Tuesday, June 28, 2011

When the cat's away, the mice will play

So they say.....

But not if you live on Seven Cats Farm! The Lovey was away on business last week and what did I do? Farm, of course. But I also visited a farm! High Ground Organics had a U-pick on their strawberry field. SincIe strawberries are not yet a part of my farm (and strawberry jam is the Lovey's most favorite of jams), I decided to go wild and pick a bunch!

A bunch turned into 20 pounds of strawberries! Yummy!

I have a new canning book, Canning for a New Generation. I got the book because she uses little to no pectin in her recipes. And when she does, she makes her own from apple peels and such. My kind of gal. She also doesn't use a ton of sugar. So I thought I'd break in the book with a jam recipe.


I made two batches, one with a bit of lemon zest and one without. Both are wonderful. The consistency is more of a spread and less like the really thick, globby result that I get with pectin. And less sugar makes it taste like strawberries instead of like candy. I like both - the tart sweet of the lemon and the regular non-lemon jam, but the verdict will be made by the Lovey. After all, this is his thing. My bet is that he will go with the more traditional, non-lemon one.





And, just in case you're wondering, 20 pounds yielded 22 half pints. That will hopefully last us the year!

1 comment:

Randy B said...

Wow, those berries look good!!!