Blueberry jam

My first attempt at jam!

I made jam!

Just like my great-grandmother, Violet May, I boiled up fruit and sugar, and preserved it in boiling hot jars.

So, the jam itself is not overly complex. The recipe I used had a ratio of 1:1 fruit and sugar. The sugar even had the pectin already added. One less thing to worry about.

Basically you boil the fruit, smoosh it, strain it if it has seeds, boil it some more and then test it. You take a cold surface (like a plate from the freezer) and if the jam sets on it, and looks like jam, you've made jam! 

I used blueberries because I already had some in the freezer and I didn't feel like straining raspberry or blackberry seeds. The recipe I based my jam on is here.

Boiling the fruit and sugar.

The bottling / preserving process was by far the most complex part of the procedure. There are various ways to do it. I had two web pages and instructions on the jar of boxes to combine and it got a bit hectic. The oven was involved, and jars boiling in large pots and things like that. If you're interested there are plenty of web pages telling you how to do this. 

But the jarring did work in the end. Ball Mason jars have lids that pop once they seal. Sometimes they don't pop but still seal. After they're taken out of the water bath you have to leave them for 12 hours before touching them. This is insanely difficult if you are as impatient as me.

I got three out of four jars to seal - pretty good for a first attempt. The unsealed jar I was able to fix by repeating the water bath.

Berry close-up.

I actually made these as Christmas gifts for my family, thanks to an idea from a close friend of mine. I think my family appreciated receiving a homemade gift - made with love!

As far as sourcing jars goes, I got on eBay and found these beautiful Ball Mason jars. I'm a bit slow... I didn't realise that these were like, trendy, until I opened my Donna Hay cookbook. She has a picture of them lined up with various types of food in them.

Limited edition Ball Mason jars in blue.

The ones I got are limited edition blue ones. I had a few spare and one is now designated as a vase and I use another one at work for a pencil holder. They're very beautiful and I can see why they're so popular. 

I'm itching for an excuse to buy some more so perhaps I will buy some just in case I get the jam-making urge again...

Extra special Christmas presents!

Whole baked Thai snapper with sautéed greens

Sorry little guy!

I wasn't sure whether I'd post this or not. Let's face it, cooking anything that still has its head intact is somewhat gruesome. But like my spatchcock attempt, the idea was to challenge myself. 

I've never cooked or even eaten a fish like this before. I bought it having no idea what to do with it. But that's what the internet is for. 

The fish wasn't scaled so that was a whole new adventure as well. It wasn't particularly difficult, but I'm still finding scales in unusual places in my kitchen. Enough said. 

I decided to cook the fish with some Thai flavours. I'm still learning about Thai cooking, and I'm getting my head around how to combine the salty, sour, sweet and spicy flavours. 

I used slices of fresh lime, garlic, coriander and chilli inside the fish to start. Then I made a kind of dressing to bake the fish in - soy sauce, fish sauce, chilli, palm sugar, garlic, fresh lime juice, and finely chopped coriander stems and roots. 

I cooked my fish with in the sauce on a tray with baking paper. You can also use foil. I actually made this dish again and prefer the foil as it holds the sauce / marinade better. 

Preparing for baking. 

To complement the fish, I sautéed some bok choy and broccolini in sesame oil, lemon juice and toasted sesame seeds.

Fact of the day: in my internet trawling, I learnt that broccolini is actually a hybrid of Chinese broccoli (gai lan) and regular broccoli. (Gai lan is what you get when you order greens at yum cha.)

So anyway... once the fish was baked I plated it up with the veggies, extra coriander and chilli on top and lime wedges on the side. 

It is quite weird eating something that looks like food one minute, then like a creature the next. But people do it all the time, and at least now I've learnt something new. 

Possibly the healthiest meal on this blog.

Blueberries and cream cupcakes

Vanilla cake with fresh blueberries.

There isn't too much to say about these cupcakes other than they were yummy and I'm glad I made them. I had a friend over for dinner on the weekend, so I thought I'd whip up something special for dessert. 

Side view!

To make these, you add a generous handful of fresh or frozen blueberries to a vanilla cake mix. You could even use a packet mix. I've also made these with raspberries and blackberries. I think blackberry has been my favourite so far. 

I garnished these with blueberries; another idea is to remove a section of cake at the top and fill it with a berry. This creates a great mixture of tastes and textures, especially the juicy berry contrasting with the soft cake and creamy icing. 

I have one left if anyone wants it...

All gone...

Chocolate cupcakes with vanilla buttercream and candied pansies

Purple perfection.

Mmmmm cupcakes. 

These would have been an ordinary batch of cupcakes except that I stole 13 pansies from next door and proceeded to candy them. 

