Fluffy Cheese Biscuits

These biscuits are rich but light, and best right out of the oven. This recipe is lifted out of Paris Boulangerie Patisserie, a truly excellent collection of pastry recipes (by real French Patissiers) compiled by Linda Dannenberg. I added chopped flat-leaf parsley to half of the batter, which gave the biscuits a nice speckled look and a little more depth of flavor. The bakery I used to work at sold cheddar-chive variations of these biscuits, which were also exquisite.

6 tbs. butter, cut into small pieces
1 c. water
pinch of salt
pinch of white pepper (I used black pepper - was great)
1.5 c. all-purpose flour
6 large eggs
2 c. coarsely grated gruyere cheese (~half a pound)
(~1/3 c. chopped parsley)

Preheat oven to 400*F.

Bring water, salt and butter to boil in a saucepan. Remove from heat and stir in the flour and pepper with a wooden spoon (will be quite thick). Return to medium heat for about 1 minute, stirring constantly. At this point, the mix should be very thick and begin to form a film on the bottom of the pan. Remove from heat. Add the eggs one at a time, stirring well after each one. After all the eggs are added, the batter has "the consistency of a thick mayonnaise" or a thick pancake batter. Add the cheese, reserving some to sprinkle on top of the rolls (I forgot to do this). Add the herbs, if using, and mix in.

Drop heaping tablespoons of batter onto a greased or parchment-lined baking sheet, and sprinkle the reserved cheese on the rolls. They won't look like much on the tray, but they puff up impressively in the oven. Bake for 20 minutes, until puffy and golden.

Makes about 18 (delicious) rolls, or twice as many small rolls. If there are any leftover, toast them before re-serving as they are really better when warm. Once they've cooled, the moist fluffy interior gets a little spoungy, but toasting brings back their joie de vivre.

Nougat? (FAIL)

I tried to make Italian Torrone (chewy nutty nougat) as a holiday favor this year. Now, I always thought of nougat as candy, but I never equated "making nougat" to "making candy," the latter of which is something I've never had any real desire to do. Candy making is messy, sticky, and fickle, as I understand it. So imagine my surprise when I'm 15 minutes into a recipe for Torrone and I realize - "crap, I'm making candy." I have pretty good luck with trying new recipes, in general, but this does not apply to the realm of candy. I have no success story, only a few words of advice:

1. WATCH your thermometer. The temperature doesn't rise steadily, but does so in occasional spikes. I turned my back on the syrup at the wrong time, and when I came back it had gone from 295 to 325 degrees, which brings me to number 2.
2. Don't BURN the syrup. It does not smell good, which means your candy will not smell good.
3. make COOKIES instead. Just a thought.

Maybe someday I'll give this another shot, but for now I think I'll buy my Torrone and save myself the 60 minute clean up!

Persimmon Jam

As promised! I found the sugar proportions for this recipe on a website which claimed that Hachiya persimmons are bad for jam-making because heating them brings back the tannins (tannicity?). I had a dozen Hachiyas in the other room, so I took the sugar-to-fruit proportions but not the advice. The result: decidedly good!

6 smallish Hachiya persimmons - jelly soft (about 2.25 cups)
3/4c sugar
juice of one lemon
splash of vanilla extract
dash of cinnamon

This was the easiest jam I've made yet.
First, stick a small plate in the freezer (do this in advance if you remember). Scoop out the persimmon pulp using Heather's spoon method (see previous post), and put in a pan with the other ingredients. Turn on med-high heat, meanwhile get your jars boiling in another pot. Once the persimmon pulp mix comes to a boil, stir constantly and keep the heat high for about ten minutes, or until the mix has expanded and shrunk back. When it seems to be getting nice and thick, grab your frozen plate and put a drop of the jam onto it, then turn the plate sideways: if the drop dribbles, put the plate back in the freezer keep boiling. Do this until the drop stays set on the plate when tilted, it might take a few tries and some extra cooking time. My mix took about 10 minutes of rapid boiling to get a good set. Pour the mix into your hot, boiled jars, screw the lids on reasonably tight and place them upside-down to cool. This recipe filled two 8-oz jars, plus a little extra for immediate snacking.

