Quick Blackberry Jam

Quick blackberry jam is so easy that you can have homemade jam in less than 25 minutes. Seriously. That doesn’t count cooling time but those extra minutes will teach you patience, young grasshopper. Good things do come to those wait!

If you’ve ever let jam making scare you, this is the recipe you’ll want to try. First, it only makes one jar, so no huge commitment. Second, it only has three ingredients. And finally, but probably most importantly, it’s quick, easy and delicious. And P.S. It's also great in muffins. Get the muffin recipe here.

Quick Blackberry Jam

As I mention in my blackberry jam muffin post, I cannot resist berries on sale. This quick blackberry jam extends their shelf life in a most wonderful, easy way.

Ingredients - for one jar - 1 3/4 cups or 414ml
3 (6 oz or 170g) punnets large blackberries (mine were Driscoll's from Mexico)
2 cups or 400g granulated sugar
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
zest 1/2 lemon
1 1/2 teaspoons or 7g unsalted butter - optional

Method
In your kitchen sink, sterilize one 2-cup or 480ml jar by putting a teaspoon in it and then filling it with just boiled water. Fill its lid as well. Leave to cool while you get on with the jam. I pour the boiling water over my ladle and jar funnel too, just to make sure it’s all sterilized. Once it’s cooled enough to handle, pour the water out of the jar and lid and leave to dry.

Put the clean blackberries in a heavy bottomed pot along with the lemon zest. Mash them with a potato masher until completely pulverized, occasionally using a sharp knife to cut them off of the masher grid.

Add the sugar and lemon juice. Stir well.

Put the pot on the stove over a high heat, stirring frequently, until it comes to a rolling boil. Boil for five minutes, skimming off and discarding any scum that appears with a spoon. Do not walk away from the jam at any time.

Reduce the heat to medium high and cook at a slow boil for an additional 12-14 minutes or until the jam reduces by about one-third in volume, continuing to skim scum if it keeps coming out.

You really don’t need a thermometer for this quick jam but I like to watch the temperature rise. Supposedly for jam to set, it has to reach 220°F or 104°C. This quick jam did not but it set just fine.

Remove the pot from the stove and add the butter. Stir well till the butter has melted completely.

Using a clean ladle and funnel, transfer the quick jam to your jar. Screw the lid on tightly and turn the jar upside down. Leave to cool completely. Once cool, turn the jar upright and store in the refrigerator.

Enjoy!

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Mocha Stout Brownies #CreativeCookieExchange

Mocha Stout brownies are rich and chocolaty with a subtle deep flavor from the stout. I used Bateman’s Mocha Stout which is available in Dubai, but you can substitute your own favorite local brew.

Here in Dubai, as I’ve mentioned before, one must have a liquor license in order to purchase alcohol, including beer and wine. Because my husband travels a lot, always picking up bottles at duty free on the way home, we don’t go to the actual liquor stores that often. When we do go, I love browsing through the selection looking for odd bottles to use in cooking or baking. (Or cocktails!) This bottle of Mocha Stout was one such bottle. When I purchased it, I had no plans so it has been in the beer fridge for a while.

This month our Creative Cookie Exchange leader, Laura from The Spiced Life, put forward Beer Cookies as our theme, saying maybe it’s “too out there.” A little weird, yes, but just search “beer cookies” and you get: About 320,000,000 results. I was game for the challenge. My daughter reminded me of that mocha stout and I got busy!

Curious about the mocha stout? Here are the beer notes from the Bateman website.
Mocha (6% ABV) - Winner of the Sainsbury’s Great British Beer Hunt, our Mocha is a coffee and chocolate stout sensation. It’s brewed with genuine Arabica coffee, fine Belgian chocolate and locally grown, roasted barley malt. Rich, enticing and well rounded, the coffee and cocoa notes are certain to give your nose and taste buds a welcome wake-up call. 

Note: Just to be clear, I bought the mocha stout myself. This is not a sponsored post. Details included just for informational purposes.

Mocha Stout Brownies

When it comes to brownies, there’s chewy vs cakey. I prefer chewy. My first batch of these turned out a bit dry aka cakey so I doubled down and added another egg yolk and less flour. Ahh, much better! If you like yours cakey, omit the egg yolk and add an additional 1/4 cup or 31g more flour.


Ingredientsfor 2 dozen brownies
3/4 cup or 170g unsalted butter, melted and cooled
3/4 cup or 150g sugar
1/2 cup or 100g brown sugar
2/3 cup or 53g unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 large egg
1 egg yolk
1/2 cup or 120ml coffee stout beer
1 3/4 cups or 220g all-purpose flour

Optional for decoration: Chocolate “coffee beans”
I bought mine at Waitrose here in Dubai. UK readers, here’s the link. In the US, Walmart has something similar. I tried to find them on the actual Bayside Candy website without any luck. You could probably also use actual chocolate covered coffee beans sold all over the place.

Method
Preheat oven to 325°F or 163°C. Line your 9x13 in or 22.5x33cm pan with baking parchment. I put a little butter on the pan under the parchment which keeps it from slipping around.

Measure your sugars, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder and salt into a large mixing bowl. Whisk to combine.

