Fancy Jam Weekend

Market day this week happened to be right after our first CSA Farm share pickup. We are sharing a share with another family so only got one head of lettuce, some mint, a tomato plant, scallions and some decorative rye grass. We are at Common Ground Farm which is the same place we go to farm school on fridays, so it is a farm filled day over all.

Anyway at market I spent $96 dollars, which is crazy because all I bought was:

6 quarts strawberries

1 lb rhubarb

.5 lb asparagus

1 flank steak

1 chicken

1 tiny bottle of honey

I spent forever talking to the honey lady, she has a CSA too but I don't think we can afford it this year because we missed the deadline for scheduled payments, and we are buying 1/16th of a cow. That's right in about 3 weeks we will have about 75 lbs of beef in an as of yet un-purchased freezer. More on that when it gets here

Over the weekend I made fancy jam. I had some wine in the fridge and the mint, so an herbed wine jelly was born, the strawberries were a bit past their prime and became strawberry rhubarb jam (and there is still more macerating in balsamic vinegar for a balsamic jelly), and a giant amount of strawberry vinegar is waiting for me in the pantry. I think I have to redo the jams though as the set was off- I used liquid pectin and forgot to add enough sugar (by forgot I mean didn't look to see if I had the ungodly amount called for in each recipe), I used honey for the herb jelly and brown sugar in the strawbarb. I recently (today) bought a candy thermometer so I am going to re boil to reach gel point if the jams don't firm up by the time I get back from vacation.

Honey Minted Wine Jelly

inspired by the Knit and Nosh can jam 2010 entry for april

mint- two stalks of leaves

1.5 cups whitecliff winery's awosting white

1/4 cup vinegar

pouch pectin

3 1/4 cup sugar- hahaha i forgot i had no white sugar so i used 2 cups honey 1/3 cup sugar we shall see if it sets right....

steep the mint in the wine and vinegar, let sit for 30 minutes. Remove mint. Add sugar, boil one minute, remove from heat, stir in pectin.

Pour hot into hot jars leaving 1/4th inch headspace, process in hot water bath for 10 minutes.

strawberry vinegar

also inspired by the 2010 canjam- this time used Grow and Resist's recipe

4-5 cups strawberries

4-5 cups apple cider vinegar

I left out the peppercorns and pepperflakes. I may add them when I process...

Pour 1 cup vinegar over berries. Smash it down. Pour in rest of vinegar. Cover and store in cool dark place for awhile (up to 4 weeks). Give it a stir every few days until you like the taste. Strain. Heat vinegar to 190 degrees. Pour hot vinegar into hot jars leaving 1/4th inch headspace, process 10 minutes.

strawberry rhubarb from the national center for home food preservation.

2 cups rhubarb cooked tender

2 .5 cups (1 quart and a little) berries crushed

sugar- i subbed brown for white

1 pouch liquid pectin

Mid canning I tweeted the hungry tigress to make sure I could sub in the brown sugar. She said it would be fine but the taste would be slightly molasses like. Oh well. This jam is going to be on pb&j for the kids so I don't think they will care!

Simmer rhubarb until tender, drain. Add in crushed berries. Add in sugar. Bring to boil stirring constantly. Boil hard for a minute. Remove from heat. Stir in pectin. Pour hot jam into hot jars leaving 1/4th inch headspace. Process 10 minutes.

What will 8 quarts of strawberries make?

So I bought 8 quarts of strawberries this weekend for roughly $50. I transformed those strawberries into jam, butter and dehydrated treats. We are gearing up for our first family camping trip, so I am sure not all the dried stuff will make it to the winter but the jam and butter will.

We used 4 quarts of strawberries to make 3 pints of utilatarian jam. This is our basic, no frills, eat it on pb and toast jam. It is not fancy, it does not go into pretty jars and it does not get given away. It is a soft spread that borders on syrup because I am still not great with no pectin gel points, but the end result is delicious! The end result is also pure Hudson Valley jam, as I used our good honey to make it. Have I talked about this honey? Dear god it is like sunshine on the tongue, I am excited to try the different honeys that a new seller at the market has to offer.

