Photograph by Rosey Lakos

It’s the way of fruit trees to explode all at once, ready or not, and Late summer is always the time when I find myself with more fruit than I can imagine. Peaches and plums have been going full force for about a month, apples and pears are just poking their head into the scene, and the overlap has left me with bags of fruit all over my kitchen and more on the way. This is by no means a complaint; in fact, it’s my favorite time of year for preserving. But I admit it sometimes takes some creative thinking when you have 20-50lbs of a single fruit. I am just one person, so there is only so much of one kind of preserve I am willing to eat.  Over the years I have come to rely on a few recipes that are interchangeable for nearly all kinds of fruit. Fruit butter, fruit pieces in syrup, pickled fruit, and the crumble. These versatile recipes are not just an amazing way to mix up the pounds and pounds of fruit you find yourself with, they are also an excellent way to deal with old, rubbery fruit you bought too much of, or a harvest of fruit that is dry and maybe a little flavorless. These recipes can literally transform fruit bound for the compost bin to something you save and savor on the most special occasions…. (get the recipes at Is Greater Than)

Photo Shoot in the Park with Rosey | Photograph by Rosey Lakos

Now is the time all over the country when herbs are in full bloom and gardening days are often spent pruning and picking with less time planting and watering. If you are an avid gardener, or even a forager or farmer’s market-goer, this is the perfect time to be harvesting herbs for a variety of reasons. It is the time for drying for teas or herbs in the winter, and it is definitely the time to be making infusions. Infusions are especially nice since you are not harvesting for tenderness, you can use parts of plants you would normally ignore: the flowering ends of basil or oregano, the woodier part of rosemary or sage, the parts you pinch off to make your plants bush out…everything is fair game in an infusion . . . read more at isgreaterthan.net

We are well into the season for herb drying and harvesting and aside from waiting for my tomatoes to ripen so I can get to canning there isn’t a lot else that is really exciting me right now.  We are definitely in the middle of a beautiful stone fruit season, but I have to admit that now that I am gardening up a storm I’m a little less excited about things I’m not growing or picking myself, and alas, I have no orchard (but don’t worry, I’m mulling over a recipe right now: seared peaches with vanilla pudding sauce and candied sour cherries!).

Out here where it is relatively dry during the summer drying herbs is as simple as walking outside, picking some plants, and tying them up. But it can get to be a little tricky if you are buying herbs or living in a humid climate. So here are a few quick tips to harvesting and drying herbs as learned from my herb farmer Paul Tsakos in Philadelphia.

• always pick herbs while they are flowering- they will have the most oils
• never wash or rinse them
• if you live in humid environment put small amounts of the herb in small paper bags and string the bags up to dry indoors near a good air source (i.e. ceiling or wall fan)
• store them in a cool dark place once dry- preferably in a dark glass jar, other opaque container, or a cupboard

Doing these simple things will ensure a flavorful, well dried herb. For my part, there are only a handful of herbs that I really like dried, and most of them I use for tea, but I LOVE them. Most other herbs have such a different flavor when dried that I generally just treat herbs like I would a seasonal vegetable and forget about them when I can’t get them fresh. Lavender and Lemon Verbena are in full bloom around here, and I am stocking up!

Photograph by Rosey Lakos

As I came up with ideas for the article this month I realized the first day of summer was quickly approaching, and I thought, what better way to celebrate summer than with wine spritzers! Every time I bring up wine spritzers I am met with a peculiar look of polite shock and mild disgust. So let me be clear. We are not talking about wine coolers, people. We are talking about the totally adaptable, refreshing, and amazing spritzer. You can class them up and serve them at your next summer soirée, dazzling people with lavender or St. Germain- or you can pick the ingredients up at your neighborhood convenience store in desperation on the hottest day of the year. You can make them bright, dry and crisp, or sweet and punch-like. You can make them for under 50¢ a glass, or spend $50 on a single mixer. These are not your childhood wine coolers …(read more at isgreaterthan.net)

