Ginger Lemon Sage Cookies #CreativeCookieExchange

These ginger lemon sage cookies combine ground ginger, lemon and sage for bright tart bites that go perfectly with a cup of tea.

Growing up, my mom never used sage. She said it was a Texas thing and she didn’t like the flavor. I have to admit, that for the most part, I agree. I find dried sage overpowering in stuffing and breakfast sausage. The exception for me is fresh sage. To me, the herby flavor of fresh sage is not at all like dried sage.

A few months ago, at the start of our cooler winter weather here in Dubai, I planted some culinary herbs in a long, deep box outside the living room window. It gets lovely afternoon sun and as a bonus is hooked up to a drip hose on the irrigation system. In past years my basil has been eaten by something – I presumed bugs but could never find any, until one friend said she thought the culprits were birds.

So I trimmed and reshaped a mosquito net to cover the herbs and my handy husband knocked together a couple of wooden slats to attach it to. That put paid to the bird theory. The basil was still munched, but somehow from under the net. In prior years, I had cut the basil back and then the invisible bugs or snails, or whatever they were, moved on to the other herbs.

Fresh sage, anyone? 

This year, I was smarter. Let them eat the basil, I decided. At least I’ll still have parsley, chives, sage, tarragon and thyme. And so I did for a good many glorious months. But as the weather got hotter and hotter, the parsley, chives and thyme succumbed to the heat. Now I have what amounts to an enormous bunch of sage, with a smattering of tarragon.

So what else could I use for my Creative Cookie Exchange recipe when the theme of Herbs in Cookies was announced? If you aren’t a fan of dried sage, I urge you to give fresh sage a chance. And even if you think sage in a cookie is weird, do try these. The lemon and ginger are perfect partners for fresh sage with a little sweetness. All three taste marvelous in these ginger lemon sage cookies.

Ginger Lemon Sage Cookies

Ingredients
1 cup or 125g flour
1/4 cup or 35g cornstarch
2 tablespoons, minced, fresh sage leaves
Zest of small lemon
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup or 113g unsalted butter, at room temp
3/4 cup or 150g sugar
1 large egg
1/4 cup or 60ml fresh lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

For decorating:
1/4 cup or 32g icing sugar
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon water
Small fresh sage leaves

Method
In a medium sized mixing bowl, whisk together your flour, cornstarch, sage, lemon zest, baking powder, ginger, baking soda and salt. This takes the place of sifting your flour and helps aerate it just the same.

In the bowl of your stand mixer or in a large mixing bowl, cream your butter and sugar together until light and pale yellow.

Add in the egg, lemon juice and vanilla extract. Beat again until combined. This may start to look like it’s curdling. Do not be alarmed.

Add in the dry ingredients and beat until combined – just a couple of minutes - scraping the bowl down halfway through.

Cover the bowl with cling film and refrigerate at least an hour or until well chilled.

When your chilling time is almost up, preheat the oven to 350°F or 180°C and line two cookie sheets with baking parchment or silicone liners.

Use a spoon or scoop to divide the soft dough into about 21-23 cookies. I suggest making them smaller rather than bigger because they do spread out. Even this far apart, a few of mine baked together at the edges.

Bake for 9-10 minutes in your preheated oven.

Remove from the oven and leave to cool on the cookie sheets for a few minutes. Use a spatula to transfer the cookies to a wire rack to cool completely.

To decorate the cookies, mix the icing sugar, lemon juice and water together in a small bowl and pick or snip off the prettiest of your smaller sage leaves.

Brush the cookies, one at a time with the glaze, stick on one fresh sage leaf and brush a little more glaze on top.

Leave to dry before stacking. Store in an airtight container. These ginger lemon sage cookies are soft in the middle, almost cake-like, but chewy around the edges.

Enjoy!

If you love baking sweet treats with herbs, this is Creative Cookie Exchange event is just for you. Many thanks to our host this week, Felice, of All That’s Left Are the Crumbs.

Felice is one of my favorite bloggers, and not just because she’s one of the few who are still awake when I get up in the morning. It’s always a joy to chat with her. She’s originally from Australia but lives in gorgeous Honolulu. As well as checking out her blog for tasty dishes, follow her on Instagram for almost daily doses of tropical flowers and scenery.

