Jam in My Head

Cooking shows on TV can be most annoying.

They show you luscious pictures of the most delicious food.

Then you just can't get those images out of your head.

So you have no choice but to try to replicate what you saw.

The one shot that stayed in my head all week was that of a pan of apple jam.

All the cook did was to throw apple into the pan, add sugar and cinnamon and five seconds later jam of the deepest amber appeared.

Well, in the real world, making apple jam is not that easy.

It takes a bit more effort but it's well worth it.

I made mine with Granny Smith apples, brown sugar, lemon rind and juice, ginger and cloves.

It was way past midnight by the time I got everything ready.

So instead of staying up all night stirring jam, I put the whole pot in the fridge.

As it turned out, that was probably a good thing.

The sugar melted and juice came out of the apple so that by morning I had a soupy mixture ready for the long road to sticky success.

So while I had breakfast and watched more TV, the pot of apple soup bubbled away on the stove.

If you plan to follow my example, be sure to give the pot a good stir each time there is a commercial break.

This will pre-empt any tendency for the apple to stick to the pan.

After about an hour, the soup started to look more like it was going to turn into a sticky caramel.



It occurred to me that biting into the cloves wouldn't be very nice when all I want is sweet, fragrant jam on toast.

The thing to do then is to pick out all the cloves with a pair of chopsticks.

Once that's done, it's time to stop watching TV and turn all your attention to the pot.

It's now non-stop stirring till all the moisture is gone and the apple is a glorious sticky amber jam.

I had enough to fill three regular jam jars plus a small one.

Here's what you need to make Fen's Apple Jam.

10 Granny Smith apples, pared and cut into thick slices

2 and a half pounds brown sugar

Juice and rind of 2 lemons

A 2-inch knob of ginger, julienned

About 15 cloves

Once the jam is done, let it cool in the pot.

Sterilise some clean jam jars by boiling them for about 5 minutes.

When the jars are dry fill them with the jam.



Spread the jam on home-made wholemeal bread for breakfast.

Or serve it with roast chicken or nasi bryani for dinner.

I don't know how long the jam can be kept.

But I am sure it will all be eaten long before any mould has a chance to grow.

Instant Gratification

When hunger strikes, even the health conscious could succumb to the lure of fast food.

Instant noodles - the new fat-free variety - are just the ticket.

No fat, no cholesterol, no preservatives, no colouring.

They are steamed and air-dried, not fried.

They don't come with seasoning.

So you have to make your own.

Try mushrooms.

Fresh shitake and portobello sauteed with garlic and oyster sauce.

Toss the cooked noodles with some ketchup, chili sauce and sesame oil.

Top that with the mushrooms and some bok choy.

There you have it - an instant gourmet meal.

No Fruit Cake Please

Christmas is a time for fruit cake. The boozy variety, with 12-year-old whiskey grown even older in the bottle.

But the liquor can't mask the sweetness of the fruit cake now deemed too cloying by taste buds accustomed to a low sugar, low fat diet.

The alternative this Christmas - something with much less sugar.

Make a dough in the bread machine, roll it out and fill it with organic dates from Egypt and home-made marzipan.


After allowing the ring to rise for about 20 minutes, bake it in the oven for 35 minutes at 180 degrees.

When it's done, let it cool and decorate it with icing sugar.

Some plastic reindeer and fake holly wouldn't be out of place.

No one missed the fruit cake.

Maybe because there was also carrot cake with cream cheese icing.

And a drunken reindeer in the corner.


Nephew Number 3 says that's Rudolph with his nose all red from one drink too many.

Perhaps it was the whiskey saved from the fruit cake that never was.