Jump to Recipe

When I left the corporate world and packed up my skirts and shirts, I had visions of cultivating a backyard orchard while growing seasonal vegetables in raised beds. Together, with my children, we would harvest the yield and then I would prepare farm fresh fare for our family dinners while we talked about our love for each other. And, I would preserve the remainder of our yield into succulent jams and pickled foods. I would be Diane Keaton, the tiger lady, in Baby Boom who escapes to the Vermont farmhouse and invents the Country Baby brand applesauce from her own harvest and then the Food King buys her out and she’s forever rich in life and love.

Turns out, I am not a farmer. I cannot grow anything, shy of the irrepressible rosemary mostly because growing something requires tending and my tendency is to forget to tend and funny story, things die after that. But, I can prepare the farm fresh fare and thanks to my CSA, the endless farmers markets in LA that pop up like Starbucks, and friends like Vivian who bring me their fallen fruit, I get my bounty.

Vivian gave me more fabulous figs from her mother’s fig tree and this time, it was time to preserve, because we love our fig jam and goat cheese in this house. But, I was not about spend hours sterilizing jars to ensure a bacteria doesn’t fester; that’s too much pressure and remember I’m the one who forgets to water tomatoes.

Refrigerator preserves are more my speed. I was inspired by a few online sources, including Cooking Light and then crafted this quick concoction.

An unbeatable appetizer: cracked pepper wafer with a slather of goat cheese spread (lighten with milk) and topped with fig & ginger preserves.