Check out all the lovely cookies with herbs we’ve been baking for you.

• Anytime Tarragon-Apricot Cookies by All That's Left Are The Crumbs
• Citrus Glitters by What Smells So Good?
• Ginger Lemon Sage Cookies by Food Lust People Love
• Lemon Thyme Wafers by Cream and Butter
• Strawberry Mint Cookies by 2 Cookin' Mamas
• Rosemary Parmesan Cookies by Karen's Kitchen Stories

Creative Cookie Exchange is hosted by Laura of The Spiced Life. We get together once a month to bake cookies with a common theme or ingredient so Creative Cookie Exchange is a great resource for cookie recipes. Be sure to check out our Pinterest Board and our monthly posts at The Spiced Life. We post the first Tuesday after the 15th of each month!

Pin it! 

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Sticky Coffee Chicken

This sticky coffee chicken has a lot going on, from the fresh brewed coffee and the balsamic vinegar to the thick honey and the ripe tomatoes. You don’t really taste a definite coffee flavor but it does add a wonderful smokiness that enriches the sauce.

If you’ve been reading along here for a while, you know that I am a coffee drinker/lover from way back. One of my earliest memories is waking up at my grandmother’s house in New Iberia, Louisiana to the smell of her dark roast. Gram never was a very good sleeper so she was often up when it was still dark, puttering around in the kitchen. Her house smelled delightfully of wood polish and mothballs and rose soap. But in the morning, it smelled of coffee. She would heat milk in a small pot and add some coffee and sugar for a hot drink we called coffee milk. Café au lait.

When my girls were young, I knew that caffeine was not the best thing to give children but how could I deprive them of something so wonderful? We were living in France at the time so I found a decaffeinated instant coffee with chicory (yes, like New Orleans blend) that I mixed in their warm milk in the morning. Cajun children will have coffee milk!

I also love to cook and bake with coffee. You might have seen my rump steak with coffee-wine-balsamic glaze or the salted caramel macchiato muffins that made me write poetry or perhaps even my Liquid Cocaine muffins. Those guys are addictive, no kidding.

Love Vietnamese coffee with condensed milk? You’ll love these muffins that come with a pictorial tour of Vietnam as well. I like cold coffee too! How about some creamy coffee ice cream or coffee concentrate, perfect for making iced coffee quick and easy.

The list goes on but I’ll stop here to tell you that this week my Sunday Supper family is celebrating coffee as an ingredient because International Coffee Day is nigh. If you love coffee like we love coffee, you’ll want to scroll down and check out the list of wonderful recipes we are sharing. But first, make some sticky coffee chicken.

Ingredients
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 lbs or 900g chicken thighs, bone in, skin on
Fine sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 cup or 240ml brewed coffee
1/2 cup or 120ml water, plus more as needed
1/4 cup or 60ml balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup or 60ml honey
1 large ripe tomato
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1-2 teaspoons crushed red pepper flakes
10-12 baby plum tomatoes, whole (Mine weighed 8.8 oz or 250g.)

To serve:
2 tablespoons fresh squeezed lemon juice
Freshly grated lemon zest from 1/2 lemon
Whatever fresh herbs you’ve got – basil, parsley, thyme, etc. All work well to give this dish a lovely fresh lift.

Method
Lightly season your chicken thighs with salt and pepper.

In a large oven-proof skillet, pan fry chicken in olive oil, skin side down, for about five minutes, or until lightly golden.

Turn the chicken thighs over and turn the fire off, leaving the chicken in the pan for now.

Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C.

Chop your one large tomato and measure out your other ingredients.

Remove the chicken to a plate and spoon out most of the oil in the skillet, leaving behind a tablespoon or two.

Add in the chopped tomato, coffee, water, honey, balsamic vinegar and tomato paste to the skillet, along with your crushed red pepper flakes.

Bring to the boil and cook at a low boil for about 5-7 minutes or until the tomato disintegrates and the sauce has reduced and thickened.

Remove from the heat and add the chicken back into the pot, skin side up. Spoon the sauce over the chicken and tuck the baby plum tomatoes in and around the thighs.

Pop the skillet into the preheated oven for 40-45 minutes. Check it at 15-minute intervals and add a little more water if it’s going dry. I added 1/2 cup or 120ml about 15 minutes in and then a splash more at half an hour.

