You don’t know this about me, but I am addicted to recipe magazines. You know, those obscenely priced magazines they bombard you with at the register of most stores, especially of the grocery variety. A couple weeks ago, I picked up one called Ultimate Italian, a Better Homes and Gardens Special Interest Publication. It’s fantastic, full of yummy looking recipes from lasagna, to fococcia, to cannolis. But the first thing to really catch my eye was a recipe for Tomato Basil Jam. I mean, look, doesn’t this catch your eye?
I know, not the best picture, but in person, it is gorgeous.
I showed my magazine to a friend at work and, long story short, she made the jam and gave me a small jar of it on Wednesday. I finished it off last night (Friday) and promptly went to work making some for myself. It. is. delicious. I did that thing up there, in the picture, with the bread and the jam and the mozzarella and it is heavenly.
So, anyway, last night. I made the jam. And this morning it hadn’t set. After conferring with Ms. Beth Fish Reads herself this morning over Twitter, I decided to boil it again, longer (much! longer), this morning.
Oh my goodness, but it does smell good.
Here is the end result:
And here is the recipe:
Tomato Basil Jam
Adapted from Ultimate Italian magazine 2011
Prep: 1 hour Cook: 11 minutes Process: 5 minutes (all in your dreams)
4 1/2 cups peeled, seeded, and finely chopped ripe tomatoes (about 4 1/2 pounds)
1/4 cup shipped fresh basil (I used African Blue Basil)
1/4 cup bottled lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 cups sugar
1 1/75 ounce package powdered fruit pectin for lower sugar recipes
1. In a 6 or 8 quart kettle or pot, bring tomatoes to boiling over medium heat, stirring frequently; reduce heat. Simmer, covered, for 10 minutes. Stir in basil, lemon juice, and salt. In a small bowl, combine 1/4 cup sugar with the pectin. Stir sugar mixture into tomato mixture. Bring to a full rolling boil, stirring constantly. Stir in the remaining 2 3/4 cups sugar. Return mixture to a full rolling boil; boil hard for 1 minute, (Or in my case, gently boil 20 more minutes to remove some of the water. But my tomatoes had a LOT of water in them. If you wind up with 6 pints instead of 5, like me, keep boiling), stirring constantly. Remove from heat; quickly skim off foam with a metal spoon.
2. Ladle at once into hot, sterilized half-pint canning jars, leaving 1/4-inch headspace. Wipe jar rims; adjust lids. Process in a hot water bath for 5 minutes (start timing when the water returns to boiling) (also, I processed for 10 minutes, but I’m anal like that). Remove jars; cool on wire racks. Makes 5 half-pints.
Per tablespoon: 40 cal, 0 mg fat, 0 mg chol, 11 mg sodium, 10 g carb, 0 g fiber, 0 g protein.
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