This process is fairly straightforward. You mix egg whites with icing sugar and paint it on. You're supposed to leave them to dry overnight but I am far too impatient for that and put them on the cupcakes as soon as they were iced. 

Pansies drying in the sun. The excess sugar is eventually absorbed into the flowers. 

They didn't taste like much that day, but the next day they were quite crisp and sugary. They're really more of an aesthetic addition to the cupcakes, but there's nothing wrong with that.

Apparently you can keep candied flowers for up to a year in a sealed container. However, these ones didn't last too long. (I usually store cupcakes in a plastic container with the lid slightly open.)

I'm rather excited about my new gel food colourings too. This buttercream was actually quite purple, which the camera didn't quite pick up accurately. 

Pretttty!

Eat me!

Fig and walnut friand slice

Friands as a slice.

My little sister bought me a beautiful cookbook for my birthday. It's a Woman's Weekly baking collection.

I went to a friend's house for dinner on Friday night and insisted on making dessert. I have never made friands before, and I don't own a friand tray or moulds, so I thought a friand slice would be a good place to start. 

The recipe also included orange zest, butter and orange juice.

The recipe was interesting as it used ground walnuts rather than almond meal as its basis. The texture was similar texture to a traditional friand however. 

The figs didn't go into the actual mix, just on the top. I think next time it would be nice to make the slice more "figgy". They could go into the mix or the pieces on top could be thicker.

I am thinking about fig cupcakes now too... maybe with caramel? And a bit of salt? Mmmm. 

Baking in the afternoon.

I haven't really cooked much with figs before. I think I've put them on a pizza but I can't remember. The ones used in this recipe were dried and sliced. 

I think I've discovered a new favourite snack : ) 

Afternoon tea.

Warm cous cous salad with haloumi and Middle Eastern spices

Dinner.

Hmmm, so I wasn't sure what to cook in order to top my last post, so I opted for something completely different. Dinner.

I've made this dish a few times before. It's pretty yummy and quite healthy. (Unlike pretty much every other thing I've posted on here.) My Mum is the original inspiration; she makes hers with pumpkin and it's delicious! Thanks Mum : ) 

Basically you have to prepare all the different ingredients, chuck them into a pot and stir. However... depending on how many ingredients you want to use, it can be time consuming. It's worth it though! It's so fresh and light and the spices make it really tasty. 

So, this is what I used:

• Onion (cooked until soft)
• Garlic
• Eggplant (fried in lemon juice and olive oil)
• Cherry tomatoes (halved, uncooked)
• Pine nuts (toasted)
• Sesame seeds (toasted)
• Mixed Middle Eastern spices (turmeric, sumac, cumin, etc)
• Fried haloumi cheese 
• Flat leaf parsley
• Rocket

You can use one pan to prepare each ingredient and then transfer it to the larger pot. Start with the onion and garlic. Prepare the cous cous and haloumi last. 

My spice jar ... oh and I grew these herbs!

Once you've prepared everything, add the cous cous to the pot. Stir and add salt, pepper and spices to taste. It doesn't need to be hot, just warm enough to be enjoyable. Once you're happy, add the rocket and flat leaf parsley. Let it wilt but not too much. Save some of each for plating up. 

Serve the salad with the extra rocket on top. Pile the haloumi on top of that and finish with some extra pine nuts and flat leaf parsley. Season and eat. 

Fresh and very tasty.

Dark chocolate panna cotta with blackberry coulis and vanilla bean cream

Chocolate, blackberries and cream.

I haven't made panna cotta for a long time, so I was really excited to have an excuse to make it again. I've done this one with dark chocolate a few times now. It's a Donna Hay recipe; I use dark 75% cocoa Lindt chocolate though.

Panna cotta ingredients.

I thought a blackberry coulis would be a bit more interesting than raspberry, which I've used in the past. I needed something tart and sweet to even out the bitterness of the dark chocolate. 

Frozen blackberries are also good because they hold their shape nicely when defrosted, unlike frozen raspberries. They're much better as a garnish.

Everything in the pot.

The dessert also needed something creamy. I had actually prepared some thick cream with vanilla paste through it, but unfortunately it didn't hold its shape. The idea was to quenelle it, which was of course impossible with runny cream. I served it on some cocoa dust (with a bit of icing sugar in it) so that it didn't disappear into the white plate.

I ended up using mostly plain cream which was a bit of a shame. Next time I will add a bit of gelatine. Meanwhile, I have two prep bowls of vanilla bean cream in my fridge. Hmmm. 

Edible flowers.

To garnish, I used some of the extra blackberries, a bit of mint from my garden and some pansies. Where did I get pansies from? Erm, I may have stolen them from next door's garden. Well, what was I supposed to do if Harris Farm wasn't stocking them yesterday?! I put them to good use. 

I want to make it again.