The Jam Stand

The Jam Stand and friends had a wonderful surprise this past weekend! 

Our good friend from college, the one and only Miss Ashley Strid, popped in for a visit. She was met with yells of joy and smothering love as she entered the Jam Stand HQ unannounced. Some worked harder to keep the secret than others… ah hem, Natalie..

With all boys out of the picture, minus a lovely Jarp, we had a jamtastic ladies weekend filled with Cheryl Dance Parties, late night jam seshes, and hours of catch-up pillow talk.

We ended our weekend with a farewell Roebling Tea Room brunch. Although the wait was long (anyone looking for NY Sunday brunch with a party of 6 understands) it was a wonderful way to wrap up the glorious surprise weekend. 

We all miss Strid dearly, but we have tons of silly videos to hold us over until her next visit!

Please come back soon Stridy Poo!!! 

Love for our biggest Jam Fan - Ashley Anne Strid

We like to consider ourselves connoisseurs of jam, but find that we have many other passions. One of which is conceptualizing and cooking robust meals for family and friends. Upon moving to New York we quickly put together a weekly “family” dinner. In a big city, where one can easily be caught up with the busyness of their lives, it is important to keep close friends, and what better to slow down and bring people together than food? Perhaps it would be better put to say that we search for life full of FLAVOR!

So, we were thinking about our apple-pear jam and got inspired! We have been playing with contrasting flavors recently and decided to pair our sweet jam with a savory dish.

We purchased a whole chicken and slow cooked it in our homemade “Mas Manzanas Pear Favor” jam. It turned out to be absolutely delectable!

We paired this dish with some sauteed green beans tossed in our very own “You’re Bacon me CRAZY” jam!

How to make J + S Roasted Chicken with Apple-Pear Jam glaze:

• 1 (3lb) whole chicken
• 1 shallot, sliced
• 1/2 lb red potatoes, quartered
• 4 cloves of garlic, sliced
• 12 oz J+S “Mas Manzanas Pear Favor” Jam
• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• salt 
• pepper

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. 

Wash the chicken in hot water and pat dry. Place chicken in roasting pan, breast side up, and rub with apple-pear jam, salt and pepper. 

Wash potatoes, dry and quarter. In a medium sized bowl mix oil with remaining jam. Toss potatoes, onion, and garlic in oil mixture and add to roasting dish (surrounding the chicken.)

Cook for 1 hour and 30 minutes. Time may vary depending on the size of your chicken. Thermometer should read an internal temperature 180 degrees F when finished. I used to be terrified of undercooking chicken until I finally sucked it up and bought a thermometer… life changer.

Green beans with Bacon Jam:

• 1 lb of green beans 
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 3-4 cloves of garlic, minced
• salt
• 1/4 cup water
• 1.5 oz J+S “You’re Bacon Me Crazy” Jam

Wash and dry green beans. Snap off ends (this is always my favorite part.) I like to leave my green beans whole, but everyone has their own size preference. 

Add oil to saucepan and heat on med-low for a minute. Add garlic and toast until garlic is fragrant. Be careful not to burn your garlic. Add green beans, season with saltand saute for 2 minutes. Add water, cover and cook 6 minutes. Uncover and boil until the water evaporates. Add bacon jam and toss until all warmed through. 

The end result is just YUMMMYYYY! We promise.

Our “family” loved it, and believe us.. they can be a brutal crowd when they want to be! 

Thanks for the photos Jake! And don’t worry.. we aren’t referring to you and Alex when we say “brutal” :) 

Jam Love,

J+S

Who said you can’t be productive on a rainy day!? A few weekends back, during the tumultuous NYC rainstorm, we had a brunchtastic meeting to handle some J + S expenses with a little help from our “Jam-ccountant” Mr. Kristian Sedeño.

He’s a big Jam Stand fan!

We’ve got our accounts in order and are ready to get our JAM ON! 

Thanks Kris!

Last Tuesday The Jam Stand got together for a mid-week Brooklyn Jam Sesh. We made new batches of Razzy Gabby & a side of Jalapeño (we are selling out like wildfire) and created a new flavor, más manzanas PEAR-favor (more apples please.) 

After some discussion we decided that this week’s creation should be healthy, prompting us to make a butter. I know, I know… A lot of people out of touch with Jam Lingo, which is most people, tend to get grossed out at the use of the word “butter” and scoff when we tell them that it can actually be healthier than a typical jam or jelly. A butter, in the jam world, is pureed fruit cooked slowly allowing the fruit’s natural sugars to extract. For this reason, butters generally have less or no added sugars. Why they chose to call the end result of this process a “butter” escapes me.

For this particular butter we chose to combine apples (high to medium in pectin) with pears (low in pectin.) Pectin is the natural gelling agent produced by fruits. The perfect amount of pectin is crucial to us because - - who wants runny jelly???

We found some beautiful pears in a Brooklyn market and wanted to get good use of this Winter fruit before sunny Spring pops up…. Let’s take a moment here to really appreciate the fact that warmth is slowly making its way to New York!