Everyday Jam (adapted from the Ball Book of Canning)

4 quarts strawberries

2 cup or so of Honey (you can't really taste the honey but I found it brings out the strawberry freshness more than sugar- almost like it makes the tastes more clear- the original recipe calls for 2 quarts berries to 6 cups sugar)

Mash the berries into pot one layer at a time, add the honey, bring to boil. Boil until gel point is reached. Put hot jam into hot jars leaving 1/4 inch headspace and process for 15 minutes.

Made 3 pints and a little bit extra for the fridge

It took FOREVER to get even near the gel point. These strawberries had so much liquid in them, which I think will be an overall problem this year because of the tons of rain we have had. I may attempt a jelly this year because of the amount of liquid I could get!

I used another quart to make a strawberry/apple butter. We still have plenty of applesauce in the pantry so I added 1 quart of apple sauce to 1 quart of mashed strawberries, cooked down to thicken and processed. The butter took a million years to thicken (ok really like an hour or so) and I should have done it in the crockpot to make it thicker, but it looks like it should be ok- and hey if it is not that thick and buttery we'll use it anyway!

Strawapple Butter

1 ish quart applesauce (we used what was left over from making apple leather so a little less then 1 full quart)

1 quart mashed berries

add both to large saucepan, boil and then boil some more until mixture thickens and rounds up on spoon. Spoon hot butter into hot jars, leaving 1/4 inch headspace process 10 minutes. Made 3 half pints.

We then used 2 quarts to dehydrate. That's easy just slice them and put them in the dehydrator. We had the dehydrator also making apple leather out of 2 quarts of applesauce, and drying out a quart of last year's preserved in water cherries.

rhuboozey and a dandyfail

Yay! First canning weekend of the Spring.

When we were at farm school last week we ate some dandelion jello. The instructor could not find any powdered pectin so just mixed in some gelatin to make a lovely yellow snack for the kids. We tried to make the dandelion jelly at home, but it did not set up right.

But how lovely does this giant cup of dandelion heads look?

The recipe is this: 4 cups flowers (just the yellow bits)

3 cups of water

4 cups sugar

juice of one lemon *

1 box powdered pectin

Put the dandelion blossoms (seriously it took all of 5 minutes to collect enough from our unsprayed yard, it took another 15 to make sure I got all the green off them) and water into pan on high. Bring to boil then simmer for 10 minutes. Pour through strainer with cheesecloth (or a jelly bag) pressing to get as much liquid as you can out. Strain again and discard blossoms. Add lemon juice, pectin and sugar to dandy water in pan. Bring to rolling boil and stir until sugar is dissolved, boil hard for 2 minutes. Pour hot jelly into hot jars and process for 10 minutes.

*there is lots of talk around about bottle vs fresh lemon in canning. I err on the side of caution being a new canner and use bottled because of the assured acidity. so bottled is about 2tbls. per this recipe

As I said we had some set issues. I have yet to make a great jelly. But we ate this over vanilla ice cream and it was delish. It is very honey like and I bet if eatedn regularly would have the same medicinal properties of honey in terms of warding off seasonal, localized allergies...

The rhubarb jam of last year (really was it april that I canned it?!) never really set right so I scraped it in the canning plans this year. Last year I ended up boozing up every thing boozeable. The basic recipe for that was "pour some everclear (you know that ultra overproofed lighterfluid like vodka) over berries. add some sugar. let sit." This year I decided to get classy and used this recipe for a nice cordial/simple syrup beverage that can be added to anything.

Rhubarb Cordial

13 good sized stalks of rhubarb

2 ish cups of sugar

1/2 pint water

strainer and cheesecloth

Chop up your rhubarb and add it to a non-reactive pot with the water.

Simmer until the rhubarb if soft and mushy whilst sterilizing your cheesecloth/jellybag in another pot of water. Put the cheesecloth in strainer over bowl. Pour rhubarb mush water into and let sit over night.

I strained again the next day to ensure a nice clear product.

Once strained add rhubarb liquid and sugar to taste (i used about 2 cups) and bring to boil. Boil one minute. Pour hot liquid into hot, sterile jars (leaving 1/2 inch headspace) and process for 10 minutes.

I got 5 and 1/2 jelly jars out of this recipe and have been enjoying it poured into icey cold water. Can't wait to use it as a drink mix!