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Polish Housewife

Polish recipes served up with tidbits of folklore, customs, and history

Fruit

Racuchy, a healthy pancake

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A recent outing with a new friend from Poland brought me this easy to make recipe for Racuchy, a healthy pancake, in this case flavored with banana.

Racuchy, a healthy pancake from Poland with just 3 ingredients!

Maggi, my source for this recipe, is here for a few months with her two young sons while her husband is training to become an instructor pilot in the F-16. He was one of Ed’s first students in Poznań. I don’t think Maggi and I  ever met in Poland, if we did it would have been a brief hello at a the Pilot of the Year Ball, an occasion when I would meet at least 50 new people, Polish pilots and their wives. What can I say? They were all young, very tall, and beautiful; it was hard to keep everyone straight in my mind.

Now we’ve had a chance to spend time together and get to know each other. Maggi is brilliant, a woman with multiple advanced degrees, who is a stay at home mom for now, or household manager as she calls it. That’s so true. I work at a large church as the Parish Administrator. Officially, I take care of the business affairs of the church, but the best way I can describe it to some is to say that it’s like I’m the mom of a very large family and we live in a very big old house. Roof leak after the rain, need to register for a conference, order cake for a parish celebration, dead bird in the garden, bills to be paid, my list of responsibilities goes on and on.

Maggi asked about the Polish recipes on my blog. I told her what was  the most popular, and she gave me this recipe for racuchy. It’s so simple that I could remember it as we chatted while I drove us to our destination, but she followed up with a Facebook message to be sure I wouldn’t forget.

I made racuchy (pronounced rat-su-hay) this morning and Ed and I both enjoyed them. To keep challenging herself during her household manager years, Maggi has become a personal trainer and studied nutrition. Her recipe has three ingredients, is gluten-free and has no added sugar. The texture is nice, I didn’t miss the structure added by the gluten in wheat flour as I often do. The banana flavor was just right. The butter in the photo? That was Ed’s very American suggestion. Maggi serves hers with berries.

Smacznego!

Lois

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Racuchy, a healthy three ingredient pancake from Poland!

Racuchy, a healthy pancake

  • Author: Polish Housewife
  • Yield: 10 - 12 pancakes
  • Category: Breakfast
  • Cuisine: Polish
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Description

A super healthy, 3 ingredient pancake, with no added sugar and gluten-free!

Ingredients

  • 3 eggs
  • 1 banana
  • 5 tablespoons rolled oats
  • pinch salt

Instructions

  1. Blitz all of the ingredients in a blender
  2. (Maggi’s recipe doesn’t call for salt, but I think a pinch brightens other flavors)
  3. Pour onto a hot, greased griddle or frying pan
  4. Turn when the bubbles around the edge begin to pop

Notes

I’ve written the recipe as it was given to me. I only had two large eggs when I made this and my bananas were small, so I used two. It’s forgiving; they were perfect!

Racuchy a healthy pancake with just 3 ingredients!

Vintage Pineapple Pie Recipe

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We made a quick trip to visit family in California over the holiday weekend. In honor of our visit, my aunt made a dessert from a cookbook that had belonged to her late sister. It was a Good Housekeeping cookbook, we assume it was published in the early 1940s because there was a Wartime Supplement with tips and recipes to save on rationed items. The cover and pages with publication details have gone missing over the years. The dessert itself was a first for me, this vintage pineapple pie recipe, similar to lemon cream pie in taste and tartness, but with more texture was delicious.

Vintage pineapple pie recipe

My aunt said she likes to make this with canned pineapple in its own juice, but she has made it with fresh pineapple when she lived in Brazil, juicing some of the fruit to make up for the juice from the can. She tops it with a lighted baked meringue or whipped cream.

I love fresh pineapple, pineapple upside down cake, and pineapple sherbet, and now. I can add pineapple pie to the list.

