Just back from a month in South America. Yup, I made those last two marmalades before I left and posted about them from Buenos Aires. Pretty sneaky, huh?

While in Argentina and Uruguay, I picked up a serious dulce de leche habit. I had it twice, sometimes three times, a day. Smeared on toast in the morning. In the form of “panqueques de dulce de leche,” a dessert staple in most restaurants (crepes filled with warm dulce de leche). In alfajores (the national Argentine dulce de leche-stuffed cookie). Or in this impossibly rich square they make with a rich, buttery bottom layer, dulce de leche and lots of coconut on top.

In fact, pretty much the only gifts we brought back for friends and family involve dulce de leche. Behold the dulce treats:

To make your own dulce de leche you gotta reduce sweetened milk for hours and hours until you hit the spreadable caramel stage. Me thinks it’s one of those things that’s not worth the time and effort of making at home, like churning your own butter or pressing your own olives for oil (at least these things don’t seem feasible to an urban apartment dweller like moi).

A few more South American snapshots:

Steak from heaven at El Obrero in the futball-obsessed working class hood of La Boca in Buenos Aires.

Roadside stand selling hongo (mushrooms) and pickles along the highway between Montevideo and Punta del Este in Uruguay.

The menu at Casa Felix, a pescatarian closed-door resto in BA, where we had one of our favourite meals.

The chivito, Uuruguay’s insane national sandwich. These fine specimens incorporated thinly sliced steak, ham, cheese, egg, bacon, tomato, lettuce, olives, marinated mushrooms, pickled vegetables, hot peppers and some kind of very thick mayonnaisey sauce. Yes, please!

And, finally, a shot of a magical moment we had at a cafe called Oui Oui in the Palermo Hollywood neighborhood of Buenos Aires. That was the best alfajor EVER, crazy thick with dulce and the cookie bits were moist like cake. A pitcher of sweet, milky iced coffee sealed the deal.

Anyway, spring is afoot in Montreal now, it’s actually been a shockingly balmy one so canning season is just around the corner. Muy, muy exciting.

Hello, sunshine. Alas, it will be another few months, early May at the earliest, before we Quebecers get our hands on anything grown locally (that is, anything that hasn’t been sitting in cold storage for six months – like apples, carrots, onions and cabbage). And though I’m not a fan of those bloated, rose-coloured Mexican strawberries or the blueberries from Chile that taste like cardboard (it’s true: for most of the year, we are a sadly fruit-deprived nation), I do long for tasty citrus right about now, and the good stuff has been rolling into town from Florida, California and southern Europe for weeks now. So I snagged some Meyer lemons from Fruiterie Chez Nino and got to work on something I’ve had on my wish list for some time now: Meyer lemon and vanilla marmalade. Mais oui!

Meyers are a cross between a lemon and a mandarin, hence their orange-y complexion and sweeter taste. Now, here is my take on marmalade: take it easy. Keep it simple. Since I only use the thinnest zest and no white peel, there’s no need for overnight soaking and the formula couldn’t be easier: just mix equal parts fruit and sugar with a little water, cook until desired set is achieved, and can. Done. Or refrigerate if not canning (and eat up soon).

It helps to use a good peeler, like my Oxo peeler with ferociously sharp metal teeth:

It’s like it was born to peel perfect, thin ribbons of citrus zest for marmalade.

Easy Meyer lemon and vanilla marmalade

14-16 Meyer lemons, maybe more (enough to make 4 cups of juicy fruit)

4 cups sugar

1.5 cups water

2 vanilla beans

Scrub your lemons with a vegetable scrubber under cold water, peel the thinnest layer of zest possible (no white stuff), then cut zest into very thin strips, like angel hair pasta. You can use the peels of all your lemons if you like, or, if you prefer use less (perhaps from 3/4 of the lemons).

Put the strips of zest in the water as you carry on with the recipe, to prevent them drying out and to soften them a little. Now, using a sharp knife, cut away a slice of white pith from both ends, thereby creating two flat sides. Sit your lemon on one of these flat sides, steadying it on your work surface, then work your way around the fruit, cutting away all the white pith that remains.

Slice open your lemon, cut away the thick white center bit, then remove any seeds and chop coarsely, removing any chunky white bits. Do this with all your lemons. Continue scooping the juice and fruit bits into a bowl or measuring cup. You should have about four cups. (You can also cheat and do the chopping in a food processor after removing as much of the white stuff as possible.)

Mix fruit with sugar, water and peel, pour this melange into a pot and cook over medium-low heat at first to dissolve sugar. Now bring it to a low boil/simmer over medium-high heat and cook, stirring frequently until it darkens in colour and begins to set (put it on a cold spoon and if it gels in a few seconds, it’s ready). I cooked mine about 40 minutes.

And there you have it: a vanilla-flecked Meyer lemon delicacy. It’s a gentle, de-clawed marmalade, a fine entry point into the world of marms for those who think they don’t like them because they’re too bitter. There’s no pungent bite, just dulcet, lemony goodness with tender, wispy tendrils of tangy zest and a vanilla accent that makes it taste like cake. Even non-marmalade fans will rejoice!

OK, taste-test time. Fun. As previously mentioned, I brought some small French jams back from Paris in my very small bag. I’ve been meaning to start doing taste-tests on this lil’ bloggy woggy, so voila: the first one.

