plum jam (no pectin) - yum!

     plums!  so, last year my first attempt at jam, nectarine jam, was a huge success!  it was so yummy!  so, i am definitely going to be making more of that, but i had also wanted to try making plum jam, however by the time i had got around to it plums were out of season, so, no luck.  this year however i managed to do things in time!  yay!  since the nectarine jam worked so well and i had done all the foot work making my own recipe for that, i decided to use the same info for the plum, with one small adjustment... plums are a bit sweeter (though sometimes their skins can be quite sour!), so i thought i would cut the sugar down a little bit.
     my jam recipe is a ratio, for the nectarines i had it at 0.8c of sugar and for the plums i cut it down to 0.75c, so here it is:

1lb (454g) fruit : 0.75c sugar : 18mL lime juice

     now, i dont really remember where i got the 18mL from, it seems like an odd number, but whatever, just use it for the calculation and then round to the nearest 5mL.  To use the recipe, cut up the amount of fruit you have and weigh it out and then multiply it by the amounts of sugar and lime juice.  (i like using lime, just because.. lemon is just as good)

     i used black plums, i thought i bought red plums, but, nope, 14 of them which ended up being 3.5lbs.  so, to figure out the rest, here is the math [ 3.5 x 0.75 =  2.625c of sugar, 3.5 x 18 = 63mL of lime juice ]  2.625c sugar = 2 1/2 cups + 1/8 cup and 60mL is 1/4c lime juice . (this is a really helpful site: www.onlineconversion.com)

     1.5 limes ended up being enough for the juice (+ a little extra)  be sure to save the peels!  they help with pectin content!  after cutting up all your fruit you put it in a bowl and pour on the sugar and the lime juice and stir it a bit, no need to mix it too much, it is maceration time!  time to let all the natural sugars come out and sweeten your jam and make things juicy!  & stick in those lime peels to help impart some extra pectin while you're at it.  cover the whole mess with a layer of wax paper (or plastic) and leave it in the fridge overnight.

     the next day (or few if you are busy) it should be nice and juicy and ready for jam!

    next you need to drain out the liquid.  (i got about 3 1/3 cups), put it in a pot & place it on the heat.



     you are going to need to bring it to a boil and cook the stuff until it gels.  i tested this batch a whole bunch of times, putting a little bit on a cold spoon or plate in the freezer to cool and seeing if it gels, but i realized after when i made a batch of different jam, that when the stuff starts to foam a bit is a pretty good indication that it is ready!  so, keep that in mind!
     after your liquid has gelled, and it doesnt have to be SUPER gelled, just kinda thick, and the liquid in the pot won't be really thick either, only if you do the gel test.  if you want an indication in the pot then it might be when you run your spoon along the bottom, it will start to leave a trace mark.  i tried to get a picture of this but it was hard.  i realized after that i had a feature on my camera that would have made it easier, but i was not thinking, ugh.  this is the best i could do.

    ANYWAY!  now it is time to add your fruit!

     YUM!~  you now need to bring it up to a boil again.  and cook it a bit longer.

   looks super delicious eh?  but i can't really put this on toast.

     time to start mashing!  you can mash it as much or as little as you want.  i like it chunky so i just mashed it till most of it was mashed but some of the pieces were still intact.  i felt it was pretty thick at this point, so time to jar it & boil this stuff up! 

     boiling times depend on altitude, here it is 10min for 250mL jars i guess, so that is what i did.  this amount of fruit made 5x 250mL jars, one was a little low though, but oh well!  i suppose the amount made might might be a bit different depending on how long you cook it (if you cook longer more liquid will evaporate) and how much you mash it (if you mash it more it will be more condensed and so you will have less). 
     the little bits i tasted while cleaning up were SUPER tasty!  so yummy!  & it is really pretty too!

    the ratio again is:

1lb (454g) fruit : 0.75c sugar : 18mL lime juice

Gardein - ~new~ sweet & sour porkless bites!~

     SO!  i went grocery shopping the other day, and i checked out the gardein section, i spotted their new mini crabless cakes which i had heard about but, to be honest, i am not that eager to try.  i never was much of a seafood person, so the thought of them dose not thrill me.  maybe if they are on sale one day i might give them a go, but eh.  BUT!~  then i spotted THES:

    WHAT!~  looks so good!  so in my basket they go! ... so what are they like?  they are pretty darn yum!  when you open the bag they look like this:

and they come with a funny little pack of sweet and sour sauce that looks like this (i like to take pictures):

and, because we all want to know, a whole bag of them looks like this:

the recommended cooking method for these guys is to fry them up, which i did!  & according to the package it takes 6-8min.  i dont know if that's how long it took, but it was pretty quick.

they have a sort of coating on them which makes them kind of crispy!  and they are kinda spicy and pretty darn tasty!  nutritional info: 1/3 of the pack or 70g = 110calories (without sauce), i made 6 and that was 48g (76ish calories).

