Food of the Polish markets

On the first day with any snow, it is nice to remember the beautiful fresh foods you can buy and make in Poland during the year. I love shopping at the markets anywhere in the world, but Poland has something special about it, the berries, the seasonality is certainly impressive.

Jamming 2012

Sounds like the topic of the festival season. "It's all about the music man". Not with me, it is all about the jam man, or dżem (pronounced the as in gem) in Polish.

I have been excited, really excited, as this year we have seen an amazing season of fruit, so far, and it is really only the early days. The borówki, pron. boo-ruuf-key (blueberries), jagody pron. ya-go-dee (bilberries), maliny pron. ma-lee-nee (raspberries), czereśni pron. tch-e-resh-ni (cherries) and the truskawky pron. true-skuv-key (Strawberries) have been, and in some cases still are, magnificent. It seems they are a lot better than last year. Or maybe it is just me enjoying the present more than the past, who's to say really?



I have made a few new jams this year, as we didn't make any last year because we had made so many the previous year that we have only just finished them this spring!


 My "creative" style this year was Fruits of the Forest jam consisted of the following.

Cherries

Bilberries

Gooseberries

Raspberries

Blackberries

Mix them

heat them

Boil them

Put them in a jug

And bottle them

Then cut some apricots

Cook them up

Throw them into some bottles :)

What else can you do?

Of course, prepare some on fresh bread, here it is some strawberry jam  with a double espresso!

Everyone should get into simple things like jam making, it makes the summer last long into winter. The big advantage is you know what is going into them, you can reduce the sugar and make it as chunky or smooth as you want. And you can simply reuse all your old jars that you have emptied during the year. Great for the environment.

I like my jams more runny than jelly like, here is the recipe for the fruits of the forest jam which is a great purple colour.

160g Raspberries
200g Cherries (stones removed)
160g Dilberries
120g Blackberries
170g Gooseberries
220g Strawberries
to this I just added one packet of Gel sugar and 250g of sugar.

-put the harder fruit in first: cherry, gooseberry for a few minutes
-then add the rest get it to a rolling boil for a couple of minutes
- then add the gel sugar stir carfeully
- then the sugar and pour out into a jug and fill sterilised jars.

Happy days. It all takes about maybe 30 minutes including the time towash, clean check the fruit, cooking, bottling and washing up. Easy peesey Japanesey.

Some more little things.

Life is all about little things, well to me anyway. So, I thought I would share with you some more of the little things that I like. In picture form of course.

Breakfast. Breakfast in Poland. Breakfast in Poland during berry season.

When your breakfast in Poland during berry season is on buckwheat pancakes and looks like this.

Clouds. I just love them.

I think clouds are actually greatly inspirational, especially cumulonimbus and cumulous. Cirrus are ok, but not nearly as graphic and creative.

Ladybugs/ ladybirds/ladybird beetles/lady beetles/Coccinellidae, whatever you want to call them they are just so great, gentle, delicate, cute and this year everywhere in Warsaw!

Homemade pasta, especially when it is drying out and looking like an odd sort of kelp forest.

When you ad kurki (chanterelles), butter, cracked pepper and a little garlic to homemade pasta.

Any form of cake from the wonderful patisserie Sweet Home the makers of our wedding cake and most birthday cakes since that date. Seriously delicious, like this chocolate and raspberry wonder.

Children with heads like balloons, well it is true, they look funny.

Storms, only those containing excessive rain, thunder and kickarse lightning.

Fresh homemade bread with butter, fresh homemade bread with butter and homemade jam.

These are, of course, only some of my favourite things in the world. The best part is that most of these I only truly discovered here in Warsaw. It really is a magical town.

I was jamming, stoutly with the apple of my eye

So, by now you all probably know that I love to spend time making edible things. I would love to think of myself like some kind of cottager, one that can bake, preserve, brew and maybe one day, even distill. Oh, that would be something! Probably something to kill me, but certainly something else altogether different! However, this post is about some things that I have already done. Some were done well, very well in fact and others, hmmmm, just ok, i.e. our home made cider.

So to make things start happily, I will tell you about my Stout. It was good old Coopers Stout, you can buy it here in the hardware shop OBI or online as well, which I was extremely surprised about. I am actually drinking one as I type this up. As opposed to the Cider (which will be the next post), the Stout was a resounding success!! So much so that I am almost already out of it! So there will be another batch that needs to get done soon.
The Coopers family do great community work around the world. Making my belly swollen and ready for a tough Polish winter ahead.
It looks like vegemite mixed with coffee! Yum!
Into the trusty demijohn.
Add the yeast, seal the airlock and happy days!

So the other things we have made have been working on/with:
Blueberry Jam:

Also Raspberry Jam:
When you boil your fruit, remove the foam at the top so that you don't end up with an ugly jam, and to be honest, it makes a superb icecream topping.

We also made Apple Jam and Plum and Cinnamon, but we didn't photograph them at all.
So at the end of a happy day of jamming, we have lots of things to keep us and our toast warm over winter. Without having to jump on a plane.