When the chicken thighs are cooked through, remove the skillet from the oven. Sprinkle them with the lemon juice, lemon zest and some chopped fresh herbs before serving.

Enjoy!

Many thanks to our event manager, Shelby of Grumpy's Honeybunch and our host today, Wendy of Wholistic Woman for all their behind the scenes work. Check out all the fabulous coffee recipes our Sunday Supper tastemakers are sharing today.

Beverages

• Bulletproof Coffee My Way by Monica’s Table
• Caramel Turtle Mocha Frappe by The Weekend Gourmet
• Chocolate Chip Mocha Smoothie by Sew You Think You Can Cook
• Chocolate Peanut Butter Banana Latte by Meal Planning Magic

Breakfast

• Apple Crumb Coffee Cake by Dessert Geek
• Banana Blueberry Streusel Coffee Cake by The Freshman Cook
• Cappuccino Overnight Oats by Pies and Plots
• Cardamom-Crumb Coffee Cake by Wholistic Woman
• Cinnamon Coffee Cake (Kaffee Kuchen) by Palatable Pastime
• Coconut & Coffee Gluten Free Scones by Caroline’s Cooking
• Coffee and Cream Cinnamon Buns by Cooking With Carlee
• Maple-Coffee Breakfast Sausage by Cricket’s Confections
• Pumpkin Coffee Cake by The Bitter Side of Sweet
• Pumpkin Spice Latte Breakfast Bites by Beauty and the Beets
• Whole Wheat Pecan Crumb Cake by Family Around The Table

Sides

• Dark Molasses Bread by What Smells So Good?
• Homemade Coffee Baked Beans by Grumpy’s Honeybunch

Main dishes

• Coffee and Garlic Rubbed Pork Chops by Casa de Crews
• Java Dry Spice Rub Chops by Sunday Supper Movement
• Salmon-Mandarin Salad with Asian Vinaigrette & Coffee Dressing by Asian In America
• Sticky Coffee Chicken by Food Lust People Love

Dessert

• Best Coffee Frosting by My World Simplified
• Bittersweet Cremeux with Coffee Caramel and Bourbon Cream by Culinary Adventures with Camilla
• Chocolate Chip Mocha Brownies by Crazed Mom
• Chocolate Coffee Nut Bark by My Imperfect Kitchen
• Coffee Toffee Crunch Cookies by Family Foodie
• Coffee Vanilla Ice Cream Pie by Moore or Less Cooking
• Cold Brew Affogato by Helpful Homemade
• Dark Chocolate Espresso Torte with Strawberry Coulis by Gourmet Everyday
• Eiskaffee (German Coffee with Ice Cream) by Tara’s Multicultural Table
• Espresso Brownie Cupcake Sundaes by A Mind Full Mom
• Mocha Cake with Mocha Rum Icing by Cosmopolitan Cornbread
• Mocha Layer Cake by That Skinny Chick Can Bake
• Mocha Panna Cotta with Mascarpone Cream by The Crumby Cupcake
• NCR Cookies by Girl Abroad
• No Bake Mocha Cheesecake by Hezzi-D’s Books and Cooks
• Polish Black Cake with Whipped Mocha frosting by Hardly A Goddess
• Sweet Cream Affogato by The Redhead Baker

 Pin this Sticky Coffee Chicken!

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Blackberry Lemon Thyme Muffins #MuffinMonday

Blackberry Lemon Thyme Muffins marry a trio of flavors that go so well together in a syrup or in a muffin. First make the syrup then use the leftover blackberry puree to make these fluffy delectable muffins.

Just yesterday, over on the Sunday Supper Movement website, I posted a recipe for blackberry lemon thyme syrup from the new cookbook, Not Your Mama’s Canning Book* by Rebecca Lindamood. I divided the ingredients list by three which made two almost full 8 oz jars of the most delightful ruby syrup, full of flavor and sweetness. But after draining the puree of the syrup, I couldn’t just throw the sweet mashed blackberries away. With Muffin Monday coming up – always the last Monday of the month – I knew just what to do with them!

