Strawberry, Chili, Ginger & Mint Jam

This is my recipe for jam with strawberries, chili, ginger, mint, vanilla, lemon, lime, pepper, cloves and star anise.

Click your way through the gallery to see and read about the process.

Wash the berries.

Remove stems & cut them into smaller pieces.

Make sure you have enough clean jars.

Lemon, lime, ginger, chili, pepper, cloves, cinnamon, star anise.

Put the small spices in a tea thingy..

Use the blunt end of a vegetable peeler (or you can use a teaspoon) to peel off the skin of the ginger.

Cut the ginger julienne (into thin strips) and then brunoise (into tiny cubes). You can also grate the ginger.

This is 70 grams of pectin.

This pectin also contains some sugar and citric acid.

300 grams of stevia ( a sweetener and sugar substitute).

Vanilla pod. Cut it in half and rub the vanilla seeds in some sugar. That way you spread the vanilla seeds evenly and avoid big lumps of seeds.

If you want the chili to be less spicy, rub it before you cut off the stem. Then you can easily knock the seeds out.

Chop the fresh mint.

Make spiced simple syrup: Boil one cup of sugar with one cup of water. Add the ginger and chili plus the cinnamon sticks. Boil until it’s lightly browned.

Boil the berries for 5 minutes, add the vanilla sugar, stevia (or sugar) and pectin. Put the tea thingy with spices in there too. You can also add the vanilla stem and cinnamon stick for extra flavor, but you’ll have to remove these afterwards. Let it boil for a couple of minutes with all the ingredients added.

Grate the lemon and lime skin. Add this to the berry mixture after you’ve boiled the berries & spices.

Then add the chopped mint leaves.

Put it in jars & let it cool off before you put them in the freezer. Don’t fill the jars totally.

Do the dishes.

Enjoy your homemade jam.

Ingredients: 

• 2 kilograms of berries.
• 300 grams of stevia, alternatively 500 grams of sugar (choose the amount of stevia/sugar after your own taste).
• 1 red chili (with or without seeds)
• 1 lemon
• 1 lime
• 1 vanilla pod
• 1 star anise
• 70 grams of pectin (I use one bag, 70 grams, plus a bit more so that the jam turns a bit firm – easier for kids to handle. Also the pectin that you buy in Norway isn’t 100% pectin, but contains sugar, pectin, citric acids etc.)
• a lump of ginger
• some pepper corns
• some cloves
• a cup of water
• a cup of sugar
• a handful of freshly chopped mint
• clean jars

Low-fat, yoghurt based cheese: Labane

Here’s something that has happened to, if not all, then probably most of us:
You’re sitting there, stuck in rush hour on your way to or back from somewhere, your mind wanders off, in the background the voices on the radio just turns into mumbling and then suddenly…

Huevos Rancheros – Tasty Mexican breakfast

Huevos Rancheros – the photo is borrowed from bayvalleyfoods.com – their picture looked much more tempting than mine…

Huevos Ranchero (farm-style eggs) is a classical Mexican late breakfast/lunch, which, after having spread to the West, now appears in a myriad of combinations. I try to stay away from the degenerate Western versions (where sugared canned beans often are allowed to flourish and stand out as the main ingredient in the dish) and present what I believe to be the original Huevos Ranchero.