The tannic taste does come back a little bit when these persimmons are heated, but the result is smooth and sweet and not harsh at all. Rather than having a harsh stringent aftertaste, the jam has a mild tannic quality throughout. That said, it's a bit of a stretch to call it a tannic flavor though, and it really balances the sugar well. The cinnamon is a nice accent, although the vanilla does not shine through. Adding the vanilla at the end (after cooking) would protect that flavor a bit more.

Delicious!

Persimmon Bread

This recipe is adapted from one that Google turned up. It had considerably less butter and sugar than some other recipes I found, and it could probably stand to have even less sugar in it ... or maybe use honey instead.

2c. unbleached white flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp cinnamon
1c. persimmon slices (two medium-small persimmons)
1c. sugar
1/2c. milk
2 eggs
1/4c. softened butter
1/2c. chopped toasted pecans
1/2c raisins (golden and thompson)

Preheat the oven to 350F.

Mix together the dry ingredients, using what spices you like (the ones above are estimates of what I used) and sifting the baking soda/powder so it's not clumpy. A great trick for people who hate to sift: I use a small tea strainer, which is just the right size to sift a couple tsp of something quickly. Beat the eggs with the sugar and milk, and add the softened butter. Beat togther well, then mix into the dry ingredients and stir until just combined. Add the raisins and pecans and fold those in. Pour this into a buttered loaf pan and sprinkle a little extra sugar over it - it makes the top a little extra sweet and crunchy. The recipe I was working from called for 45 minutes in the oven, but my loaf took about 65 minutes total. The result was a little crunchy at the edges, but perfectly moist inside. If you were using a brownie pan instead of a loaf pan, 45 minutes might be just perfect.

A note about persimmons:
I'm really intrigued by persimmons. They are simultaneously beautiful, delicious, and quietly repellent all at once. I love the rich color, and the sweet apricoty taste when they are ripe, but I can't stand the stringent aftertaste of the acorn-shaped variety (Hachiya). These ones are great for baking, and also great for eating (when VERY soft) if you can stand the tannic aftertaste (I can't). I waited until I thought my persimmons were perhaps too ripe and even beginning to pucker, but they turned out to be just perfect. The non-astringent ones (Fuyu, or others) much less tannic and can be eaten sooner, but I've never baked with them. I'm not sure how a crisper, younger Fuyu persimmon would turn out in bread or pudding form - anyone else have experience with this?

Up next: Persimmon Jam!

Pumpkin Pumpkin Pie

This pie uses fresh pumpkin, not canned. The recipe here is just for the filling, and fills about two standard pies or 1 1/2 extra-large ones. For the crust I used a ball of pastry dough that had been in the freezer for about three months; when I find the recipe for it I'll post it here too (it's quite good!). This would probably be great with the crust recipe Heather posted for her zucchini quiche, too.

Filling:
2 sugar pie pumpkins
1/2c heavy cream
1 1/2c milk
~3/4c brown sugar
4-5 eggs
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp ground ginger (fresh would be incredible)
1 tsp ground allspice
1 tbsp vanilla extract
1 tsp salt

(the spices are to taste - use what you like, as much as you like, add what you like, subtract what you don't)

Cut the pumpkins in half and scoop out the seeds and strings, and save the seeds if you want to roast them or dry them for planting. Oil the cut edges and place them on a baking sheet. Roast at 350*F for about 45-50 minutes, or until the flesh pierces easily w/ a fork. Wait for them to cool to just warm, then scoop out the flesh and discard the skins. I added the milk to the pulp and blended in small batches to get a puree (large batches just jam up the blender, the milk helps some with this). At this point I had a little under 4 cups of pumpkin puree - nearly enough for 2 pies, but I chose to make one large pie (the dish is 10 or 11 inches) and another dish of just pumpkin custard (no crust). Then you're ready to add the other ingredients (I used 5 eggs), mix up, pour into a pre-baked pie shell, and bake at 425*F for 20 minutes, then 375*F for another 20-30 minutes. Mine needed nearly 60 minutes of baking overall. It might be a good idea to cover the crust with foil for the second half, as mine got a little almost-burnt.

The results:
This is an excellent pie. The texture is smooth but more interesting than pie made from canned pumpkin, and it tastes more complex without being too squash-y. This amount of sugar was sort of my upper limit - it was a little sweeter than it needed to be, but not too sweet. I'd like to see how this turns out with honey used instead of brown sugar.

Question for crust pre-bakers:
Does anyone have a good method of keeping their pie crust flat while pre-baking? I've tried using parchment paper weighted with beans, rice, etc, and this always results in greasy, buttery crust bottom. Ideas?