If you’d like to learn how to can or are already a avid fan of canning, you’ll want to check out my post. Thanks to the Page Street Publishing, Sunday Supper is giving away one copy of Rebecca’s book.

Ingredients
For the blackberry lemon thyme puree and syrup
10 3/4 oz or 300g fresh blackberries
1 1/2 cups or 300g granulated sugar
Juice of 1/2 lemon
1 sprig fresh thyme

For the muffins
2 cups or 250g all purpose flour
3/4 cup or 170g sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup or 240ml milk
1/2 cup or 120ml canola oil
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 large eggs
1/2 cup or 160g blackberry puree
Optional – 12 fresh blackberries for decoration

Method
Follow these instructions to make the blackberry syrup but with the amounts indicated above. Discard the thyme sprig but save the strained blackberry puree to make these muffins. Trust me. That syrup is worth the time and effort.

Preheat oven to 350°F or 180°C. Generously grease cups and top of 12-cup muffin pan or line them with paper liners

In a large mixing bowl, whisk flour, sugar, baking powder, thyme leaves and salt together. In another bowl, whisk together milk, oil, lemon juice, vanilla and eggs.

Add all the milk mixture to flour mixture.

Gently fold just until dry ingredients are moistened.

Drop dollops of the blackberry puree on the batter then use a spatula to swirl them in, leaving streaks of color.

Divide your batter relatively evenly between the 12 muffin cups. Top each with a blackberry, if desired.

Bake 20-25 minutes or until muffins are golden.

Remove from oven and let cool 5-10 before removing muffins from pan.

Enjoy!

Check out all the other muffins we have for you this month!

• Apple Zucchini Muffins by Palatable Pastime
• Blackberry Lemon Thyme Muffins by Food Lust People Love
• Doughnut Muffins by Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Key Lime Pie Muffins (two ways) by Sew You Think You Can Cook
• Lemon Muffins by A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Whole Wheat Pear & Pecan Streusel Muffins (aka the Crack Muffins) by Farm Fresh Feasts
• Plantain Muffins by Passion Kneaded

#MuffinMonday is a group of muffin loving bakers who get together once a month to bake muffins. You can see all our of lovely muffins by following our Pinterest board.

Updated links for all of our past events and more information about Muffin Monday, can be found on our home page.

*Amazon affiliate link

Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy Apple Bundt #BundtBakers

Light yet full of fruit, this easy peasy lemon squeezy apple Bundt reminds me that bright summer sunshine always fades into sweet cooler autumn. Eventually.


Go ahead, laugh with me. Or at me. I deserve it. I made this cake batter twice in two days because the first time, I completely forgot to add the apples in at the end. Yes, they were all peeled and sliced and chopped and just waiting, ready, but I was so taken by the lovely golden yellow batter that I spooned it right in my prepared baking pan – this Duet Bundt* from Nordic Ware – and popped it in the oven. The timer was 10 minutes down before I realized that the apples and lemon juice were still just sitting there. And I temporarily lost my will to live.

So here’s what I can tell you: If you want a simple vanilla lemon cake that doesn’t need a machine to mix and that would bake up beautifully in a Duet pan, just skip the apple steps.

Today, however, there need to be apples. Wendy from A Day in the Life on the Farm is hosting Bundt Bakers this month and she chose apples as our theme. How could I have forgotten to add the one ingredient I have to use? Yeah, I don’t know either.

Once the apples are added, the batter of this delicious easy peasy lemon squeezy apple Bundt is fluffy from the interaction of the baking soda, sour cream and lemon juice so spoon it carefully into your baking pan. We don’t want to lose any of the air inside.

Ingredients for 5- or 6-cup Bundt
1 1/2 cups or 190g flour, plus more for pan
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1-2 apples, depending on size about 170g each (I ended up using 1 1/2 apples)
1/4 cup or 60ml lemon juice
zest 1 lemon
1/3 cup or 75g butter, melted and cooled, plus more for pan
3/4 cup or 150g caster sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup or 115g full fat sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Optional: confectioner’s sugar for decoration

Method
Preheat the oven to 325°F or 163°C. Prepare your 5 or 6 cup Bundt pan by greasing it with butter and coating that with flour.

Zest your lemon and then squeeze the juice into a small mixing bowl, being careful to remove all of the seeds.

