Everybody recovered from the 4th of July? Yes? Good! Totally time for a contest!

I’ve been using the catchphrase “Everybody Gets Jam!” for about 7 months now. It started out as a private joke between me and the hubs around Christmastime, when we were trying to figure out what to gift people for the holidays. And even though I’m kinda stuck with it for awhile on a bajillion business cards, t-shirts, market bags, and the like, I think it’s time to freshen things up a bit.

A contest is definitely in order: You get to come up with the next great Freakin’ Flamingo tagline. The winner will receive a Freakin’ Flamingo mug (suitable for coffee, tea, or disguising your fave beverage):

PLUS a heavy-duty market bag: PLUS a jar of any Freakin’ Flamingo product (jam, marmalade, or BBQ sauce) your little heart desires. Check the website to see what’s available.

Your prizes will bear the “Everybody Gets Jam!” line, because, well, I paid for them already. But, your winning motto may appear on my new market banner, on future versions of my business cards, and on all future promotional materials.

The only rules are: Your entry should be original, short, funky, and pithy (kinda like me), and fit on one line. It should be G (or marginally PG) rated. And, most importantly, it should make me laugh. Simple, huh?

Just submit your entry* in the comments on this post, and make sure it’s linked to a good e-mail address, so I can contact you. And, I’m going to open this up to anyone in the U.S. and Canada. Shipping, of course, is on me.

Deadline for entries is Monday, July 11, 2011, so get those creative minds cracking! I can’t wait to see what you come up with!

**UPDATE** The first Freakin’ Flamingo Newsletter will go out on Wednesday, July 13th! That’s the first place the winner will get to see the new tagline in action – sign up for the mailing list now! Please? http://eepurl.com/eEPrk

**UPDATE 2** We have a wiener! Um, a winner! The winning motto is: “Tickle Your Tastebuds Pink!” submitted by Lettergirl. She will receive all of the aforementioned prizes in addition to immortality! At least until I get bored again. Thanks for playing, everyone!

*All entries become the property of Freakin’ Flamingo, LLC and may be used in advertising and promotional materials of every sort, in print and online. By entering this contest, you confirm that your entry is original to you, that you have the right to publish and release said entry, and that you release the contents of your entry to be used by Freakin’ Flamingo, LLC in any manner at its discretion. Compensation for the use of the winning entry is limited to the prizes listed in this post.

The day has finally arrived! Freakin’ Flamingo is LIVE!

What is Freakin’ Flamingo, you ask? It’s my brand-spanking-new online store, selling my handmade, micro-batch jams, marmalades, and whatever else I feel like canning and sharing with you! All with a South Florida / Caribbean vibe and made in season. Super-limited edition, if you will, because, when it’s gone – it’s gone. Whatever little of it there was in the first place.

I’m also selling some of my very favorite Oxford Falls products, like the Vegan Gluten-Free Worcestershire Sauce and the Dix Fried Green Tomato Salsa (which we eat by the jar around my house, and goes into a lot of my cooking!).

Please stop by and let me know what you think. Or better yet, buy something. Well, you know…

I don’t know about you, but every time I open the fridge, I’m faced with what seems like billions of little containers of leftover this and leftover that. Yesterday, when asked “What’s for breakfast?” I started searching the little containers and discovered some mashed potatoes. It got me thinking about these biscuits I used to make from an old Irish recipe for Potato Cakes. No longer having the recipe, I decided to start from scratch and memory. And really? What’s better than a warm, flavorful biscuit with breakfast?

Mashed Potato Biscuits
(makes about 12)

Ingredients:

2-1/2 cups all purpose flour (divided)
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
2 cups mashed potatoes (warm or cold)
1/2 cup milk (or soy milk)
1 large egg (lightly beaten)

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 375º F. Put 2 cups of the flour in a large bowl and add the salt, baking powder, and baking soda. Whisk together to combine thoroughly.

Add the mashed potatoes, milk, and beaten egg. Stir everything together with a wooden spoon until the dough becomes a sticky, shaggy mass. You may want to switch to using your hands at this point – I suggest latex or nitrile gloves, but that’s just me.