Heather and Ellen's Egg Bake

This is a fluffy, eggy casserole style dish. You can improvise whatever filling you like, as it is basically a rectangular quiche with no crust. This is the basic recipe as nabbed from Ellen & Heather's recipe box:

10 eggs
1 lb grated cheese
2 cups cottage cheese
1/2 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 cup butter
1 can green chiles (about a cup?)

Combine ingredients and pour into a buttered casserole dish, bake at 350 for 45-60 minutes. This is super easy and super adaptable. Instead of green chiles I used sauteed red & yellow onions, red padron peppers and celery, and I layered some sliced tomatoes on top with some cheese on them. I also used only .75 lb of cheese and nixed the butter - the result was still tasty. I added saffron, which had questionable results.

Spinach and Pear Salad with Pecans, Feta & Mint

So good. So, so good. This is an adapted version of this entry from Marth Rose Shulman's wonderful little book, Main-Dish Salads.

Salad:
~fresh spinach, baby or otherwise
~mixed greens (optional; if all that spinach is just too much sometimes!)
~fresh mint leaves (experiment with amounts as you wish; chopping large leaves into smaller pieces is recommended. if i had to say an amount: perhaps 7 or 8 leaves per plate. yum!)
~pears, washed, cored and sliced (bosc are usually best for this, but you can use bartlett, d'anjou, whatever! i never peel mine first, but i'm sure you can if you want to.)
~some red onion, very thinly sliced (the thinner the better! and not too much.)
~feta cheese, crumbled (any kind and amount you like; sometimes i don't have any feta, and the salad is still plenty delicious.)
~pecans (i highly recommend toasting them ahead of time. you can use a toaster oven or a frying pan. then break them up into small pieces, or leave them whole if you like! a handful per person or so.)

Wash all greens (including mint leaves) and dry, removing any stems or icky bits along the way. Place desired amount of foliage on plate(s). Add pear slices as desired, maybe like a quarter or a half of a pear per person. Throw down some feta, add a few sliced onions on top, and finish with the toasted pecans. Drizzle with dressing.

Dressing:
~2 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
~1 Tbsp vinegar (i've used everything from balsamic to red wine to raspberry. all delicious. the book calls for sherry or champagne vinegar, neither of which i've ever owned. if you have them, by all means try them!)
~1 tsp mild-flavored honey (i usually up this to 2 tsp, but that's just me.)
~1/2 to 1 tsp dijon mustard to taste
~1/4 cup plain low-fat yogurt
~1/4 cup olive oil
~salt and freshly ground pepper to taste.

Throw everything in a clean jam jar, seal tightly, and shake. Alternatively, whisk everything together in a bowl. Add to salad as you see fit, and save any remaining! It's good for a few days, usually. Also delicious: add some fresh dill to the dressing. This is amazing when substituting grapefruit for the pears. But if you do that, leave the onions out. And um.... enjoy!
This salad is great with some baked garnet yams, mashed with a little lime juice. And a glass of Martinelli's! Okay, bye for now.

Zucchini Quiche with Basil

...I found this recipe in a vegetarian cookbook, and it's one i've returned to many times (and altered a bit, here) when i feel like something yummy and home-made. Hope you like it!

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Crust:
~1 stick of butter (chill ahead of time in freezer for awhile, if possible)
~3/4 cup whole wheat flour (pastry flour is ok)
~3/4 cup white flour (pastry flour is ok)
~salt as desired (<= 1 tsp)
~herbs, if you are feeling feisty (dried basil, thyme, etc.)
~few Tbsp of ice water, until dough holds.