I firmly believe that jam is best appreciated on fresh baguette with a tiny smear of unsalted butter. So that’s exactly how this was done.

Our lovely contestants today -

Carla mango and passion fruit jam:

Smells lush, fruity, tropical. Top marks for full mango flavour, not too sweet, just sultry and equatorial, passion fruit brings the tang. However, the texture is lacking. It’s too thin and liquidy for my tastes. Refrigeration will help that, but still I think it could be thicker. Also: there was a hard disc of wax (paraffin?) covering the jam, which was tricky to get out of the jar – I thought this layer of wax was ixnayed by jammers years ago. Hmmmm.

Confiture Artisanale by L’Epicurien strawberry and mint jam:

This tastes like grandma made it. Smells like gorgeous, sunny, early summer, fleeting and full of possibility. I see seeds, I see little bits of shredded mint. A really nice homemade-tasting jam, and not too sweet, the mint is subtle, just a hint. Texture has that lovely uneven, homemade, slightly clumpy charm, with bits of stringy fruit. I like.

Christine Ferber white peach and Alsatian raspberry jam:

Alright, they don’t call Ferber the queen of jam for nothing. This is a textbook perfect jam. Not too much of a smell, but texture is perfect, set but not stiff, and even looks so photogenic spread on bread. Honestly, it’s a little too sweet for my tastes and the raspberry overpowers the peach flavour, but it’s still completely delicious, obviously made using the best-quality fruit and cooked with great care. Now I understand why this stuff retails for $15 at the chichi grocer up the street.

Vive les confitures Frenchies!

Montreal in winter: everything fades to gray and white, the earth sits frozen under a blanket of slush and ice, and leafless tree branches shiver in an unforgiving wind that adds the dreaded “wind chill factor,” making minus five feel like minus 18. So, as you can well imagine, fresh local produce is non-existent and canning exploits can slow down to a trickle. But the other day I got a little of the old canning mojo back after a long slump and so I went searching for the best darn dried figs I could find. My goal: to brew up a tasty batch of dried fig and vanilla jam.

What I learned on my search for plump, soft dried figs and not sad little fossilized figs, was to look for stickers that say “New Crop.” Meaning, these figs were picked this past season and so are the freshest possible dried figs. Hurrah! I found mine at my favourite Little Italy grocer-deli, Milano. The resulting jam is dense, dark brown and reminiscent of Fig Newtons. Maybe it’s the vanilla that lends that cookie-ish vibe, also its dense, crunchy-seedy dried fig texture. So, if you have fond childhood memories of snacking on Fig Newtons, you’re in for a treat.

Dried fig and vanilla jam

2 lbs dried figs, preferably “new crop”

5.5 cups water

2.5 cups sugar

juice of half a lemon

1 vanilla pod

Bring figs and water to a boil, turn off the heat and allow to soak for anywhere from a few hours to overnight. Remove the figs with a slotted spoon, reserving water. Cut off the tough stems and chop the rehydrated figs roughly. Return figs to the pot, adding sugar, lemon juice and vanilla pod which has been split it open, seeds scraped into fruit mixture pod thrown in too. Bring to a low boil and cook until desired thickness is reached (I cooked mine about 35 minutes), stirring often. Pour into hot clean jars then process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes.

PS: On a more somber note, words can’t express the tragic insanity of the current situation  in Haiti. It’s the worst human tragedy since the tsunami of 2004. If you haven’t already donated, here’s a link to the CBC page that lists all kinds of charities that are hustling to help the most desperate people on the planet right now: http://www.cbc.ca/haitirelief/

As is my personal tradition, I have once again left my holiday shopping to the last minute. But with a small family, one brother living in Australia, a Jewish husband who doesn’t much care for the frenzied commercialism of Christmas, my list is thankfully short. I mainly shop at Ten Thousand Villages a few days before the 25th, for fair trade stuff like chocolate, flower pots, serving platters, weird tambourines, scarves etc., all made by fairly paid folks in India, Africa, South America and elsewhere. Some of it’s a little too “world” or hippie but some is not bad at all. Anyway, I’d rather buy crap made by a collective of well-paid villagers than crap made by indentured child slaves. And that is my holiday rant. Feel better? I do.

And now onto canning gift ideas. Here are a few things you can spend a few hours making and have under the tree by Christmas eve. Some are by me and some recipes are culled from the interweb. You have about 48 hours left. Now go!

- Cranberries are still hanging around grocery stores. Buy them fresh or frozen and make my cranberry walnut preserve or, even easier, my cranberry-orange jam. Both will be very yummy spread on leftover turkey sandwiches.

- This one comes from Food in Jars and involves jars but not canning: the gift of handmade spice blends. Pour spices (splurge on some high-quality stuff) into jars. Label. Wrap. Done.

- British chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s edible Christmas gift ideas published in the Guardian look yummy, especially the spiced nuts and crystallized citrus peel.

- Canning Across America has a sweet post about holiday canning, with a link to a Flickr pool of pics providing wrapping and labeling inspiration.

- Another English tip sheet: the UK’s Good Food Channel lists a selection of Christmas-related canning/preserving recipes for stuff like fig jam, cranberry-orange relish and pickled ginger for sushi lovers.

That’s it for now. Good luck and happy holi-daze to one and all.

G