There is something about eating foods grown by your own hand that pleases more than just the flavors in your mouth – but those must be good too.
Two Oak Parkers share recipes that put a longer lease on the summer season. The extra – how is it best described – pride or pleasure in the fact that the produce was produced at home is a bonus that makes the work in the kitchen worthwhile.
“There is something to be said about just the whole process, when I’m just responding to the garden,” Lissa Dysart, the Tomato Lady of Oak Park, said.
Her love of tomatoes stretches back into childhood when she recalls eating tomatoes for breakfast, lunch and dinner. But at the height of the ripening, she always finds that there is more fruit than she and her family can eat fresh.
One of her more unconventional options for keeping the red gold lasting longer is a Portuguese tomato jam that Dysart was first introduced to while working at Whole Foods. Later she found a recipe in a preserves cookbook by Christine Ferber.
She explained: “She is like the queen of preserving. The thing that I found really interesting from it is like her technique isn’t just like put everything in together and then like cook it down until it’s like thickened. You add the sugar and then heat it and then it will usually like exude some juices and then you let it sit overnight. The next day you’ll hold those solids out and then you cook all the juice down. And then you put the solids back in and cook it for a few more minutes. The difference with doing that technique is phenomenally different. You get a ton of the nice bright fruit flavor, and the texture is like whole fruit pieces that are almost caramelized.”
Portuguese Tomato Jam by Lissa Dysart
As adapted from Food in Jars with some help from Christine Ferber.
Ingredients:
2 ½ pounds ripe tomatoes, finely chopped
1 3/4 cups sugar
4 tablespoons bottled lime juice
½ teaspoon ground cardamom
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon paprika
½ tablespoon salt
Instructions:
Combine all ingredients in a large, non-reactive pot. Bring to a boil and cook a few minutes, then remove from heat, cover, and refrigerate overnight.
The next day, strain and reserve the solids. Return the liquid to the pot and head over medium high flame until the temperature reaches 221 degrees on a thermometer.
Add the solids back into the syrup and cook over medium heat for 3-5 minutes. Remove from heat and fill jars, leaving 1/4 inch of head space. Wipe rims, apply lids and twist on rings. If you wish to store at room temperature, process in a boiling water canner for 20 minutes.
When time is up, remove jars from water bath and allow them to cool. When jars are cool enough to handle, test seals. Store jars in a cool, dark place for up to one year.
If you don’t wish to can them using a water bath process, you can store in the refrigerator without the canning process. Should last 2-4 weeks minimum.
Yield – 4 cups, give or take
John Slocum has carefully tended two cherry trees in his front yard for more than a decade.
“There are less healthy obsessions,” he said. “Last year I harvested, let’s see, 23 quarts from two trees.”
Slocum’s jams, applesauce and cherry bounce (Risé Sanders-Weir)
For years Slocum made cherry jam and other delights.
“There’s a few basic techniques that you just need to learn from a book. I got a basic recipe book and followed the directions precisely. Beyond that what’s really fun is letting your imagination go with like flavors. You can get flavor combinations that you might not be able to get in the store. Even nowadays with all the proliferation of options.”
“A favorite is cherry anise. That makes it a little bit extra something out of a cherry jam,” Slocum said.
Then he discovered a liquor called cherry bounce.
“A friend of mine told me about it. Said to be George Washington’s favorite alcoholic beverage, so it is a Colonial or hundreds of years old type of thing. It’s cherries, sugar and alcohol. And I said I got to try that. It’s just like candy, but very high proof candy.”
Cherry Bounce by John Slocum
Adapted from George Washington’s Mount Vernon
Ingredients:
10 to 11 pounds fresh sour cherries, preferably Morello
4 cups brandy (bourbon or vodka will also work)
3 cups sugar, plus more as needed
2 cinnamon sticks, broken into pieces
2 to 3 whole cloves
1 (1/4-inch) piece fresh whole nutmeg
Instructions:
Pit cherries, cut in half.
In a lidded 1-gallon glass jar, combine cherries, brandy, sugar. Stir. Cover and refrigerate for 24 hours.
Bring 2 cups of liquid from the refrigerated mixture to a simmer over medium heat, add spices. Simmer for 5 minutes. Strain out spices and return liquid to glass jar.
Cover loosely and leave at room temperature for at least 2 weeks, occasionally gently shaking the jar.
Serve at room temperature. Store remaining liquor in the refrigerator.
Yield – 3 quarts
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