So, okay- if you want to use a pre-made crust, that's cool. Also, if you already have a fabulous crust recipe of your own, use it! For those who have never made their own and wish to try, here is a very basic rundown: To begin, put a cup of ice water in the freezer, near your (hopefully) chilled butter. ;)
Sift together flours, salt, and optional herbs in a large bowl. Have a rolling pin and a clean space ready and dusted with flour for when you need to roll out the dough. Cut half of the butter up into small pieces, and, working quickly with your fingertips, combine the pieces into the flour, until it is all somewhat like crumbs. Add the rest of the butter and make sure to get all the flour from the bottom of the bowl! Try not to overwork the dough, which, i know, is way easier said than done. Now add the ice water, a Tbsp at a time, mixing a little in between, until the dough holds together in a ball, but is not wet. Place ball on floured surface, flour your hands, and press the edges inwards a bit and flatten the top just a bit. Now roll out the dough, from the center outwards, until it will fit your 9" round pie plate. Try to make sure it doesn't stick to the surface by flipping it a couple of times while rolling. Use as few rolls as possible! It is ok if there are small butter pieces left in the dough; they will incorporate while baking. We just don't want the dough to be tough by rolling it out for too long and making the flour glutens develop. Whew! Okay, now place the dough carefully in the pie plate, press it against the edges, and prick the bottom a few times with a fork. Weigh it down with beans, if you can (not absolutely necessary, though) and bake in the preheated oven for about ten minutes while you prepare the rest of the quiche. If it is done before everything else, that's fine (in my experience it usually is, in fact). Just take it out and place on a rack until you need it.

Filling:
~2 Tbsp olive oil
~red onion, sliced thinly (anywhere from a half to a whole onion, depending on preference)
~2-3 medium zucchini, sliced (the smaller and darker green they are, the better!)
~5-6 mushrooms, sliced (no need for fancy ones! crimini or button work great)
~spinach, if desired (i like to do this if i have some around. if frozen, thaw first, and if fresh, blanch in a little water until tender, then drain)

In a large frying pan, heat the oil, and add the onions. Saute until soft and aromatic, then add the zucchini and mushrooms. If you like, you may add a little herbs to the vegetables, such as dried basil, rosemary, or thyme, but it's not absolutely necessary ;) If using spinach as well, add towards the end. Stir occasionally for about 8-10 minutes. Try not to overcook- remember, these will be baking in the oven for an hour as well. While this is all cooking over a medium heat, put together the liquid ingredients.

~3 eggs
~1 cup milk (not sure if this recipe works with soymilk yet)
~1 tsp salt (or less, as the cheese will add saltiness)
~black pepper as desired

~grated cheese of your choice (romano, parmesan, gouda, swiss, etc.)
~crumbled feta
(i would say roughly a cup of cheese altogether; less is also fine, and more is okay too! experiment with cheese flavors as you like, and remember that it is definitely helpful to grate the cheese ahead of time.)
~fresh basil leaves, roughly a handful, rinsed and dried

Beat the eggs and milk together with the salt and pepper. Put some grated cheese on the bottom of the crust, then spoon in the vegetables from the pan. Add the feta and most of the rest of the grated cheese, and layer the fresh basil leaves on top of it all. Now, slowly pour the egg/milk mixture over everything (if there is too much liquid, leave a little out!). Top with the rest of the cheese, and more basil if you want; i always do ;)
Bake at 425 degrees for 20 minutes, then reduce heat to 350 and bake for about 30-40 minutes, depending on your oven (mine always cooks fast....) You want the crust to be golden brown, and the top as well. It should spring back a bit when you touch it, and smell delicious. Remove from oven, cool until you can't stand it anymore, and enjoy! Scrumptious with salad and a glass of soymilk. Or wine, if that's your fancy. So long!

Stuffed Poblano Peppers with Chicken and Cranberries

Our CSA gave us 7 large, shiny poblano peppers last week, and since our new veggies are arriving today we decided to stuff and roast these for dinner last night. We also had some leftover shredded chicken from the enchiladas we made the night before, which was already cooked and ready to mix into a stuffing. I've only done stuffed peppers in Vahid's kitchen, with him orchestrating the process, but it turned out to be easy to reproduce and adapt on my own.

First, cut the caps off of the poblanos, pull out the seeds, and save the tops to put back on once they're stuffed. Preheat the oven to 375F.

The stuffing could really be anything, but here's what I did: I sauteed half an onion and then added the shredded chicken and a few tablespoons of dried cranberries, and cooked until the berries began to warm up and release their aroma. Then I threw the mix into a bowl and added a can each of corn and black beans, and some chopped fresh cilantro, salt & pepper. Mix it all up, and try not to eat it all before stuffing.

The peppers ooze a bit while roasting, so we lined the baking dish with tin foil (turned out to be a good move!). Stuff the peppers with as much stuffing as you can cram in there, then fit the caps back on and rub the exteriors with olive oil. Roast for about half an hour, turning the peppers over once so they brown evenly.

