Jammin' With Apricots

If you go to the store for kale and see fresh apricots, this is a sign. Grab a handful (gently) and move out.

Fragrant and elegant in their way, they make a wonderful jam if you have two days with nothing to do. We teach an Apricot and Ginger Jam in the Sur La Table kitchen. Thing is, who can wait for these beauties to macerate overnight when they look so eager to be transformed right away? Further driving the sense of urgency one feels, they don't last long in stores. One day they're here, the next, zoot! Gone.

Ruth Reichl, who needs no introduction but her credentials are here, has a "do it now" apricot jam she calls "Dangerously Delicious" that is not only just what you need, it's also simple to do and avoids all the hot water bath tools and tribulations needed for long-term storage of your homemade jam.

When I teach canning, I tell the class that we learn the safe way to preserve food as a foundation - but that doesn't mean you have to fill your stockpot with water and heat up your kitchen when across the country we're all just hanging on by our margaritas in the prevailing swelter that is summer 2013.

No, you can make a jam, chutney, compote or marmalade without the hot water bath trial by fire if you'll just store your goods in the fridge. See, canning is easier than you thought. Forget the hot water and just get to the good recipe. And that's Reichl's jam, which I stirred up today.

You must have it. Please at your convenience head over to "Dangerously Delicious Jam."

I'll understand if you hang out at her blog - that's what I do. My only tweak on the jam was, I used an immersion blender at the end. Her recipe calls for half sections of apricots (no chopping!), but that can leave pieces too big for the canning jar. If you don't want to mess with finding a good vanilla bean, I recommend the Nielsen-Massey vanilla bean paste. Use one tablespoon instead of the bean, and add it at the end of cooking, after the jam is off the stove.

Here's another lesson in "just do it," this time with a few good veggies. Texas Chef Stephan Pyles has a Tomatillo-Jalapeno Chutney in the same vein as Reichl's - meaning, stir it up, serve it up and store the rest in the fridge if it'll last that long. I went through two Mason jars over July Fourth weekend, so I had to replenish. After the jammin' with apricots, I jumped into tomatillo production.

This tangy condiment goes on everything - grilled hot dogs, salads, eggs quite naturally. At his former Routh Street Cafe, Pyles served it with grilled quail and warm goat cheese, but it goes with any game dish and is not limited to game day, either. I'm not sure why his cookbook version is different from the recipe published by The New York Times, which also tweaked the spelling of his name - it is Stephan, after all. (What would Reichl make of that? She was The Dining Critic of The Times with a brilliant career. Read her books, read her books.)

I feel certain you'll be just fine following the recipe in The Times, but go ahead and add in the 1 clove of garlic, minced, and the 1 tablespoon of chopped cilantro mentioned in Pyles' cookbook New Texas Cuisine because after all why wouldn't you use garlic and cilantro when tomatillos and jalapenos are present? This is New Texas Cuisine, ya'll. The book also makes clear he's recommending 2 small red bell peppers; the Times version leaves open to interpretation what kind of red pepper it is.

There now. Go get some glass jars with lids and stir things up.