While I was out on the west coast a few weeks back, I got an email from a very nice woman from the Whole Foods Market corporate offices. She was writing because they’ve recently launched a travel company called Whole Journeys and were partnering with bloggers as a way of shining some light on some of their featured trips and destinations.
In this particular round of promotion, they were inviting a few bloggers to create a preserve would combine seasonal produce with an ingredient from one of the regions visited on a Whole Journeys itinerary.
Despite my crazy schedule, I just couldn’t say no to this very interesting recipe development challenge. Plus, they were kicking in a gift card to cover supplies and another one to give away to a FiJ reader (more about that at the end of the post).
When I got back to Philadelphia, there was a package waiting for me that contained a few jelly jars, a little tub of raw mountain honey, and a sheaf of paper telling me all about the Dolomites, which is a mountain range in the northern Italian Alps.
I spent a goodly amount of time wondering what I could make that would be both appropriately Italian and evoke a mountainous region. So much time, in fact, that I missed the challenge deadline and still didn’t have a plan. Oops.
Last Thursday, I stopped thinking and started canning. One of the details included in the material they sent was the fact that the Dolomites is known for cheeses, speck (it’s a lovely, smokey cured ham), and wines. I decided to make a preserve that would go nicely with all those things.
I took 2 1/2 pounds of cherries, split them in half, popped out the pits and piled them in a low wide Dutch oven. I added the honey that had come in my box (it was a 16 ounce jar), along with a fragrant stem of rosemary (I brought a gallon size bag of rosemary clipped from a giant shrub in my parents’ front yard back to Philly with me). I let it sit for a bit, until the honey dissolved and the cherries released some juice.
Once it was juicy, I put the pot on the stove and brought it to a boil. I cooked it at a rapid bubble for about 20 minutes, until the cherries softened and the syrup thickened a bit. I didn’t add any pectin because I wasn’t going for a jam, but instead wanted tender cherries in a rosemary and honey flavored syrup. Towards the end of cooking, I added the juice of one lemon and just a pinch of sea salt, to help sharpen the finished flavor.
The preserve is a perfect accompaniment for cheese and cured meats, so I think I hit my mark. It’s one that I look forward to cracking open later in the fall when the evenings turn crisp and the days shorten.
Now, the giveaway. I have one $50 gift certificate to send out to one of you. Here’s how to enter.
- Leave a comment on this post and tell me what you would have made given the same challenge!
- Comments will close at 11:59 pm eastern time on Saturday, July 26, 2014. Winners will be chosen at random and will be posted to the blog on Sunday, July 27, 2014.
- Giveaway open to United States residents only.
- One comment per person, please. Entries must be left via the comment form on the blog at the bottom of this post.
For more about Whole Journeys, check them out on Facebook and Twitter.
Disclosure: Whole Foods Market gave me a gift card to cover the cost of supplies for this challenge (along with a few jars and a little tub of honey) and has also provided the $50 gift card for this giveaway. My thoughts and opinions remain, as always, entirely my own.
Cherry Preserves with Honey and Rosemary
Ingredients
- 2 1/2 pounds sweet cherries
- 16 ounces raw honey
- 1 sprig fresh rosemary about 6-8 inches lont
- juice of one lemon
- 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
Instructions
- Prepare a boiling water bath canner and enough jars to hold 4 half pints of product.
- Wash cherries. Remove stems and pits, and slice in half.
- Combine the chopped cherries with the honey and rosemary in a low, wide pan.
- Put the pan on the stove and bring to a boil. Cook at a moderate boil, stirring regularly, for 15-20 minutes. The preserve is done when the liquid has thickened into a slow running syrup and the cherries are soft.
- Towards the end of cooking, add the lemon juice and salt.
- Remove the pan from the heat. Funnel preserves into prepared jars, leaving 1/2 inch headspace. Apply lids and rings and process in a boiling water bath canner for 15 minutes.
