Say no to imitators.

A friend of mine recently lamented on Facebook about the amount of sugar in freezer jam.  When you've never made jam before it's a common surprise.  Cooked jams have close to a 2:1 ratio of sugar to fruit, while freezer jams can be even higher. 

I tend to avoid freezer jams as it is (I find them runny; inconvenient, since you have to thaw before using; they don't last in the fridge as long once thawed; and they're not really much easier to make than cooked jam.  Not to mention my freezer is very small, so freezer space comes at a premium), opting instead for cooked jams, but the idea is still the same.

Let's just put it out on the table.  JAM HAS A LOT OF SUGAR.  I don't think this is a giant surprise.  It's kind of like saying there is a lot of salt in soy sauce.  Duh.  I don't understand what the problem is.  You use about a tablespoon of the stuff at a time.  It's a condiment, not a beverage.

There were a lot of responses to this friend suggesting agave nectar, and light pectins that use less sugar...

Back away very slowly. 

I've never totally understood this idea.  Think of it this way.  If I loved a specific kind of wonderful wine (you can also substitute coffee, tea, cheese, chocolate...  really, whatever you like), and found out it wasn't really all that great for me...  but then realized some sub-par version was better for me would I say "hey,  the wonderful wine is bad for me, but I could drink BOATLOADS of wine if I drink this sub-par wine... it only tastes a BIT like vinegar". 
No.

It doesn't make any sense.  Eating or drinking an imitation is pointless, since you usually end up unsatisfied and eat what you were avoiding anyway.  I never buy low fat cheese either, I'd rather eat less of the good stuff than suffer through a pizza with cheese that melts funny and tastes a bit like plastic.  It's a waste. 

I think I've already explained my love of fresh, homemade strawberry jam, so the idea of making it less good just to be "healthier"  (I put that into quotes because I wonder if added chemicals are really any better for us than sugar) sounds ridiculous.   Things like that just kill your soul a little. 

Eat what you love, don't settle for imitations, and when you do...  for pete's sake...  enjoy it.

Label THIS!

This post is for everyone who has ever canned anything, or been given a jar of some wonderful bounty, and then has spent 20 minutes scraping the flipping label off the jar.  I've never understood why the needed to make those things stick so tenaciously.  They just need to remind you what's in the jar after all...  not stick around forever to remind you what has been in the jar for the last three years.

Voila!  The answer to my problems! 

Bernardin has come out with labels that dissolve! I have yet to try taking one off a jar, but I held one under water for a few seconds and it really just disappeared!  I'm pretty sure that if you stick your labeled jar in the dishwasher you'll be left with a clean jar rather than a clean jar with a faded label dried out and baked onto it. 

Gone are the days of soaking your jars!  Just watch out...  in a flood you might be left with a bunch of unlabeled jars in your pantry.  Luckily, I live on high ground.

Saucy!

I know I've been on a bit of a strawberry kick these days, but it is the season after all, and it's what I've been doing.  The last 3 days have been pretty much monopolized by the berries (cooking for 2 days, and today, just a straggler batch of jam and a whole lot of cleaning).  I decided this year to try ALL the strawberry recipes that interested me from the Bernardin Complete Book of Home Preserving, so that in future years I'd have an idea of what we liked and would want to make again.  Next on the list was Strawberry Sauce.

If I had to pick a sauce to put on ice cream, it would likely be chocolate, but Husband loves his fruit sauces, so this one was a natural to make. 

9 cups halved hulled strawberries

2/3 cup unsweetened apple juice

1 tbsp grated orange zest

1 1/2 cups granulated sugar

2/3 cups corn syrup

1/2 cup orange juice.

Prepare canner, jars and lids

in a large pot, combine strawberries, apple juice and orange zest, bring to a gentle boil over medium heat, crushing berries with a potato masher.  Gradually add sugar, stirring until completely dissolved.  Add corn syrup and orange juice.  Bring to a full rolling boil and boil for 15 minutes. 

Ladle into hot jars, leaving 1/4 inch headspace, and close jars.

Process in a hot water canner for 10 minutes.  Yield 6-250ml jars

I ended up using lemon juice and zest, because I couldn't be bothered to run out and get an orange if I had lemons at home.  I'm sure no one will notice.   After letting Husband eat my photo sample, I don't think it's going to last too long around our house.

Strawberry Lemonade Concentrate.

I bought a book this year.  Well, first I took it out of the library, skimmed through it, and almost immediately went to amazon and bought it.  It arrived almost two weeks before the library book was due back.  It is:

Many of the recipes intrigued me, so I needed to try them out, and since my time copying recipes is worth more than the $15 the book cost, I figured it was a worthwhile investment.

One of the intriguing recipes was the Strawberry Lemonade Concentrate (to note, all the recipes in this book are canned, therefore shelf stable).  I don't have a lot of freezer space (and rapidly decreasing pantry space), I liked the idea of having a juice concentrate that would be happy living on the shelf.  Not to mention, there is nothing better than fresh-picked strawberries, and any way to enjoy that flavour during the year is fine by me!

