I don’t have a specific recipe for the marmalade, since I’m partial to the “throw it in a pot and see” school of canning. But here’s what I did:

Wash your limes well and halve them lengthwise. Juice the limes and slice the rind very thinly. Put it all into a big measuring cup until you have a volume that is about half as much as you’d like to end up with. (So, to make about four 8-ounce jars, juice and slice about 2 cups of limes. This is woefully approximate.) Peel and grate a tidy pile of fresh ginger.

Pour the limes and ginger into a sturdy stainless steel or enameled pot along with a roughly equal amount of sugar (maybe a tad bit less) and just a splash of water. Bring the mixture to a boil then turn off the heat and let it sit for several hours or overnight.

When you are ready to can, bring the mixture back to a boil and then let it simmer until it “gels.” This should take at least 15-20 minutes, depending on the volume. Keep stirring, and keep it from boiling, or you will end up with burned marmalade. To test for gel, chill a teaspoon in the freezer, scoop out a little from the pot and stick it in the fridge. If it sets up into a nice jamlike consistency within a few minutes, it’s ready.

While the marmalade is cooking, sterilize your jars and get your hot-water-bath canner ready as per these instructions. Essentially, you want your jars to be clean and hot, and your lids simmering so they will weld with the jars. Fill the hot jars with hot marmalade, leaving 1/2 inch “headspace” at the top. Seal tightly and process them in your boiling water bath for at least 10 minutes, but no more than 15. Remove the jars and let cool. The lids should pop when the seal is complete, and your marmalade is shelf-stable.

Makes 1 loaf

3/4 cup canned cranberry sauce
1 cup persimmon puree
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1 1/2 cups unbleached flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon (or more!) cinnamon
2 Tbs canola oil
1  egg
1/2 to 3/4 cup sugar (depending on the sweetness of your cranberry sauce)
1 teaspoon vanilla

1. Grease a 9″x5″x3″ loaf pan with vegetable oil and lightly flour it.  Heat oven to 350F.

2. Stir the cranberry sauce, persimmon and walnuts together and set the mixture aside.

3. In a mixing bowl, whisk together the flours, baking powder and soda, salt and cinnamon.

4. In another bowl, whisk together the oil, egg, sugar and vanilla until well combined. Pour it into the dry ingredients and stir gently. Add the cranberry mixture and stir well until  there are no dry bits left.

5. Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan. Run a knife lengthwise down the loaf, through the batter.

6. Bake about 50 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean. Serve it with cranberry sauce, if you have even more left!

I followed my previously posted recipe, with just a few tweaks to accommodate the pile of protein. Since I didn’t have a frozen bag of fish heads awaiting me in the freezer, as my Spanish roommate always did, I went to my local fishmonger and for $1 I bought a halibut carcass, which I boiled with onions and garlic to make a potently oceanic broth. The broth is your foundation, and it’s extremely important not to skimp on it–you are shelling out for pricey seafood and saffron (I use Penzey’s Spanish saffron, which is aromatic but not flowery), so why ruin it with nasty packaged broth?

For this variation, I started by dicing the chorizo (Spanish, not Mexican–try Dona Juana’s brand) and frying it in olive oil until browned. I scooped it out with a slotted spoon and proceeded with the chicken and squid as per the posted recipe. In the final moments, I added the shrimp and prawns, so they cooked briefly and finished up during the all-important 5-minute rest period. I served the paella with a simple Spanish-esque salad (they aren’t big on salads over there…), made with Romaine hearts and roasted red pepper strips, dressed with a gently spiced yogurt dressing. Que delicioso!

Crush or finely mince garlic and saute it in some olive oil in a wide, non-reactive pan. Just when it starts getting aromatic, toss in some crushed dried or minced fresh oregano. Using a food mill, grind your fresh yellow tomatoes into the pan and simmer until the flavors meld. Season with salt and, if your tomatoes lack acidity (ours did), squeeze a bit of lemon juice overall. (A friend recommends lemon zest, which I haven’t tried.) Toss with pasta and enjoy the lingering taste of summer!

For this recipe, he says “I used rhubarb I had blanched and frozen because as it turns out, rhubarb and raspberries are not ripe at the same time.  Defrosting rhubarb creates a good amount of rhubarb water/juice, which happens to make delicious cocktails (like with the rhubarb water, some mashed raspberries, a small amount of pineapple juice, lots of ice and lots of rum).”