After some experimentation our masterpiece was born.. Apples, pears, honey, lemon, cinnamon and ginger.  So far, we have been receiving raving reviews..

“Wow, this tastes like Christmas!” 

“I normally don’t like ginger, but I’m totes into this.”

“This tastes like a gourmet apple sauce.”

We actually even witnessed a friendly couple, who we won’t name, brawl over the J+S apple-pear butter worried that there wouldn’t be enough to share..  Don’t worry boys, you can always buy more :) 

Making of the jams - 

We like to chop our jalapeños in the food processor because we are BIG WIMPS. I once had to chop up 15 jalapeños and spent the entire day with my hands BURNING!!! I tried everything to soothe the pain, but it wasn’t until I woke up the next morning that I finally felt some relief… Never again!

We heat our sugar in the oven prior to adding it to the fruit mixture. It makes for exemplary results.. Don’t believe us?? Buy the jam and form your own opinion :) 

Natalie has been a wonderful Jam Helper! If you would like to become a Jam Stand Taste Tester just shoot us an e-mail and we will call you up for our next sesh! All Jam Friends are WELCOME!! 

She even made us ants on a log to reward us for all of our hard work!!!! Thanks Mom! 

All in all… Jam Success!!!! 

Spreading the love,

The Jam Stand

Our good friend and esteemed screen printer, Mr. Jerzy Shustin, made The Jam Stand’s first official T’s. We couldn’t be more excited!!

Next on the list - Jam Stand totes for our devoted customers.. We love you guys and want you to know just how much we appreciate you! Hm.. well, we really do appreciate you more than a burlap sack shows, but a small token of appreciation is better than nothing?  

Also, keep a look out for our silly Drunken Monkey t-shirts.. 

Check out some of Jerzy’s other designs on his facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?id=18500295&aid=2120702

If you have any shirt or screen printing ideas just contact the Jerz and he will hook you up! 

We really enjoy baking, and what baked good is more classic than homemade chocolate chip cookies?  

While we love and appreciate all original recipes and ideas, we can’t resist putting our own little spin on things…

After making massive amounts of our Bacon Jam we were left with an overwhelming excess of bacon grease. While others might find grease to be repulsive, we saw this as a golden opportunity. The idea of storing and using old grease to cook and bake is by no means inventive… For years cooks have been saving their grease in old coffee cans and  tins to use at a later time. Grease is an excellent replacement for butter or shortening because this natural fat develops great flavor throughout the cooking process of the original meat.

As stated in an earlier post, we cooked 15lbs of bacon yielding an absurd amount of perfect-for-cookies bacon grease.  

We used our favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe and substituted half of the butter with bacon drippings. We admit that these cookies aren’t the healthiest, but your taste buds will LOVE them!

Don’t worry, the cookies don’t taste like bacon. The grease allows them to be plump and soft and creates a saltiness that accompanies the sweetness of the cookies perfectly. 

We wrapped our finished cookies in some hand-stamped muslin and tied it with a bow. Here at The Jam Stand we are all about the flavors, experience, and presentation.  

We served these cookies at our Jam Pairing Brunch and they were a HUGE hit! 

We are still swimming in bacon grease (hm… weird and slightly disturbing mental image..) and will definitely be coming up with more ways to utilize these flavorful drippings.   

We’ve just created our Facebook Fan Page at http://www.facebook.com/thejamstand.

“Like” our page to receive updates on The Jam Stand happenings, silly pics and videos, and jamtastic recipes. It is a great place to interact with other foodies/jam lovers!! 

THANKS!!

-The Jam Stand 

This past weekend I was fortunate enough to fly back to my homeland of Florida for my brother’s birthday. It was the first time in a few years that I actually had to check my bag, as I usually carry on. I managed to bring roughly 30 jars of jam and barely got by at 52 pounds. Watch out Florida - - The Jam Stand is going tropical!!

The weather was absolutely beautiful and I was so excited to get out of my NYC winter mode. I made it to the beach for a sec., but was mainly running around seeing old friends, spending time with family or making jam deliveries!

I love that I was able to hang out with my big bro on his 28th bday. To celebrate, we had a baller BBQ at my mom’s house in his honor. We grilled his favorites - hamburgers, sausage, and some potato salad.

This was where “You’re BACON me CRAZY” made its debut to Floridians. We opened up a jar and spread the smokey goodness on our hot off the grill cheeseburgers. There were a few skeptics, but within minutes they were believers. The blend of the bacon, garlic and onions accompanied the char-grilled burgers nicely.

After months of hearing about The Jam Stand jam my mom finally got to try some. As a good mother must, she likes all of our jam, but her favorite is the “You Put da Caramel in da Coconut Dessert Jam.” She likes it plain and simple.. right off of the spoon.

After eating, we made our way to the park and played some kickball (we had to burn off some of those calories from the delicious BBQ!) My team almost had a victory, but alas, in the last inning the birthday boy prevailed.

The weekend was an all around good time. I got to see my family and friends, enjoy some beautiful weather and share with the Floridians what The Jam Stand is all about. The BBQ was a perfect example—bringing friends and family together, enjoying good  company and eating scrumptious foods!