Blueberry Lavender Smash

Ingredients:

2 oz. London Dry Gin

3/4 oz. Freshly squeezed lime juice

3/4 oz. Lemongrass syrup

2 Bar spoons Blueberry Lavender Jam

Preparation:

Fill a shaker with ice, add all of the ingredients and shake for about 15 seconds. Double strain with a fine strainer in a Collins glass with crushed ice cubes, and garnish with fresh blueberries.

• lemongrass syrup can be found online or you can make it by combining one bruised and chopped stalk of lemongrass with 1 cup of water in a small pan and simmer for 15 minutes. Then add 1/2 cup of sugar over heat until dissolved. Let it cool, strain and store refrigerated for up to 7 days.

Roasted Duck Breast with Blackberry Bourbon Vanilla glaze

Duck breast for Easter dinner is a perfect main course! A special occasion delicacy and thanks to its versatility and flavor, it is considered a perfect complement to sauces and interesting flavors.

For this recipe, we will bake the duck breast, sear it and glaze it with a sauce made with our Blackberry Bourbon Vanilla Jam.

Prep Time: 10 Minutes Cooking time: 20 Minutes

The ingredients needed for 4 servings are:

• 4 Duck Breasts

• 2 Tbsp + 2 Tbsp Blackberry Bourbon Vanilla Jam

• 3 tsp Olive Oil

• 4 Baby Carrots

• 2 tsp Honey

• 1 Rosemary Sprig

• 1 Tbsp Heavy Cream

• 1 tsp Raspberry Vinegar

• 1⁄2 Garlic Clove Minced

To prepare this delicious recipe, these are the steps to follow:

1. Preheat oven to 355°F.

2. Use a knife to score the fatty surface of the duck breast, then place it in an oven safe dish skin side down and pour 1 tsp on olive oil on it. Rub it well.

3. Cook it for 15 - 18 minutes.

In the meantime, we can prepare the sauce:

1. Add 2 tbsp of Blackberry Bourbon Vanilla Jam in a small pot, place over low heat and add 1 tbsp of water.

2. Once it starts to heat up, add the heavy cream to it.

3. Allow the sauce to cook for 1 minute, and then add the raspberry vinegar. This will give a nice acidic touch that will balance the sweetness of the Jam.

4. Peel the carrots, but don’t remove the green top.

5. Blanch in boiling salted water for 3 minutes, then cool the carrots down in cold water and set them aside for later.

Once the duck breast is ready, we can now sear it:

1. Pour the remaining olive oil in a skillet, put over high heat and add the garlic clove to it and the rosemary.

2. Dry the duck breasts by patting it with a paper towel.

3. Mix the remaining two Tbsp of Jam with the honey and brush the skin of the duck with it.

4. At this point, we can place the duck breasts in the skillet with the skin side down.

5. Allow the skin to become crispy and caramelized, then add the carrots to the pan.

6. Sauté them for one minute, and then season both the carrots and the duck breasts with a pinch of salt and pepper.

Serve these duck breasts whole as a portion, and make sure to warm the sauce up before serving. Garnish with the sauteed carrots and/or a vegetable of your choice.

A History of Jam

        Making jam has become a wildly popular pursuit across the US with the recent pandemic, such that there’s actually a nationwide shortage of jars! There’s an undeniable pleasure in canning, and it can be seen throughout history. In this post, we’re going to talk about how you can trace that exact interest through history and how great that really is.

        For a long, long time (think in the millions of years), people have been preserving food. Generally speaking, early preserving methods revolved around separating a food product from water and air. This meant that products were often salted and dried, or even coated in honey (which forms a barrier against the elements).

        In ancient Greece, quince was mixed with honey, dried, and packed into jars. The Romans improved upon this method by cooking the quince and honey together, thereby producing a meld of the ingredients. If you’re up to date on how preserves are made, you’ll see the bones of the style starting to emerge here.

        Generally speaking, the first jams and preserves are accredited to cooks in the Middle East at some point before the eleventh century - it’s hard to pin down an exact time frame. These preserves used honey as their sweetener, though sugar quickly surpassed honey in popularity for making jams. From that point onwards, you can essentially follow the spread of sugar around the world on a map. If a place had sugar and fruit, people would likely combine the two to make a preserve.

        Jam making and preserves came to the US with colonists, who had sampled jam in their home countries. Generally speaking, jams became popular throughout Europe due to the sweet tooth of assorted royal families who could afford the sugar that was required to make them. As sugar became more widespread, poorer people in European cities were able to make jam themselves and took that skill to the US with them.

        As time went on, more and more people made jam in the US. There was ready access to both sugar and fruit, so they made plenty of preserves, along with all other kinds of foodstuffs. The next great advancement in the jam-making world was the process of aseptic canning.