Makes about 8 8-ounce jars of jam

8 cups rhubarb, chopped (fresh or frozen)
8 cups raspberries
4 cups sugar

1. The night before making jam, toss the rhubarb and two cups of sugar in pot big enough to add the raspberries later, and leave it covered at room temperature.

2. The next day,  add the raspberries, mash with a potato masher and slowly bring the mixture to a boil.  When it boils, add the remaining two cups of sugar and keep boiling until it gels.  (Notes Jake: “Nice thing is, it hits gel really quickly, which I think is because the blanching and freezing ends up removing a fair amount of juice from the rhubarb.  The jam ends up with an amazing bright color and feeling on the preserves end of things.”)

3. While the fruit is cooking, sterilize your jars and get your hot-water-bath canner ready as per these instructions. Essentially, you want your 8-ounce jelly jars to be clean and hot, and your lids simmering so they will weld with the jars. Fill the hot jars with hot jam, leaving 1/2 inch “headspace” at the top. Seal tightly and process them in your boiling water bath for at least 10 minutes, but no more than 15. Remove the jars and let cool. The lids should pop when the seal is complete, and your jams are shelf-stable!

Thanks again Jake..and happy canning everyone!

Serves 2
(Can be doubled)1 1/2 cups cornmeal (or a mixture of 1 cup cornmeal and 1/2 cup polenta, for more texture and a stronger flavor)
1 1/2 cups boiling water
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup almond, soy or cow milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Vegetable oil
1 tablespoon sugar (or to taste)
1 cup fresh blueberries (or frozen, defrosted and drained. Save the juice for something!)

1. Combine the cornmeal, water and salt in a medium bowl. Let sit for 10 minutes.

2.  Stir in the milk until a smooth batter forms (roughly the thickness of cake batter). Add the vanilla, 2 tablespoons oil, and the sugar. When well-combined, stir in the blueberries.

3. Heat a skillet or heavy frying pan over medium-high heat and grease it lightly with vegetable oil. When hot (a drop of batter should sizzle and jump on the pan’s surface), scoop about 1/4 cup of batter onto the skillet per cake (or less if you like smaller pancakes) and smooth it out. Even thickness is important for even cooking.

4. Fry the cakes for about 4 minutes per side, until quite golden and crispy.

We’ve now been making sorbet sodas at home whenever the temperature rises about 70, spiking them with booze just to make things more interesting. Dreamy combos include chocolate sorbet with Bailey’s, and strawberry sorbet with limoncello. Here’s what you do:

Fill a tall soda, beer or milkshake glass with two good-sized scoops of sorbet (or sherbet or ice cream) and drizzle lightly with some liqueur if you’re in the mood. Raspberry sorbet with Cointreau? Mango sorbet with creme de banana? Chocolate with peppermint schnapps? Experiment! Pour in enough seltzer or club soda to almost fill the glass, then gently muddle the sorbet with a tall spoon until the drink is foamy and slushy. Top off with seltzer, then whipped cream if you like (you will like, trust me). Stick a straw in there, and enjoy. (Rude straw-sucking noises are to be expected.)

Pit and roughly chop two pounds of very ripe apricots. Put them in a big pot with the juice of 1 lemon, 1/2 cup sugar and 1/2 cup unfiltered apple juice. Throw in half an apple, cut into 4 pieces. Stir and cook over medium-high heat until it starts to bubble, then reduce heat to very low and let cook for about 3 hours, stirring every so often. Cool slightly, pour into a quart jar, cool it some more, then cap it and put it in the fridge. The tangy-sweet preserves are perfect for toast, yogurt, ice cream, or just by the spoonful, as a daily reminder of why summer is so nice. This will keep for about 3 weeks in the fridge.

For the kebabs, you will need roughly 1 pound of fish per 4 people (have your fishmonger cut it into large cubes). Put the fish cubes in a large bowl along with summery vegetables: cubed zucchini and bell peppers, whole cherry tomatoes and mushrooms. To make the marinade, combine mayonnaise (or egg-free veganaise) in a small bowl with lemon juice, a ton of curry powder, and pressed garlic. The quantities are to taste, but for 1 pound of fish and roughly 2 pounds of vegetables, I used three very heaping tablespoons of mayo, the juice of half a lemon, 1 heaping tablespoon curry powder, and 4 small cloves of garlic. Toss the fish and veggies with the marinade and let sit for a couple of hours, covered, in the fridge. When ready to grill, thread onto skewers and have at it! On a hot grill, they take about 15 minutes to cook, depending on the fish.