Start adding additional flour, 2 tablespoons at a time, while mixing lightly, until the dough comes together in a relatively smooth ball. Try not to overwork it. The dough will still be soft and slightly sticky, but much easier to work with.

Place the dough on a lightly floured surface and pat it down with your hands to half-inch thickness. Sprinkle a bit more flour on top, and using a 3-inch round cutter, or even just a drinking glass, cut out the biscuits and place them on a lightly greased baking sheet about an inch apart. You can also line your baking sheet with a silicone liner or non-stick foil, if you prefer.

Brush the tops of the biscuits with your choice of milk, soy milk, or melted butter – just a bit – and bake for about 20-25 minutes, or until the biscuits are lightly golden brown.

Notes:

You’ll notice that there’s no fat in this recipe. Doesn’t need it. The potatoes keep these biscuits moist. Mine didn’t, but if your leftover mashed potatoes already contain butter, etc., all the better!

Potato Biscuits are pretty quick to throw together, and you can freeze these leftovers in a freezer bag for future use. They’re more substantial than your traditional baking powder biscuits and work great for breakfast sandwiches, sopping up gravy, or just a bit of butter and some of my Freakin’ Flamingo Five Fruit Marmalade. Just a weensy little plug?

So, what’s new, you ask?

Here’s the thing. I fell in love with canning and, as it turns out, I’m pretty darned good at it. I decided (with the support of my husband, who also thinks I’m pretty darned good at it) that I’m going into business to sell my jams, marmalades, and assorted other products I’ve been canning. I’m incorporated (LLC), having my logo trademarked, and even have a bank account! The name?

Freakin’ Flamingo.

That’s me – all over. (Thanks, Barb.) I’m working on a retail website right now which, when it’s ready, will be found at FreakinFlamingo.com. But not yet. Soon. I’ll let you know.

You may find this strange, but I want to keep this small scale. Really small scale. The basic premise is that my stuff is not only hand-crafted and small-batch, it’s micro-batch. Everything is prepared and canned during it’s proper season (usually local, or as local as I can get it), and no more than about a dozen half-pints or pints at a time, and with my own South Florida twist. I’ll be offering it to you as it’s prepared, and when it’s gone, it’s gone. Until next season. At my whim, or if you demand it. As I like to say, you never know what you’ll find until I cook it up and write it down.

So, why am I telling you this now?

Because it’s the holidays, I wanted to do a turn on the iconic cranberry sauce. I found myself inspired by tweets from my friend Maria (@ViceQueenMaria on Twitter), who as it turns out, kinda lives in my ‘hood. Maria’s been doing a lot of traveling around Florida lately, and has kind of gotten into the coastal and Caribbean pirate culture.

I got to thinking about my favorite pirate, Ann Bonny. Yes, there were female pirates, boys and girls, and she was one of the best. What would Ann Bonny do? Well, you know, after she got out of pirate prison, got married, and had a bazillion kids. She’d infuse those whole cranberries (acquired on a daring New England coastal raid, no doubt) with lots of limes and just a tot of Jamaican spiced rum. I present to you my first offering:

Ann Bonny’s Pirate’s Reserve Caribbean Cranberry

Half-Pints $8.00 each plus shipping
(5 available)

Perfect with your holiday turkey, pork, chicken, and equally delicious on toast or English muffins.

Blueberry Mojito Jam

Half-Pints $8.00 each plus shipping
(6 available)

Feeling a little chilly? Imagine yourself on a sunny, warm Caribbean beach, sipping Mojitos in the middle of January. Well, this Florida blueberry jam, infused with lime, a hint of mint, and the merest suggestion of rum, might not get you there, but if you close your eyes…

Carambola Honey Jam. Carambola, also known as Starfruit, is a crisp and sweet-tart tropical fruit that is usually only seen as a garnish. I used locally-sourced carambola and local wildflower honey to make this a treat you’ll want to spread on toast, stir into yogurt, and spoon onto everything in sight!

Carambola Honey Jam

Half-Pints $8.00 each plus shipping
(1 available)

See the Freakin’ Flamingo Facebook page for more flavors. All are half-pints and are priced at $8.00 per jar.