IMG_2281

 

 

Good Housekeeping cookbook from the 1940s

Maybe it’s just that I didn’t grow up with pineapple pie; it’s not something my mother made, but it never occurred to me this was something I was missing. How about you? Are you familiar with pineapple pie?

Smacznego!

Lois

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Vintage pineapple pie recipe

Vintage Pineapple Pie Recipe

  • Author: Polish Housewife
  • Category: Dessert
  • Cuisine: American
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Description

A vintage dessert recipe

Ingredients

  • 1 baked 8 inch pie shell (crust)
  • 2 tablespoons cornstarch
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 20 ounce can crushed pineapple
  • 2 eggs, separated
  • 1 tablespoon lemon juice

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 300 F
  2. Combine cornstarch, 1/4 cup sugar, and salt in a saucepan
  3. Add pineapple (including liquid)
  4. Cook over medium heat, stirring, until clear and thickened
  5. Beat egg yolks with 1/4 cup sugar and add to pineapple mixture
  6. Cook 1 minute
  7. Cool
  8. Add lemon juice and pour into pie crust
  9. Make meringue by beating 2 egg whites until stiff, gradually add the remaining 1/4 cup sugar
  10. Top pie with meringue and bake for 30 minutes

 

Date Bars, Matrimonial Cake

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Date Bars seem like an old fashioned treat, simple, wholesome, sneaking a bit of fruit into the mix, as moms love to do. Date Bars, Matrimonial Cake in Canada, are something I’ve only recently made, but I’m sure the new tradition will continue.

Simple, wholesome date Bars, Matrimonial cake in Canada

We celebrate staff birthdays monthly, and my friend and colleague, Sue, is our only December birthday. We’ve shared enough meals together that I know she’s not terribly big on sweets, preferring savory treats like olives in puff pastry. As I was trying to decide what to bake last December, I got in touch with Sue’s sister, and she recommended Date Bars.

Purchases via the Amazon links below generate small commissions for this website.

The recommendaton was spot on! Sue appreciated the effort and the research. We all enjoyed the snack. Another colleague said about the date bars this year, “I love that the crust tastes buttery.” Sue, with long standing family ties to Canada, told us that our American Date Bars are often called Matrimonial Cake in Canada. The blog Little Gray Bird offers some reasons for the name.

It appears to be a western Canadian thing to refer to date squares as matrimonial cake.  Some feel it is called matrimonial cake because of the two separate layers brought together by dates which symbolizes two people courting and solidifying the relationship in marriage.  Others feel that the smooth and rough textures of the date squares represent the easy and difficult times of a marriage.  Some believe that it was individually wrapped, handed out at weddings, and then single gals would place it under their pillow and dream about their future husband.

date bars on a slab of slate

 

For the last two Decembers, I’ve made two pans of date bars, matrimonial cake, one for work, one for my cookie tray at home on Christmas morning. I can tell you that they freeze well and can easily be made vegan, substituting something like Earth Balance for the butter.

Whether you decide to make them with butter or a vegan version, I hope you and your friends will enjoy.

Smacznego!

Lois

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Simple, wholesome date Bars, Matrimonial cake in Canada

Date Bars, Matrimonial Cake

  • Prep Time: 30 mins
  • Cook Time: 30 mins
  • Total Time: 1 hour
  • Yield: 36
  • Category: Dessert
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Description

A wholesome, fruit filled dessert in about an hour!

Ingredients

  • 3 cups chopped pitted dates (1 lb)
  • 1 1/2cups water
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 1 cup packed brown sugar
  • 1cup butter, softened (or Earth Balance for vegan version)
  • 1 3/4 cups flour
  • 1 1/2 cups quick-cooking oats
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 400
  2. Combine dates, water, and 1/4 cup sugar over low heat until thickened, stirring constantly, about 10 minutes
  3. Cool 5 minutes
  4. Grease the bottom and sides of 13×9-inch pan
  5. Cream the brown sugar and butter until well mixed
  6. Stir in flour, oats, baking soda and salt until crumbly
  7. Press half of the crumb mixture evenly in bottom of pan
  8. Spread the date mixture over the bottom crust
  9. Top with remaining crumb mixture; press lightly
  10. Bake 25 to 30 minutes or until light brown
  11. Cool 5 minutes in pan
  12. Cut into 6 rows by 6 rows while warm

Notes

Recipe can be halved and made in a 8×8-inch square pan.

