Tomatoes & Blueberries

I made this beautiful Tomato Marmalade from Food & Wine magazine a couple of weeks ago. They don't have it on their website yet, so I'll share the recipe that turned into my own after making a few changes to theirs. When I made this the first time, I only did half the recipe because it sounded like a lot of tomatoes to concassé (can anyone say culinary school flashback?!). After getting a mere 2 jars out of it and then tasting it, I realized that I wanted...no needed to make more. Spread this on crostini with a thin tickle of mascarpone, goat, or any cheese with a crisped-up piece of country ham, prosciutto, spicy cured sausage/ham, or bacon. I'm thinking that I might try it on a sharp cheddar grilled cheese.



The Blueberry Syrup is also from the latest issue of Food & Wine. For some reason they have this recipe on their website but not the Tomato Marmalade, even though they came from the same issue. I followed this recipe to a T, but it was too thin. I ended up simmering it for about 30 minutes, which was 10 minutes too long. It went from a thin, watery, flavorless syrup to....jelly. This, I assure you, is not a bad thing. Spread on pumpernickel toast with a schmear of cream cheese is a really, really, nice thing. As one can tell from the pic, it hasn't been hard eating half the jar. We did, even in its jellied state, stir it in to lemonade with some sparkling water and a sprig of mint for a tasty afternoon drink by the pool. I also plunged a couple tablespoons into my cottage cheese. A blueberry vodka cocktail of some kind is on the horizon.

Tomato Marmalade
Yield: 10 cups

6 pounds tomatoes
3 cups sugar
1 tsp. crystallized/candied ginger, minced
1/2 tsp. Saigon cinnamon
2 lemons, halved & juiced

Bring a large pot of water to boil. Make a criss-cross mark on the bottoms of the tomatoes. Drop into the boiling water for about 10-30 seconds, depending on how big or small your tomatoes are. Remove with a slotted spoon, cool slightly, and remove the peel. Cut the tomatoes in half at the equator and squeeze out the seeds. Cut out the hard, stem round. Finely chop the tomatoes. Discard the seeds. In a heavy bottom pot, stir together all the ingredients, including the lemon juice and halves. Bring to a boil and then simmer on low heat for about 1 hour. Discard the lemons and bring to a boil until reduced by 1/8-1/4, stirring gently. Ladle into prepared jars, lid, and cool.

Blueberry Syrup Recipe

French Food = Eggs

This past weekend I was inspired by the Cooking Channel and one of their shows, French Food At Home. With the exception of one recipe (we'll get to that later), everything was really great and quite easy to prepare. I'm pretty sure that my cholesterol is way over the legal limit since I used eggs, and a lot of them, in every recipe but one. Once I had my mixer out, I just left it out all weekend because everything called for me to whip egg whites. This can be a bit annoying, but since I had read the recipes ahead of time and I was making 3 recipes from the show that required whipped egg whites, it wasn't as much of a nuisance.



The very top picture of those beautiful Angel Cookies or, as the chef of the show calls them, Powder Puffs, look so yummy. This is the recipe I was referring to...they weren't good...at all. The cookies came out of the oven smelling like popcorn for some reason. Now this might sound like a good thing, but I assure you, it was not. The texture was bad too; very powdery. Hey, maybe that's why she calls them Powder Puffs? Once the cookies were assembled, I realized they had to be eaten right away. They turned into one big blob in the refrigerator after just 1 hour and had to be tossed, without eating, the next day. Guess the hubbie wasn't really missing anything to begin with. The only salvageable item from this recipe was the vanilla whipped cream. I mean, who hasn't made this before right?! But after a really gross tasting cookie, the vanilla-scented pillows of cream (me and my daughters all with our own spoons in the bowl) made up for it.



The second item I tried from French Cooking At Home, was this Pea, Asparagus & Fava Tumble. I didn't have fava's or the time to deal with them, so I just used asparagus, peas, and edamame. Yummy! The bi-weekly column I do for the Commercial Appeal will have my version of this recipe out on 7/30.

The third item was her Spinach Omelet Souffle. Yum, yum, and more yum. I did have to cook mine on both sides or my kids would have said it was raw. Regardless, it was delish and easily flippable without losing too much air.

The fourth recipe was her Angel Cake. I used fresh blueberries from down the street and a homemade, quick Maple Creme Anglaise (1/2 sour cream & 1/2 heavy cream). The cake, again whipped egg whites, was light as air but still had depth of flavor from the egg yolks. This cake doesn't keep long as it takes on other flavors easily, so serve it at a dinner party or at brunch so that it doesn't make it to another day.


Angel Cake out of the pan.

I've been doing a lot of canning lately: tomato marmalade and blueberry syrup from Food & Wine, among other things. I'll be sharing those soon. I've canned before, but this time the lids made that beautiful "pop" to let me know they sealed. Very exciting!