2 easy 'jam' recipes for cheese plates
Both of these are easy to make and go great with mild soft cheese like a Brie or goat cheese.
Bacon Jam in slow cooker
1.5lb bacon, diced
2 medium yellow onions (sweet if you can get them) diced
3 cloves of garlic, pressed
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup packed dark brown sugar
1/4 cup maple syrup
3/4 cup brewed coffee
In large skillet, cook bacon until fat is rendered and bacon is browned. Drain. Pour off fat, leaving 1 table spoon and cook onions and garlic until
onions are translucent, 5 or 6 minutes.
Add remaining ingredients, bring to a boil while scraping the pan (deglaze). 2 or 3 minutes. Add bacon and stir to combine all. Transfer to slow
cooker on high, uncovered until liquid is syrupy, 4 hours or so. Add to food processor and pulse a few times until bacon mixture is grainy. Not too
much, grainy like sand.
Refrigerate up to 4 weeks, but believe me, it won't last that long. We put these is small jars for canning jams and this will fill about 5 of these.
Pepper Jelly
This is for green, but we also do red for a Xmas party.
2 green bell peppers, stems, seeds and ribs removed, sliced
4 jalapenos, stems, seeds removed and very finely diced. (hotter, leave some seed and stems, we do one)
3/4 cup apple cider vinegar
3 cups sugar
2 tbl sp fruit pectin
Put a small plate in the freezer.
Juice the bell peppers or use a food processor, reserve all pulp and juice. Place in a heavy sauce pan along with the jalapenos, vinegar and sugar.
Bring to a rolling boil and boil for 10 minutes, stirring often. Add pectin and stir constantly for 1 minute. Take plate from freezer and put a small
amount of jelly on the plate and return to freezer for 1 minute; remove the plate and tilt to side - if jelly does not slide down you are done. If it
slides, cook another minute and do the jelly test again. It always seems to take us two tries to get it.
This can be canned using a traditional water canning method or refrigerate for up to two weeks.
Put both of these on a cheese plate with crackers and stand back.
By the way, as a helpful hint for guys, make all this yourself and serve that evening with a couple of bottles of oaky, buttery Chardonnay and it's
pretty hard not to get lucky....just saying.
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