Jammin'

I’ve come to terms that I can’t bake here. Well, for now I’ve come to terms with that sentiment (there are some chocolate chips in my IKEA cupboard that are begging to be made into some cookies). Therefore I have settled for non-baking culinary delights. I had to prove to myself that I am successful in the kitchen and I can make people happy with my delicious treats.

The first attempt was a favorite of my DC co-workers- salted caramels. If you’ve never had a salted caramel you haven’t truly utilized all of your taste buds. I had my first one almost a year ago and after eating it I couldn’t get the flavor out of my mind- almost like when a song gets stuck in your head. I looked up a recipe, found the appropriate ingredients, and made the simple recipe. I brought the caramels to work and they were promptly compared to crack (as in the drug).  I decided to make them here because no oven is involved and despite a few hiccups I was successful. One such hiccup was the lack of light corn syrup in the Netherlands. I found a recipe to make my own with sugar, water, and cream of tartar but couldn’t find the last ingredient. So I bravely substitute agave nectar (syrup made from the same plant that is responsible for tequila) for the light corn syrup and was successful- at least on the second batch. I burned the first batch of sugar mixture. After, curses and a forever sticky kitchen I made the delicious caramels. Happily enough, they were once again compared to an illicit controlled substance.  Against, Gearoid’s protests I made another batch to share (and honestly to receive more compliments about my skills in the kitchen) and the suggestion that I sell them in the market came about. If I don’t find a job, I might just become the only salted caramel provider in Nijmegen.

The next experiment was homemade strawberry jam. I love homemade jam and have fond memories of my grandmother’s freezer jam during childhood trips to Michigan. Despite my enjoyment of experimenting in the kitchen the thought of making jam and the hassle of dealing with the jars stopped me from ever doing it. However, a trip to the market with a Dutch friend changed my mind. She was buying crazy amounts of strawberries and said that they were for homemade jam. I asked about her process and decided it was simple enough for me try. Instead of dealing with mason jars, I saved old olive and jam jars and cleaned them thoroughly- even boiling the lids. I bought an enormous amount of strawberries and a bag of special sugar used to make jam. The fact that I only had to deal with 2 ingredients had been the selling point for me and apparently enough people in the Netherlands make jam that the tiny grocery store always has a space for this particular sugar on the shelves. The biggest task was culling the berries but I became an expert, with my swift slices barely sacrificing any of the sweet strawberry. Admittedly, a couple of dozen berries ended up in my mouth but I bought enough to afford the sacrifice. After boiling the berries and the sugar, we poured the hot liquid in the prepared jars, screwed the lids on tight and flipped them upside down. I now have 6 jars of homemade jam in a drawer waiting to be used. I haven’t tasted the jam yet and I have a suspicion that the consistency may be more like the strawberry syrup used on sundaes rather than jam. However, as long as I don’t encounter mold when I open the first jar, I will be happy. 

I decided to bring no-bake cookies to a friend’s house for dinner. These oatmeal, chocolate-peanutty cookies are a staple in my house at Christmas time. They also don’t require the oven. The ingredients were not a problem.  Still avoiding learning the metric system, I did have some issues with the amount of butter. I need half a cup but the blocks of butter I get are measured in grams. Some online searching and the use of a food scale helped me but I think I was still off. The reason for this is because my cookies didn’t set properly. They became soft blobs of oatmeal chocolate-peanutty goodness.  We put them in the fridge for a couple of hours but they were still too soft. Luckily our dinner host had so much food that the poor quality of cookie I provided was a non-issue. Gearoid and I brought them back home and put them in the freezer. I have to say that the frozen blobs made a delicious treat.