i did not totally burn them!  i decided to give the sauce a try too!  i ate half with and half without.

the sauce is a sweet and sour sauce.  it is pretty tasty too but it has a spicy hot kick to it, though i am a total lightweight when it comes to hot stuff, so it is probably not that hot at all really.  i tried these again a few days later when i made a veggie stir fry with rice and mixed in the sauce with that and it was not that hot that way!
     super excited about these!  they are really tasty!  i will probably mostly eat them without the sauce, or with some other kinda sauce because my insides suck with anything hot, but i will definitely be getting these again!  yay gardein! i think they may possibly help fill the void that formed when they stopped selling the bbq wings anywhere in the whole darn city that i have seen!!!  alas.
    anyway, happy eating!

making instant puding with almond milk using agar - experiment 1

     did you know that you cant make instant pudding with almond milk? (or soy milk, or cashew milk, etc..)  i didnt.  i made some the other day and ended up with pudding soup, ugh.  why cant you?  it has to do with the way instant pudding works, the thickening process involves casein and that only exists in animal milks.  i did a bunch of looking up, but you can find a good explanation of this here.
     interestingly enough it seems that the ingredients in jello instant pudding bought in the usa and bought in canada have different ingredients, the canada pudding does not seem to contain the tetrasodium pyrophosphate explained in the link above but still does not work normally with almond milk.  (or maybe it's just listed differently?)

For reference:
Ingredients of Jello Pudding Instant Chocolate Fudge (from kraftrecipes.com): SUGAR, MODIFIED CORNSTARCH, COCOA PROCESSED WITH ALKALI, DISODIUM PHOSPHATE (FOR THICKENING), CONTAINS LESS THAN2% OF NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL FLAVOR, TETRASODIUM PYROPHOSPHATE(FOR THICKENING), MONO- AND DIGLYCERIDES (PREVENT FOAMING), RED40, YELLOW 5, BLUE 1, ARTIFICIAL COLOR, BHA (PRESERVATIVE).

Ingredients of Jello Instant Pudding, Chocolate from Canada (from on box): SUGAR, MODIFIED CORNSTARCH, COCOA, SODIUM PHOSPHATES, ARTIFICIAL AND NATURAL FLAVOUR, CORNSTARCH, SALT, COLOUR (CONTAINS TARTRAZINE), HYDROGENATED SOYBEAN OIL, MONO- AND DIGLYCERIDES. 

     one of the benefits of using almond milk instead of cow milk is the lower calories.  1 cup of unsweetened almond milk has 40 calories as opposed to 1 cup of 1% milk, which has 110.  this experiment added agar, i used a ratio of about 1.75%, which = about 8g, which is about 24 calories.  plus it tastes kinda good.

on to it!
     for this experiment i only had original almond milk, which is sweetened a bit and contains 60calories a cup  + a box of chocolate instant pudding & some agar powder.
the instructions say to add 2 cups of milk to the powder, mix for a few min. and refrigerate.

step #1.  heat 3/4 cup of almond milk in the microwave for 2min.
step #2.  add 3tsp of agar powder, add a bit at a time and whisk in to make sure it is mixed in well!
     *i may have miscalculated, but i figured that a ratio of 1.75% would give a good thickness, that equaled about 8g, plus that is what i had left, so.. works.*

step #3.  agar needs to be heated and i wanted to make sure that it worked so i reheated the milk for another 30sec.  this resulted in a thick milk mixture!  i was pretty pleased at this point thinking things were going to work well!

step #4.  i beat the thickened milk mix a bit just to make sure it was evenly mixed before adding anything else

step #5.  add the powder & the rest of the milk (1 and 1/3 cup).  and proceed as instructed on the box.

     this is where i went wrong.
i had kept the rest of the almond milk in the fridge this whole time and adding the cold milk to the thickened heated agar milk mixture instantly gelled it!  so it got clumpy!  this is what i was trying hard to avoid in the first place, ugh!  i tried beating it at high for a longer time but it still was clumpy.  (the clumps taste more like clumps of agar than clumps of extra thick chocolatey stuff, so kinda not so great)  oh well.

    it definitely resulted in a thick instant pudding though!  i just have to tweak the process a bit.  some thoughts:
- add room temp milk to the mix
- add a bit less agar
- dont microwave it the second time after mixing in the agar
maybe all 3?

    i will try some of these another time, but i am puddinged out for now.  plus i need to get some unsweetened almond milk, the original made the pudding way too sweet for my liking, yikes!~  but look how nice and thick it turned out!

