Strawberry-lemonade jam

When you start making your own food from scratch, especially stuff like bread and mayonnaise, you take a whole lot of pride in what you've accomplished. But it wears off. Eventually baking your own bread doesn't feel so special anymore; it's just a regular part of your week. And once you get the hang of making mayo, you kind of feel like, "Hey, no big."

So far I haven't reached that point with making jam. (And I hope I never do.) Here I am, glowing with pride while eight jars of gorgeous jam cool in the kitchen (plus a little extra insufficient to fill a jar). I decided to call it strawberry-lemonade jam because I love strawberry lemonade (and I thought it sounded good), but really it's strawberry jam flavored with lemon zest, lemon juice, and a hint of lemon verbena to cut the sweetness. It's delicious. And I was able to keep the color of the strawberries--a first in jam making for me. So I am a little puffed up. Let me enjoy my moment of glory. Wait, I have to run to the kitchen and get a spoonful from the partial jar...

Man that's good. Sorry, I'm back. That was wonderful. I am going to tell you how to make the deliciousness yourself in a moment, but first a few tips for making jam:

• Get the very best berries you can find and preferably ones that haven't been sprayed. I got mine from Reid's Orchard because their berries are extraordinarily good, and they practice integrated pest management, which means they rarely spray their fruits.
• Jam is not an excuse for using less-than-perfect berries. If you've got ugly berries, trim the ugly parts and try making saft (a Swedish fruit syrup that's delicious as a refreshing drink when mixed with water or you could also pour a little over ice cream). Or bake something with them.
• Get everything ready before you start cooking the jam, because once you start you will not be able to leave the stove for more than a minute or two. (Lot of hovering over the stove involved in making jam.) So that means wash and sterilize all your jars, juice and zest your lemons, wash the verbena stems, place a plate with five metal spoons in the freezer for testing, and have a ladle and a funnel ready to go.
• Be careful. Making jam is an activity not dissimilar to making candy. That means temperatures get very high, boiling can get violent, and the jam can overflow. Also, it can spatter and burn, so take care. Maybe wear an oven mitt while you stir. Or cast caution to the wind and gain some badges of honor (I got one on my wrist today).  
• Don't start making jam unless you have at least 45 solid minutes to devote completely to the task. You can't really start and stop, and you have to be present at the stove through nearly the entire cook time.    

OK, so those are the general tips. Here are the specifics (both ingredients and equipment):

• 4 lbs hulled strawberries (keep them whole unless they are huge)
• 2 lbs 10 oz sugar 
• juice from four lemons (between 5 and 6 ounces, divided)*
• zest from two lemons (finely chopped or grated)
• 1 large branch of lemon verbena (optional, but nice)
• 1 white plate with 5 metal spoons, placed in the freezer to prep them for testing
• 1 deep thick-bottomed pot that's from 8 inches in diameter (up to 11 or 12) (if you don't have a jam pan,** a stock pot will work just fine)
• 1 silicone spatula
• 1 skimmer, placed in a bowl of cold water
• 1 ladle
• 1 wide-mouth funnel (you'll usually find these wherever you find canning supplies)
• 9 clean 8-ounce jars with banded lids, washed, sterilized, and kept hot
• Any equipment you are using to process the jars (pot with rack, baking sheet and rack, etc.). For information about processing jams (and any canned good) safely, go to the National Center for Home Food Preservation.      

OK, now that you have assembled everything you need, let's get started:

