Fireweed Jelly

After almost a month of non-stop rain we are now in midst of a three day heat wave asking ourselves if it will ever rain again.

I'm happy though. The rain of late spring and early summer has fed the berries to be big and plump. Now the sun of mid-summer will crystallize the sugars and those berries should be juicy, sweet and abundant. I was on the ATV yesterday checking out my local crop of blueberries. Today I will check on the raspberries. I can only hope they will be ready before I leave my post here for hunting camp in northern BC.

Yesterday I made a batch of fireweed jelly and canned 12 jars of the impossibly pink indulgence. My recipe is a bit different than some. I don't like my jelly to be a solid gelatinous blob. I like when it slides over my toast and coats my fruit with its sweet shimmer (re: photo of fruit tart with a coat of fireweed jelly) .

Fireweed is the harbinger of fall in the north. Summer is here when the first buds turn to flower at the midpoint on the fireweed stem and once the last few buds have blossomed at the top of the plant as we prepared for autumn chill.

I like to use as much of the plant as I can. I harvest the fireweed with scissors and a bucket. I like to snip the plant just below the blossoming flowers -- taking with me the flowers and the buds on the top. Taking only a few plants from each patch you can't tell I was ever there. Back in camp, I grab the plant at the base and run my hand up stem taking allowing the petals and stamens and buds and likely a few bugs fall into the bowl. I think that when you use it all you end up with a richer colour and a strong honey-like flavour.

Fireweed Jelly

7 cups of fireweed blossoms and buds
1/4 cup of lemon juice
4 1/2 cups of water

Throw it all into a large pot and bring it to a boil for about 10 minutes. The bright pink petals will lose their colour and the resulting water will be a bright murky fuchsia.

Strain the juice through a sieve and cheese cloth (or paper towel). You can either save the juice in the fridge for a few days until you are ready to can or proceed to the next step. The benefit of chilling the juice for a few days is that the pollen and other things that weren't filtered out initially will stay behind at the bottom of jar you kept in the fridge -- producing a clearer product in the end.

Measure your juice and make sure you have four cups or 1L. You can add water if you need to. Return the juice to a clean pot and bring it to lukewarm. Add a package of Certo Pectin and give it a stir. Bring that to a boil.

Add 5 1/2 cups of white sugar. Give it a stir and then bring that to a hard boil for a minute, or more, if you happen to walk and forget about it like I so often do.

Remove the pot from the heat and skim off the bubbles and any bits of anything that float to the top.

This will make 1.5 litres of jelly.

For canning, I like to preheat my oven to 225F and keep my jars there until I'm ready to use them. I simmer the lids in a shallow pot of water with a pair of metal tongs that I use for lifting them out.

Boletes and Morels

Five minutes on a quad from base camp takes us to a patch of forest that was kissed by fire last summer.

We've seen a few mushroom pickers here and there over the past couple of weeks.

A group of us went out a few nights ago to try our luck at spotting the gnarly little shrooms. We collected a dozen or so learning after we returned that there needs to be five days of sun before these little gems poke through the blackened earth. We haven't had a full day of sun in over a month.

The swarms of mosquitoes were well worth the effort for the small appetizer I produced of the morels sauteed in butter with a bit of fresh garlic, a pinch of mountain sage, salt and cracked pepper.

The wet weather we have been having has meant that a couple of the guys have brought home bags full of boletes (king and scaber) for dinner each night. The firm texture and nutty flavour of boletes has left the button mushrooms from last week's grocery order forever perched in the back of the fridge.

Cream n' Sherry Boletes

3 cups diced boletes (cleaned and cut out the bugs)

on medium heat saute 1 cup of the boletes in a cast iron frying pan with 1/4 cup of butter and 1 tsp salt (unless you're in a dry camp and you've only got salted sherry!)

when golden add the remaining boletes and cook until tender

over medium-low heat add 2/3 cup sherry

reduce until the sherry is almost completely gone

add a pinch of dried thyme

on low heat add a 1/3 cup of cream and reduce a bit

re-season with salt and cracked pepper

A cold and rainy day in the middle of nowhere.

No one wanted to leave camp today. Everyone was dressed in their rain gear finest grabbing one more cup of coffee or tea before heading out of camp.

I can't really say where I am these days. Suffice it to say that I'm somewhere off the Top of the World Highway in Yukon, Canada.

Gold prices are at a record high price and we're breaking ground, again, on the sites of the greatest gold rush the world has ever known.