Have you all recovered from my culinary disaster the other day?

I was feeling very disappointed in myself after Miley went on her way – I mean, how often do I fail (the answer is never, FYI)? Not knowing what to do following my cooking cock-up, I decided to reach out (not around) to my dear friend Bob Harper to help me cheer up and have a culinary win.

And, who am I kidding, he will likely get my cock up, but that’s probably an overshare and you know I have more class than to say something crass like that.

Anyway, I first met Bob after bungling my way off the third season of Australian Biggest Loser. Taking a fellow trainwreck under her wing, Ajay reached out to the recently departed Bobby to see if he could train me privately.

And oh did he train me on that private ranch of his!

As the wise Michael Bolton once said, how can we be lovers if we can’t be friends? Which is proven – in a roundabout kind of way – by the fact our friendship quickly blossomed into a romance until the Feds tracked me down and had me deported.

While my chequered past ruined our romance, we have remained close friends ever since … even since he became a crossfit fan (Survivor Sally is the only person I want to see in knee socks, thank you).

I hadn’t caught up with Bob since his promotion taking over from (another dear friend) Alison Sweeney as the host of TBL, so it was great to hear his take on my frenemy Hatch and discuss his strategy for summer, swimmer selfies. Obviously I was very pushy about him saturating the market – you know I love a tall, pale, strawberry blond!

I always struggle feeding my fit friends, given their penchant for specialty diets, so instead of offering him the wrong thing and having to lie (no Linda McCartney, this is definitely not steak … relax – we’ve all been there, right?), I went with the safer option of my Bob Harpersimmon Jam.

 

 

I mean sure, it is pretty much pure sugar … but there is fruit in there, so that counts for something.

And cinnamon is good for you too.

Plus, it is delicious. So enjoy, Bob did …

 

 

Bob Harpersimmon Jam
Makes: 500ml.

Ingredients
500ml pulp of ripe persimmons
350g brown sugar
rind of a lemon and juice of ½ lemon
1 cinnamon quill
½ tsp nutmeg
100ml water
1 tsp vanilla extract

Method
Steralise a 500ml capacity jar – I just pour boiling water in a sink and let them sit in there for a bit. This is probably not correct but I don’t have kids so don’t care to learn about steralising bottles. I am yet to get the trots from this method, so I consider this a win?

Combine all the ingredients – except the vanilla – in a heavy bottomed saucepan and bring to the boil over high heat. Cook, stirring occasionally, for about 15 minutes, or until the jam has thickened slightly.

Remove from the heat, discard cinnamon quill, stir through the vanilla and cool for about 10 minutes.

Pour the jam into the steralised (depending on your definition of steralised) jars, seal tightly with the lid. Flip upside down and all to cool. Flip the jars back up, open the lids to release the air and then close them again. Store in a cool, dark dry place for a month … and then devour.

Obvs keep them refrigerated once open, you hear?

 

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