1. Combine strawberries, sugar, and half of the lemon juice in a pot. Stirring steadily with the silicone spatula, slowly heat the mass. When the berries release a lot of liquid and the berry-sugar mass becomes more liquid, raise the heat slowly to high and bring the mass to a rolling boil. 
2. Maintain the berry-sugar mix at a high boil for about 25 minutes, stirring once a minute or so, making sure to scrape the bottom with the spatula. If the mass starts to stick to the bottom, lower the heat a bit. Using a skimmer, skim the scum off the top for the first 10 minutes. As you will be standing here for a while watching the mass boil, you will no doubt notice some changes in the jam: First, it will boil up very high, possibly threatening to boil over. Usually consistent stirring will help keep that from happening, but it doesn't always work. Adjust the heat up and down as you work to maintain a strong boil, while avoiding losing half your jam in a sticky, possibly painful, disaster. 
3. At about the 25-minute mark, the jam will change color, growing darker and glossier, and production of foam will decrease. (Before this, you will notice the jam feeling thicker and the intensity of the boiling increasing.) Mix in the second half of the lemon juice and the lemon zest. (Take the pot off the heating element when you do this to avoid scorching.) Bring the jam back to a high boil for 5 minutes. 
4. After the 5 minutes, take the pot off the heat and add the sprig of lemon verbena to let it steep while you test the jam. To test the jam, place a small amount of jam liquid on a frozen spoon and return it to the freezer for 3-4 minutes. When you take the spoon out, feel the bottom of the spoon, it shouldn't feel hot or cold. If that's the case, tip the spoon to let the liquid run. If it runs slowly and sort of gums up a bit, the jam is done. If it runs fast, let the jam cook for another 5 to 10 minutes and test it again. 
5. If the jam was done on your first try, let the lemon verbena steep for another 5 to 10 minutes. Before you put the jam into the jars, remove the lemon verbena and toss it.
6. Using the ladle, pour the jam into the sterilized jars, leaving 1/4 inch room at the top of the jar. You will get 7 to 9 8-ounce jars of jam. 
7. Process the jars as directed. Except maybe one that you set aside to "test" for flavor to make sure it's OK. Make sure to refrigerate any open jars. 
8. Enjoy it. It should be good for 6 to 8 months if the jars form a proper seal and are kept in a cool, dark place. Make sure to check each jar carefully when you open it. If the seal doesn't pop, or if anything seems off or weird in any way (color, smell, rusty lids, etc.), just get rid of it. Better to lose a jar than to get sick.   

* The basis for this recipe is Rachel Saunders's "Children's Strawberry Jam," from The Blue Chair Jam Cookbook.
** If anyone feels like getting me a jam pan for Christmas, or for any other reason, I would not mind. No really. I wouldn't.

My garden has run amuck

I am exhausted today after staying up late last night writing something that was perhaps overly emotional and embarrassing, but, hey, there it is, I did it, let it stand. I can't undo what I've done.

So I am moving on. Being in a wildly dreamy, exhausted state of mind, I have been catching up with lots of reading, especially some of the blogs I follow. I have enjoyed beautiful pics, friendly cooking advice, interesting facts and tidbits about the state of the food industry. (I especially like the link to "endangered foods" that I found at Civil Eats.) (Most of the blogs I follow are in the blog roll; I definitely recommend checking them out.)

As I was reading them, one reason I like them so much came to me. The photos--beautiful, composed, and professional though they may be--don't feel like catalog photos. They don't make you long for things you don't have. Or, to be more precise, they don't make you long for things to buy. They often make me long for things I can create, but that's an altogether different kind of longing. And I like that.

Another thing I like is that they show glimpses of real lives, of real pockets of beauty nestled within the everyday. In an everyday I can find if I only try and look for it.

In the spirit of finding my own pockets of beauty, I took my camera out back to the garden I have woefully neglected for the last month. Sadly I let lots of tomatoes die on the vine, but there's still a little beauty left back there. At least I think so.

Here is the lemon I thought a rascal of a squirrel had stolen when I couldn't find it the other day. But here it is, still attached to my little lemon tree.

Signs of new life on the lemon tree. I am thankful. Especially because it lost most of its leaves over the winter.

False indigo floating in a puddle left after Irene.

Winslow, my fat grumpy cat. He thinks he's a tiger. I hate to break it to him...

The basil still looks good. Soon, I will harvest it and make a batch of pesto to freeze for later.

An out-of-control stalk of grass, almost ready to reseed itself.

A cluster of cherry tomatoes left from a wilderness of vines that reached more than seven feet high at one point, which are now a brown and ugly mess. I'll leave these in the hope that I can make something of them.

A sprig of ivy, taking over the fence.

The bird feeder Mike's uncle Melvin made for us, chewed by squirrels.

A lovely fern, growing by the compost box.

Some of our harvest bounty--still not sure what to do with it all...

I also decided to start some plum jam. I bought a whole mess of plums at the farmer's market on Saturday morning, before the rain from Irene began to roll in. Most of them are prune plums, but I am afraid I can't remember what the bigger ones are. I like the red etchings on some of them. Looks like a galaxy of stars trapped within a thin skin.