        If you’re used to making jam in your home, then you’ll surely know what that is. Aseptic canning is the process of heating the jam and the can separately, in order to ensure that all surfaces are sterile. This allows the jam that is added to the can to stay sterile and safe to eat for a long time - it is completely shelf-stable.

        When sugar prices soared in the 1970s, companies began to regularly add high-fructose corn syrup to their jams instead of sugar, which was particularly unhealthy. It is only in the fairly recent past that people have gone back to sugar and alternative sweetness, allowing for a great artisan, home-making movement to arise.

        We love jam, and we love that it has such a huge footprint across history - what other foodstuff has remained to prevalent the world over? Well, now that you’re armed with a little more knowledge about the history of jam - happy canning!

Christmas Apple Crisp

Once the holidays roll around it is inevitable that you will need a dessert to make! Whether you bring one to a family function, make one for a family holiday, or just because...you’ll want an amazing recipe to have on hand. This Christmas Apple Crisp is just what you are searching for.

Made with Little Black Box Christmas Jam, this Apple Crisp has flavors of cinnamon, orange, apple, and cranberry all baked into an apple crisp bar. It’s the perfect make-ahead option because the longer the bars set up, the easier they are to eat! Or just dig right in to a warm bar! Your options are endless.

It has a traditional shortbread crust as well as a crumble topping. In the middle are fresh apples tossed with cinnamon and a few tablespoons of the Christmas Jam. The tartness in the jam provides the perfect balance to the sweetness of the whole dessert. 

Ingredients:

CRUST

1 stick of butter, softened

¼  cup of sugar

2 tsp vanilla

Pinch of salt

1 cup flour

FILLING

3 apples, peeled and sliced

2 tsp cinnamon

2 tbsp flour

4 tbsp Christmas Jam

Zest of 1 orange

TOPPING

¼ cup flour

¼ cup brown sugar

¼ cup butter cut into cubes

Directions:

1. Make the shortbread crust by creaming your butter and sugar in a mixer. Add in the vanilla, salt, and flour. Mix on low until it looks crumbly.

2. Press it into a greased 8x8 baking dish and bake for 15 minutes at 350. 

3. While that bakes, slice your apples and in a mixing bowl combine the cinnamon, flour, orange zest, apples, and Christmas Jam. 

4. Prep the topping by mixing the flour, brown sugar, and butter cubes. Mix well until the butter starts to break up a little bit.

5. When the crust is done, layer on the apple mixture and top with the topping.

6. Bake for 30 minutes. 

7. Top with powdered sugar and more orange zest.

Banana Lime Bread

Banana bread is a year long treat that we can all enjoy! This baked loaf is so easy to make and we’re going to put a Little Black Box twist on it by sweetening it and glazing it with our Banana Rum Lime Jam! 

Banana, rum and lime? Sounds like an odd combo but the zestiness of the lime paired with the creamy sweetness of banana is all rounded out with rum and it is perfect! Glaze a simple banana bread with it and you will be a very popular person at parties.

People probably won’t be able to put their finger on what exactly is different, but it elevates an average banana bread and looks absolutely gorgeous. By adding some lime zest to the batter as well as garnishing with a little extra, it really drives home the flavors of the banana lime bread. 

Ingredients

1 stick butter, softened 

2 mashed bananas

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

½ tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla

1 ½ cups all purpose flour 

2 tablespoons Banana Rum Lime Jam 

Zest of 1 lime 

Instructions

1. In a mixing bowl cream together the butter, sugar, and banana. 

2. Crack in the eggs, add vanilla and stir. 

3. Add salt, flour, zest of the lime and 2 tablespoons of Banana Rum LimeJjam.

4. Pour into a greased loaf pan and bake for 50 minutes at 350. 

5. When it is slightly cooled, glaze the top with additional Banana Lime Bread Jam. Zest some lime over the top and enjoy! 

Blackberry Bourbon Vanilla Shortcake

Taste like summer in the south

As our summer season wind’s down, your sweet summer treats don’t have to! This Blackberry Bourbon Shortcake combines the juiciest blackberries with rich bourbon and vanilla to create the ULTIMATE summer dessert.

Move over Strawberry Shortcake, we’ve got a mix of complex flavors and textures that will blow you out of the water!

We’ve created a treat that only looks fancy. It is a simple buttermilk biscuit jazzed up with some fresh vanilla bean, topped with our jam, and finished off with a quick bourbon whipped cream. Easy as pie...or shortcake! 

Layered in between vanilla bean biscuits is a thick layer of our Blackberry Bourbon Vanilla Jam. Little Black Box blackberry jam is made with whole berries so you will find the texture of the seeds add to the overall enjoyment of this dessert. Along with just a touch of warm bourbon and vanilla it just screams summertime! 