 

Stary Browar Apple Almond Tart

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This was my second effort to recreate an apple almond tart sampled, almost accidentally, in a little pastry shop in Stary Browar (Old Brewery) Mall in Poznań on my very first trip to Poland.  It’s not quite szarlotka, not quite an American apple pie, but you know I love anything with almonds!
Apple almond tart--almond crust topped with glazed apples and a marzipan lattice

We were in the mall, late one evening; some shops were already closing.  We’d been there to have dinner with Ed’s American colleagues. An acquaintance from Tucson, who worked for another company, was meeting us to give us the lay of the land.

We weren’t quit ready to return to our hotel across the street, so we shared a slice of an apple tart and watched the crowds go by.  (My husband had read that some of the best apple pie in the world can be found in Poznań, so we sampled a lot of apple pie in search of the best.)

Apple almond tart

Before we finished it, we knew that this tart was one that we’d want to have again.  I’m glad that we started to analyze and make note of its construction because it wasn’t available on subsequent trips. I popped in a couple of times to check and never saw it again.

The first time I made this was for extended family at Christmas. Later that year, my brother, who is an excellent cook, called to get the recipe.  The fact that he wanted to serve this to guests was flattering and confirmation that I was on to something special with this apple almond tart!
I hope you will love this apple almond tart as much as we do.
Smacznego!
Lois
 
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Stary Browar Apple Almond Tart

  • Author: Polish Housewife
  • Category: Dessert
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Description

A wonderful almond crust, topped with glazed apples and a marzipan lattice.

Ingredients

for crust

  • 1/2 cup almond slices
  • 2 tablespoons sugar
  • 1 cup flour
  • 2 tablespoons powdered sugar
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 cup butter, chilled
  • 1 egg yolk, beaten

for filling

  • 5 Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored and sliced
  • 1 cup water
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1 teaspoon lemon juice
  • 3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
  • apricot preserves
  • 1 tube marzipan

Instructions

for crust

  1. Preheat oven to 350
  2. Spread almond slices out in baking sheet, bake about 5 minutes or until golden brown
  3. In food processor, with steel blade, process toasted almonds and sugar, until finely ground
  4. Add flour, powdered sugar, and salt, process just a few seconds to combine
  5. With processor running, add butter one tablespoon at a time, run until incorporated
  6. Add egg yolk
  7. This should provide enough moisture to make the ingredients come together in a ball of dough
  8. Pat dough into a 9 inch buttered tart pan (pan with removable side)
  9. Prick dough with fork, bake about 20 minutes at 350
  10. Cool

for filling

  1. In a saucepan, combine apples, water, sugar, lemon juice, and cinnamon
  2. Simmer until apples are tender but still holding their shape. (I usually like to use two kinds of apples in a pie, but the softer, sweeter apples tended to go mushy, so I’m sticking to Granny Smiths with this tart.)
  3. Drain apples
  4. Place apples in crust
  5. Heat apricot preserves (I ended up using about half of a 23 oz. jar)
  6. Strain preserves, generously brush this hot, thin, apricot jelly over the apples
  7. Roll out marzipan to 1/8 inch; cut into long thin strips
  8. Top apples with a marzipan lattice, made by laying out the strips in a criss-cross pattern
  9. Broil or brown with a torch until the marzipan just begins to change color
  10. Chill until serving

Szarlotka (Polish Apple Pie)

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Szarlotka (Polish apple pie) is a staple found in every cafe and bakery. Imagine my surprise when I looked back and realized that, although we have eaten a lot a szarlotka in  Poland, I’ve never prepared one.