I love the contrast of the purple skin with blue bloom against the strange green of the flesh. I wonder what color the jam will be? Of course, I won't know until tomorrow, because I ran out of sugar. No matter, I will let the plums macerate with the sugar I have and then we will see. It may be beautiful. It may be weird. That's part of the fun.

Blueberry jam with maple syrup and lemon zest

For some updates on techniques and a recipe for plum-peach jam with basil, click here. 

I haven't posted in a while. For the Independence Day weekend, Mike, Sebastian, and I drove to Auburn Hills, Michigan (a little north of Detroit) to visit Mike's sister, her family, and their dad for the holiday (the drive takes 10 and a half hours; my little boy is a champ!). Instead of cooking and eating good local food, we subsisted mainly on junk food and candy bought at rest stops along the Pennsylvania and Ohio turnpikes, feeling bloated and gross the whole way. (Sebastian, of course, loved this, but the guy is four, so I can't blame him for having tastes geared primarily toward straight-up salt and sugar.) I did have one really excellent meal: My brother-in-law Russ made some amazing fall-off-the-bone ribs and served them with BBQ sauce, grilled corn, and baked beans. We gorged ourselves on these delectable treats and moaned with discomfort for several hours after dinner. It was totally worth it.

Before we left, I had wanted to make a batch of blueberry jam to make sure that the harvest didn't go by without preserving at least some of it, but I ran out of time. I love blueberries. They may be my favorite berry. I am especially fond of wild lowbush blueberries, but they are hard to come by here in Virginia. When I was a kid in Sweden, I spent much of my time roaming around the woods like a small wild animal, getting damp and muddy and pretending I was a hero of some kind: a knight one day, Robin Hood the next. In my long rambles, I discovered treasured spots where wild blueberries grew in great masses, and I spent many hours seated among the plants, plucking berry after berry and savoring each one. I miss my blueberry spots, especially now that I cook. If only I could wander out into the woods and collect and gather blueberries, bring them home, and preserve them for winter. (I was told once that my Icelandic grandfather Sigurdur was a legendary berry picker; he could fill baskets faster than anyone, fingers moving so fast they blurred.)

But I must settle for domesticated highbush berries, which produce larger fruits that are not quite as deeply flavorful (still good, but not magic). Thankfully, one of my favorite farms, Reid's Orchard, grows berries and fruit organically (although they aren't certified), using integrated pest management techniques and caring for their soil and land in a way that will preserve it for the future (and it shows, just take a look at their peaches--they taste and smell as good as they look).

After recovering from the Michigan trip for a few days, I finally made it out of the house to get food on a steamy Thursday. I went to the Herndon farmer's market and decided to get some blueberries from Reid's. I lucked out because they had a lot of them, so I bought six pints. I had had this idea of making jam flavored with maple syrup and lemon zest. Foods from the same area often taste particularly good together--and sugar maples typically live where blueberries grow, so the combination sounded good. Obviously lemons and blueberries violate that principle, but they are good together. The acidity of the lemon just sparks the flavor of blueberries (as lemons do with so many things).

It was actually so hot and humid the day I bought the blueberries that my camera fogged up. 

So here's how I made my blueberry jam with maple syrup and lemon zest. I started with

• 3 liters blueberries, picked over to remove any soft berries, stems, leaves, or anything else you wouldn't want to eat, rinsed, and finally drip-dried for 10 minutes or so (better yet, use a scale, you should have 1.5 kilos of berries) 
• 700 milliliters sugar
• 200 milliliters real maple syrup
• 1 lemon, washed
• 1 tablespoon pectin, mixed with a little water to make a smooth paste

I spread a layer of sugar on the bottom of the pot I planned to use for jamming.

Then I layered blueberries over the sugar, added another layer of sugar, and zested some lemon over the sugar.

At the second layer, I added the maple syrup instead of sugar and zested some more. 

I added more berries and ended with a final layer of sugar and zest. (In other words, one layer of sugar on the bottom of the pot and one to top it all off.)

