Watermelon Syrup

Note: This was a failure. Cooked watermelon tastes like squash, and squash syrup and fruit leather was not what I was going for. I poured it all down the sink.

1/2 large watermelon

1 1/2 cups sugar

Scoop red part of watermelon into a blender, in batches of needed. Blend until liquefied. Drain in fine mesh strainer. Preserve pulp in strainer for fruit leather. 

Measure juice. Add 1/4 cup sugar for every cup of juice. I ended up with 6 cups juice.

Add juice and sugar to medium sauce pan. Cook until juice is reduced and registers 220°F on cast thermometer.

Pour into 3 half pint jars. Process in boiling water bath 10 minutes.

Seedless Blackberry-Raspberry Jam

Pulp from making blackberry and raspberry syrup

1 1/2 cup sugar

2 Tbsp lemon juice

Process pulp through food mill with smallest holes to remove the seeds. With two batches of syrup, I ended up with two cups of de-seeded pulp.

Add de-seeded pulp, sugar, and lemon juice to medium sauce pan. Cook over medium heat until gels on a chilled plate (note: this takes less time than a typical jam/jelly because most of the water has already been removed).

Pour into 1 pint and 1 half pint jar. Process 10 minutes in boiling water bath.

Blackberry Jam

4 lbs blackberries

2 1/2 cups sugar

3 Tablespoons lemon juice, from one lemon

Add all ingredients to large saucepan/dutch oven. Mash blackberries with potato masher while heating over medium heat until broken down to desired size. Add half of the juiced lemon skin, for extra natural pectin.

Continue to cook until juice dabbed on chilled plate begins to gel.

Transfer to 3 pint jars. Process in boiling water bath 10 minutes.

Raspberry/Blackberry Syrup

3 lbs berries

1 cup sugar

3 Tbsp lemon juice

Cook berries in large pot for 5 minutes, mashing with potato masher, to release juices. Stain in fine mesh strainer for at least 10 minutes.

Pour juice, sugar, and lemon juice in a medium sauce pan over medium heat. Adjust heat to maintain a steady simmer. Cook until heated to 220-225°F. This takes about an hour.

Pour hot syrup into 2 half pint jars. Process for 10 minutes in boiling water bath.

Food from Father's Day Weekend

Resurrecting this blog in order to keep notes to myself and recipe links. Name of food has link to recipe online. Name of cookbook has link to Amazon listing for that cookbook. 

This is not all the food we ate. This is just the food I made (my husband does most of the dinner cooking).

Saturday: 

• Pancakes from The Food Lab cookbook
• Dried oregano. Because it needed trimming
  
  
  

Sunday:

• Rugelach from the Smitten Kitchen Cookbook, 
• Made double-sized and served as a breakfast pastry instead of a cookie
• 
  
  
• Apricot Pistachio Squares from the other Smitten Kitchen Cookbook
• Took less apricots than recipe called for. And cooked half again as long (an hour and a half total!) before the filling mostly set up
• 
  
  

July Food

7/4/19
Blueberry boy bait (with blackberries)
-10 oz flour
- 1 Tbsp baking powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 16 Tbsp butter
- 5 1/4 oz Brown sugar
- 3 1/2 oz sugar
- 3 eggs
- 1 cup milk
- 1/2 cup blackberries, cut in half
- 1 tsp flour
Topping
- 1/2 cup blackberries, cut in half
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon

Mix dry ingredients. Cream butter and sugars. Add eggs one at a time. Add flour and milk, alternating. Toss blackberries in 1 tsp flour. Gently fold into batter. Pour into greased 13x9 inch pan. Scatter rest of blackberries on top. Mix cinnamon and sugar and sprinkle evenly over top. Cook at 350 for 45 minutes.

June 2016 Food

6/1/19 - French Breakfast Puffs: https://smittenkitchen.com/2011/12/cinnamon-brown-butter-breakfast-puffs/

6/2/19 - Pickled sweet peas

6/2/19 - Rhubarb syrup

• 3 cups rhubarb
• 1 1/2 cups water
• 1 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup lemon juice

Bring rhubarb and water to boil. Cook on medium for 10 minutes. Drain. Add sugar to rhubarb juice. Cook until sugar dissolves then add lemon juice

Result: Way too thin. Should have cooked down to a syrup instead of just dissolving sugar.

6/5/19 - Dried pineapple

6/5/19 - Pineapple leather

6/29/19 - Southern tea cakes

6/29/19 - Blackberry syrup

• 4 lbs blackberries
• 2 cups sugar
• Juice from 1 lemon

Cook blackberries and sugar over medium heat to release juice, 5-10 minutes. Drain. Put juice back in pot and reserve pulp for other use. Add lemon juice and cook until syrupy.

Result: Overcooked. Now have blackberry jelly instead of blackberry syrup.

6/29/19 - Blackberry Lavender Cream Paletas

• Leftover pulp from blackberry syrup
• Lavender cream
• 1 cup milk
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 2 Tablespoons sugar
• 1 sprig worth of lavender

Process blackberry pulp in food processor. Combine milk, cream, sugar, and lavender in a small saucepan. Cook for 5 minutes to infuse cream with lavender flavor. Do not boil. Strain and chill cream. Drop chilled cream and blackberry pulp alternately into the popsicle mold.