Um, want some?

**NOTICE**

This is totally embarrassing, but these stupid PayPal links aren’t working. Again. If you’re interested in ordering jam, please e-mail me at: FreakinFlamingo@att.net. I will be more than happy to accommodate you. So sorry for the inconvenience, but hopefully, the web site will go live soon – watch this space!

This month’s contribution to the Can Jam, a Peach Vanilla Marmalade, kind of evolved in the pot as I went along. Once again, I found myself seasonally-challenged by the choice of “stone fruit” by Kate of The Hip Girl’s Guide to Homemaking. To my knowledge, we don’t have much in the way of stone fruit in South Florida (unless you count mangoes – should I have counted mangoes?) this time of year, so I settled for the bounty of California peaches that are apparently in-season and flooding our markets right now. (I should note here that the computer file I created for the photos I took for this episode, is titled “Sept 2010_Stoned Fruit”. Should say a little about where my head was at.)

When we get them, the peaches start out rock-hard, then ripen in an instant, so I virtually stared them down, giving the occasional poke, until they were ready. All the while, I longingly recalled the gorgeous fresh peaches I’d seen and tasted in the Granville Island Market, while visiting Vancouver a couple of weeks ago. Wish I could’ve brought them home with me… sigh.

The ones I was stuck with were so-so, so I added a couple of nectarines, a lot of lemons, and a tablespoon of good clear vanilla extract to the pot and it worked!

Peach Vanilla Marmalade
(makes about 5 1/2 pints)

Ingredients:

4 lbs. ripe peaches
1 lb. ripe nectarines
7 average lemons
2 cups water
8 cups sugar
1 Tbs. clear vanilla extract

Stash a couple of small plates in the freezer for gel-testing.

Peel, stone, and chop the peaches and nectarines into rather small pieces (about 1/4-1/2 inch) and place them in a bowl of cold, acidulated water (add a couple of tablespoons of lemon juice to the bowl of water to acidulate it).

Shred the lemons finely with a mandoline, being careful to remove the seeds as you go along. Place them in a large (roughly 6 or 7 quart) non-reactive pot. Add the water, cover, and boil on medium-high heat for 25 minutes.

Drain the peaches/nectarines. Add the fruit and sugar to the pot and stir well. Bring back to a boil over high heat, then reduce to medium. Cook uncovered for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Turn off the heat and do a gel test by putting a small spoonful of the liquid on one of the frozen plates, return the plate to the freezer for about a minute, then remove. With the tip of a spoon or your fingernail, push the liquid on the plate. If it wrinkles – even a little bit – you’re ready to can. If it stays completely liquid, return the pot to the heat and cook for an additional 5 minutes, then try again.

Add the tablespoon of vanilla to the pot when you get a successful gel-test and stir well.

Ladle the hot marmalade into sterilized, prepared jars, wipe the rims with a very damp paper towel to clean them, cover with new, heated lids, and screw on the bands finger-tight. Boiling water process for 5 minutes. Wait 24 hours to test your seals (they should have all gone ping! and the lids should have no flex when pushed on).

Label and store your golden treasures against the cold, dark winter months ahead, so you can dream about summer once again. Of course, it’ll be sunny and pleasant here, and I’ll be outside gardening & basking while y’all are inside, hiding from the cold and shivering. Bwahahahaha! Oops! Did I say that out loud?

In a bit of epic timing, when Joel and Dana over at Well Preserved announced that this month’s Can Jam theme would be Berries, I was thrilled! Florida blueberries are in all the markets right now, and I’ve never seen them bigger and plumper – and less expensive!

So, of course I got a little carried away, and this is the first of three blueberry posts I’ve prepared for the Can Jam.

The first, is a Blueberry Marmalade, combining the best Florida has to offer right this minute – its blueberries and citrus. It’s a twist on the classic citrus marmalade and blueberry jam, and man! Is it tasty! The recipe I’m going to give you is adapted and modified a bit from Preserving the Taste by Edon Waycott.

