BW’s Whole Fig Preserves

It’s that time again . . .

The figs are ripe up at Camp Dularge and I am battling the birds for them.  I’m sure the guests in the camp thought I was crazy this morning while I was picking figs.  I was fussing at the birds to stay up in the top of the tree and to stop coming down in my half of the tree.  They’re getting too greedy, and all I picked this morning was this small bowl full.  Hardly enough to fool with, but I did anyway, because I love you readers (and my big sister) so much!

This is what every good aspiring Bayou Woman cook has at her fingertips–a laptop cookbook!

For canning, you will need a big boiling pot, about 8 pint jars, new lids (used ones will not seal), bands (can be reused), canning funnel, and canning tongs.  Oh, and a Hershey Bar for a burst of energy–optional!

Here’s what you’ll need for the preserves:
12 cups whole figs
4 cups water
6 cups sugar
4 lemon slices – seeds removed
pinch of salt

Wash figs in cool water.  Remove stems.  I’m using only firm figs for this recipe because I want them to stay “whole” and not smash up.

This recipe calls for an extra step to “set the color” of the figs.  Boil a saucepan of water, gently place figs in and remove from heat.  Let sit 3 minutes and then drain quickly.

Next . . .

In heavy-bottomed pot, combine sugar and water and bring to a rolling boil, stirring constantly until it makes a clear syrup.  Do not burn.  Add lemon slices, and then gently place figs into boiling liquid.

After only a few minutes, the liquid is becoming a pretty pink color.

Lower heat to medium and cook figs for about 2.5 hours, or until figs seem soft.  During the cooking process, swirl the pot to stir rather than using a spoon.  We don’t want to break the figs.

While figs are cooking, get your jars ready.

If you have a dishwasher, keep clean jars hot on the “heated dry” cycle.

If not, place them in the sink and fill them with boiling water. Also, place 8 bands and lids in a pot of boiling water.

Also, make sure you have a big pot like this blue one filled with boiling water for your “granny bath” or boiling water bath.

Once figs are done cooking, place funnel on top of hot jar.  Using a slotted spoon, gently fill hot jar with figs, slice of lemon, and then ladle hot syrup over figs, leaving 1/4 inch head space.   Wipe edge with clean cloth, removing any syrup from rim that would prevent a solid seal.  Now, put on a lid, then a band, and wearing an oven mitt or using a hot pad, screw the band on tight.   Do one jar at a time until all the preserves are used.

Using big tongs, place each jar gently into the boiling water bath and set the timer for 10 minutes.  Make sure the water is over the top of the lids.  Using tongs, then place jars on a towel and wait for the “ping”, which is the sound of the lid making a complete seal while the jar cools down.

And if you’re like me–haven’t eaten yet–take some of the leftover syrup and put it on a piece of toast with a side of fresh figs.  Mmmmmm.  Because I had quite a bit of syrup left, I filled a jar and will try it later on pancakes or waffles.

And there you have it.  About three hours of your time and some beautiful, delicious homemade whole fig preserves.

Happy figging!

BW

A very fishy story continued . . .

This trip was with Diane Huhn, Volunteer Coordinator for Bayou Grace, and their hurricane recovery efforts on the five bayous.  Diane  is an avid freshwater fisherman from Michigan, and I feel fortunate to have made her acquaintance and now call her friend.

Armed with artificial lures only–no shrimp, no crabs–we headed out one morning at “Redfish Breakfast Time”.   And believe it or not, folks, that time is not the  crack of dawn!  That’s another thing I love about reds–they like to sleep in!

Diane was the first to snag a nice red.  What a beauty!  If memory serves, this was only her second time to target redfish.

And then on the same lure, she caught a little bass, which she released.  After catching her second red of the morning, she announced that the score was “2 to 0″.  I mentally asked “who’s counting?”  as I heard myself say “There’s no competing on this boat.”  See, when I’m behind there will be NO competing on my boat!  That’s one of the perks of being a captain–I can make up my own rules as I go!

The dark marsh waters gave up so many reds in such a short time, that we enjoyed a little CNR–Catch ‘n Release–for you rookies out there!  Diane held this red loosely until it got its gills going and swam quickly out of her hands.  What a great feeling!

And then I got to do a little of this. . . fish tagging!

Do you see the white strip about two inches long sticking out just below the dorsal fin?  That tag is marked with a La. Department of Wildlife and Fisheries number.  This tag number is associated with an information card I filled out about this particular fish–its length, weight, species, where caught, what kind of lure, etc.  The measuring and tagging must be done quickly so the fish can be returned to the water alive.

The next person who catches this fish will call LDWF, give them the number and all the new stats on the fish, and then LDWF can compare the new stats with the old.  This gives some idea of growth rate and travel distance.  Pretty cool, huh?  Oh, and they can let me know where the fish was caught and how much it grew so there will be a continuum and hopefully more nerds like me will want to tag fish.

After we reached our limit, with other reds still wanting breakfast, I decided to test a theory.

I took the most raggedy looking plastic bait off my console and put it on the rustiest jighead and tied it to my line.

On about the third cast, the lure produced this nice specimen!

Here’s the theory:  When the fish are biting, does it really matter what you cast at them?  Finding:  In this case, the answer was a resounding NO!  This fish was promptly returned to the water to live to a ripe old age.

