Varenye

Varenye is Russian for fruit preserves. Varenye differs from American-style fruit preserves in that it's syrupy rather that spreadable. Though it can be made from any kind of fruit, in my family varenye was just one flavor: sour cherry.

You can find decent quality varenye at most Russian stores, but homemade is best.

Luckily, at the very end of cherry season I happened to score some u-pick sour cherries with which to make it.

But before I get to the recipe, the fall issue of Cooking Club magazine is out! Check out the "Weeknight Cook" column (on page 46) for four recipes by yours truly. My Seared Sirloin Steaks with Horseradish Cream Sauce, Spicy Baked Catfish with Garlic Butter, Smothered Pork Chops with Onion Gravy, and Spiced Chicken Drumsticks with Blood Orange, Red Onion and Parsley Salad are simple and delicious, even if I do say so myself.

Also, the fall Clark College class schedule just came out. I'll be teaching Baked Custards, Seared to Perfection, and The Season for Soup. Please join me in the kitchen! Current class listings can always be found in the Cooking Classes, Book Signings & Appearances sidebar on the right.

Sour Cherry Varenye
Printable Recipe

1 pound sour cherries, pitted
12 ounces sugar

Toss together the cherries and sugar in a small saucepan and let macerate, stirring occasionally, for 20 to 30 minutes, or until soft and juicy. Stir in 4 ounces of water. Bring to a boil and simmer, stirring occasionally and skimming off any scum that rises to the surface, for 1 hour to 1 hour and 15 minutes, or until thickened and slightly syrupy.

Makes about 1 ½ cups. Keeps for months tightly sealed in the refrigerator. For teatime in the Russian style, forgo the sugar and sweeten your hot tea with a spoonful of varenye.

Spring Market

Up here in the Pacific Northwest spring arrives later than in the rest of the country, especially when it comes to the growing season. For us, early April usually means a chill in the air, grey skies, and more rain. While family and friends located in warmer climes are already flooded with asparagus and rhubarb, I’m still waiting impatiently. Our farmers market only has a few greens, veggie starts, and cut daffodils.

So I went to the farmers market over the weekend not expecting too much. But there was a wonderful surprise waiting for me—ramps!


Pristine ramps, so fresh and alive. In my anticipation of asparagus season, I had forgotten all about the ramps. I bought one bunch, and then thought better of it and went back for another.


I found one other thing at the farmers market—inspiration. I can wait for the other spring produce; this week we’ll be having lightly sautéed ramp greens and grilled ramp stems and Pickled Ramps.


Pickled Ramps
Printable Recipe

½ cup white vinegar
½ cup water
½ cup sugar
1 tablespoon kosher salt
½ teaspoon yellow mustard seeds
½ teaspoon coriander seeds
½ teaspoon black peppercorns
3 allspice berries
1 bay leaf
½ pound ramps, cleaned and blanched

Combine the vinegar, water, sugar, salt, mustard seeds, coriander, black peppercorns, allspice, and bay leaf in a small saucepan and bring to a boil. Place the ramps into a medium jar and add the hot vinegar mixture. Let cool to room temperature, cover, and refrigerate overnight before serving.


Makes about 6 to 8 servings. Ramps tend to be very dirty. To prepare them, trim the root ends, peel away any dried or dirty layers, and rinse them thoroughly. If the leaves are dried, mushy, or discolored, trim them too. Pickled Ramps keep for weeks tightly sealed in the refrigerator. Don’t hesitate to double the recipe because they go fast. These sweet and sour pickles are perfect on steak sandwiches. In case you’ve never had a ramp, they’re related to onions, and they taste like a cross between onions and pungent, pungent garlic. Ramps are absolutely delicious, but what I’m trying to say is don’t plan on getting too close to your sweetheart after you’ve dined on ramps.

Salted Cabbage

We eat something in my family we call Salted Cabbage. At least that’s what we call it in Russian, it sounds a little funny when I translate it to English. It’s pretty much like sauerkraut but it’s less fermented and it has carrots in it. And since I just got a brand new pickling crock, I had to make some. Also, I finally got my hands on some elusive white cabbage. You can find green cabbage anywhere, but all of the cooks in my family warned me, you can only make salted cabbage with white cabbage.

This was my very first batch of Salted Cabbage. Well, I did make some a few months ago under the strict supervision of my mother, but that doesn’t count. This was my first batch by myself.


It turned out great, very crunchy and lightly sour. I can say that now. But the “aroma” in the pantry over the last few days, let’s just say it was not so great.