Apple pie is one of Ed’s favorites, so I thought it would make a nice breakfast for his birthday. Even more surprising was the fact that none of my many Polish cookbooks had a szarlotka recipe, so I put out a plea on PH’s facebook page and asked folks to link me to their favorite recipe. I now have several to try! 🙂

Szarlotka (Polish Apple Pie) on cake plate with Granny Smith apples in background

I picked this one because it was 8 PM, I was getting a late start, and it seemed the simplest. Thanks to my friend Barbara for allowing me to share this recipe. I’ll be making the others in the future. What fun we’ll have taste testing!

Szarlotka vs. Apple Pie

Szarlotka is different than American apple pie in both the crust and the filling and tends to be less sweet. After looking at all of these szarlotka recipes, I now know that szarlotka differs from szarlotka! Some have raisins and almonds, some have meringue on top, some get a crumble topping.

We like this dessert even better on the second day. The flavors just meld! So that’s my recommendation, make this the day before you intend to serve it.

I’m a big fan of dishes that can be made in advance. As for the filling, it’s only apples.

I’ve edited a bit by adding cinnamon, but that’s it, no sugar in the filling, just what goes into the crust. We enjoyed this szarlotka; I know we’ll make it again.

If you’d rather not deal with rolling out a pie crust, this is the dessert for you! You can just pat it into the pan. If you think this recipe looks like a winner, how about sharing the love and passing it along to your friends?

Polish Apple Pie, Szarlotka, dusted with powdered sugar

Szarlotka with Meringue

Why add meringue to szarlotka, you may ask. Well, the meringue adds a bright pop of bright white color to an otherwise beige dessert.

It’s adds a creamy texture and additional interest to an otherwise already delicious dessert. The recipe calls for egg yolks in the crust, with just a slight modification, we can use an equal number of egg whites in the topping. (I sometimes freeze extra egg whites for another use, but it’s nice when you don’t have to.)

As I share in the meringue variation (second recipe card below), instead of 1 egg and 2 egg yolks in the crust, when I make this with meringue, I just use 4 egg yolks in the crust and 4 egg whites for the meringue.

To be clear, this recipe is perfectly fabulous on its own (first version below), but if  you want to try a variation or you’re cooking for someone whose favorite szarlotka involves meringue, I’ve got you covered in the second recipe that follows.

Smacznego!

Lois

(Amazon pays me a few cents for purchases via these links)

 

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Szarlotka (Polish Apple Pie)

★★★★★ 5 from 10 reviews
  • Prep Time: 50 mins
  • Cook Time: 50 mins
  • Total Time: 1 hour 40 mins
  • Yield: 8
  • Category: Dessert
  • Cuisine: Polish
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Description

A quick and easy version of Poland’s apple pie

Ingredients

  • 2 cups flour (250 g)
  • 1 cup sugar (200 g)
  • 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
  • 9 tablespoons butter (125 g)
  • 1 egg
  • 2 egg yolk
  • 2 1/4 pounds Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored, & sliced (1 Kg)
  • 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 350 F (180 C)
  2. Combine the flour, sugar, and baking powder
  3. Cut in the butter (with a pastry blender, two knives, or rub into flour with fingers) until it resembles coarse meal
  4. Work in egg and egg yolk, the dough will be crumbly, cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes
  5. Reserve 1/3 of the crust, pat the remaining 2/3 into a 9 inch springform pan, covering the bottom and the sides
  6. Toss the sliced apples in the cinnamon, and add to the pan, piling them up
  7. Crumble the remaining 1/3 crust and sprinkle over the apples
  8. Bake for about 50 minutes, until crust is lightly brown and the apples are tender, if it seems to be getting brown before the apples are tender, loosely tent with aluminum foil

Notes

You could add some ground almonds on top of the crust before the apples or mix in 1/2 of raisins or dried cranberries with the apples.

