Best Gazpacho Recipe and Apricot Cooking

Ina Garten showed off her best gazpacho recipe on Food Network.  So I made it.  Don't know about being the "best", but it was good, easy, and was said to take only 20 minutes to make.   I don't know about the 20 minute time frame, but the recipe was definitely worth whipping up again.  In process:

And apricots are finally in season.  We bought five pounds at a local farmers' market and dehydrated 3 pounds. After 12 hours in the drying unit, they still are not ready to bag.  But they are sweet and delicious!

Two pounds of the apricots were used immediately for an apricot cobbler with rolled dumplings.

OLD FASHIONED COBBLER

8 or 9 peaches or apricots, peeled and sliced
1/2 c. water
1 1/2 c. sugar2 tbsp. self-rising flour
Pinch of salt
1/2 c. butter, melted

Cook fruit in water until tender. Mix flour, salt and sugar. Add to peaches. Mix. Add melted butter.

PASTRY FOR COBBLER

1 cup self-rising flour
1 tsp. salt
1/3 c. shortening
4 tbsp. sweet milk, or enough to make a stiff dough

Blend flour, salt, and shortening to coarse meal texture. Add milk. Roll on floured surface. Pour half of fruit in 9x13 inch pan. Cut some dumplings and push dumplings down into the peach juice. Pour remaining peaches in and top with more cut pastry. Bake in a 350 degree oven 35 to 40 minutes, or until top is golden brown. I like to sprinkle a little sugar on top before baking. This should be juicy cobbler.

Several days ago, I got out the tried and true Better Homes & Gardens Cookbook and made some vanilla ice cream, so home made ice cream was topping for the cobbler.  It was the first time I had gotten the electric ice cream freezer from its shelf in the garage, and it was not even "cranky" after having been neglected for a number of summers.

The ice cream recipe called for only four ingredients - no infusion of vanilla bean, etc.- just 2 Tbsp of vanilla extract, and no eggs.  Some things don't have to be difficult to be tasty.

And last, apricot freezer jam was a hit.  We only made five cups, but that will be enough for a while.  A previous post about freezer jam can be found here.  Ingredients:

3 and 1/3 cup pureed apricots
1 and 1/3 cup sugar
4 Tbsp. freezer pectin

Stir sugar and pectin together.  Add apricots and stir for 2 minutes.  Let it stand for 30 minutes and then ladle into plastic containers and freeze.  Excellent!

Mint and Jalapeno Jelly the Quick Way

Mint grows like crazy in our back yard.

Mint jelly with lamb is OK, but how about a sweet jelly with a little more kick?  Maybe adding a jalapeno would bring up the heat and tone down the sugar.  It would be tasty with meat entrees, and a kick over a block of cream cheese. (My husband remembers pouring a jar of salsa over a block of cream cheese, but he is much older than I, so I don't recall that particular little party treat.)
   
A Google search for mint and jalapeno jelly came up quickly.  Here it is:

2 cups spearmint leaves, chopped fine, divided
2 jalapeno peppers, seeded, diced
3/4 cup white wine vinegar
2 Tbs lemon juice
3 1/2 cups sugar
4 Tbsp. freezer pectin (this is my variation on the original recipe since it called for regular pectin) 

In a small saucepan, heat 1 3/4 cups mint leaves with 1 1/2 cups water, bring to boil, shut off heat and let steep for 30 minutes. Strain mint infusion into large saucepan, squeezing out mint leaves to extract as much mint as possible (I used a coffee filter in a small colander for straining). Discard boiled leaves.

...(recipe continues for Hot Water Bath canning)

Here is what I did to make it a quick freezer jam:

Instead of boiling it all together for what would have taken forever, I just stirred it all for three minutes, added about 7 drops of green food coloring, added a few cleaned mint sprigs to each container, then ladled it into the plastic freezer containers.  Done.  -- It has not been thawed yet, so perhaps the mint leaves might wither.

This is my third recipe for making freezer jams this spring.  We have strawberry, blueberry and now mint jelly in our freezer.  The first batch with strawberries was too sweet, so I cut down the sugar when I made the blueberry jam, and also cut down the sugar on this mint/pepper jelly.  We liked them all.

And here, in all its glory, is a picture of the mint jelly slathered over a block of cream cheese.  It tasted surprisingly refreshing with just a little bite to it.

Does that picture above remind you of James Lilek's Gallery of Regrettable Foods?

Says Lileks:

Freud never had to ask what men want. Men want liquor. They want a pistachio cordial that matches their ties, matches the coffee cups, and matches the salad and the relish. AVOCADO GREEN, the rutting stags demand.

To remind them they're men, make sure to embed a batch of wriggling, erect wieners in a sea of beans.

James Lileks has so many funny stories and books.  Take a look.  He makes our childhood foods look downright...well, unappealing. His Gallery of Regrettable Foods is here.

7 Days: 7 Positive Things

A fellow blogger in Wales who writes I Knit, and Sew What?, writes a weekly "7 Days and 7 Positive Things", so I borrowed her theme.  Here goes:

1: The Texas Road Trip was completed, family visited, and I maneuvered through interstate and local traffic without incident.

2.  On the plane trip back to Colorado, I had trouble getting to the airport.  Long story short, I was the last person to board the plane, getting to the gate just as the door closed.  If that connection had been missed, it would have required not only a long delay, but a stayover in Denver.  Phew!

3.  I saw Bridesmaids TWICE because it was so funny.  What a hoot!

4.  Chive blossoms in our garden made up an onion flavored vinegar that we will use in balsamic vinegar and olive oil salad dressings.  Love the look and looking forward to the dressing!

(Vinegar pretty and pink and ready to strain after 3 days)

5.  I made up nine small batches of strawberry freezer jam that is delicious.  Here is how: 

• 3 and 2/3 cups of strawberries (washed, hulled, quartered)
• 4 Tbsp. freezer pectic
• 1 and 1/3 cups sugar
• Stir the sugar and pectin together, add the fruit, let stand 30 minutes, pour into containers and freeze

 
6.  Making small, slow progress on a Simple Scallops crocheted scarf:

7.  Our house and garden were spared over the night.  A huge limb off an old cottonwood tree in our back yard crashed to the ground around 1 AM.  We heard a loud noise that awakened us, but did not see anything in the dark.  This morning, we found this in the lower part of the back:

the broken tree trunk was 10 inches in width!

That could have caused some serious damage! We were very lucky.