, there are worth their weight in gold. I might not give them away.

When poured into a snifter the scent of tangy apricot is mingled with sweet almond and it almost makes you swoon. I think I might have swooned. And then the syrupy liquid is on your tongue and it's got this fantastic complexity and depth, the high notes of citrus and fresh almond mingling with light floral and the heat of the brandy. It was really hard not to drink too much. And I think I may have done just that. But it's so heavenly. I just tasted it to remind me of the flavor (it's 9:20 a.m.) and it feels so good, warm in my heart.

Swoon.

Concord Grapes, Apricots and Apple Cider Donut Holes

I'm sitting here with a small container of apple cider donut holes that are, I think, superior to the actual donut. Thick with sugar and cinnamon they are still a little crisp from the fryer. Oh, I do love this time of year! All hail the apple cider (insert type of fried dough here).

But what I wanted to talk about was Concord grapes. The other day we purchased a basket of them for baby's birthday party because they looked cool and harvest-y, but then, guess what, oh yeah, then you have almost a full basket left over. So, what do you do? Well, if you are a crazy person like me who can't bear to see anything go to waste, you will do this: pick over all the grapes (which smelled so wonderful, to me it's a sweet, heady, perfumed mix of summer and fall), remove them from the stem, separate them from the raisin-y, moldy ones, pinch every bloody grape to remove their jacket, take all the pulp and simmer it in a sturdy pot, strain said pulp to remove seeds, return pulp to the pan and add the reserved jackets, bring back to a simmer, add a cup of sugar and two tablespoons of lemon juice, bring to a rolling boil and then jar the gorgeous deep purple stuff, all the while thinking, I will never, ever do that stupidity again.

I will say that the skins ruin it a bit. I used a recipe for the filling for grape pie, which, maybe because it got cooked in the oven afterwards the skins softened a bit. If there is to be a next time (which, stupid me, there probably will) I would just follow a recipe for grape jelly instead which bypasses the skinning and adding of the skins.

The next day I made apricot jam with low sugar pectin. I don't mind pectin. I know purists will demure, but as I say, what the jell! (You know it's bad when you begin making really awful pectin jokes. Wow.)