    (different lighting makes it look a much different colour, yikes!)

there are other ways of making instant pudding with almond milk that i came across:
-you can do it with corn starch apparently, which looks promising. and kinda more easy if it works, however i have found using corn starch in other things (like pie filling) that it leaves an after taste, so who know!  also, i thought you had to heat corn starch for it to work too?  i am not sure and i do not feel like looking it up right now.
-i have also read that it works if you use only 1 cup of almond milk to the box of powder.  this seems icky to me because it would be super concentrated and you would get less servings/box.  also, it would be higher in calories, even using the almond milk at 40 calories/cup, you double the calories of the dry mix (100 calories per normal serving would now = 200 calories/serving for the dry mix alone).
-and i read that you can use part almond milk and part yogurt.  i have seen posted 1 cup almond milk, 1 cup yogurt also 1 cup almond milk, 0.5 cup yogurt.  you can use fat free plain yogurt,or some sort of super creamy yummy yogurt maybe vanilla or coconut!  it sounds really good actually!  i might try substituting 100% yogurt!

    anyway, that was my almond milk - instant pudding - agar experiment that sort of worked.

Gardein -- AM/PM Pocket Meals -- Italian Sausage, Roasted Red Pepper & Spinach

     Ok!  My second post on Gardein Pocket Meals!  & these ones are "Italian Meatless Sausage, Roasted Red Pepper AND Spinach!"  That's a lot of stuff!  The title on this box says "AM/PM" & even though i am not quite sure what that means, i do seem to remember at one time doing a search and seeing someone posting somewhere about some gardein breakfast sandwiches (which i have never seen), could those be the am and these the pm?  i do not know.  but i do know that the package looks like this:

     I was a little worried that i  might not like these ones (because i am picky like that) but i was wrong, they are yummy!  From the outside they look pretty much exactly like the pulled porkless ones did.  Each box contains 4 & they are fairly small but pretty packed full of stuff & good for a snack or part of a meal.
     This time i tried microwaving them!  That is the 'ready in 3 min' that it says on the front of the box (though i only microwaved mine for 2 & that was plenty), the back of the box suggests that you cook them in the (toaster)oven for something like 25min (which i did with the pulled porkless one).  The little guy still kinda exploded on me, but the contents did not all burst out!  Microwaving gave it a much chewier texture than baking it, but still delicious!

     Inside was a lovely combination of all sorts of good stuff!  There was the italian sausage, which was not really spicy (good because i dont do spicy, stomach issues), the red peppers & spinach, but there was also chunks of carrot & onion!

     I don't have the box anymore so i cant give you the exact ingredients, but i pulled it apart & took a pic of the insides!  I have to say that i think that this one is my favourite of the 2, it has lots of flavour, good texture & i like the chewiness of the pocket itself when you microwave it!

      Yum. Yum. Yum.

     Also!  I mentioned other products before!  I thought there were 2 other ones, but at the store there was just 2 boxes of the same one, this "Crispy Pocket Meal with Kale, Barley & Sundried Tomatoes".  It came in a package of 1 & is currently lost in the bottom of my freezer.  Ooops.  Hopefully it will be found sometime soon & i will let you know how it goes!

Gardein -- BBQ Pocket Meals -- Pulled Porkless

     I went grocery shopping the other day (first tuesday of the month = 15% off = yay!) & was super excited to find a brand new gardein product!!!!  gardein = the best fake meat product ever.  I had already picked up some crispy tenders & was looking at the other frozen foods, when i spotted the familiar logo.  (oddly this new stuff was in a different location than the other gardein stuff, it was with the pizza pockets)  I found:

     gardein pocket meals!  -- now, there were 2 different types of pocket meals & i chose the pulled porkless.  Unfortunately I don't remember what the other flavour was? & at this time these are not listed on the website?  There was also another type of new gardein product!  It was also a pocket-type thing but they were larger, individually wrapped ones.  There was also 2 different kinds of those, all I remember is that one had kale.  I was not really paying much attention because I was thinking I was going to look these new products up online, ugh.
     Anyway, back to the pulled porkless pocket meals!  Each box contains 4 little pockets!  & they are pretty little, but I found it to be rather filling as a snack or part of a meal.  I should also mention that each one contains 230 calories.

     I cooked mine, as directed, in the toaster oven, for 25min, flipping halfway.  I was not paying too much attention & it kinda exploded a bit!

     But i just shoved the insides back in & ate it up.  The crust was crisp & flaky, pretty tasty.  The BBQ sauce was tangy, with a tiny bit of heat, it was very similar to the BBQ sauce that comes with the sweet & tangy barbecue wings (which are just listed as bbq wings on the canadian site now & have not been available here for a little bit).  The meat pieces were small, but it's supposed to be shredded pork & their texture was good, as to be expected from gardein products!

     Overall it was a tasty bit of food & I plan on giving the other variety a try!  Also I think next time i am going to attempt to just microwave it, though not the top recommended method of preparation, having these in the freezer on hand as just a quick snack/meal that you can zap & go would be super duper convenient!  Yay gardein!~