homemade strawberry jam three ways

Basic Strawberry Jam Recipe

Makes about 8 250 ml jars of jam

• 7 c. sugar
• 8 c. whole strawberries
• 4 tbsp lemon juice
• 1 package regular fruit pectin

1. Place your clean jars in a water bath canner, cover with water and bring to a simmer. Do not boil. Add your two piece lids.
2. Measure out your sugar in a bowl and set aside.
3. Wash your berries, drain and remove hulls. (Feed them to your chickens if you have them, they’ll go batty!)
4. Slice berries into a large, heavy bottom pan. (If your fruit is super soft or you like really chunky jam, you can skip this step.)
5. With a potato masher, squash your fruit until it reaches your preferred consistency.
6. Add lemon juice to strawberries. Stir in the pectin until dissolved.
7. Bring to a full boil over high heat, stirring often. Don’t leave it!
8. Add sugar all at once. Bring it to a hard boil, stirring constantly. Once you get it to a rolling boil that can’t be stirred down, keep it there for one minute.
9. After the one minute is up, turn off the heat and skim the foam. (Some grammas don’t do this – saying its a waste and just stir it in. I don’t know what the benefit of skimming is, other than you’ll have cloudy jam if you don’t.)
10. Fill the jars one by one. Pour the water back into the canner and place the jar on a tea towel near your pot. Place the funnel on and carefully (it’s HOT!) ladle the jam in leaving 1/4 inch space at the top. Wipe the rim with a damp paper towel and carefully place the lid on. Don’t weld it on there, just fingertip tight is fine.
11. Once you’ve filled all the jars, place them back in the water bath canner, ensuring they are covered with water. Bring the canner to a full boil. Once its at the boiling point, start timing 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, turn off the heat. Allow the canner to cool for 5 minutes. With a jar lifter, carefully remove the jars from the canner. Place them on a tea towel and allow to cool.
12. Before you store your jam, check the safety seal is down on all your jars. The lid shouldn’t give when pressed. Any that don’t “pop” can either be reprocessed or popped in the fridge to be eaten right away.
13. A good rule of thumb is to eat up all your preserves before you’re ready to make them again the next year.

Strawberry Jam Variations

Strawberry Vanilla Jam:

Slice a vanilla bean in half, scrape the seeds and add everything to the mashed strawberries. Proceed as normal with the rest of the recipe.

Strawberry Balsamic Black Pepper Jam:

Use only one tablespoon of lemon juice. Add three tablespoons of good quality balsamic vinegar to the mashed strawberries. After skimming, add two teaspoons of fine freshly cracked black pepper and stir in.

pressure canning 101

Pressure canning is scary. Scary like the ancient wooden roller coaster at the PNE – you feel like you’re defying death, but it’s so exciting its worth the terror.

At least, that’s what the roller coaster is like for me.

But then, I’m afraid of heights . . . and my pressure canner.

Some great reasons to face your fear and learn how to pressure can:

> Quick & easy meals ready and waiting on the shelf. Stew, soup, meats, chilli, skettie sauce, you name it.

> Keep your freezer clear for more important things – like bulk orders of organic pastured meat from Big Bear Ranch.

> An endless supply of homemade stock, ready and waiting and cheap as chips.

>The opportunity to avoid BPA-laced canned foods. (If you get reusable glass lids like these.)

Recipe: Quick & Simple Chicken Stock for Pressure Canning

I’m terrified of my pressure canner

I’m a seasoned canner, but when it comes to my pressure canner – that’s another story altogether.

Alas, my freezer overfloweth, and something has to be done.

One thing you should know about me and my freezer:

Some people collect stamps. I collect chicken carcasses.

And leek greens. And pea pods. And pretty much anything else that would impart lovely flavour to a pot of water.

Every chicken dinner, every trim of the (appropriate) veggies, the bone from the Easter ham, rabbits, old laying hens, you name it – go into bags in my freezer waiting for a rainy day. Literally.

I just can’t bare to see it go to waste.

To me, stock is a miracle, worthy of an appropriate level of respect, awe and adoration. You can take next-to-nothing and turn it into a life-giving, healing, nourishing, filling, soul warming broth.

I mean really. What could be better than that?

But I digress.

My fear. My pressure canner. I am determined to overcome.

I want to be able to get all those stock ingredients out of the freezer and made into stock – stock that can sit on the shelf in the quiet of the cold room and make space in my freezer for more . . . You guessed it – ingredients for stock!

So.

Here I sit, sipping a hot chocolate and typing away while a dragon hisses and spits behind me.

I turn my back to it boldly. Brash.

And jump up every two seconds to be sure it’s not about to explode.

If you, too, would like to face your pressure canning fear, be sure to watch for Pressure Canning 101, coming tomorrow.