Waste Not, Want Not

The store where I was browsing wasn’t my regular grocery shopping venue, and the jar of what seemed to be fig jam struck me as an interesting variation on my usual jam choices.

Northern New Jersey is home to many ethnic groups, from the Italians and Greeks, who’ve been here for ages, plus people from Hispanic cultures, and more recent arrivals from South and East Asia as well as the Middle East and the Caribbean. Thus the food possibilities, both restaurants and groceries, are endless.

This particular store carries foods from just about every country that borders on the Mediterranean. The cheese, sausage, pasta, and bread possibilities are amazing, and a whole wall of shelves offers jars and cans of fruits and vegetables, some quite exotic, preserved in various ways.

My fig jam, when I got it home and sampled it, turned out to be not jam but whole figs in thick sugar syrup. I didn’t think it would spread very effectively on toast, and the figs were intensely sweet on their own. They could have been chopped up and used as a very tasty topping for vanilla ice cream, but I had another idea for them.

I got out my recipe for what I call “Adaptable Quick Bread.” Based on a recipe whose source I lost track of long ago, it has evolved over the years as I’ve discovered that it’s endlessly malleable—also quick and easy.

It’s actually more like cake in texture, though it’s baked in a loaf pan and served in slices. Quick breads are so named because, unlike yeast breads, which require time to rise, they use baking powder and/or baking soda and go together in no time at all.

Here’s my recipe:

2 cups flour (no need to sift)
¾ cup sugar (or more or less)
1 ½ tsp. baking powder
1 ½ tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. salt
¾ cup liquid
1 egg lightly beaten with a fork
5 tbsp. butter, melted
1 to 2 cups nuts and /or dried or preserved fruit

Notes:

For the flour you can use whole wheat or half whole wheat and half white. You can also replace up to half a cup of flour with corn meal or buckwheat flour.

You can use brown sugar in place of some or all of the sugar.

For the liquid you can use milk, evaporated milk without diluting, plain yogurt, or orange juice. With yogurt, you might have to add a bit than 3/4 cup if your batter looks too stiff.

If you use orange juice you can flavor the quick bread with grated orange rind too. A bit of lemon juice can be substituted for some of the milk or yogurt and you can add grated lemon rind too.

Directions:

You don’t need an electric mixer for this, just a large spoon.

Mix the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Add the liquid, then the beaten egg and the melted butter, and stir until the batter is smooth with no dry bits. Stir in the nuts and/or fruit.

Scoop the batter into a greased 5” X 9” loaf pan and bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes to an hour. You can tell if it’s done by sticking a wooden toothpick into the middle of the top. If the toothpick comes out dry, your quick bread is ready to eat. Let it cool a bit first though.

I once made the quick bread with dried apples from a friend who dries her own fruit, combining them with raisins. I poured boiling water on the raisins and the dried apple slices, let them sit for half an hour, and then drained them well and chopped the apple slices.

Walnuts and raisins are good together. Soak the raisins first in a bit of hot water if they seem dry. You can also use dates or dried apricots, or dried figs, or chopped prunes, or dried cranberries… It’s fun to experiment.

Dried apricots are very good with orange juice used as the liquid.

For my preserved fig quick bread, I chopped half a jar of the figs into bits about the size of raisins. I used yogurt for the liquid and I substituted some of the syrup for some of the yogurt. Since the syrup was very sweet, I used less than half a cup of sugar.

It was very popular with everyone who tried it—so much so that I’m going to pick up another jar of preserved figs the next time I’m in that store.