Strawberry Lemonade Concentrate

6 cups finely pureed strawberries

6 cups sugar

4 cups lemon juice

Prepare jars by running them through a dishwasher with a heated dry, place seals in warm water to soften.

Combine all ingredients in a large pot and cook over medium-high heat until a thermometer reaches 88ºC (190ºF).  DO NOT BOIL.  Once temperature is reached, remove from heat, let stand for a minute, and skim off any foam.  Ladle into warm jars, leaving 1/4 inch headspace.  Seal jars and process in a hot-water canner for 15 minutes.  Yield 6-500ml (pint) jars.

Now, the recipe says that to use, mix 1:1 with water, lemon-lime soda, soda water, etc.  I did mine with water and found it very sweet, so try it out and figure out your own ratio.  I did at least 2 parts water/1 part concentrate and it's still pretty sweet.  (but yummy). 

Strawberry Jam

I think I can count the number of times I've purchased jam on one hand with five fingers left over.  I was a lucky child.  There was never a shortage of homemade jam.  My mom and oma ignored child-labour laws and put us to work in the fields from a young age.  For one morning a year, we'd toil under the hot sun, picking basket upon basket until we were rewarded with McDonalds for lunch, and an afternoon of popsicles while they made jam.  I had a rough childhood.  Even now, with the vast numbers of jams and jellies I have tried, I always gravitate back to strawberry.  It's the only one I'll eat with peanut butter and if you ever receive it as a gift from me, you know you're special, because I don't easily part with it.

Strawberry Jam  (I'm typing this in without looking at the recipe)

Prepare jars by running them through the dishwasher with a heated dry cycle.  Place seals in a pot of hot water to soften.

3.5 cups crushed strawberries
7 cups sugar

1/4 cup lemon juice

1 pkg liquid pectin



Mix first three ingredients well in a large pot, bring to a boil.  Once you can no longer stir down the bubbles, boil hard for one minute.  Take off the heat, add the liquid pectin and stir well.  Let stand for a minute and skim off the foam.  Fill jars, leaving 1/4 inch headspace, add seals and rings, tighten to finger-tight.  Let cool. (as they cool, the seals will pop inwards, if they don't, you do not have a proper seal and jam should be kept in the fridge until eaten).

Homemade jam is like a drug.  You get hooked, and you can never go back.  Do it, you know you want to!

It's a good thing I like jam.

pan·de·mo·ni·um  (pnd-mn-m) n. :  Going strawberry picking and making jam when outnumbered 5:4 by 3-and-unders. 

This picture was the beginning of the day.  Please note the smiles, unstained clothing and empty basket.

By the end of the day we had: one missing child (only for a few minutes); two port-a-potty dramas; nine people covered in strawberry, sweat and dirt; one sunburn (mine); four adults with achy muscles (presumably from picking in a crouched position while children crawled on our backs); five children with no proper naps; 12 batches of strawberry jam; four slurpees; five overtired, overstimulated children; and four overworked adults in need of a stiff drink...  oh, and I almost forgot... one burnt potholder.

I didn't really think anything of it.  I've gone strawberry picking since I was a kid, and the idea of picking 16 baskets of berries wasn't daunting in the least.  When picking is good it can go as quickly as an hour and a half, so keeping five kids (two of whom are confined to strollers) busy for that long didn't seem too tough.  Picking wasn't good.  The berries were small, somewhat over-ripe and few and far between.  It took about 4 hours to fill our baskets.  Even a trip to the petting zoo for the three oldest children didn't seem to help much (especially since the two oldest, potty-trained ones were suffering from full bladders and chronic fear of the port-a-potty).  Luckily we had no accidents, though Girl still talks about how she went to the port-a-potty with "no fuss"  (The people outside listening to her blood-curdling screams might disagree. I wouldn't know, I'm deaf now).

I've made jam so many times I can do it without a recipe, but nothing could prepare me for jam-making while at least one of the five kids was screaming at all times.  Somehow we figured out a system, we woman-ed our stations in such a way that there was always a floater to take over for critical positions if the need arose.  Boy, did it ever.  Serenity now.

I think I'm going to need until next year to recover, and let the memories blur into pleasant, happy, fuzzy, strawberry-jam-filled clouds.  I think it's starting already.  Whiskey helps.

It's not dead!

This is my Hibiscus, about to bloom.  My mother-in-law gave it to me, but she doesn't believe me.  (Long story involving a certain person thinking another certain person gave away the hibiscus she was given and purchased another in an entirely different colour for herself...  didn't happen).

I tend to kill Hibiscuses (Hibisci?), so I thought I'd share that I've had it for 2 months and it's not dead.  In fact, it's going through another blooming spell...  there are 8 flower buds getting ready to go. 

Now that I think it might live, I think I'll name him Gustav.

HA!  I just realized that would make him GUS the HibisCUS!  Ok, I didn't get enough sleep last night.