Photograph by Rosey Lakos

Anyone who knows Cooper McBean outside the realm of “rockstar” knows that he is one bad-ass pie maker. What you might not know, is that he and his genius mother have a trick. A most amazing trick, a trick that has changed my life. Frozen butter. I know, right now you’re thinking “everyone knows about frozen butter and a food processor”. Nuh-uh, this trick is frozen butter and a cheese grater, and it’s fucking genius. I don’t want to say it’s the key to making good biscuits or good pie, but it IS the key to not wanting to stab yourself if you are the kind of person who (like me) isn’t really a baker, and gets enormously frustrated trying to make “cornmeal” out of butter and flour…….. (read more at isgreaterthan.net)

Photograph by Rosey Lakos

While writing an article on different types of manjar (meyer lemon and chocolate orange!) for isgreaterthan.net, I was struck by everyone’s suggestion in a blind test that Meyer Lemon Manjar tastes like lavender. It got me thinking. Why not make it lavender? I’ve been drinking a lot of lavender/rose tea, and happen to have plenty of it lying around, so I quickly came up with a syrup to add to the sweetened condensed milk, and ended up with a delicious, subtle, floral manjar.  For those of you who don’t know, manjar is a Chilean spread very similar to dulce de leche, only much thicker. Dulce de leche is a traditional spread and syrup in many countries, but made popular by Argentina. It is made by caramelizing sweet milk, traditionally by heating very sugary milk over very low heat for a very long time. But no Chilean grandmother, or Argentine, Spanish, or Portuguese for that matter, is going tell you to make it that way. For most people, the best and easiest way is to boil a can of sweetened condensed milk for around 2-3 hours. Using canning jars you can do exactly the same thing, only flavored!

Floral Manjar

Ingredients:

• 1 Tablespoon of dried lavender
• 1 Tablespoon of dried rose petals
• 1/4 cup of hot water
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 14oz can of sweetened condensed milk

Equipment:

• clean canning jars (2 8oz jars or equivalent)
• large pot
• canning rack (optional)
• canning tongs (optional)*

Method:

• in a small saucepan cover the flowers with hot water
• add the sugar and heat on low until the sugar has fully dissolved
• strain the mixture- you should have 1/2 cup of liquid
• in a small bowl mix the infusion with the sweetened condensed milk- it will be very runny, that’s okay, it will thicken while it cooks

• pour the mixture into jars and seal
• in a large pot of water, either will a canning rack or a towel in the bottom, boil the jars for 2.5-3 hours
• remove from water using canning tongs, or wait until the water has cooled sufficiently and remove them by hand
• manjar will keep unopened almost indefinitely

Photographs by Rosey Lakos at roseylakosphotography.com.

*Canning tongs are rounded tongs coated with rubber meant for pulling jars out of boiling water.  I use them every time I can anything, and if you plan on making jams, jellies, pickles, or Manjar (even if you will only do it once or twice a year) it is absolutely worth investing in a pair. They are cheap, and you can usually find them any place you can find jars, and certainly any decent hardware store. They are optional, you can leave the jars in the water until cool enough to retrieve them- but they are awesome, and worth buying.

Rhubarb is a delicious and very misunderstood plant.  While many people are familiar with Strawberry-Rhubarb, it’s rare to find someone who can appreciate it solo.  Alone, rhubarb is extremely sour and refreshing, not that dissimilar to sour-grass, or even sorrel. Contrary to popular belief, raw rhubarb is not toxic. The sour in rhubarb comes from oxalic acid which is found in many vegetables (it’s that thing that makes your teeth feel rough when you eat spinach or chard). The leaves of rhubarb contain the most oxalic acid, but in order to get a LD50 (Lethal Dose) you would need to eat 11lbs of them. In fact, one of my favorite pieces of rhubarb knowledge is that dipping the raw stalks in sugar used to be a favorite child’s treat in England. The first dip-sticks! It is even delicious raw in fruit salads.

Rhubarb tends to be the first fresh fruit in any North American spring, ready a little bit before strawberries, but right on time to match up with the first lavender blossoms. You can make a delicious rhubarb lavender jam with little more than rhubarb, water, sugar, and lavender. The simplicity and ease of this recipe is excellent, especially since by this point in the season I’ve run through my reserves and am dying for anything new.