Cut the apples in half, core and peel them. Slice them as thinly as you can, then give the whole pile of slices a couple of rough chops. The point here is that we don’t mind some larger pieces, but they should all be thin so they cook faster.  Make sense?

Put the cut apples into the lemon juice bowl and stir well. The acid in the lemon juice will help stop the apples from turning brown as you get on with the rest of the recipe.

Measure your flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt into a large mixing bowl. Add in the butter, eggs, sour cream, lemon zest and vanilla.

Beat well with a whisk, until the batter is smooth and creamy. Resist the urge to eat it. (It’s so good!)

Fold in the chopped apples along with the lemon juice.

Spoon the batter into your prepared pan.

Bake for 35-40 minutes in the preheated oven. Check it occasionally and if the top begins to brown too quickly, you can cover it with some foil.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool for about 15 minutes before attempting to remove the cakes from the pan.

Once completely cool, you can add a light dusting of confectioner’s sugar, if desired.

Enjoy!

Do you love to bake with apples? You are sure to add to your list of favorites when you see what my fellow Bundt Bakers have created this month!

• Apple & Peanut Butter Bundt Cake by Sew You Think You Can Cook
• Apple Almond Coffee Cake with Honey Glaze by A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Apple and Toasted Pecan Bundt Cake with Rum Syrup by Patty's Cake
• Apple Crumble Bundt by Jane's Adventure in Dinner
• Apple French Cruller Bundt Cake by All That's Left Are The Crumbs
• Apple Honey Blossom Bundt by Living the Gourmet
• Apple Sharlotka Bundt Cake by Spiceroots
• Apple Spice Bundt with Salted Caramel Sauce by kidsandchic
• Apple Streusel Bundt Cake by The Freshman Cook
• Apple~Cream Cheese Bundt Cake by The Queen of Scones
• Chocolate Chip Apple Cake by Making Miracles
• Cinnamon Apple Streusel Cake by Tea and Scones
• Cinnamon Pecan Applesauce Bundt Cake by Magnolia Days
• Clotted Cream & Apple Spice Bundt by Baking in Pyjamas
• Double Caramel Apple Bundt by The Crumby Cupcake
• Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy Apple Bundt by Food Lust People Love
• Jewish Apple Cake by I love Bundt Cakes
• Jewish Praline Pecan Apple Cake by Faith, Hope, Love, & Luck Survive Despite a Whiskered Accomplice
• Lighter Jewish Apple Cake by Cookaholic Wife

BundtBakers is a group of Bundt loving bakers who get together once a month to bake Bundts with a common ingredient or theme. Follow our Pinterest board right here. Links are also updated each month on the BundtBakers home page.

Pin Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy Apple Bundt!

   *Amazon affiliate link.

Easy Avocado Lemon Basil Pesto

Loaded with flavor, this creamy pesto made from avocado, basil, thyme, oregano and lemon is meant to be served over pasta. I could just eat it with a spoon!

My friend Kathy Hester of Healthy Slow Cooking has another cookbook on the shelves and I’m delighted to say that I have a copy to give away! This one’s called The Easy Vegan Cookbook (<Amazon affiliate link) and it’s perfect for folks who are short on time but don’t want to skimp on flavor. Typical of Kathy’s books, there aren’t a bunch of weird substitutions for non-vegan ingredients, just great tasting vegetable-centric meals. And who couldn’t use more of those in their diets?

Make sure to scroll to the bottom and leave a comment to enter the cookbook giveaway!

As I mentioned in my Muffin Monday post earlier this week, my younger daughter has been with us all summer. She’s been a good sport about being flexible about what she’ll eat because she is mostly vegetarian, making the rare exception for a good hamburger once in a while. “All hamburgers are good hamburgers” is another of her axioms. But we have eaten more all veggie meals while she’s been here, especially on days when her father is traveling on business. One of her own specialties is pasta with pesto to which an avocado is added just before serving so I knew that Kathy’s Avocado Lemon Basil Pesto would be a hit.

And how! This stuff is good. So good that I just wanted to eat it with a spoon and forget the pasta. But that wouldn’t be much of a meal so I restrained myself and tossed the noodles in it. Still divine - creamy, luscious, bright and beautifully green. We will definitely be making this one again!

