(no subject)

So.

I have blogged on Syrens. And I've blogged on Urban Meliad. I have also had cream of mushroom soup for breakfast (and I feel so much better now).


To do today:
Make cranberry curd
Re-jar the Serviceberry sauce (again... Hoy...)
Get groceries
Make mint jelly
Make peach jam
Make peach chutney
Write porn

YAY! :-D


TTFN,
Amazon.

Cranberry Curd! Success! :-D (With Recipes!)

Okay,

So I made a batch of cranberry curd for the first time today.

Now, it's possible I feel this way because I've only ever made lemon curd with lemon-juice-from-concentrate[1] BUT: I think I actually like the cranberry curd better. It's thicker. This may be because I made it wrong (I was doing a half-recipe, but may have used more cranberries than called for), or it may be because cranberry curd uses purreed cranberries rather than cranberry juice, thence the thicker consistency.

I made it as part of my collection of to-be-traded-for-moose preserves to send to Ghost's co-worker, as such about 2/3 of the batch when into a 500mL jar[2] BUT the other cup of it (or there-abouts) went into: Cranberry Sour Cream Coffee Cake! (Which is gloriously pink and also currently in the oven).


How to make the Cranberry Curd:

Combine in a sauce pan:
2/3 of a bag (AKA 2/3 of a pound) of raw cranberries
1C water

Cover and simmer until you have a thick and saucy sauce.
Put the sauce in a blender (or similar) and purree until it's super-smooth.

Return sauce to pan and add:
1/2 C granulated sugar
1/4 C butter

Stir in, over medium heat, until well-combined. Turn off the heat at this point.

In a small blow, beat together
3 eggs
1/4 C sugar


Add the egg mixture to the cranberry mixture, and stir in until very smooth.
Turn the heat on again under the cranberry mixture and stir slowly, over medium heat, until the mixture thickens up nicely. It'll be a bit like pudding. Or maybe like Greek yoghurt. Or something. (I'm not being very helpful here, I know).

At this point, you can either pour it into sterilized jars and process it, as for jam, in a boiling water bath
OR
You can chuck it in a tupperware and throw it in the fridge (where it'll keep for a week, in theory)
OR
You can use it immediately on/in the baked goods of your choice.


Case in point:


Cranberry Sour Cream Coffee Cake

Cream together
1C sugar
½ C butter/margarine (soft)
2 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
1 C sour cream

In a second bowl, mix together:
2 C flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt

Blend the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until smooth, then stir in:
1 C cranberry curd (OR lemon curd)


Pour it all into a greased spring-form (or other) cake pan

OPTIONAL: Sprinkle on top:
Almond crumble (ground almonds, brown sugar, and margarine)

Bake at 350F for about an hour and a half (until it smells done and passes the fork test)

Allow to cool for 10 minutes, then remove the sides of the pan, cut and serve with something floopy like vanilla yoghurt or raspberry sorbet or clotted cream or whatever. Enjoy!


*~*~*~*~*


Anyway. so that was the cranberries.

I also made a mint jelly (with a little white wine vinegar in it for an extra dimension of flavour and also the cut the sweetness of it a little bit) -- that used up my other remaining 500mL jar. I'm just glad I had a spare bottle (that used to house cocoanut oil) lying around, because that took the rest of it.
It occurs to me that you could, in this way, make a LOT of herbal jellies basically by making Very Strong Tea that uses a ration of 2:3 water:sugar, and then adding a package of pectin at the appropriate moment. I may give this a shot, just to see how it turns out. Hrm...

Anyway. So there was that.


I am also doing a pork roast for dinner. It was on for cheap, and I they are Very Tasty. Plus we've still got a tonne of apples in the fridge from Ghost's parents' place, so it didn't hurt to use one up (there was a very tiny worm in its heart. It will be happy in a compost heap somewhere, I'm sure).

The roast includes:
Pig!
Mushrooms
1 Apple
1 Beet
1/3 of a yellow onion (or there-abouts)
Savoury and Mustard on top of the meat
A dribble of red wine in the bottom of the pan

It has turned out very nicely, and now we are going to eat it.

OM NOM NOM! :-D


TTFN,
Amazon. :-)


[1] Which, I gather, is total anathema and you're only ever supposed to use carefully juiced REAL lemons, ideally meyer, to do the job. It's never been any kind of a problem for me, fyi, to use the concentrated stuff and completely omit the lemon zest, but that's just me.

[2] My last one, as it happens - Hartmann's was all out, they had two packages of twelve 1L jars left, and that was it. I'm hoping they get in more in the sizes I need before the end of the week.