Rhubarb Lavender with Jam

Ingredients:

• 1 lb of rhubarb
• lavender flowers (fresh or dried, preferably on the stalk)
• sugar (to taste)
• water

Equipment:

• wide bottom pot or pan
• 6 half pint jars
• water bath canner (optional)

Method:

• chop the rhubarb into 1/4 inch pieces and place in a wide saucepan
• cover (to start) with a 1/4 cup of sugar
• pour in enough water to barely coat the bottom of the pan (you can add more later if you need to)
• on medium heat, stir the rhubarb until it begins to break down, adding more water if the pan dries out or it begins to stick
• you want to add as little water as possible, just keep stirring and the sugar and heat will begin to draw out the rhubarb’s own juices

• eventually, it will break down and begin to look more saucy, this means you are close to done
• reduce it to low heat and let it simmer, in the mean time place a single lavender blossom in each jar
• you want it to be thick and spreadable, the texture you would like for toast- unlike other jam recipes, this has no pectin, so it will not thicken too much more after cooling
• remove from heat and ladle into clean jars on top of the lavender
• seal and refrigerate, or process for 15 minutes in a waterbath canner

NOTA BENE! I don’t usually process this jam, since it doesn’t keep long after opening. In order to make jam keep after opening you need to cook the majority of the water out, or seal it in with a ton of sugar or pectin. I found it keeps well in the refrigerator, and usually make only small batches. Feel free to process it, but remember to use it quickly after opening, ideally within two weeks.

Photograph by Rosey Lakos

Well. It’s been a long time. What can I say except life took over for a little while. I don’t intend to turn this blog into a diary with intermittent recipes, but I feel like I owe my imagined readership an explanation of some sort. I mean here I was all geared up to create professional food blog, and I suddenly fell off the face of the earth!

Those of you who are close to me already know that Patrick and I split up in November. That was a huge blow the routine of my life, among other things. Since then I have moved to a lovely studio on Beach Hill surrounded by some of my favorite people (it’s a giant house split into apartments, and I adore everyone in each space). But I have found myself without reliable internet, and without the means to get it, and have been making my life increasingly busy, as busy as busy is possible. This has always been my way of dealing with my world when I don’t like it very much. The more I can do and busier I can be the better I start to feel about everything. But this means my focus is split and spastic and wild. I accomplish a lot, but in a bunch of different places.

So, what have I been up to? WELL… I’ve been running the Logos website for work which has been a lot of fun but an INSANE amount of work. The weekly news post alone requires me to read about 100 book-related news feeds a day. I was in my first art show in 5 years this February for the Fun-a-Day project, where you create a single art piece a day for the entire month of January. I’ve been working on learning the craft of typesetting for a couple of months now. Norm Davis, once a regular of Logos, was a printer and typesetter for most of his life, doing odd printing jobs for the businesses of Santa Cruz for years, mostly during the 80s (I believe).  He has graciously and amazingly offered to teach me to use the equipment purely from a desire to see someone continue the trade. This has been amazing for me, my love of printing surpasses everything else I do. I’ve started off by making business cards and redoing my website to match (it isn’t finished just yet). I made calling cards for my dear friend Cooper (pie maker and banjotier!), and started collaborating with Eric Redpath at Papercut Press, who has been slowly but surely giving me more confidence in silk screening. I’ve also been doing a lot more home printing, making stickers and envelopes, and working on projects for Indian Giver, an amazing stoner-rock band headed by Hiram Coffee. Pictures of these projects will go up sometime this week (I hope). I have started writing for isgreaterthan.net again, an excellent web magazine run by Paul Davis out of Chicago. I wrote for them a while ago, and many of the recipes listed here link to that site. This time I am doing it collaboratively with photographer Rosey Lakos (you can see her photographs here and here), an amazing photographer and friend. You will start seeing her lovely photographs here as well. This week I’m starting a HUGE garden in Norm’s back yard with my upstairs neighbor David. David has been studying organic farming for several years now, and I’m really really super excited about having my own space to plant, and a seasoned gardener to work with.  In a couple of weeks I’m running off to Vermont, New York (for the Book Expo America) and then to Philadelphia (a place I still call home) to visit my friends and extended family. Then I will be back and posting up a food storm!