Kathy’s instructions say not to let the specialty basil intimidate you. “If you don’t have lemon basil, you can use regular basil and add lemon zest, extra lemon juice or another lemony herb like lemon verbena or lemon balm.”

I couldn’t find lemon basil. Instead I used lemon thyme, adding a few extra sprigs, but I also added the lemon zest along with a little more lemon juice, as suggested.

Recipe ©Kathy Hester from The Easy Vegan Cookbook, included here by permission from Page Street Publishing.

Ingredients
1 medium-sized ripe avocado
1/2 cup (12g) fresh lemon basil leaves (or substitute regular basil)
1 (2 to 4 in [5 to 10cm]) sprig fresh thyme
1 tablespoon (3g) fresh oregano leaves
1 tablespoon (15ml) lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon salt, to taste
Pepper, to taste
1/4 cup (59 ml) water plus more if needed
1/2 lb (227 g) cooked whole-wheat angel-hair pasta (I used regular linguine pasta.)

My optional addition: dried red chili flakes

Method
Scoop out the avocado.

Put the avocado flesh, basil, leaves from the thyme and oregano, lemon juice, salt and water in a blender and blend well until the herbs are puréed.

(I used my hand blender instead, pureeing the avocado with the lemon juice, lemon zest, salt, thyme and oregano first.)

(Then I added in the basil and pulsed again until smooth.)

(I completely forgot the water but we liked the thickness of the pesto and it coated the pasta beautifully! Just look at that gorgeous color!)

The creamy avocado lemon basil pesto with just a couple of teaspoons missing! Sooooooo good!

If the purée is still too thick, add 2 more tablespoons (30 ml) of water and blend again. Toss with the cooked pasta.

One more tip: This pesto comes together in minutes, so put your pasta in the boiling water while you make it. The pesto will be ready to toss with your piping hot, perfectly cooked pasta. You’ll be out of the kitchen before the pesto has time to get too hot!

If you’d like a sneak peek at some of Kathy’s other recipes, check out the links in this line up from some other participants in the cookbook blog tour. Good stuff! Make sure to scroll to the bottom and leave a comment to enter the cookbook giveaway! I've been wanting to try the Creole Okra Corn Soup but I couldn't get any takers at my house for anything okra. So I'm just going to have to make that when I'm home alone. Not a problem because I am sure I can eat the whole pot.

• Asian Corn Cabbage Soup from JL Goes Vegan
• Carrot Dogs from An Unrefined Vegan
• Creole Okra Corn Soup from All Roads Lead to the Kitchen
• One Pot Veggie Vodka Sauce from Vegan Richa
• Zucchini Buckwheat Pancakes from The Veggie Queen
• Cauliflower Po' Boy from Vegan in the Freezer
• Veggie Quinoa Drop Biscuits from We’re Parents!?
• Veggie Potpie Pasta from Bake and Destroy
• Sweet Potato Spice Frozen Latte from A Dash of Compassion

Many thanks to Page Street Publishing for generously donating one copy of Kathy's wonderful book for this giveaway. Please be aware that they will only ship to US or Canadian addresses. You must be 18 or older to enter.

Please leave a comment and tell me why YOU should be the winner of this great cookbook full of delicious recipes - Are you cooking for yourself or for friends and family? - then click on the rafflecopter for other opportunities to enter. Not leaving a comment will disqualify your other entries.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Disclosure: I received one copy of The Easy Vegan Cookbook for review purposes. No other compensation was received. This post contains Amazon affiliate links.

Cherry Lemon Jam

Cherry lemon jam is made with juicy summer cherries and fresh lemon, cooked down with lemon zest and sugar. It's the perfect jammy marriage of sweet and sharp, as delicious on a piece of buttered toast as spooned over cold vanilla ice cream or stirred into a pot of natural yogurt.

One of my pet peeves is waste. That’s not to say that I don’t throw out my share of things in the refrigerator that somehow manage to work their way to the back, get forgotten, and grow legs on occasion, but it makes me sad when that happens. Especially when it’s something I really love to eat.

Here in Dubai, where temperatures rarely fall below an average low winter temperature of 57°F or 14°C, growing cherries, which require a chill time of 700-800 hours in order to flower and produce fruit, is just not an option. So all of the cherries that appear in our supermarkets are flown in at great expense from countries that enjoy near or freezing temperatures in winter.