Variation – recipe #2 with meringue:

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Szarlotka z Bezą (Polish Apple Pie with Meringue)

  • Author: polishhousewife
  • Prep Time: 60 min
  • Cook Time: 1 hour 15 min
  • Total Time: 2 hours 15 minutes
  • Yield: 9-inch pastry
  • Method: Baking
  • Cuisine: Polish
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Description

A lightly sweet Polish apple pie topped with a light cloud of meringue

Ingredients

  • 2 cups flour (250 g)
  • 1 cup sugar (200 g)
  • ¾ teaspoon baking powder
  • 9 tablespoons butter (125 g)
  • 4 egg yolks
  • 2¼ pounds Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored, & sliced (1 Kg)
  • ½ teaspoon cinnamon
  • 4 eggs whites
  • 2 tablespoons sugar

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 350 F (180 C)
  2. Combine the flour, sugar, and baking powder
  3. Cut in the butter (with a pastry blender, two knives, or rub into flour with fingers) until it resembles coarse meal
  4. Work in egg yolks, the dough will be crumbly, cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes
  5. Reserve ⅓ of the crust, pat the remaining ⅔ into a 9 inch springform pan, covering the bottom and the sides
  6. Toss the sliced apples in the cinnamon, and add to the pan, piling them up
  7. Cover and seal the top of the pan with aluminum foil
  8. Bake for about 50 – 60 minutes, until crust is lightly brown and the apples are tender
  9. Remove from oven, remove foil
  10. Beat egg whites until you have soft peaks
  11. Continue beating and gradually add 2 tablespoons sugar, beat until you have stiff, glossy peaks
  12. Spread meringue over szarlotka, crumble the remaing crust and sprinkle over the meringue
  13. Return to the oven and bake for another 15 minutes
  14. Cool

Keywords: szarlotka Polish apple pie meringue beza

Bacon Wrapped Figs

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figs, bacon, goat cheese on a bed of greens with a roasted hazelnut vinaigrette 

For most of my life, I have not been a fan of figs. I remember a eccentric church member, we’ll call her REW, stopping by my office years ago with a basket full of figs that she’d hoped to give away. When I declined, REW cut off a hunk of fig, shoved it at me saying, “taste it!” She forced me at knife point, so to speak. Despite her forceful nature, I again had to decline, explaining the the texture was too gritty for me. REW proceeded down the office hallway with her figs looking for a more appreciative recepient.

 

Figs goat cheese bacon greens hazelnut bacon wrapped figs

The theme of our time in Poland could be described as “try new things” or “try everything you can.” When my friends from the Poznan International Ladies Club were raving about the figs with goat cheese wrapped in prosciutto they’d sampled recently, I had to give this a try at home. If your history with figs has been like mine, let me suggest that you try them roasted. It’s a totally new experience, not at all gritty!

We began to talk about planting a fig tree when we returned to Arizona. Figs are one of the few fruit trees to thrive in our hot climate. When I mention his to my mother, she said not to buy one because they had a fig tree they would happily give us. We now have a fig tree that comes with a story.

Fig tree Figs

Our tree has grown from a cutting taken from one of the first fig trees brought to the area by the Spainish. The young tree was intended for the Mission Garden, part of the Rio Nuevo project. Rio Nuevo was a downtown revitalization project that fizzled out during the recent economic slump. During this delay, the little fig in a six inch pot was given to our family friend, the late Bunny Fontana. Bunny was a brilliant, charming man, but he would have been the first to admit that he was not a gardener. He said as much when he gave the six inch pot with the now five foot tall fig tree to my mother.

My parents moved the tree to a 5 gallon container and had hoped to harvest enough figs to make something similar to this dish, thinking it would be fun to serve Bunny figs from his tree. The tree grew a lot, but it never produce more than one ripe fig at a time.