Add in the melted butter and whisk again to combine.

In another smaller bowl, whisk your whole egg and yolk. Add the egg and stout to the large mixing bowl and stir until well combined.

Fold in the flour, stirring until just combined.

Spoon the batter into your prepared baking pan and smooth the top out with a clean knife. Sprinkle on the chocolate coffee beans, if using.

Bake in the preheated oven for 25-27 minutes or until the top is slightly firm to the touch. Allow to cool completely. Cut into 24 even squares.

Enjoy!

It's October, a month well-known for a rise in beer consumption! At Creative Cookie Exchange we couldn't resist doing our part to help. Check out the other beery cookies and bars we have for you today!

• Belgian Witbier Cookies from All That's Left Are The Crumbs
• Crystalized Ginger and Amber Ale Cookies from Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Mocha Stout Cookies from Food Lust People Love
• Spiced Molasses Amber Ale Cookies from The Spiced Life

You can also use us as a great resource for cookie recipes. Be sure to check out our Pinterest Board and our monthly posts (you can find all of them here at The Spiced Life). You will be able to find them the first Tuesday after the 15th of each month! If you are a blogger and want to join in the fun, contact Laura at thespicedlife AT gmail DOT com and she will get you added to our Facebook group, where we discuss our cookies and share links.

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Spicy Shrimp Stuffed Squid Salad #FishFridayFoodies

Spicy shrimp stuffed squid salad says it all. Shrimp, chili peppers, garlic and cheese are stuffed into clean squid and baked! Once sliced, these beauties make a tasty colorful addition to a fresh tomato salad. This salad looks fancy, if you have special guests that need impressing, but it’s really quite easy to make.

Way back circa 2005, we had a lovely gentleman builder named Dave Price supervising renovation work on our house in the Channel Islands. As I spent more time with Dave, I found out that master construction was not his only skill; he also did a lot of the cooking in his family. We’d discuss recipes and what memorable dish we’d made for dinner recently over many cups of strong tea.

When Dave told me about one of his specialties, stuffed squid, I couldn’t wait to write it down and try it. Squid are so perfectly stuff-able! Why hadn’t I thought of that?

This month I am the host of Fish Friday Foodies and our theme is seafood stuffing. When I created the event, I was thinking along the lines of seafood that would be stuffed into something else, like a crepe, taco or baked potato. But as I shuffled through my old files, I knew I had to share Dave’s recipe. I can’t recall if he said what he served the stuffed squid with but I decided to add it into a fresh tomato salad.

Spicy Shrimp Stuffed Squid Salad

Dave’s original instructions called for one 6-inch squid per person. Mine were much smaller so I bought eight, but the size really doesn’t matter that much since we are going to slice them anyway. Use what you can find. This serves 2-3 people as a main or 4-5 as a starter or side dish.

Ingredients
For the stuffed squid:
8 medium squid
25 medium shrimp (peeled and cleaned weight = 9 1/3 oz or 266g)
2 oz or 57g extra sharp cheddar, grated
1/4 cup or 56g sour cream
2 small red chili peppers, minced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 teaspoon salt
Freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons olive oil

For the salad:
3 ripe but firm tomatoes, sliced
1 small bunch cilantro, hard stems removed

Method
Clean each squid, first removing the head, tentacles and cartilage (cuttlebone)  from the tube. Use a sharp knife to cut the head away from the tentacles and discard it. Remove the beak from the tentacles and discard. Rub the outer colored film off of the tube with a dry paper towel. It should rub off quite easily.

Run the tubes under cool water and make sure they are clean inside. Set aside to drain.  If you need visuals of the cleaning process, check out this thorough post on The Spruce Eats.

Preheat your oven to 400°F or 200°C.

Chop the tentacles and shrimp into small bits then mix them with the chili peppers, garlic, salt and a few good grinds of black pepper.

Add in the cheese and stir well. Mix in the sour cream.

Stuff this mixture into your cleaned squid tubes.

Sew up the opening with poultry string and tie a knot to keep it from coming open. I use a semi circular needle, which makes it easy to catch both sides of the squid as you stitch.

Put the shrimp stuffed squid in a baking pan and drizzle them with the olive oil.

Bake them in your preheated oven for about 20 minutes. They will release a lot of beautifully flavored liquid. Remove the squid to a cutting board and leave to cool. Save any bits of shrimp that managed to escape.

Strain the juice from the cooking pan and put it in a small jar or jug. Once whisked, this makes a gorgeous dressing for the salad. Taste it and add a pinch more salt if necessary.

Once the squid are cool enough to handle, use a sharp knife to cut them into circles.

Arrange these on your sliced tomatoes, along with the cilantro and any salvaged shrimp bits.

Whisk the dressing again and drizzle it over the tomatoes and squid.

Enjoy!

Check out the other seafood stuffing recipes my Fish Friday Foodie friends are sharing today!

An InLinkz Link-up

Would you like to join Fish Friday Foodies? We post and share new seafood/fish recipes on the third Friday of the month. To join our group please email Wendy at wendyklik1517 (at) gmail.com. Visit our Facebook page and Pinterest page for more wonderful fish and seafood recipe ideas.

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