Sunday, August 03, 2008

Just Peachy, or was it a Pear?

I actually got a little time to play in the kitchen this evening and I only had one thing on my mind: Vanilla Pear Cardamom

You see, ever since Ohiomom at Cooking in Cleveland mentioned her Cardamom Pear freezer jam, I've wanted to make it. It just sounded...so good! But life, jobs, and remodels all got into the way.

But being me, I wanted to tweek Ohiomom's recipe a little by adding a scraped vanilla bean into the mix. I was sure the results would be deeply vanilla, with a slight tang, then an exotic spiciness. But I was disappointed. The jam was just too vanilla-y and cardamom-y, and all over just too much "y". I think I've just discovered that I don't like cardamom. Oh, well...I'm sure I'll find somethind to do with 6 half pints!

Back to Wine

We bottled my Lemongrass Mint wine this weekend and it has turned out to be a wonderful surprise. It's a very light, refreshing summer sipper, not hot at all (not too much alcohol). I'm very impressed and think it would be devine with some sort of spicy Thai dish. Each batch of wine I make gets better and better.

Just in case you're wondering, we don't have 500 bottles of wine stacked up in the spare bedroom or anything. So far, the most wine I've gotten from a batch was about 12 to 15 bottles. We do give a lot away, and in fact have to be careful we save some for us!

2 comments:

OhioMom said...

I am sorry you did not care for the jam, half of mine is gone already, but then we love cardamom :)

Just the Right Size said...

Ohiomom, thank you for the inspiration! It was just one of those things...I've never really "had" cardamom on its own, usually it's mixed with something else.

It smelled devine (the powdered spice), but I didn't care for the taste. I'll have to try this recipe again with something tamer, like apple pie spice, or just cinnamon. :-)

 

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