Scratch Cooking

Homemade Blackcurrant Gin Recipe

July 18, 2018 by Ashley Adamant Leave a Comment

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Blackcurrants ripen in mid-summer, during the hottest days or the year. Here I am in the kitchen whipping up a batch of blackcurrant jam on a hot July afternoon. While jam is delicious, I’m wondering if I’ve made the best choice. A cool cocktail to sip in the shade sounds a lot better right about now. I glance up to see a bit of gin on my shelf, and the last of the freshly harvested blackcurrants in my bowl land in a mason jar covered in gin. A quick blackcurrant gin is ready in as little as 24 hours, and it’ll still be plenty hot then too.

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Blackcurrant Jam Recipe for Canning

July 17, 2018 by Ashley Adamant Leave a Comment

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Blackcurrant jam is one of those things that you just can’t find in stores. While you can argue whether or not canning is worth the time or effort, you cant argue with the fact that if you want blackcurrant jam you likely have to make it yourself. It is one of my favorite jams, and it’s a sad year when I don’t make time to put up a big batch.

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How to Bake a Pie Outdoors in a Dutch Oven

July 13, 2018 by Ashley Adamant Leave a Comment

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Baking a pie outdoors in a dutch oven isn’t any more complicated than indoor baking, and doesn’t heat up the house in the summer months. Once you get the process down, you can have a fresh homemade pie anytime you want, even while camping.

Dutch ovens are extremely versatile, and they can be used to bake just about anything you can make in a household oven. Baking a pie in a dutch oven is no different than baking a pie indoors. Start by making your favorite pie recipe, prep some coals and go to work baking a homemade pie outdoors without heating up the house.

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Rainier Cherry Jam

July 13, 2018 by Ashley Adamant Leave a Comment

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Rainier cherries are a real treat, but they have such a short season. Homemade rainier cherry jam allows you to preserve their unique flavor and enjoy it all year round. It’s very different from most cherry jams, and tastes bright, with notes of citrus. It almost tastes more like apricot jam than cherry, but that’s still not quite right. Rainier cherry jam is something you have to really taste to understand, but that’s easy enough because it only takes a few minutes to make at home.

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Zucchini Latkes

July 12, 2018 by Ashley Adamant Leave a Comment

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Summertime cooking is all about quick and easy meals. These zucchini latkes are just that, quick, easy and a great way to use up a summer bounty of zucchini. They’re done before you can heat up the house, and they make a great breakfast, lunch or dinner.

For breakfast, we pair them with pickled beets, homemade applesauce or sour cream. Served alone, or alongside sausage, they’re a good start to the day. For lunch, they add a bit of substance to a summer salad, and since they’re quick and easy to prepare you’ll be back out in the garden before you know it.

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Homemade Blackcurrant Liqueur (Cassis)

July 10, 2018 by Ashley Adamant Leave a Comment

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Homemade blackcurrant liqueur is simple to make, provided you can find a source or fresh blackcurrants. In the United States, that can be a challenge, but they’re becoming more common at farmers markets and food coops. I’ve heard that even in the UK, where they’re quite popular in cooking and backyard gardens, it’s hard to find them outside of the farmer’s market. Once you have blackcurrants, it only takes a few minutes to make your own cassis.

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How to Bake Banana Bread in a Dutch Oven

July 9, 2018 by Ashley Adamant 1 Comment

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Sometimes banana bread just has to happen. Bananas go brown on the counter year round, and much of the time it’s way too hot to turn on the oven and heat up the whole house. When it’s 100 degrees outside and the middle of July, turning on the oven is a horrible idea. Campfire dutch oven banana bread, on the other hand, is a great idea.

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30+ Creative Ways to Use Blackcurrants

July 4, 2018 by Ashley Adamant 4 Comments

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Planting blackcurrants means planning for huge harvests right in the middle of summer. Every July we find ourselves completely overrun with blackcurrants, and we’re always struggling to find creative blackcurrant recipes.

Most often, we preserve the flavorful fruits in blackcurrant jam or syrup for winter pancakes. Last year, we made a blackcurrant mead that was out of this world, and we enjoyed a warmly spiced blackcurrant liqueur around the holidays.

Still, I want to plan ahead and do more this year. July is a hard time to get the creative juices flowing. It’s hot, and there’s so much to do in the garden (and at the lake…). I’m putting all my ideas in one place, and hopefully, it helps you all find a few blackcurrant recipes for your own kitchen.

A single blackcurrant bush can produce many quarts of fruit. Here’s the harvest from one of ours. It’s well over 10 pounds of fruit.

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How to Make Rose Cordial

June 27, 2018 by Ashley Adamant Leave a Comment

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Walking at the edge of the woods, I was intoxicated by the scent of roses. I could smell them from yards away, and I knew I had to make something with them. My countertop was already completely covered with small-batch wines and meads, though a rose mead sounds like a lovely idea. Something simple, that won’t take up more counter space for weeks on end. It’s time for a simple homemade rose cordial.

I’ve always considered cordial to mean a sweet alcoholic beverage. Simple syrup, vodka and something flavorful to infuse. My homemade limoncello, for example, is a type of lemon cordial. I’ve recently learned that a cordial doesn’t have to contain alcohol, and there are plenty of examples of commercial non-alcoholic cordials. Rose’s Lime Cordial is one example, though in that one the name rose is a brand, and it’s just lime juice and sugar.

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Low Sugar Strawberry Jam

June 24, 2018 by Ashley Adamant 4 Comments

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When you make your own strawberry jam at home, it’s up to you to decide how much (or how little) sugar to add. Low sugar strawberry jam adds just enough sugar to bring out the full flavor of the berries, but not so much that you cant taste their natural sweetness.

The very first time I made jam, I followed an old school recipe that used one cup of sugar for every cup of fruit. I was just 12, and canning with an experienced canner. They looked at me and said, “Are you sure? You know you can choose to use a different amount right? That’s the nice thing about canning your own.”

What can I say, I was a kid. More sugar is better, right? If I can choose, why not double the sugar?!?!?

The end result of that batch was pretty disappointing. So much sugar that I couldn’t taste any hint of fruit, and even as a kid I thought it was a bit of a waste. The fruit was so good before it went into the jar, and with all that fruit I couldn’t even taste it. Since then, I’ve always reduced the sugar in my jam recipes.

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