Blueberry Marmalade (makes about 5 half-pint jars)

Ingredients:

1 large orange (preferably a juice orange, not navel)
1 large lemon
2-1/2 cups water
1/4 cup orange juice
1/4 cup lemon juice
4 cups blueberries (washed & de-stemmed)
2 cups sugar

Preparation:

Cut a thin slice from each end of both the orange and the lemon.

With a mandoline or hand slicer (don’t forget your cut-glove!), shred the orange and lemon very thinly. Be careful to remove seeds as they appear. Place the shredded fruit into a large shallow pan with the water. Cover the pan and bring to a boil over high heat.

Cook on high for 10 minutes. Reduce heat to medium and cook for an additional 15 minutes.

Add the blueberries and sugar. Return the marmalade to a boil, and continue cooking for an additional 20 minutes. Most of the blueberries will burst during cooking, turning the mixture that pretty, dark purple color.

Remove from the heat while you perform the “freezer wrinkle test”. Place a small amount of the marmalade on small dish and put it in the freezer for 5 minutes, after which you push the mixture with the tip of a spoon or your fingernail. If it wrinkles up as a whole, you’re ready to jar it up. If it’s runny, put the pan back on the heat and cook at a boil on medium for another 5 minutes. Repeat the wrinkle test. The marmalade will thicken further as it cools, so try to avoid overcooking it.

Ladle the marmalade into hot, sterilized jars. Wipe the rims with a damp paper towel, seal with new lids and rings (prepared appropriately), and process in a boiling water canner for 5 minutes. Remove the jars and allow to cool.

Notes:

Shredding the citrus whole on a mandoline or hand-slicer is my now-preferred way to prepare it for marmalades. No more onerous zesting for me. Juicing oranges (such as Valencias), lemons, and limes, all have naturally thinner skins and zests, so you get the benefits of the whole citrus with very little waste and all the benefits.

Waycott’s original recipe calls for 1-1/2 cups of water, which I discovered boiled nearly completely away during the first 15 minutes of cook time. The original recipe also calls for 1/8 tsp. of cinnamon and a “dash” of freshly grated nutmeg. I omitted the spices simply because I don’t find those flavors consistent with the fresh fruit of summer.

Use this marmalade as you would any marm or jam – on toast, bagels, muffins, whatever! You see it pictured here on a toasted sesame bagel, along with my new favorite: Basted eggs. Yum!

(That’s pepper on the eggs)

Next up: Grand Marnier Blueberry Peach Sauce!

Print this post for your Moleskine journal

I’m combining my PhotoHunt post this week with my January Mac Tweets Challenge! And the PhotoHunt theme this week is “Jiggly”!

For those of you unfamiliar, Mac Tweets is made up of people all over the world mesmerized and obsessing over a little French cookie called the macaron. For January, the Mac Tweets theme is, well, “New.” Do something new with your macs – something you’ve never tried before. How do the two themes, “New” and “Jiggly” go together in this post?

Well, for the “Jiggly” part, I made marmalade. Ruby Red Grapefruit Marmalade, to be exact. I’ve never made marmalade before, in fact, I’ve never canned anything before! More about the marmalade next week, when I post about another new group I’ve joined, the “Can Jam”.

So this is very, very New for me. Oh, and that marmalade is pretty Jiggly.

These are Ginger Almond Macarons filled with my Ruby Red Grapefruit Marmalade. The other New aspect to my macs this time, is color. I have to admit that I was inspired by Elissa of 17 and Baking’s Striped Peppermint Meringues, last month, and have been itching to try something like her technique with my macs. Well, no time like the present!

After mixing up my batter, I dabbed paste food coloring in pink and yellow – to hint at the pink grapefruit (deep pink on the inside, yellow on the outside) – randomly on the inside of my pastry bag. I then loaded up the pastry bag with my batter, and piped my macs, getting these random, swirly effects on my shells.

Yes, I know I probably over-mixed the batter a bit, and probably piped a bit too large – note the petite “ballerina feet.” I think they came out pretty cool. But then, that’s just me.

(Are you out there, Casey? I think I’m going to have some fodder for you pretty soon!)