Until then, I’ll give you a little teaser- two recipes I hope to put up before I go. Floral Manjar- Manjar is a Chilean dulce de leche. While writing the recipes for isgreaterthan, many people thought the Meyer Lemon Manjar tasted like lavender, which inspired me to make a floral Manjar, using an infusion of rose and lavender.  Strawberries have been going full force here in California, and my next article for isgreaterthan will be a Brie Strawberry Shortcake with Honey Whipped Cream, as well as a spin off Chocolate Strawberry Parfait for this site. I promise to deliver DELICIOUSNESS!

So, there are still those of you out there who check back periodically hoping for new recipes, hold tight! They are on their way!

<3 <3

-janina

Several times this year I’ve expected to come across a fig tree loaded with fruit ready for picking and preserving, but each time I’ve been met with an almost bare tree or painfully under-ripe fruit, and come away with just a few handfuls.  This is a serious problem for me, because I have a deep and unending love for fresh figs and the many things you can do with them.  There is no other jam I love more than fig jam (quince paste is a paste not a jam, so I feel okay saying this…), and there is no fruit I would rather have fresh than figs.  When you get the perfect, gooey, slightly firm fig… there is just nothing like it.  So when I have only a handful, I end up hoarding them, foolishly and indecisively, until one day I open the refrigerator and they are dried out, lonely, and about to mold.  This week I got a handful of green figs from my grandmother’s tree and determined not to let this happen.  After reading Edward Schneider’s article about the Tarte Tartin, I couldn’t get the idea of caramelized figs out of my mind.  Then I saw Nate’s post about the Boy Bait Cake, and suddenly it just all came together: Fig Upside Down (or Skillet) Cake.  I have never made an upside down cake until today, and as I’ve mentioned before I’m really not a baker, but I love my iron skillet and I was determined to caramelize these figs, so I went for it. The result was unparalleled, delicious, and one more thing to add to my “things I love to do with figs” list.

Fig Skillet Cake

(Adapted from the Joy of Cooking Skillet Cake)

The basic process is to create a syrup for the figs to sit in then pour a batter on top and bake.  The syrup cooks the figs until they candy, and caramelizes as it cools after you remove it from the pan. This results in a delicious, moist cake with a slightly chewy and very figgy top.  This adaptation includes some of my favorite fig compliments, plus sea salt (I love salt in a caramel!) and a little extra instruction in places where the anti-baker in me needed them.  I found this recipe especially fun because you get to use a lot of bowls- a set of 4 nesting bowels is perfect.

Ingredients:

• basket or handful of figs
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/2 cup dark brown or muscovado sugar
• 1 cup white sugar
• 4 eggs
• 1 orange
• pinch sea salt
• 1/2 vanilla bean
• 1 cup all purpose or cake flour
• 1 teaspoon double-acting baking powder

Equipment:

• 9-10 inch iron skillet
• egg beaters
• heat proof or durable plate
• set of nesting bowls (or 4 bowls)

Method

• preheat the oven to 350 F
• melt the butter in the iron skillet and set 1 tablespoon aside for later
• zest the orange and set aside
• juice the orange into the iron skillet and add 1/2 cup of dark brown sugar and a pinch of sea salt (a pinch is less than a 1/8th of a teaspoon, just sprinkle a little in the pan).  Heat on low until the sugar is well dissolved.
• remove the tough tips and cut the figs in half. Place them flat side down in the skillet with the narrow tips pointing inward.  If you don’t have an abundance of figs, start on opposite sides until you can see how it will fill out the pan.  If you have enough, you can place a second ring on the inside, but they might move around as you pour in the batter later.

• take the largest and smallest bowl, separate the egg whites into the largest, and the yolks into the smallest.
• add the zest and reserved butter, and the seeds from 1/2 a vanilla bean to the yolks by cutting the bean in half length from tip to tip and scrapping them out with the dull side of a knife.  Lightly beat the yolks until the vanilla is well distributed and set aside
• in the smaller of the two medium bowls sift one cup of sugar, in the larger sift 1 cup of flour and 1 teaspoon of double-acting baking powder
• beat the egg whites until stiff, but not dry.  This means you want to see peaks beginning to form, but smaller rounded peaks instead of stiff, tall thin peaks.  “Peaks” are what form when you turn off the beaters and lift them out of the egg whites.

now you will fold in the rest of the ingredients into the egg whites one at a time.  Folding basically means you are very very gently and slowly adding something to something else, usually the something else has air beat into it that you are trying not to deflate.  So as you do this, try your best to be patient, and gentle.  Pay less attention to how even it is, and more attention to how careful you can be.  By the time you get to the flour it will be more batter like and less fragile, so you will be able to stir it a little more thoroughly at the end.