We served this with spanish rice (yum!) and a simple salad of lettuce and cucumber with the leftover stuffing spattered on top. Easy, tasty, and a nice break from the usual. The cranberries were both sweet and tart, adding a nice contrast to the tastes of the peppers and chicken; I could imagine this working well with either dried currants or golden raising, too.

Peach Blueberry Jam with Vanilla

Inspired by Chez Panisse Fruit (which arrived this week) and the peaches at the farmer's market, I made a Peach Blueberry Vanilla jam today. The aromas coming from this stuff as it cooked were incredible - enough to make you wish you could stand over the boiling pot for the rest of time. As the blueberry syrup thickened, it began to smell faintly like sweet potatoes, but maybe that was just me.

~2.75 lbs yellow peaches
.75 lbs blueberries
4 cups sugar
juice of 3 lemons
2 vanilla beans

I blanched the peaches for 1 minute, then cooled in ice water, to make them easier to peel. Cut into wedges and add 3 cups of the sugar, one vanilla bean and the juice of 2 of the lemons, bring to a simmer and then refrigerate overnight. Do the same with the blueberries and the remaining sugar, vanilla and lemon juice. The next day, boil the syrups (I did them separate, but I don't see what harm would come from combining them) until they pass the saucer test and then add the fruits and bring back to a boil. Boil together for a few minutes and then jar immediately. I used half-pint jars this time, and this recipe filled 7 of them. I also boiled the jars, because of Kyle's scary stories about botulism. I cut the vanilla beans into pieces and added them to each jar as a garnish.

This jam looks like it's going to be *incredible*. The smell of cooking peaches (esp. with vanilla) makes me wish I'd been making peach jam my whole life.

Mashed Potatoes with so much cream

Late last night the urge struck to make something - anything - delicious, and we ended up settling on mashed potatoes. I had never made mashed potatoes before, but it turned out to be obscenely easy. We cut into chunks and boiled 10 small russets, and sauteed several cebollas de ribo verde (small white onions w/ green stems) in another pan. When the potatoes were cooked we drained them and mashed in a few tablespoons of butter, about 2 cups of heavy cream (...) and the cooked onions, as well as about 1/4 cup grated Pecorino Romano. Tiffany was appalled at the amount of cream, but those who didn't see how much went in ate away happily and without guilt - delicious!

Strawberry Preserves No. 2

Strawberry Preserves No. 1 resulted in a runny mess that oozed all over my high hopes of perfect jam on the first try. I had 12 jars of soupy, wet syrup that you couldn't really call "jam". In desperation, I re-boiled and re-jarred the jam in two batches, and I got a much better result. This time I took a page out of housemate Paul's book and used diluted iodaphor to sanitize the jars after washing them. Paul brews beer from time to time, and this is a method he uses in his home-brewing which also works well for canning.

I strained the berries and set them aside, just boiling the syrup alone for what turned out to be ~20 minutes. I did this in 2 batches, to avoid the mess that resulted when I tried doing it all at once the first time. An important element of jam-making is using a pot that is at least 3 times bigger than the volume you're starting out with. The syrup, once it heats up, begins to get foamy and the foam expands at least this much.

The frozen saucer test (see S.P. No.1) turned out to be very helpful. It takes much longer than I had thought for the syrup to get to the no-dribbling point, but the result is a heavy, thick syrup that you can actually imagine jamming up quite nicely.

The syrup seems to have three significant stages while it's boiling:
1. it's liquid: it boils, but there is no foam
2. it begins to foam while you stir it (you should be stirring almost constantly), but when you stop stirring it goes back to a transparent liquid
3. it foams like crazy while stirred, and when you stop stirring it stays at roughly the same foamy volume (and might even keep expanding)

It's not until at least stage 3 that there's any hope of it passing the frozen saucer test. I let the syrup get to this point before I added the fruit back in because I didn't want to over-handle the berries. The next time I make this jam, I'll try to handle the berries even less. I was really hoping for a whole-fruit jam that is all about the berries in it, but this batch ended up getting a little more mushy than I care for. The yield after the first boiling/jarring was 12 scant pints, runny. After the second boil, this reduced to 7 full pints - incredible to think that 5 pints of water were boiled off!

Finally, the original recipe called for a smaller amount of mint, and commented that the mint didn't really shine through. Whatever I did here seems to have worked, because the aroma is definitely minty and the finish also has a hint of mint.

