I’ve sure been gabbing about it so much, it was about time that I buckled down and finally made the strawberry preserves today! George and I had already cleaned and sliced them on Sunday, and they’ve been in the fridge ever since. Mocking me.
So, I went down to the basement, got the pressure canner out, and went to work this morning. I also use it as my hot-water bath canner; I just don’t seal it. No need for uni-taskers that way, to borrow a phrase from Alton Brown.
The first batch was strawberry-rhubarb jam – we have a rhubarb plant, and it had two babies, so we are usually drowning in the stuff here. However, it just hasn’t produced as well as it did last year. Could be changes in the weather, maybe I didn’t mulch when I should have, or maybe it’s just temperamental because the big utility poles (we’ve been getting the old poles as they replace them with new ones on our road) nearby are cramping its style. Oh well, those will become fence posts by next year. But I digress.
As far as recipes, I just use those provided by the company whose pectin I use, Sure-Jell. Pectin is the thickening agent that causes your jellies/james/preserves to “gel up.” Without it, you’d just have a goopy mess of fruit and sugar. But with it, you get this:
Or, well, something like it, anyway. This is one of the strictly strawberry jams. You can make it just like I do by using the recipe on the little insert you’ll find inside a Sure-Jell box. Big secret, huh? 😉 And although it’s not included on the insert, this recipe here is supposed to be their version of Strawberry-Rhubarb jam. Regardless of its origin, the recipe works, and apparently works well, because everyone who tried last year’s batch enjoyed it thoroughly. I did find this vintage version of their strawberry jam recipe, but it is different than the modern one you’ll find in the box, which calls for 5 cups of strawberries, and 7 cups of sugar.
The yield was 7 half-pint jars of strawberry-rhubarb, 10 half-pint jars of strictly strawberry, along with 12 quarter-pint (those cute little “quilted” style jars) of strictly strawberry jam. I ended up with a lot more jam than I had prepared jars for, so I will have to freeze some of it, too, in a mish-mash of containers I dug up. I used about half of the 22 pounds of strawberries we picked, and the rest will get sugared and frozen. When freezing, I dry-pack mine, using about 3/4 cup of sugar to just over a quart of strawberries, and I freeze them in zip-top bags, labeled with the date, naturally. They’re great defrosted slightly as-is (very cooling on a summer’s day as a little treat), as ice cream topping, or, to make my mom’s famous dessert with strawberries, angel food cake, and whipped topping. I’m drooling just thinking about that!
Some of the jam in the pretty jars will be given as gifts, and I’m planning on making sweet cherry preserves this year, too. I’m looking forward to the day when I can give Christmas gift baskets full of bounty from the farm – jams, preserves, pickles, goat cheese, homemade crackers, etc.
Well, I have five little goats who are starting to feel better after their round of antibiotics, so I owe them a walk this afternoon. I should finish up my lunch and get out to them before the day gets away from me!
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