Salted Cabbage
Printable Recipe

3 ½ pounds shredded white cabbage
1 carrot, shredded
2 small bay leaves, lightly crushed
10 allspice berries
12 black peppercorns
2 ½ tablespoons kosher salt

Combine all of the ingredients in a large bowl. Mash with your hands, a sauerkraut stomper, or potato masher until the cabbage wilts and exudes juice. Transfer to a pickling crock, packing it in as tightly as possible. Apply a weight, making sure that all of the cabbage is completely submerged beneath the brine. Cover loosely and let ferment at room temperature for 4 to 6 days, or until the desired sourness.

Makes about 2 quarts. If, for some reason, mashing the cabbage with the salt does not create enough liquid to completely cover the cabbage once it’s packed into the crock, you can make additional brine. Simply boil some water, add kosher salt until it tastes slightly salty, and let cool. Add just enough to completely cover the cabbage. If any white matter appears on the surface during fermentation, do not be alarmed; it’s perfectly harmless yeast. Just skim it off. Fermentation time depends on the ambient temperature, so it may take 4 days in the summer and as long as 6 days in the winter. Keeps for weeks tightly sealed in the refrigerator. If you don’t have a pickling crock with a weight, use a glass or stoneware jar that’s large enough to accommodate the cabbage plus the bubbling of fermentation. Weigh the cabbage down with a plate topped with a tightly sealed jar filled with water. Look for white cabbage in Asian markets. Salted Cabbage is yummy straight up, and it’s great anywhere you might want a pickle, like on a sandwich or in potato salad.

Crock

A good pickle crock is hard to find. I tried every cookware store I could think of. When I asked, the salespeople just looked at me funny. Some of them didn’t even know what a pickle crock is. I even tried a few old-fashioned hardware stores, the kind that sell everything from wheelbarrows to canning jars, the kind you find in small agricultural communities. No luck. One helpful lady recommended I look at an antique store. But I don’t do antique stores.

I did find some German sauerkraut crocks on the internet, but they cost a small fortune. I’m not quite ready to spend a couple of hundred dollars on a crock. I mean, maybe I won’t really get into pickling. Maybe I’ll make one batch of pickles and lose interest. Not that anything like that’s ever happened before.

I was just about ready to give up on my search. I was starting to think up ways to justify the expense of the German crock. Then, as I was shopping at a Japanese market for sushi ingredients, I found exactly what I was looking for.


The Japanese may call it a tsukemono press, but I know a pickling crock when I see one. Now, some purists may balk at the fact that it’s made of plastic, not stoneware, but I figured it was cheap enough to give it a shot. My pickling crock came with detailed instructions printed right on its side and a hefty weight to keep the pickles submerged beneath the brine.


Now I need to figure out what kind of pickles I want to make first. I might try kimchee or sauerkraut or cucumber pickles, depending on what the market has in store for me next.

Sun Jelly

I just couldn’t wait for the weekend to make the uncooked currant jelly. With the help of my husband, I harvested the black currants on a weeknight.


It was a tiny harvest, the currant shrub is only in its second year, but I figured it would be enough for a small batch. I pureed the currants, my husband went to bed.

The Red Currant Jelly—Jelled by the Sun recipe seemed so intriguing. And so easy. But I didn’t quite follow the recipe, seems like I never can quite follow a recipe. It called for red currants, I had black. It said to use cheesecloth, I used my trusty food mill…

The next morning, I put the jars of jelly outside. They basked in the warm sunshine all day long. The mixture of currant juice and sugar turned into jelly. Just like magic, amazing! I was very excited to see that it set perfectly. My husband was very amused that I was so excited about a few jars of jelly.

My fuschia jelly has a delicate texture and tastes like a mouthful of fresh currants, only better. It was delightful on a toasted and buttered English muffin, so much better than anything store-bought.


I cannot wait to taste it on crêpes.

Black Currant Sun Jelly
Printable Recipe

9 ounces black currants
9 ounces superfine sugar

Puree the currants in a food mill using the finest disc. If the puree has seeds, strain it through a fine mesh sieve to remove them. Stir in the sugar. Divide among 3 4-ounce jars, cover with parchment, and secure the parchment with butcher’s twine. Place the jars outside in the sun all day, or until jelled.

Makes about 1 ½ cups. Keeps for months tightly sealed in the refrigerator.

Preserving Class

Our garden produces more than we know what to do with, and I always wanted to learn how to can and preserve the excess. I envisioned a pantry packed with homemade jams, jellies, pickles, tomato sauce, and salsa. But so far, all I’ve managed in two years was to cook and can a single batch of pepper jelly. It took me a while to muster the courage to do it, too, and the help of a friend with a bit of canning experience.

Canning always seemed like a tricky and mysterious business to me. Fears of invisible bugs and the food police were enough to dissuade me. I just wasn’t bold enough to try it without the guidance of an expert.

