Strawberry Jam

Strawberry season is upon us. For the last few years I have celebrated by making strawberry jam. I made a large batch a few nights ago for some end of year gifts for my co workers. I didn't use a fancy recipe, just the one provided on the pectin box.





Now I have about 2 dozen of these beauties. Not bad for a nights work.



Happy Tuesday friends, summer is finally here.

What have you been up to in the kitchen?

Strawberry Rhubarb Jam

A long overdue blog entry. Yes I still blog!

A big part of summer to me is canning. This is my fourth year canning and every year I can feel my confidence growing. I am a testament to anyone who says they can't can (I'm such a nerd) as I am self taught/I read a bunch of books until I just tried it one day. I've had some horrible results (my best buddy will remember the year when I did raspberry jam so thick that you had to melt it down into a saucepan to use...) and I've had some great successes. Getting to know different methods such as the long boil (no pectin needed) and traditional pectin has been very interesting to me. Today I used liquid pectin for the first time with wonderful results. I decided to make this recipe off of Tasty Kitchen:
http://thepioneerwoman.com/tasty-kitchen/recipes/canning/strawberry-rhubarb-jam/
I was at a local farmers market this past weekend and couldn't pass up a basket of wonderful local strawberries as well as a bundle of fresh rhubarb (seriously where else but a farm market can you find rhubarb anymore..)


This year our strawberry season locally was hit hard by the spell of cold weather then sudden shock of all the heat we've been having. Nature has a funny way of ensuring that some seasons you will be paying extra for local strawberries. Honestly though I have canned and made jam out of imported fruits and it just isn't the same. If you can buy local. Canning isn't always economical, you will find however that after a few years you will be reusing glass jars which always delights me because I am a frugal lady. Over all though canning, like most hobbies costs money. You are making a product for those you love (or perhaps even to resell) so buy the best you can find. I really liked this recipe and really liked using liquid pectin.


So much so that I would consider using the liquid stuff in place of boxed pectin. I have 10 lbs of local blueberries nestled in the freezer which will be providing me with oodles of jams and pancake sauces, perhaps if I stop being lazy I will blog about that endeavor.


This was my result after doubling the recipe. Please note that you can't double a recipe in the pot all at once, the jam wont gel properly. It's best to do one batch at a time to ensure that you get a good gel.


So there's my first day on a staycation. Somewhat productive if I do say so myself!
Happy Summer!

Am

Pickled Peppers

Happy June! I'm going to be posting some canning recipes over the next week or so chronicling my ventures with pickling. Today I used a very basic recipe canning peppers. I used red, green, orange and yellow locally grown peppers. I really wanted to achieve a great spicy condiment to adorn hotdogs and burgers this summer. I think I achieved the look I wanted, however I'll have to wait a few weeks before I know if I got the taste, these babies have to pickle still!


Here's the recipe:

3 of each red, green, yellow and orange bell peppers sliced into strips
about 5 jalapeno peppers chopped coarsely
1 clove of garlic for each jar (I used 10 cloves)
6 c vinegar
2 c water

This yielded me 8 2c canning jars

Heat up hot water bath canner, bring to a boil. Sterilize jars. Bring water and vinegar to a boil. Pack peppers and jalapenos tightly into jars and top each jar with a garlic clove. Ladle in vinegar. Process in hot water bath canner for 15 minutes. That's it, very easy.

Lotsa love,
Am