- When time is up, remove canner from heat and set the lid aside. Let the jars cool gradually in the pot for an additional 10 minutes (this is to prevent any liquid loss).
- Remove the jars from the canner and set them on a folded kitchen towel to continue to cool.
- When jars are cool enough to handle, remove rings and test seals. Rinse the jars to remove any sticky residue.
- Sealed jars will keep on the shelf for up to a year. Any unsealed jars should be refrigerated and used promptly.
The Dolomites make a very good apple strudel so I would use the honey with apples, sultanas, pine nuts and some rum, vanilla, cinnamon, and lemon zest for flavouring. This sounds like it would be really good on a cheese board or in an actual quick strudel using canned filling!
However, your recipe is on my to do list!!!
When I first read this, I thought cherry-thyme-honey, somehow. That’s still Mediterranean, right? Although I’m sure rosemary is a bit more accurate to that region….
Then I realized that the cherries were your idea, not part of the box! And I doubt I would have thought of them. I associate honey with things like pears, which are not in season and hence a horrible choice. Hmm.
I’m thinking along the lines of a nectarine-honey preserve or granola with dried cherries. How these relate to the Dolomites, I’m not so sure. Your solution certainly fulfills the criteria better!
Your recipe sounds so good! My Grandma was from northern Italy and growing up she always made a spiced plum jam. It was amazing and I wish I had the recipe. So I would make something with plums and spices to try to replicate that.
Shallot and honey jam.
Hmm…I think you nailed it on the pairing with cheese and wine! Maybe I would have tried a herbed mustard with a touch of mountain honey to go with that regional ham. 🙂
Not sure it would count as a preserve, but I think I would make some kind of honey/citrus dressing for a salad.
I just made your recipe but with a few changes. I also used 2 cups black rasberries in mine and lemon zest as that was all I had left to a lemon. I had some left over juice from this lucious preserve that I hated to waste, so I sat down with a bowl of granola and poured the juice right over it, YUMMY!
I really love this combination and i think it would be really fabulous with some sharp aged sheeps milk cheese. If I were given the same challenge…I’d probably try something with sharp little apples and juniper berries, maybe even liqueur sweetened with the honey.
Sounds wonderful. My garden is filled with heirloom cherry tomatoes which I have been drying and now I am thinking of a tomato jam or preserves. Adding honey, mmmmm, sounds wonderful.
I read that polenta is “the bread of the Dolomites.” One of my favorite recipes is to make polenta toast with dried fruit chutney (cherries, cranberries, apricots) and serve with spicy chicken sausage and garlicky white bean dip as an appetizer. It is so good! (It’s also a lot of work, which is why my family doesn’t get it very much!) 🙂
I would use the honey as the sweetener in a blueberry mustarda which would have (much like your recipe here) a nice balanced earthy brightness to complement cheese and cured meats. It also has the bonus of being able to be made with ingredients local to both the Dolomites and the east coast of the US (where I live).
Plums are ripening here where I live. I’d bring in the Italian wine with the honey and herbs and make up a goodie to go with the cheeses from Italy.
Although I dearly love cherries, I would make a Honey Lemon jelly…. with perhaps an herb this time.
I would make a cherry, honey and apple preserve.
Caramelized onion and shallot jam with rosemary and thyme would complement the local ingredients.
I would make a spread of some sorts … maybe honey, goat cheese and herbs.
I think I would have made some type of cherry wine preserves.
I am NOT experienced at the recipe development thing, but I would have gone with honey and lemon sauce of some form- maybe a dressing or dip?? Love the sound of the yumminess you created!
Whenever I think of Italy, I remember on my honeymoon eating the most delicious figs dripping with local honey, so would probably do a honey fig “cheese”!
I love everything in this jar. I would pick coastal croatia and make a sour cherry butter, maybe with some almond extract! Or a honeyed plum butter?
I am into trying new ways to preserve with honey… have been doing it for years, and incorporating rosemary sounds heavenly!