As you might guess, those costs are passed on to consumers and cherries are crazy expensive to buy here. So one of my favorite summer rituals is buying and eating my not inconsiderable weight in cherries when I am in the States on holiday.

As I packed up to head back to Dubai this summer – and if you follow me on Instagram you know I mean that quite literally – I still had a big bowl of cherries on the kitchen counter. There was just no way I could leave those behind! So I got out the cherry pitter and went to work. Jamming is so much more satisfying than packing suitcases!

Jam making is really easy, with the right tools.
A digital scale and a thermometer are going to simplify the process. One of the secrets to easy fruit jam, that is jam that sets, is to add something acidic, like lemons which have natural pectin, and to cook the fruit with an appropriate amount of sugar until it reaches a temperature of 220°F or 105°C.

Since the amount of sugar depends on the weight of your cooked fruit, I’d like to suggest you buy a digital kitchen scale. < Amazon affiliate link to the one I use, but, honestly, any scale which can toggle between metric and imperial measures will do, giving you the freedom to use recipes from all over the world. (You can measure by volume but weighing is a lot less messy.)

If you don’t have one, may I suggest you get a thermometer as well? < Once again, that's an affiliate link to mine - costs about $14 and I use it ALL THE TIME. A thermometer takes the stress and worry of “will it set?” completely out of the jam making equation. Reaching the proper temperature hasn't failed me yet.

Ingredients
A bunch of cherries (mine weighed 2 lbs 5 oz or 1050g unpitted, with stems, 2 lbs 1 1/2 oz or 950g without pits and stems)
2 small lemons (about one per pound or half kilo of other fruit)
2 tablespoons lemon juice
3/4 teaspoon salt
Sugar - an amount equivalent to 3/4 the weight of your cooked cherries and lemons and their juice – this batch was 2 lbs 2 1/2 oz or 978g – so I used 3 1/2 cups or 734g sugar

Method
Sterilize your jars and lids and put them at the ready, metal teaspoon in each, canning funnel perched in one, before you begin. Sterilize your ladle as well. The amounts given above made two pint jars and one half pint.

Pit your cherries and put them in a large non-reactive pot. (If you have a scale, go ahead and weigh the empty pot first and make a note of the weight for later.) Grate in the zest of your two lemons.

Cut the peels and pith (the white stuff) off of your lemons with a sharp knife. Remove all the seeds and chop the flesh into small chunks.

Scrape the chopped lemons and any juice on the cutting board, into the cherry pot.

Add the extra two tablespoons of lemon juice into the pot.

Cook the pitted cherries and lemons, covered, over a medium flame for about 15 or 20 minutes, until they have released some juice and the cherries have softened.

Use a potato masher to mash them lightly, leaving some cherries whole.

Measure your cooked fruit, juices and all, by volume or weight and then do a little math. Add 3/4 that amount of sugar, along with the salt.

My calculation looked like this:
Pot weighs 1300g empty.
With cooked cherries and lemon, it weighs 2278g.  2278-1300 = 978g.
Weight of cooked fruit and juice = 978g x .75 = 734g or about 3 1/2 cups sugar to add

Cook the fruit, sugar and salt over a medium to high heat, uncovered, till the mixture starts to thicken. Stir frequently and set your thermometer in the pot. Cook quickly until the temperature reaches setting point for jam: 220°F or 105°C.

Quickly ladle the hot, sweet jam into your prepared jars and screw the lids on as tightly as you can manage.

Turn the jars upside down and leave to cool. The scalding cooked fruit further sterilizes the jars and as the jam cools, a suction forms and the lids are firmly sealed. The little circles on the lids should pop in and keep the jam safe for consumption for many months. If any of the seals don’t create a sufficient vacuum and the circles don’t pop in, store those jars in the refrigerator.

Enjoy!

This week I am delighted to be hosting Sunday Supper with my friend and fellow blogger, Heather from Hezzi-D’s Books and Cooks. It’s our goal to encourage everyone to Save Summer Harvest with a number of methods, and in keeping with the mission of Sunday Supper, to enjoy the bounty of summer around your family table for months to come.

