Here is another recipe from my grandma’s favorite cookbook, “The Lilly Wallace New American Cookbook”. For those of you who are too young to remember apple butter, there is no butter in apple butter. It is, instead, like apple sauce reduced to the consistency and sweetness of jam.  My grandma flavored hers with warm spices, like cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg. When I was a kid, my favorite sandwich was peanut butter and home-made apple butter.

In 2018, we planted a little apple tree in a sunny SE corner of our yard.  These days, it has grown to important size and yields a lot more lovely eating apples than we can possibly eat.  So after having given bags to all our friends and neighbors, and eaten apples everyday for a month, it seemed like a good idea to use the remaining box for chutney.

This recipe is based on Indian chutneys that I have enjoyed and copied. It is more in the savory-spice direction than the hot-spicy, so it makes a great accompaniment to grilled or roasted pork or even with broiled fish.

The nice surprise of the summer:  our fig tree has produced a lot of lovely, sweet green figs!

We have always had a little fig tree, but in the past, it has never yielded much because it was basically buried by bamboo growing into our yard from the neighbors.  This spring, I got ambitious and really went after the bamboo, forcing it back to the other side of the fence and giving the fig tree a lot more space and sun.  And the little tree has really taken to its new freedom!  This box of about 2 kilos is only the start of the harvest as the tree is still full of unripe figs.

I made these into Fig-Vanilla Jam (see these older posts for the recipe and for a basic primer on jam-making) but I also look forward to eating them raw off the tree with slices of jambon de Bayonne…miam, miam.  Or what about with a nice runny goat’s milk cheese?

Fantastic on bread but also great with hard sheep’s milk cheeses, fig jam is an easy introduction to jam making.  This recipe uses 6 pounds of figs only because that is the amount I had on hand.  Scale as needed.  Check out this post for more details about the jam making process.

GREEN FIG JAM

1 kilo ripe green figs
800g raw sugar
1 lemon
1 vanilla bean

1.  Zest the lemon with a micro-plane, then juice.  Remove the stem from the figs, quarter and put into a glass or stainless bowl. Split the vanilla bean, scrape out the seeds, reserve both seeds and pod.
2. Add the sugar, zest, lemon juice, vanilla pod and seeds to the bowl.  Stir well. Cover with a sheet of parchment paper and leave in the refrigerator for at least one hour.
3. Turn the figs into a heavy bottomed stainless lined pot. Bring to a boil over high heat, stir well, then turn the figs back into the bowl.  Cover with parchment paper and leave overnight in the refrigerator.
4. Next day, return the figs to a heavy, stainless pot. Bring to a boil, skim well to remove any foam.  Continue to cook over high heat, stirring all the time, for about 10 minutes.
5. Check the set. If ready, put into jars and seal. Use the vanilla pod to decorate the jars of jam.