I think a wine jelly sweetened with honey would be wonderful!
I was given a batch of rhubarb recently and stuck it in the freezer until I had time to do something with it. A few years ago, a neighbor gave me some lovely strawberry-rhubarb jam with lavender that was delicious. I may try and copy that after I get done with the abundance of tomatoes and cucumbers I’ve got right now!
The first thing I thought of (perhaps because, to my delight, I found a jar of it on a high shelf in my pantry last night) is the pear mostarda recipe from your new cookbook. You were kind enough to share a copy with me last year after I tasted it at one of your demonstrations. I have offered the pear mostarda on more than one cheese board over the past year, always with great success.
It would be something that contains raw honey. My employer raises bees, so I am well stocked with honey.
Spicy tomato jam
Honey Mustard, maybe.
I’m just learning to can and have never developed a recipe well. But I’d use the honey on my toast with cherries in my yogurt. I love your blog thanks. It’s fun learning with your ideas/directions.
I’ve been thinking about mustard of late, so I probably would have tried some sort of honey mustart fruit chutney.
Rosemary and honey are a marriage made in heaven…so…I would do something very similar to what you did. Maybe with peaches since they seem to be everywhere. Perhaps some balsamic added. Slap some on a piece of toast with some brie. Yummy, yummy in my tummy.
I just purchased your book by the pint. I plan on making something from that book
What you made was perfect–I especially think the rosemary was apt. Thinking about charcuterie and smoky flavors, I might have gone with a fragrant rosemary apple butter.
I have access to a fig tree in my area for free and would make my
fig jam with orange peel and honey. I’ve never tried it with honey,. I
think it would taste good.
Since I am in cucumber overload and pickling my little heart out, I would have done a honey-balsamic pickled figs, with some rosemary or thyme. And then I would have it with some sharp, stinky Italian cheese and a glass of pinot noir, and be a very happy camper.
I think my starting point would be apricots with that honey… not sure what else I’d throw in there just yet.
I would have done a baked brie with the honey and some fruit inside
The first thing that came to mind was a Genovese basil pesto, but since they gave you the honey I would turn it into a basil pesto dressing to go over a tomato and sliced cheese salad. Or perhaps on an Italian sandwich.
Since I have pears dripping from my tree, I would probably make a pear butter similar to the one you used in Preserving by the Pint.
I have no idea, but I just made lovely raspberry honey preserves with a recipe that I got from… you, of course. Oh and also, Saturday is my birthday 😛
I think I would try my fig and caramelized onion jam with the honey. It pairs wonderfully with cheeses and meats!
Do they grow other fruits in that region of Italy? I have never tried to create my own recipe, but I would think a honey fruit butter would be perfect with that raw honey… Possibly even a honey cherry butter, but I’d be open to any kind of regional fruit.
I picked up 16 pounds of peaches over the weekend, so it would be something like peach butter or peach jam, sweetened with honey.
Instead of regional foods, I keep thinking about the terrain of northern Italy. A simple granola for when hiking to one’s mountain picnic, with some kind of (regional) wine chutney to mix in? Stone fruit, a little Italian apple, winter preserved meyer lemon for citrus and to salt the sweet fruit, maybe some cooked onion. (I’m employing less of a sound preserving strategy and more just throwing it in the pot so hiking can commence sooner.) But bonus if it works with polenta!
I wonder how cherries would do in a sauerkraut.
I would have done something with figs, honey and ? — I am about to go pick some figs this weekend!!!
The figs are looking very nice right now. That would fit the theme– a honeyed fig preserve.
Rosemary and cherries–my two favorite things!!
I would do a white peach, ginger and raw honey. Just got some picked from neighbors yard. Or Apple Honey applesauce. Great giveaway. Thanks
I would love to make Strawberry Jam!
Honestly; I haven’t a clue, but first thing to come to mind was apple/pear butter
Thank you on the wonderful giveaway opportunity