Changing Food… One Meal At A Time!
Summer
Jan Fullwood Food Consultant
(aka JamJarJan)
NOTES FROM A CHAOTIC KITCHEN
Welcome to daily life in a chaotic, well-used kitchen…..
A constantly busy, always evolving space: full of cooking, eating and creating (dinner, treats, mess), for work and for play, for family and friends.
Let me introduce myself and my family:
- A Food and Recipe Consultant who is ‘never knowingly under-catered’, I’ll whip up a five-minute muffin mix at a moment’s notice. I’m constantly creating, evaluating and tasting, always cooking, eating and learning something new
- Long-suffering Hub, who just wants a clutter-free kitchen and peace and quiet. Happiest in the garden. He grows, I cook and preserve
- Eldest Cheffy Son and his Pastry-chef girlfriend, who cook catering quantities of restaurant quality food at every opportunity
- Protein & carb-obsessed younger Student Son, currently at uni. Loves food, but cooking not his forte - student survival skills ongoing
We all eat to live. Let me help you live to eat.
Share my learning and experiences to make the most of your meals too.
What's in Jan's Pan?
JUNE/JULY 2026
It's been a long hot summer, and at the time of writing I think we may be up to our fifth official heatwave (although it all merges into one sweaty blur), and we are officially in drought. Barren brown lawns are a testament to that, and the poor fruit trees and bushes are in a state of quandary, not knowing whether to ripen early or even bother to fruit at all.The plums lay parched with not even a prune to be seen, the redcurrants arrived early and only the birds benefitted, and even my prize blackcurrants were sparse. The original bush stubbonly refused to fruit, citing old age and mistreatment, but the young eager ones allowed me enough to make some of my favourite fruit treats, as you'll see below.
We celebrated Dad's life at the beginning of June, at the Magpie in Sunbury, which sits on the banks of Old Father Thames as it wends its way Londonwards, just like Jerome K Jerome’s three men in a boat (Dad’s favourite book), along with 60 close friends and relatives, and an abundance of cake. He would have enjoyed every minute and we did him proud. But most of all our personal patisserie chef saved the day with the magnificent muffins she made, which totally stole the show, along with Ken's favourite fruit cake, so I've shared the recipe here.
It's a boiled cake, moist and easy to make, and I made sure Dad always had a supply in the larder as Mum always made it before me. So please do try it, it'll soon become your favourite too.
Blackcurrant Beauties
Have I ever mentioned that blackcurrants are my absolute favourite crop in my garden? They are the easiest of fruit to pick and process, not to mention their divine and distinct flavour. Foodswappers don’t get a look in as it’s a fruit I’ll never trade - there are just too many delicious uses, as you’ll see here. Even if they’re just frozen and handfuls of fruit added to my morning porridge, they are not leaving the house. No way José.
This year I started with cordial. I used the BBC Good Food recipe which uses lemon juice rather than citric acid, useful if you’ve none to hand and just as good for preservation. I particularly like lime with blackcurrant, so I used the juice of two limes, to replace one of the lemons for extra citrussy tang. I put it into sterilised bottles and keep it in the fridge so it lasts longer. I like it diluted with sparkling water or tonic for a really refreshing summer spritz (a splash of Prosecco would certainly not go amiss here too if the occasion calls for it).
The problem with making cordial is that it needs to be strained through muslin, which means leftover pulp. Not being able to bear wasting one tiny bit of my precious crop, I devised ways to use it, hence the blackcurrant shorties and the blackcurrant gelato, both shown here. The gelato uses the leaf to infuse the cream mixture, adding an extra dimension of deliciousness, and the pulp was perfect to ripple through.
Seeing the potential for the leaf meant I got completely carried away when I saw Silvana Franco’s frankly fantastic use of fig leaves baked into sourdough. We chatted about options and techniques, and I promised to try my ideas, and hey presto, blackcurrant leaf Sourdough. The leaves impart their distinct yet delicate fragrance and flavour to the loaf, perfect for spreading with my homemade blackcurrant jam.
Not such an abundant crop this year, but certainly no part of the bush - currant or leaf - has been wasted with every part put to good use.
Recipes to come....
Blackcurrant leaf sourdough
Bottom left
Blackcurrant Pulp Shorties
Top Centre
Blackcurrant pulp Gelato
Centre
Blackcurrant Cordial
Bottom Centre
Blackcurrant Jam
Bottom right
Life Celebration Cakes
Blueberry Cream Cheese
Chocolate & Caramel
Lemon & Poppyseed
These were based on recipes from ‘Baked to Perfection’ by Katerina Cermelj but with our pastry chef’s unique twist of hollowed out centres filled with caramel or curd then swirled with Italian buttercream. An absolute triumph.
Barb's Boiled Fruit Cake
My recipe is for two 8in cakes which worked a treat in one big 28in cake tin to feed the masses.
What's in Jan's veg box
Carrots with Carrot top Chermoula
I love the bunched carrots I often get in my weekly veg delivery box and always save the carrot top fronds with the best of intentions to make good use of them. Did you know that they contain six times more vitamin C than the roots themselves? Plus Vitamin A, K, Calcium and fibre, so it’s really worth putting them to work rather than instantly discarding them. They are slightly bitter tasting, and can be quite tough, but combined with other herbs and finely chopped they are ideal for pesto or the chimichurri I made here to top the whole roasted carrots.
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