I've posted
before about how
much I love Pomona's Pectin. I've always loved to make jam but I do not like the amount of sugar most jams call for - I like to taste the fruit not just sugar. I've made a
freezer jam for years with dried pineapple as the sweetener but this year E wanted to make strawberry freezer jam "like Gramma's". Who can resist that??
So, I told him how much sugar goes into regular freezer jam and we agreed that we would use Pomona's to make a sweet jam with sugar (rather than dried pineapple)but with a lot less sugar. He made one batch (4 cups strawberries to 1 cup sugar) tested it out and was delighted with it.
The next day he easily convinced me to help him make another batch - a double batch this time. It literally takes minutes and then he was filling jars to tuck in the freezer with his year's supply of strawberry jam.
How to explain how much I love that my kids can do this...it truly fills my heart with joy. I have a feeling when I look back on all the things my kids "learned" at home with me during these growing up, home-learning years that this - this knowledge of how food grows and what to do with it - will be what stays with me and what I'm most pleased they learned.
Since we had so many strawberries (my husband did point out that no one else was leaving the berry farm with 12 buckets full in order to illustrate my craziness, I think, but I know he'll be asking me in the next couple days if I am ready to go picking again because we are all looking forward to try the other even sweeter variety of berries on the other side of the field!) I decided to try out Jamie Oliver's
Quickest Strawberry Jam. It is delicious and we've decided to keep the jarful in the fridge to use a sauce on icecream and yogurt this week as well as for jam.
I have many memories of waking up for school on June mornings to the smell of my mom making strawberry jam. I would come down to the kitchen and there would be a plate of strawberry "foam" that I loved putting on my toast. I was thrilled to make this jam and be able to skim the foam for my boys.
Such a simple thing but such a treasured memory because it reminds me of how lucky I was to grow up in a home where these simple pleasures mattered and yet were also so every day.
12 comments:
thank you much for sharing this post :) i too am a fan of all things jam/jelly/preserves AND a huge fan of "train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it." this world would be a harmonious place if folks would grasp the importance of children for the future.
i have NEVER made jam. can you believe that? but one day, when i have a home and a freezer, i am going to make that jam! yum yum!
We just used palmonas to make the canned version of Strawberry Jam! Our local strawberry fields were closed this year due to weather and crop failure, they only had enough for sales pre picked, so we've been buying 12 quarts a week to keep up with freezing, drying, jamming, and saucing.
mmmmmm. It is in the cards for me to make some strawberry jam this coming weekend.
Oh, I'm drooling....
Where did you pick this year?
Mmm. I bought a box of pomona's at least a year ago, and I still haven't gotten around to using it! Bad me! Your jam is very tempting though.
I've never made jam before, but am very tempted by your freezer jam. Looks so good, I went to our local fruit stand to buy strawberries... sadly, no local ones until next week. gives me time to find Pomona's!
Myrtle - I get Pomona's from our local health food store, I think that would be your best bet for finding it.
Katherine- I picked at "our" spot. ;-) And it has been too many years since you and I picked there together. Can I convince you to take a roadtrip here?
great post. you're not crazy - just smart! not cooking the berries for freezer jam makes them so much tastier too. good work.
Heather, do you use a potato masher to mash your strawberries or a food processor? I'm making jam and with my "bad" arms, having trouble, but don't want to use a food processor and end up with "too" mashed berries??
So if you're freezing it, the jars don't have to be sealed through a canning process, right?
Hi Jenny,
That's right - no need to process as the jars are just going in the freezer. You could certainly use typical plastic freezer containers if that is easier I just try to use glass as much as possible.
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