We gave the fish a rest on Friday, while we got some real work done at Camp Dularge.  Yes, that’s right.  We did something other than go fishing!

On Saturday, even though the sky was dark and streaked with rain off to the south, we pushed on to the same honey hole to try our luck one last time.  After a week of temperatures that reached 100, it was blissful fishing in cool rain.  That posed yet one more theory to test–whether or not the reds bite in the rain.

Diane tested this theory right away and came up with this gorgeous fish.

Finding:  This day, the reds bit better during the rain than after the rain.  However, this ended up being the slowest morning of the week, with only six keepers hitting the deck.

We had a great time fishing this week, and I’d like to think we were good sports and conservationists.  We left our environment better than we found it.  We kept our trash in the boat.  We retrieved snagged lures when we could.  We let the big ones and small ones go back, keeping only what we knew we could use or give away.

BB took her catch home to feed her family in Mississippi.   Diane took fillets  for a fish fry for her family in Michigan.  Three widows on this bayou had fresh fish this week.  My family ate well and still has redfish fillets in the freezer, which I will share with others.

For me, fishing is the all around ideal sport.  First, there is the challenge of reading all the signs of a good fishing day.  On the boat ride to the honey hole, we are embraced by the sights, sounds, and smells of the natural setting.    There is the mystique of knowing which lure the fish will want under that day’s conditions.  There is the honing of one’s skills and the fun of guessing what kind of fish is on the end of your line by the way it feels.  We take  pause to admire the beauty of the color and markings of each fish, and take a minute to photograph each others catch.  We enjoy the camaraderie of a good joke and the swapping of fish tales.  It’s the satisfying feeling of following good conservation by releasing the undersized or very large fish.

Afterward, there is the reward of bragging rights back at the landing, where a box full of reds puts women and men on equal footing.  The rewards continue on as the fish are cleaned and shared with others, or taken home and prepared many ways for one’s family.

If you’re looking for a sport that is fulfilling on just about every level, you’d be hard pressed to find a sport better than fishing.

Let’s go fishing!

BW

If you would like to see more pics of our fishing trips, please visit Diane’s photo page.

First a winner . . . and then a very fishy story!

THE WINNER:

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

1

Timestamp: 2009-06-28 23:15:00 UTC

That means that Comment No. 1 is the winner of the cute little espresso coffee cups!  And that is Cammy.  Okay, Cammy, please email me your mailing address so Scott at Community Coffee can get these mailed to you this week!

Now, a fishy story.

It doesn’t happen every week, nor can I ever predict when it will, even though I’ve been fishing for a few years, keeping records, and studying tides, currents, winds, and water temps.  But once in a while, we hit it just right and the fish cooperate, and the action is non-stop.

This past week was just one of those weeks, at least for redfish (Sciaenops ocellatus) in one of my favorite spots to fish for them.  Before I go on with the story, how about a little redfish trivia?

A member of the drum family, the “red drum” range in color from a light golden color to a dark almost salmon color, depending on the water they inhabit.  Once considered a “trash” fish, and fished many years by commercial fishermen using gill nets, the redfish was fished almost to extinction as a result of a recipe created by Chef Paul Prudhomme called “blackened redfish”.  Now, gill nets have been banned and redfish have become one of the most sought-after Gulf Coast sport fishes around.  There is even a redfish circuit, much like the bass fishing circuit, and almost every fishing tournament has a redfish category.

And for those of you who watch Iron Chef America, redfish was a secret ingredient used by two of the competitors in an episode this past March.

It just so happens that the marshes here are teeming with the fantastically beautiful and strong fighting fish.  If you are vegan, please click away now, as the following photos may offend you.  If you are a sport fisher person, stay here, because the following photos are going to make you green with envy!

BB is one of the first women I had the honor of teaching to saltwater fish.  A trout was her first proud trophy several years ago.  But this time, I promised her she would catch a big red . . . but she got distracted by this big sheephead.  I’ve never heard anyone scream so loudly as she did when this fish took her bait.  I thought she was going to jump out of the boat with excitement!  This was the biggest fish she had ever caught in her life!

but then she caught the promised big red . . .

and then she caught another . . .

As a matter of fact, on just two fishing trips, BB boated 10 keeper reds and left them biting each trip!  She will tell you it was worth every drop of sweat!

Later in the day, we tried a sunset trip.  We could see the fish swirling, but we could not get them to bite.  There were also five alligators in those waters near her.

Of course, she insisted on taking photos of me and my fish.  How do you think we got any fish caught with all these photos ops?

I caught this little bass early on . . . and I love how it blends with my shirt!

And I caught an occassional unintentional baby trout.

In between, I caught some of these.  This one has 8 black spots rather than just the one on its tail.

BB insisted on taking this action shot . . .

which produced this nice red!

And what fishy story would be complete without the dreaded “box shot”?  That is what our ice chest looked like at the end of both mornings.  Even though we took photos, caught throw-backs, and changed lures, we managed to catch limits of reds in under two hours.  That, my friends, is what you call “red hot red fishing action”!

To be continued with Diane Huhn on board the Wetland Tooner!

Get your comments ready for this week’s Community Coffee prize!

Comments from both days will be considered!

Until next time, I will be busy teaching teenagers about the wetlands and taking them out to tour!

BW