Canning

• Blackberry Chia Seed Jam from Books -n- Cooks
• Cherry Lemon Jam from Food Lust People Love
• Chocolate Blackberry Preserves from The Redhead Baker
• Gilded Bluebarb Jam from What Smells So Good?
• Hamburger Dill Chips from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Piri Piri Hot Sauce from Curious Cuisiniere
• Southwestern Salsa from The Freshman Cook
• Spiced Peach Jam from Cosmopolitan Cornbread
• Spiced Vanilla Rhubarb Jam from Hezzi-D's Books and Cooks
• Strawberry Balsamic Syrup from Cindy's Recipes and Writings
• Watermelon Butter from Palatable Pastime

Dehydrating

• Blueberry Peach Fruit Roll-Ups from Cupcakes & Kale Chips
• Dried Pineapple from Take A Bite Out of Boca

Fermentation

• Fermented Spicy Daikon Spears + A Cocktail from Culinary Adventures with Camilla
• Simple Pickled Cabbage from Simply Healthy Family

Freezing

• How to Freeze Blueberries from Pies and Plots
• Peach Crisp from That Skinny Chick Can Bake
• Roast Tomato Soup with Basil-Butter Croutons from Caroline's Cooking
• Summer Veggies from Momma's Meals

Infusing

• Raspberry Vinegar from Magnolia Days

Pickling

• Black Radish Pickles from A Kitchen Hoor's Adventures
• Bread & Butter Pickles from Adventures in All Things Food
• Homemade Bread and Butter Pickles from Life Tastes Good
• Mustard Pickles from Jane's Adventures in Dinner
• Pickled Cherries with Five Spices from Nosh My Way

Preserving in oil or butter

• Garden Herb Butter from An Appealing Plan
• Spinach and Pistachio Pesto from Bobbi's Kozy Kitchen

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Cherry Lemon Muffins #MuffinMonday

Chock full of fresh cherries with a hit of tart lemon, these muffins go equally well with a cup of tea or coffee or even a glass of milk, making breakfast or snack time special. 

I started doing Muffin Monday almost three years ago today with this Banana Bacon Peanut Butter Chip Muffin. Until these last few weeks, when I’ve been traveling, I had not missed a single week since then. Even so, this is my 150th Muffin Monday!  Muffins are so easy to bake. They can be relatively healthy, made with less sugar than a cupcake with none of the cloyingly sweet icing that a cupcake requires, the batter filled with a variety of fruit, nuts and other add-ins like chocolate, bacon, jam and cheese. Yes, the flexible muffin can be sweet or savory. If you tell me you can’t bake, I’m going to suggest you start with muffins. One bowl holds your wet ingredients, the other your dry. Mix them together and bake. Nothing is more simple yet creates a fluffy, tender baked good in under 30 minutes.

For the first time in many years, cherries in Houston are on sale for $1.87 a pound which is less than one dollar per kilo. And I just can’t get enough of them! This muffin is a celebration of the seasonal Bing cherries, brightened with fresh lemon juice and zest. I baked them yesterday morning and, after they cooled, popped them in a plastic container to take along to the beach. It was a lovely day, watching my little nieces seine for fish with their father on Galveston Bay, while chatting with my sister, mother and daughter from the high perch of their beautiful front porch, where the wind cooled us off and the sea view went on forever and ever.

Ingredients
2 cups or 250g flour
1/2 cup or 115g sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 small lemon (for zest and 4 teaspoons juice)
2 eggs
3/4 cup or 180ml milk
1/3 cup or 75ml canola or other light oil
5 2/3 oz or 160g 125g pitted fresh cherries (about 3/4 cup once quartered)

Method
Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C.  Butter or grease your muffin pan or line it with paper liners.

Add the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt into a large mixing bowl.

Grate in the lemon zest and mix.

Juice your lemon. Quarter your cherries and set 12 pieces aside for topping the muffins.

Put the bigger pile of cut cherries in the flour mixture and toss well to cover.

In another smaller bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, oil and lemon juice.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ones and stir until just mixed through.

Divide the mixture between the muffin cups in pan.  Top with reserved cherry quarters.

Bake in your preheated oven for 20-25 minutes or until golden.  Allow them to cool for a few minutes then remove the muffins to a wire rack to cool completely.

Enjoy!