Top the jam with a few fresh berries for added brightness. Finally, add on a big dollop of bourbon whipped cream! A few ingredients stand between you and this sweet summertime treat. Grab your Blackberry Bourbon Vanilla Jam and let’s make some fresh Vanilla Bean Biscuit Blackberry Bourbon Shortcake! 

Ingredients:

Biscuits - makes 5 biscuits

2 cups flour

1 tbsp sugar

3 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

½ cup cold butter, cubed

¾ cup buttermilk

1 tsp vanilla or the inside of 1 vanilla bean

Filling:

5 tbsp Blackberry Bourbon Jam

½ cup fresh blackberries

Whipped Cream:

½ cup heavy whipping cream

1 tbsp bourbon 

Instructions:

Biscuits:

1. In a food processor or blender combine all dry ingredients as well as your cubed butter.

2. Pulse 5 times to incorporate the butter. It should still be in pea sized chunks.

3. Add in buttermilk and pulse about 10 more times until it starts to form a dough.

4. Turn out the dough onto a floured surface and form into a rectangle.

5. Fold the rectangle in half lengthwise and roll out a bit. It should be about ½ inch thick.

6. Cut out 3 biscuits and then repeat the process with the “scraps” It should form 5 biscuits all together.

7. Bake at 450 for 10 minutes.

Blackberry Bourbon Shortcake

1. In a small bowl whip together the heavy cream and bourbon.

2. Take one biscuit and cut it in half.

3. Layer 1 tablespoon of jam, top with a few fresh berries and some whipped cream.

4. Top the biscuit with the other half.

5. Dollop the whipped cream on top of your shortcake. Enjoy!

Tropical Haute Dog

Like so many people we are inside, and that leads to eating and for me that also leads to recipe testing! We made a pineapple mango pepper jelly slaw to top this oven baked haute dog. Reality is we cheated and bought a bag of slaw at the grocery store then just added to it.

I was planning on grilling but it’s really hot outside so I just set the oven to 400 degrees, slit the hot dogs down the middle and baked them for 15 minutes.

Pepper Jelly Slaw is just combining the ingredients below in a bowl and chill until the dogs are ready you could even make the slaw the day before and just keep it chilled.

2c. slaw

1/2 c. LBB Pineapple Mango Pepper Jelly

1T. fresh lime juice

1T. cilantro

1T. grapeseed oil

2T. Minced red onion

1 hot pepper of your choice minced (wear gloves)

salt & pepper to taste

10 Ways to Manage Stress While Sheltering at Home

1) Turnoff the news- it’s important to stay informed but it’s also important to not get sucked into the daily toxicity of what’s happening. Our 24hour news cycle means that if we don’t make a conscious effort to keep overwhelming news to a minimum we can be bombarded. Limit TV news to 15 minutes in the morning and 15 minutes at night.

2) Get outside- Exercise and endorphins are both needed these days. Plan a walk in the morning or evening, meditate outside someplace peaceful or just taking a bike ride can do wonders!

3) Clean- The car, the fridge, the bathrooms, the pantry. It’s amazing what you can get done when you aren’t exhausted from work every day. Cleaning also gives focus and when you focus on something it makes it harder for those intrusive thoughts to take hold, We also think cleaning and having a organized environment is a form of self care.

4) Digital detox- limit the time on social media. Not being tied to devices is incredibly freeing and healthy.

5) Books- Set aside time to read. It’s fantastic if you schedule time in your day to actually read a book you can do it by a number of minutes or you can do it by a certain number of pages each day. Audio books count and for a little fun it can even be listening to podcasts.

6) Get creative-You have lots of choices for creativity especially when you’re locked inside. Creativity can be expressed with cooking/baking, games, art or with the kids included. Puzzles are making a resurgence and word finder puzzles can be a great distraction.

7) Make sure you connect with people daily-This one is huge! Not just for you but for other people as well. It’s important to set aside time to connect. Pick a time every night call someone maybe it’s someone that you haven’t spoken to you in a very long time but making that connection especially when you’re not able to physically touch people is vital.

8) Make new habits- It takes 21 days to make a habit so that habit can be any of the things above from walking every day to learning a new skill you have the time right now to learn something new.

9) Eat well-This one is probably my favorite! Now is the time to truly plan what you’re eating and to try and as many nutrient dense foods as possible. You have the time to cook because were staying home. So now is the time to plan a menu each week, shop local farmers as much as you can, is there a CSA that does delivery? A local food market that supports makers and small businesses? Get the grocery shopping done have it delivered if possible to cut contact down or do curbside pick up and plan to eat a nutritious breakfast lunch and dinner.

10) Find the laughter- laughter is still out there and in these trying times there are lots of places for you to find it. Watch something funny at the end the night. Humorous reruns of old movies or old sitcom’s are in my cue right now, just make sure that every day you find the laughter because it’s needed now more than ever.