Bear Cuisine

Ginger-Fig Jam

Soon it will be time for figs to appear in our markets. Back East growers markets are already offering figs to their customers. Last year I found this recipe for jam which everyone seemed to love. I just received a request for the recipe and that inspired me to create a post just for it.

GINGER-FIG JAM

• 5 pounds fresh figs, peeled and cut into pieces
  
• 1 lemon, chopped, discarding seeds
  
• Water
  
• 4 pounds sugar
  
• 1 teaspoon salt
  
• 1/2 cup ginger root, soaked and scraped and cut into matchstick pieces
  

Combine the figs, lemon and enough water to cover. Put in a preserving kettle and cook for 1 hour. Add the sugar, salt and ginger and cook until the figs are clear and the syrup is thick. Pour into hot sterilized glasses and seal.

(adapted from Marion Brown's Pickles and Preserves.)

Best Pie Dough

A few years back, Kay and I attended a cooking class at the Central Market in Austin, TX taught by Louis Osteen. Louis has a restaurant (actually two restaurants,side-by-side) on Pawley's Island and he is one fine chef. He is a modest man and might be content to say that he is a good cook. In any case, his food is superlative and so are the recipes we have tried from Louis Osteen's Charleston Cuisine. This pie crust really is one of the best we have ever had. Kay uses it all the time when she makes pies or tarts.

BEST PIE DOUGH

Makes two 12-inch tart crusts or two 10-inch deep-dish pie crusts

24 tablespoons unsalted butter, chilled

4 cups all-purpose soft wheat flour, such as White Lily

1 tablespoon sugar

1 teaspoon salt

2/3 cup ice water

1 large egg, lightly beaten with 1 tablespoon water and a inch of salt

1. Cut the butter into 1/2-inch pieces and refrigerate.

2. Place the flour, sugar, and salt in a large bowl and mix well.

3. Incorporate the chilled butter into the flour by rubbing the flour with butter, using your fingertips. If you use your palms, the heat from your hands tend to melt the butter. Do not overwork the mixture, or the butter will lose the desired texture and size to achieve a properly flaky crust. The mixture shoudl ook dry and crumbly when finished.

4. Pour the ice water into the mixture and use a spatula to quickly incorporate it. the dough should not be wet looking. It will be lumpy.

5. In order to achieve the desired layers, handle the dough almost like puff pastry:Keeping it in the bowl, gather the dough together and fold it in half toward you. Put it down and turn it a half turn. Repeat this step for 5 more half turns, gathering in the loose butter and flour as you go. Don't worry if you don't get all of it. Again, the less you handle the dough, the better.

6. Turn the dough out onto a floured board and start to shape it into a round with your hands, actually turning it on the board as you do so. When it is a roughly round shape, cut the dough in half. You should be able to see multiple layers. Gently pat the halves into disks about 1 1/2 inch thick. It is okay, even desirable, to have splotches of butter in the finished dough. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate it for at least an our or overnight. The dough will keep for 2 to 3 days in the refrigerator. It will keep for a month in the freezer is sealed in an airtight bag. Always thaw frozen dough in the refrigerator.

7. To bake, lightly grease and flour the pans.

8. Remove half the dough from the refrigerator. On a lightly floured, smooth surface, roll out the disk away from you in a single long stroke (using short back-and-forth strokes would develop the gluten and make the dough tough). Turn the dough 90 degrees and roll out again, keeping the shape as round as possible. Continue rolling out the dough until you have a circle about 2 inches larger than the pan. Trim the edges of the circle, reserving any scraps of dough to patch holes or cracks.

9. Fold the circle in half and then in half again. You will have a triangular piece of dough. Place the point of the fold in the center of the pan. Unfold the dough and let it fall loosely into the pan. Rest the dough on the tope edge of the pan and gently press it into the sides. Fold the overhanging dough onto itself to form a double-layered edge. It will extend higher than the edge of the pan. Gently press the dough onto the pan edge to help hold it up.

10. Cover the crust with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least an hour or overnight. This allows the gluten in the dough to relax and helps keep the crust from shrinking during baking.

11. If you are making two pie crust, repeat stems 7 through 10 using the second half of the dough.

The 30 Hour Famine

Every time we sit down to dinner the grace that is said before we dig in most often includes a petition to"make us mindful of [and responsive to] the needs of others."  In the midst of  my passion for good food, I am acutely aware that many in the world go hungry and death by starvation is an all too prevalent reality. 

