tart plum jam, sucrose-free

Sugar comes in many guises: white sugar, brown sugar, honey, corn syrup, molasses, and, if you look a little closer, the molecules sucrose, fructose, glucose, and more. Between these types of sweetner there are differences in flavor, intensity, and speed of digestion. It's the last that my friend Dinosaur pays attention to.

Her favored choice of sweet product is agave nectar, which is derived from the agave plant (which is also what tequila comes from). Agave is mostly fructose, which is the sugar found in most fruits. It is about half as fast acting as sucrose (table sugar), therefore fluctuations in the blood sugar are less extreme.

Most store bought jams are made with sucrose or glucose (also known as dextrose), so Dinosaur and I concocted a plan for some homemade agave nectar jams; here is the first.

Dinosaur Plum Jam
Note: If you want to make this with sugar, just substitute it for the agave. Agave is a little sweeter than table sugar, so make sure to taste the jam and make sure it's sweet enough for you.
4-6 C plums, pitted and chopped roughly
1/4 C lemon juice (about 2 lemons worth, fresh squeezed)
1 C blueberries
3 tsp powdered pectin
1 C agave nectar
1/2 C apple sauce (optional; you can just add more agave nectar instead if you wish; this rounds out the flavor and makes it a little less sharp and one-note)


Combine the plums, berries, and lemon juice and cook over medium heat for 5 to 10 minutes. Using a hand blender, puree the fruit mixture.  (If you don't have a hand blender, you can instead blend it in a food processor or blender, then return to the pan and return the jam to a boil once it is smooth).

In a bowl, mix the agave, apple sauce, and pectin, then add to the jam. If the pectin clumps, just run it through the blender again. Boil one minute, then can the warm jam (see below).

Canning:
Self-sealing canning jars (glass jar with metal ring and lid)
tongs
funnel
large pot

Bring a large pot of water to boiling. Add the jars, lids, seal rings, and the tongs and funnel. Boil them while you make the jam (about 10 minutes). On a clean towel, set out the jars, using the tongs, just before you add pectin to the jam. Place the jars face up and make sure not the touch the tops or insides of the jars, nor the lids. Neither you nor the tea towel are properly sterilized. You can leave the lids and rings in the water, if you like.

Fill the jars with hot jam. Using the tongs, place the lids on top and screw the rings on gently. Do not touch the inside or top of the glass with your hands.

Return the jars to the boiling water for five minutes, then remove.

Let cool. Check the button on the lids once the jars cool. If it pops up and down when poked, the jar didn't seal. Stash those ones in the fridge. If the lid is firm, the jars are sealed and secured for several months on the shelf (we hope!).

ice cream with chocolate sauce, made dairy-free, sucrose-free, and gluten-free

This is the first of what will be a recurring series of "Dinosaur" recipes, which are anything I make that my friend Dinosaur can eat. On her no-no list is wheat (but gluten is OK), processed sugar (or anything with a high glycemic index), dairy, shrimp, strawberries... there are a lot more, but I think that makes my point. One of the things she says she misses most was ice cream, so when she came down to visit, we decided to try our hands at it.

On our first attempt we used far too many egg yolks, and even those of us without crazy sensitivities found it overwhelmingly rich; so we altered our recipe until we got a much lighter, tastier ice cream. The texture was not as good as the first batch, but it was still quite creamy for rice milk ice cream and the taste was very good. The chocolate sauce, I think, was the real winner in this situation. I think I'll be using this recipe from now on for my own non-Dinosaur chocolate sauce needs, because it was delicious.

This is still a rather rich dish for her, even with all of her off-limits ingredients kept out of it, so it will remain a once-a-blue-moon kind of treat. Still, I'm thrilled with the fact that we managed to find a way create Dinosaur-friendly ice cream, because, really, what's a good summer without an ice cream cone now and then?

P.S. Cones coming soon, with any luck.

Dinosaur Ice Cream
4 egg yolks
2 C rice milk
1/3 C agave (we used blue. It's the first time I've used agave. Does anyone know what the differences between types are?)
1 1/2 Tb vanilla

On the stove top, warm the rice milk, but do not boil. Beat the egg yolks and agave together. Temper the yolks with the milk.

Tempering is a necessary step when mixing eggs with something hot. You add small amounts of the hot liquid (just dribbles and splashes) to the egg yolks and beat it in quickly. The aim is to slowly raise the temperature of the egg yolks without curdling them. When you have about 1/3 of the liquid mixed with the egg yolks, they are generally a hot enough temperature that you can then add the whole egg mixture to the hot liquid in the pot without the eggs scrambling on you.

Cook the egg and rice milk mixture for 10-20 minutes. Normally in ice cream making this would be "until it coats the back of a spoon" (meaning when you dip a spoon in and then wipe the liquid off the back of the spoon, the metal will stay cloudy and coated with a thin layer of liquid), but this ice cream never seemed to reach that point.

See this spoon? This is the back of a spoon that is NOT coated. But it turned alright nonetheless.

Let the mixture cool, then add the vanilla. If you have an ice cream maker, follow the manual's instructions (usually this is pouring it into a cold mixer and letting it go 20-30 minutes). If you don't have an ice cream maker (we didn't), pour the liquid into a metal bowl and stick it in the freezer. Every few moments, open the freezer and stir the ice cream, making sure to scrape down the sides. After about a half hour, you can stir less often. The longer you let it set, the firmer and icier it will be. Choose what consistency you want and serve it then. This ice cream is best fresh.

If you wanted to flavor the ice cream, you could easily add some cocoa powder, or crushed mint leaves, or smashed fruit, or whatever you wanted.

Dinosaur Chocolate Sauce

1/2 C rice milk
2 Tb agave
2 Tb cocoa powder, unsweetened

Heat in a saucepan, stirring constantly, until thickened to the consistency you desire. Serve over ice cream, or fruit, or waffles, or...

Do any of you have crazy food restrictions? How do you deal with them in your life and food?