Macerate your fruit...you'll be glad you did.

Ever wonder what it means when one of my recipes suggests you macerate your fruit? Well first of all, it depends on whether you're using fresh or dried fruit for your recipe.

When macerating fresh fruit, the easiest way to great results is to sprinkle sugar over prepared fresh fruit, give it a little stir to be sure each piece of fruit is covered with the sugar, then let it sit for awhile, preferably overnight. The sugar will pull the naturally-sweet juices from the fruit, and the fruit's juices plus the sugar will create a gorgeous syrup.

Fresh Rhubarb, Orange Zest & Fresh Ginger Root 

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Peach~Bourbon Jam & Peach Chipotle BBQ Sauce

Got Peaches?

Yes, that's a BIG peach balanced atop a coconut.

So you've got a few pounds of perfectly-ripe peaches but can't decide whether to make something sweet or spicy?

Make both. I gotcha' covered.

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Spice up your life with my Sweet~Hot Jalapeno Slices

 

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First of all: Do I need to remind everyone to WEAR GLOVES? Latex, rubber, nitrile, vinyl...something to protect you from the Jalapeno peppers' capsaicin oils (specifically, the capsaicin oils binding with vanilloid receptors, all of which are odorless and colorless.) Jalapeno burns are nothing to mess around with.

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Pineapple~Rum Preserves with Dates & Vanilla. Mae West-style.

When Mae West said "Too much of a good thing can be wonderful" she must have been talking about vanilla beans. For me, there's no such thing as using vanilla "too much", or maybe I should say, "too often". This is my third batch of preserves in two weeks -- all different recipes -- that includes vanilla beans.

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