Recently I read about a program-- "The 30 Hour Famine-- created by World Vision to help young people become aware of the problem of world hunger . It begins at 1 p.m. on  Friday afternoon which means that most of the teens have their last meal for the weekend at lunch. Water and popsicle breaks are taken, but no food is allowed until the end of the event. Throughout the evening the kids do some Bible study focusing around Jesus' command to feed the hungry and clothe the naked. Bill Anzel, the Youth Leader at Trinity United Methodist Church in Hackettstown, NJ, said that "we try to impress on the kids what their money can actually buy in a supermarket. So one of the projects that do is that we send groups of four, five or six to the local supermarkets. We ask them to purchase items that stock our pantry here at the church, which we then use to feed people who come in but don't have food." (religion and Ethics Newsweekly for July 11, 2008)

The young people also participate in the "Twenty Nine Thousand Project" in which they cut 29,000 hearts of red construction paper and tape them to the walls. The hearts are a striking reminder of the 29,00 children who die each day from starvation and its related diseases.  At the end of the event,one of the participants said "Everyone here understands what the world's going through and if we can make a difference to one person, I think that's the most important thing." 

Many of us feel completely overwhelmed by the massive scale of the worlds' problems. So overwhelmed that we are prone to dither or sink into depression rather than act. This story reminded me that I don't have to solve all the problems or even one of them, but I do have to act in my sphere to help. If I can make a difference for just one person, that is a marvelous thing. If each of us makes a difference to one person, that ends up making a difference for a lot of people. 

These are a few of my favorite things

I was on the local and sustainable bandwagon long before Barbara Kingsolver wrote Animal, Vegetable and Miracle. She did inspire me to work even harder at buying local and she helped to renew my interest in canning and otherwise preserving the harvest. I quickly realized,however, that I needed those wildcards she allowed in her own efforts to eat locally. "Wildcards" are those items that you simply find you cannot live without that come from somewhere other than your own food shed. Everyone gets a free pass on tea, coffee and some spices. Thank Goodness! My life would be immeasurably impoverished if I were forbidden the pleasures of Sichuan Peppercorns or cinnamon or.... The list could go on far longer than would be of interest to anyone--including myself. 

Back to the wildcards. These change from time to time, but I find that Trader Joe's has items that regularly find their way into my shopping cart and then into the pantry. They make life easier and they make for food fun. 

These toffees are scrumptious and make a great dessert by themselves or as add-ins to ice cream.

Puff Pastry makes a great turnover or you can use it as a "crust" for a pot pie. They make splendid appetizers or cheese straws. 

These make an easy dinner when all energy for cooking has deserted you. They can be added to a soup or served as an appetizer. We all love them--even Hallie.

These can heat in the oven while the pasta is cooking on the stove. Use them anytime you are in a hurry and want some bread to accompany dinner. They freeze well.

Whenever I have exhausted my store of corn frozen from last summer, I turn to TJ's frozen roasted corn to add to soups and stews.

These are a rare treat. They come, not from TJ's, but the Spanish Table. These are Mexican Coca Colas which are made with cane, rather than high fructose corn, syrup. Served ice cold with a great burger or dog.... Life rarely gets better than this.

Canning Season Begins Again

Summer is in full swing and that means starting to preserve the seasons' bounty. The first fruit to appear at the Farmers' Markets is cherries. So, we started this year's canning with Cherry Preserves.

CHERRY PRESERVES

Yield: about 4 half pints

• 2 pounds cherries
  
• 4 cups sugar
  

Combine sugar and berries; set cherries aside. Add sugar to juice (if there is not enough juice to dissolve sugar, add a little water); cook until sugar dissolves, stirring occasionally. Add cherries; cook rapidly until cherries become glossy. cover and let stand 12 to 18 hours in a cool place. Bring to boil. Boil hard 1 minute, stirring constantly. Remove from heat. Skim foam if necessary. Ladle hot preserves into hot jars, leaving 1/4 -inch headspace. Adjust two-piece caps. Process 15 minutes in a boiling- water canner.

(from The Ball Blue Book of Preserving)

The Ball Blue Book is the Bible of canning and the place where everyone who wants to preserve food should begin. It explains in crystal-clear terms everything you need to know to get started and has enough variety in its recipes to keep experienced food preservers from getting bored. Readily available at most stores carrying canning supplies.