Sometimes, when the fruits of summer start coming in, you just want to eat them straight up. Peaches gnawed off the pit, raspberries popped straight into your mouth, strawberries with nothing but maybe, maybe a dusting of sugar.
But sometimes, you want to mix things up a little. You've got berries, but three or four days from now, they'll be past their prime, and you don't want to let them rot. With nearly any fruit, you can just cook it down with sugar, and keep it in the fridge another week. But if you want something the next notch beyond that, you can mix a little something into your fast jam. Ginger in your cherries. Thyme in your blueberries.
Preserved Strawberries With Chiles, from Food52.
I'd been looking for an excuse to use these cascabel peppers anyway... not sure why I bought them, other than I'd never had them before.
Turns out they're not all that spicy. Next time, more pepper. But for this time, I really didn't have much to complain about.
Thick, sweet, glorious jam. A few more days of summer, preserved. Works for me.
Comments