Figs

Our fig tree has been in the ground for almost two years. The one fig at a time trend continued until this summer. Now, we’re finally getting a harvest with which you can do something. This summer, we’ve had fig pastries, figs in bacon, and if my luck holds out, we might even have fig jam, a wonderful addition to a charcuterie platter.

We’ve been eating bacon wrapped figs with goat cheese all summer, but only recently added the hazelnut dressing and greens. It’s a winning combination!

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Bacon Wrapped Figs

  • Prep Time: 5 mins
  • Cook Time: 25 mins
  • Total Time: 30 mins
  • Yield: 8
  • Category: Appetizer
  • Cuisine: Mediterranean
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Description

Quick and easy to make these figs are a yummy appetizer or the perfect topping for an elegant salad,

Ingredients

  • 4 figs
  • Honey (optional)
  • 1/2 cup goat cheese
  • Sprig of fresh thyme
  • 4 slices bacon, cut in half crosswise

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 350
  2. Remove stems from figs and slice in half lengthwise
  3. Fill the cavity in the fig center with honey, if using
  4. Top each fig half with a tablespoon of goat cheese
  5. Sprinkle with thyme leaves, if using
  6. Wrap each fig with half of a bacon strip and secure with a toothpick
  7. Bake for 25 minutes or until bacon is crisp
  8. Serve as is, or place atop a bed of spring greens and drizzle with roasted hazelnut vinaigrette (recipe below)

 

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Roasted Hazelnut Vinaigrette

  • Prep Time: 5 mins
  • Total Time: 5 mins
  • Yield: About 1 cup
  • Category: Salad dressing
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Description

The perfect topping for a green salad or try it on grilled chicken!

Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup toasted hazelnuts
  • 1 clove garlic
  • 3/4 cup olive oil
  • 1/4 cup red wine vinegar
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/8 teaspoon black pepper
  • 1 teaspoon sugar
  • Water, if needed

Instructions

  1. Add hazelnuts and garlic to a food processor or blender, process until almost smooth
  2. Add oil, vinegar, salt, pepper, and sugar and blend until well combined
  3. If too thick, thin with a few drops of water

 

Homemade liqueurs

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Making liqueurs is a national pastime in Poland. When fruits are in season during the summer, everyone (from grandma on the farm to the 30-something foodie in the city) is putting up cordials to be consumed when temperatures begin to drop. When we were packing our bags to move back to the United States last December, two friends brought us bottles to slip into our luggage — one cherry, the other white plum! Five months later, those gifts are just a fond memory. One that I’m glad we were able to share with stateside friends and family.

Homemade cherry liqueur

Cherries are are starting to make an appearance in our supermarkets, so it’s been time to re-supply, making a big batch for special occasions to come. You can bet that we’ll be on the lookout for white plums too. We fell in love with white plum jam in France last summer. When I mentioned this use for white plums to a Polish friend who had lived in France, she suggested that while jam was fine, a cordial made with white plums was much better. She was right! 😉

cherry liqueur, Wisniak, wiesniak

Having made my own cherry liqueur when we lived in Poland, I was inspired by local chefs who are turning out housemade flavored moonshines. Using my basic technique, I copied their flavors and cocktails. Blueberry lemonade or apple pie ginger beer, anyone?

In thinking back about making infused vodkas, I must share a cultural difference. When I was home the first time after moving to Poland, I ordered a drink at our local brewpub, it was an Arnold Palmer (iced tea and lemonade) spiked with vodka infused with some sort of Jolly Rancher (a fruit flavored candy, that tastes so bad that I’m surprised that they’re still in business). I was disappointed in the cocktail and told a bartender friend about it when I returned to Poland. I said that I wantedy to try making it with a better tasting fruit candy, maybe skittles or starburst. The young man looked at me as if to say, no, silly woman, and then shared this Polish wisdom “make it with real fruit; it will be beautiful.”