• fold in the sugar 1 Tablespoon at a time by sprinkling it over the egg whites and gently turning it over on itself.
• next fold in the egg yolks
• last, fold in the flour, still being as gentle as possible, but making sure everything is well distributed
• pour the batter over the fruit slowly and evenly so you don’t disturb the way you laid them out earlier
• place the skillet in the oven for about 30 minutes, or until the top is slightly browned and the center springs back when touched gently.  I got a little nervous as this was making because I could smell the sugars caramelizing.  When I checked on it, there was a lot of chaos going on around the edges of the skillet, but that seems to be perfectly normal. Don’t fret! It will all look lovely at the end.
• immediate remove from the oven and flip it over onto a plate- to do this, use oven mitts and place the plate on top of the skillet, holding it together, then flip it over and set it down.  Let the skillet rest for a couple minutes before removing it to help coat the cake.  Remove the pan and serve!

As part of my recommendation for this book, I’d like to share my enthusiasm for it’s publication by posting my adaptation for the Fougasse.

The Fougasse

Adapted from Jim Lahey’s recipe via Mark Bittman  in the New York Times

Introduction: A Fougasse is a traditional French hearth bread shaped into an ear of wheat.  A hearth bread, is a bread used to tell the temperature of an oven.  They are simple breads that rarely fail, and can be cooked at a variety of temperatures, making them perfect finicky ovens and spacey bakers.  The full time for this recipe from start to finish is anywhere from 6-18 hours depending on the weather.  Most of this will be resting time, with only about 15-20 minutes for baking, and about 10 minutes of work.

Ingredients

• 3 cups of all purpose flour (plus extra for dusting)
• 1/4 teaspoon of active dry yeast (instant is fine)
• 1 1/4 teaspoons of sea salt
• olive oil
• 1 Tablespoon coarse sea salt
• 1-2 sprigs of fresh rosemary

Method

• in a large bowl combine all ingredients, adding almost all of the water- reserve a little just in case the air is damp, and if you use it all and need a little more that’s okay too.  It should be shaggy and sticky but not particularly wet or well formed.
• cover with plastic wrap until bubbles form along the surface, anywhere from 6-18 hours.

SIDE NOTE: To give you an idea here, living in Philadelphia where we see some extremes from dry cold weather to damp hot weather, we would let the bread rest for around 18 hours in the dead of winter when we kept our house very cool and dry, and 6 hours in the middle of summer when it was extremely humid and our average house temperature was about 85-90.  In my experience, during lesser extremes you usually end up waiting about 10-12 hours.

• when the top of the dough is flat and dappled with bubbles, dump it onto a well floured work surface and fold it over on itself twice, covering it again with the same piece of plastic, and let it rest 15 minutes.
• in the mean time, get out a baking sheet and line it with parchment, or oil a cookie sheet generously with olive oil.
• after the dough has rested, begin stretching it into a giant triangular shape and place it on the parchment or oiled baking pan.  you may find it easier to stretch it once it is on the pan
• dust it lightly with flour and cover it again with plastic, allowing it to rest until well risen (usually about 1-2 hours).  It will look puffy when it is ready

• preheat your oven to 475 F
• remove the plastic (don’t worry if it sticks!) and drizzle generously with olive oil, and sprinkle liberally with a coarse sea salt
• remove the leaves from a couple of sprigs of fresh rosemary, and sprinkle them around the dough
• with a sharp knife, slice upwards from the center, starting at the wide edge and working up
• bake 15-20 minutes or until golden
• serve immediately

Available in Town At Logos and other independent bookstores in your area
My Bread: The Revolutionary No-Work, No-Knead Method
by Jim Layhey with Rick Flaste Founder of the Sullivan Street Bakery
$29.95