Tempeh Kale No.1

1 bunch kale, washed and chopped
8 oz tempeh, broken into small pieces
1 yellow onion (large), chopped
1/2 bunch each of parsley and cilantro, chopped
2 cups asst sweet peppers, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced

sauce: (measurements eyeballed)
4 tbsp oyster sauce
2 tbsp hoisin sauce
2 tsp hot chili oil/paste
2 tbsp rice cooking wine
2 tsp soy sauce

saute onions first until clear, add tempeh and try to get it crispy. Season with salt & pepper at this point, and once the tempeh is crispy enough add the garlic, parsley, cilantro and peppers. Sautee for a couple minutes until the herbs become aromatic and sweaty, and then begin adding the ingredients for the sauce. Add the kale last, and cover so that it steams a little, stirring every couple minutes.

I served this with roasted rosemary potato wedges, and one of the housemates had three (3) helpings. It was pretty delicious, although not quite as good as Malabar's Tempeh Goreng. Saffron would have been excellent on the potatoes, too.

Strawberry Preserves No.1

This would make a poor recipe for future use because these quantities are inaccurate and poorly conceived, but here goes:

~10lbs fresh strawberries, washed (& halved or quartered if large) - this was a full 6 quarts (24 cups)
9 cups turbinado sugar (the crystallized kind)
4 cups granulated sugar
juice of 5 lemons, plus some zest
two fistfuls of mint, washed and crushed (~60 leaves?)


Toss the berries with the sugar and lemon juice and let sit overnight. The recipes I used as guidelines (mostly Christine Ferber's strawberry-pepper-mint jam, Clotilde Dusoulier's adaptation of that recipe) all called for nearly as much sugar as berries, which seemed obscene to me so I tried this with slightly less sugar than berries. The potential downside of this is that there won't be enough sugar to properly preserve the fruit, since there is no pectin, so there's a risk of poorly preserved preserves. Maybe we'll eat it fast enough for this to not be a real problem. Most of this jam will be gifted out into the world anyway, so hopefully nobody is going to try to age it. On the other hand, the idea of sweet superb berries in the dead of winter is also a big draw, so hopefully my 2:1 berry:sugar ratio will be good enough for it to keep 6 months or so. Within a couple hours of being sugared, the berries surrender their juices and the mix starts to look like strawberry soup.

The next day, bring just to a simmer and then refrigerate overnight. I tried not to moosh the berries up too much while also stirring the sugar enough to keep it from caramelizing at the bottom of the pot. In fear of over-cooking the berries, I actually took them out of the pot just before the mix hit a simmer, and then let the juices simmer on their own for a minute or two. It began to get foamy, which I just stirred back in.

The third day, boil the syrup (w/o the fruit) for 10 or so minutes, add the fruit and mint and boil another 5 minutes. I left the kitchen at a bad time, and my jam boiled over, so I probably didn't boil the mix with the berries in it quite long enough. Once the berries were added it took several minutes to come back to a simmer, and when it did it started to expand ominously. I was supposed to do the Frozen Saucer Test to check if the jam would set, but I completely forgot (frozen saucer test: place drop of syrup on a saucer that's been in the freezer, tilt the saucer and see if the jam dribbles. if so, boil longer). I think the result is going to be a bit runny, but it should still taste wonderful and I'm not a fan of super-thick jams anyway.

Theoretically the jars are supposed to be boiled various times and sanitized and handled only by virgins, but I made a bold move and simply washed them vigorously by hand before canning. I set them to dry upside-down on a clean towel, hoping to minimize any teeny critters that would want to set up shop in a jam jar. Once filled (not quite full) with the preserves, I tightened the lids ("finger tight") and set them to cool upside-down on the same towel.

I wanted to work with a big batch for several reasons, mainly:
1. I wanted to pick a million strawberries,
2. strawberries are delicious,
3. if the result is good, I want to give the jam to a million people,
4. if the batch were too small, it would feel like a lot of work for little result.
As it turned out, the batch was a little too big to work with comfortably. The berries took up a lot of space in the fridge, were difficult to manage physically (imagine pouring 6 quarts of strawberry soup into pans and large bowls repeatedly), and the ultimate boiling-over that was my undoing could have been avoided if I wasn't trying to fit the fruit in a pot that was barely big enough. I think working with a recipe half this size would be ideal, in the future.

I have no idea how this will turn out. I will post an update when the jam is cool and has been sampled.