I hope I’ve inspired you to try making your own flavored vodkas. Nothing makes a guest feel more honored than when you pull out a bottle of a homemade liqueur.

 

Citrus Marmalade

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A thick, bittersweet mixed citrus marmalade made with oranges, lemons, and grapefruit complete lots of ideas on how to use it.

I’m not a Master Gardner, and I haven’t discussed this with friends who are. I’m going on my own observations when I say that fruit production has cycles. A bumper crop seems to be followed by sparse year. I guess it gives the tree a chance to rest, or maybe it has to do with the weather.

Citrus marmalade with grapefruit, orange and lemon. Easy to make and with lots of ideas on how to use your marmalade!

This season has been a grand year for our friends’ citrus trees. We were recently the lucky recipients of bags of fresh picked, juicy grapefruit, lemons, and oranges. Thanks Julie and Kevin! Ed and I had a marathon day of zesting and juicing lemons for the freezer. While we were at it, I started searching the Internet for a potential recipe for marmalade. We didn’t have the usual bitter oranges for marmalade, but I thought maybe some combination of the fruit would be tasty.

Apparently, others have thought so too. I found several recipes using our combination of fruit. I ended up using Marisa’s from Food in Jars. The one change I made was adding some pectin. It maybe that I didn’t cook the mixture long enough, maybe my candy thermometer wasn’t working, but it just didn’t thickening up until I added a packet of pectin.

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Citrus Marmalade

  • Prep Time: 1 hour
  • Cook Time: 1 hour
  • Total Time: 2 hours
  • Yield: 4 pints
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Description

A bitter sweet spread with all kinds of uses!

Ingredients

  • 2 pink grapefruit
  • 3 lemons
  • 6 oranges (these were small)
  • 6 cups sugar
  • 4 cups of reserved poaching liquid
  • 1 packet of pectin

Instructions

  1. Wash and dry the fruit
  2. Revoe the zest with a vegetable peeler
  3. Sticking several slices of zest on top of each other, slice across the zest, making 1/8 to 1/4 inch shreds
  4. Put the zest into a pan with 6 cups of water
  5. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes
  6. Slice the top and bottom off of the fruit and slice off the white pith
  7. Carefully slice on either side of the membranes
  8. Remove fruit segments
  9. Save the membranes and seeds and tie them up in cheesecloth making a little bundle
  10. Strain the zest and save the cooking liquid
  11. Add the sugar to a Dutch oven add, the fruit segments, 4 cups of the cooking liquid, the cooked zest, and the cheesecloth bundle with the membranes and seeds (for the natural pectin they offer)
  12. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer, stirring occasionally
  13. Cook until the temperature reaches 220 F
  14. While this is cooking, sterilize the jars and lids, by putting them in a large pan, cover with water and bring to a boil, simmer for 10 minutes, remove
  15. When the marmalade reaches 220, remove the cheesecloth and stir in the pectin
  16. Fill the jars, wipe the rim, add lids (and rings)
  17. Place in a water bath (half way up the jars, bring to a gentle simmer, then cool
  18. Check to make sure the lids sealed (no movement when you press on the lid) and the lids are tight

Are are you wondering what you might do with all that marmalade? Here are a few suggestions:

  • glaze a cake
  • on pancakes or crepes
  • a topping for goat cheese and crackers
  • a glaze for meat or fish
  • a filling for cookies
  • stir a spoonful into a cup of hot tea

Do you have anything to add to this list? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

10 Apple Recipes for ‪#‎jedzjablka‬

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# jedzjablka collage

#Jedzjablka #Eatapples – take that Putin!

The Russians have placed an embargo on fruit and vegetables from Poland. Officially, it’s because of concerns about “public health,” but in reality, it is seen as retaliation for the European Union’s economic sanctions because of what’s going on in Ukraine.