So yesterday I attended a day-long class at the Preserve. The “classroom” was nestled in a lush edible garden.


Our instructors were perfect opposites. One was an animated storyteller and comedian.


“When local and seasonal becomes something fancy, you know we went somewhere weird,” she did not hesitate to share her opinions. The other relied on recipe booklets and a flipchart.


She was the consummate home economist. Quite the pair, they had us giggling all day long. We learned the basics of jam making, pickling, and canning fruits and tomatoes. They demonstrated a batch of lemon verbena-infused strawberry-raspberry jam with homemade apple pectin and currant pectin, canned raw-packed apricots, canned plum tomatoes, and sauerkraut. They made it seem so easy.

I was just disappointed to learn that I can’t can my homemade salsas with a water bath canner. Either I have to follow a tested recipe in a book (yeah, right) or use a pressure canner. I wonder if they offer a class on pressure canning?

Today I bought four cases of canning jars. This weekend I think I’ll harvest our black currants and make the French uncooked jelly recipe. Turns out canning is pretty simple, I don’t know what I was so afraid of.

Too Much

Now I have so much fruit I don’t know if we can eat it fast enough. So I’ve been dreaming up some yummy ways to make it keep. Like freezing it.


Peaches & Cream Popsicles
Printable Recipe

4 large peaches, peeled, pitted, and diced
½ cup crème fraîche
¼ cup sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla extract

Combine all of the ingredients in a food processor and pulse until smooth. Divide among 12 popsicle molds and insert handles. Freeze overnight, or until solid.

To unmold, run warm water over the mold for a few seconds and pop the popsicles out. Serve right away.

Makes 12 popsicles. Use juice cups and popsicle sticks if you don’t have popsicle molds. Also delicious with strawberries instead of peaches.

Fresno

We just got back from visiting my mother-in-law in Fresno, California. It was no accident we planned our trip for July. July is stone fruit season in Fresno.

Of course, I wanted to go to a u-pick orchard. I thought it would be easy to find one. There are so many u-pick options in Oregon, but I guess Fresno’s not the same. Or maybe we just didn’t know where to look. I searched the internet while my mother-in-law phoned her friends and family for leads. They sent us to visit the jam lady in Reedley, about half an hour south of Fresno. “Turn right past the river and go to the house at the top of the hill,” they said. At least it was something to go on.

It was the last day of our trip. After a beautiful drive through citrus and stone fruit orchards, we found the jam lady at the Top of the Hill Farm. She invited us in, it was like she was expecting us. The old farm house was cluttered with antique cookware and jars of jam in all of the colors of the rainbow. The jam lady offered to take us to see the pomegranate jelly being made. A private tour! I love to see where and how my food is made, but I usually have to tell my husband to create a distraction while I sneak into the kitchen.

I tasted every flavor of her jam until my teeth hurt. I picked out the Santa Rosa Plum Jam, Yellow Peach Jam, Three Berry Jam, Apricot Jam, Pomegranate Jelly, and Meyer Lemon Marmalade to take home with me.


(My belly was so full of jam, I almost skipped lunch. Almost, but not quite.)

Then I asked the jam lady where to go for u-pick fruit. She walked us right across her driveway and into her orchard.


One stop shopping, how convenient! Before I knew it we had an enormous box full of soft and juicy white peaches, nectarines, and plums.

My mother-in-law mentioned making a cobbler, and the thought stuck with me.


Stone Fruit Cobbler
Printable Recipe

2 large peaches, peeled, pitted, and cut into eighths
2 large nectarines, peeled, pitted, and cut into eighths
8 small plums, peeled, pitted, and quartered
¾ cup sugar
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 ½ tablespoons cornstarch
¼ teaspoon vanilla extract
8 tablespoons (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, diced, plus more for greasing the baking dish
¾ cup all-purpose flour
¾ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon kosher salt
½ teaspoon cinnamon
Pinch freshly grated nutmeg
¼ cup heavy cream

Preheat the oven to 375ºF. Combine the peaches, nectarines, plums, ¼ cup of the sugar, lemon juice, cornstarch, and vanilla in a large bowl and toss to coat. Butter an 11×7-inch baking dish. Transfer the fruit mixture to the baking dish.

Combine the flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and remaining ½ cup of sugar in a food processor and pulse a few times to combine. Add the butter and pulse until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.


Add the cream and pulse until the dough just comes together.


Spread the crust mixture evenly over the fruit in the baking dish.


Bake for about 35 minutes, or until golden brown and bubbling around the edges. Let cool slightly and serve.

Makes enough for 6 or 8. Perfect with vanilla ice cream.