If you’re in the United States, you may not have heard much about Russia’s invasion and annexation of Eastern Ukraine. It’s very close to home for us here in Poland. I was shocked and disappointed on a recent visit to the US that TV news spent more time talking about their own facebook page and the Kardashians than this international incident. Enough of my rant, back to apples.

Poland is the world’s leading exporter of apples, in a recent growing season, 1.2 million tons of apples were shipped aboard. Over half of those were sent to Russia.

Poland has responded with ‪#‎jedzjablka‬ (hastag eat apples), a media campaign encouraging people to not only buy and eat apples, but to post photos of themselves doing so with the hashtag #jedzjablka to protest the embargo. The selfie goes political! If you google the hashtag and check out the images you’ll see everyone eating apples, football teams, businessmen, babies, dogs – all with an apple. An article making the rounds proclaims An Apple a Day Keeps the Doctor Russians Away. 

Facebook groups have popped up in the last week, such as this one, encouraging everyone to eat apples to annoy Putin. Maybe it’s because Ed was on active duty during the Cold War or maybe it’s because I remember the excitement in the Officer’s Club on a Friday night during the 1980 Winter Olympics and the Miracle on Ice, but I have a desire to annoy Putin in my own little way.  Here are 10 apple recipes (in no particular order) to help you #jadzjablka eat apples and support Poland’s apple growers.

 

Apple Pie Flavored Vodka

Dried Apples

Apple Pie

Apple Butter

Poached Apple with Sweet and Sour Beets

Zubrowka Vodka with Apple Juice

Baked Apples

Apple Galette 

French Apple Tart

Apple Almond Tart

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

White Plum Jam

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plum jam recipe

I remember loving plum jam as a teenager. It seemed like a rare thing at the time, when the rest of the world was taken with grape jelly. White plum jam has a fruity tartness that sets it above the rest in my mind.

One of the stops on our recent road trip was a B&B in the Loire Valley, The Chancellerie in Huismes. Our hosts were the brand new owners, recently relocated from Paris. Every morning, Bertrand would make a trip to the local bakery, and a basket with croissants and a sliced up baguette would be waiting for us. His wife, Claire, provided  a wonderful selection of homemade jams, our favorite of which was made from Mirabelle plums, a yellow skinned plum that grows in Eastern France. There was much more to our breakfast, but these baked goods and jam were the highlight to me.

white plums, yellow plums

When I saw these plums at our local market in Poznan,  I had to try making jam. I don’t know if these are Mirabelle plums, but I can tell you, they made a fine jam. This is definitely something I’ll do more of when we get home. Right now, I’m thinking about the fact that we’re moving back to the US in five months. No point in filing up the pantry with jam now.

I had some sugar that is made especially for making jams. It has pectin added, and you simply add two parts fruit and one part of the pectin sugar. So this really was an exercise in using up bits and bobs that have collected in the pantry over the years. 🙂

Before I get to the recipe, I’ll be perfectly honest and tell you that my pantry, in our small Polish apartment is actually a large cardboard box that sits in the hallway closet. I keep all of my baking paraphernalia, from vanilla extract to candied cocoa nibs, in the box because there’s no room for them in our little blue kitchen.

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plum jam recipe

White Plum Jam

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Description

A colorful, sweet and tart jam

Ingredients

  • 600 g white plums
  • 300 g sugar with pectin 2:1

Instructions

  1. Cut fruit in half and remove stone
  2. Put the plum halves in a saucepan and cover, cook over medium heat for 15 minutes
  3. Add the sugar with pectin and continue cooking uncovered, stirring frequently, about 20 more minutes, until mixture gels up when you place a dab on a cold plate.
  4. Pour into sterile jars and refrigerate after cooling.

Notes

I made a small amount that I knew would be eaten soon. If you’re making a large batch, you’ll want to properly can the jam or seal with a thick layer of paraffin.

If this sugar isn’t available in your area, use the fruit and sugar proportions suggested on your favorite brand of pectin.

white plum jam recipe