I covered the berries and sugar with the lid (ants are quite a problem in summer) and let it sit for a little over an hour (you could let it sit up to 24 hours in the refrigerator). Then I set the pot on low heat. At first, not much happened but eventually I could see a rim of liquified berry juice starting to rise around the edges of the pot, followed by a completely wet mass slowly simmering away. (Note that this isn't a project you do quickly, it can take several hours to reach the jelling point. Pick a lazy, rainy day when you aren't going to leave the house to make the jam. Maybe make some bread while you are at it.) 

  

I added the mixture of pectin and water to the pot and let the mass just simmer away. (At one point, I did get a boil over, so I had to turn down the heat a bit. Almost anything that's made with a lot of sugar has a tendency to get feisty if too much heat is applied.) I skimmed regularly. (Once when making jam as a kid, I made the mistake of not skimming. It left the finished product with a very unpleasant, bitter aftertaste. So if you decide to make jam, don't skimp on skimming.) Oh, and here's a tip to ease your skimming: Keep a bowl of cold water near the stove, dip your skimmer into the cold water before you skim, and then clean off the scum in the cold water, and skim again. You will probably want to replace the water from time to time. 

While the mass simmered, I cleaned and sterilized my jars in boiling water. (You can re-use your jars, but you must use new lids every time. The rubber that creates the seal doesn't hold up to multiple uses. You can probably find boxes of lids where you would buy other canning/jamming equipment.)

You can keep the jars in the hot water on low while your jam continues to simmer. Eventually, I started testing my jam to see if it was ready. How to test for readiness? Get a teaspoon of the liquid in the pot and spread it on a plate. Let it cool for a few minutes, and scrape your spoon through the smear on the plate. If the liquid immediately fills in the lines where the spoon scraped through, you are nowhere near done. If the lines don't fill in immediately, but do eventually, you are getting closer but you aren't there yet. If it bunches up into a jelly-like mass, you are ready to go.

When the spoon scrapes through, the liquid immediately refills the line. This is nowhere near done. 

The liquid isn't filling in as quickly now. The white of the plate shows just a little longer. Progress, but not done. 

The liquid no longer fills in where the spoon has scraped through, and you can create a little clump of jelly. Finished!

When the jam had reached the point where it was finished, I added the juice from the lemon (both for flavor and to help preserve the jam). (I strained it to make sure I wasn't adding seeds.) Then the next step was to add the jam to my warm and clean jars, close up the jars, and boil the jars to vacuum seal them. 

One thing to remember when you add the jam to the jars: Always leave at least an inch of space at the top of the jar. Otherwise, you won't be able to create an effective vacuum. And the vacuum is one of the main reasons that these jars will last for up to year. (That is, if you don't eat them before then. I am almost out of the strawberry jam I made already!)

I've wrapped my jars in newspaper because I don't have a rack to keep the jars stable (yet). 

Ah, pride and joy!

Update: To make sure your jams and jellies are safe to eat, check out the National Center for Home Food Preservation. 

Sublime strawberries: Two ways to preserve some of that goodness and beauty

I am a little out of practice with writing regularly. You work for years in a regular nine-to-five day job and fully plan to use your evenings wisely with creative pursuits like drawing, painting, and writing. But at the end of the day, you feel drained, barely able to get food on the table, dishes in the dishwasher, and the little guy to bed. Creativity is so far out of your grasp that you plunk down on the couch, throw on the tube, and stew in guilt: "I should be using my time better! If I was really committed, I would find the energy and the willpower." As time passes, your creative muscle starts to deteriorate a bit. To get it back into shape takes persistence and work, just like getting fit after years of mooing on the couch.

So, I haven't written for several days, which I feel guilty about. I have been cooking a lot, but I didn't get any pictures, and the stuff was small, and didn't I already write something about that...? The excuses and the fears pile up, effectively grinding momentum to a halt.

But I must force myself forward, get some writing down, take some photos, break out the charcoal and paper and draw. So, here are some thoughts about strawberries, which have dominated my kitchen for the last two weeks. The ubiquity of the strawberry can make you take it for granted. It shows up as an artificial flavor variety in neon-pink, crazy-quilt plastic packages at the convenience store. It's the little pop of color on top of that decadent chocolate dessert you really shouldn't have fallen for last night. They are available grossly oversized in every season at the grocery store. (That size? Not normal. Can you say octoploid?) So they somehow lose hold over your imagination. You don't get that excited about them.

Or do you? What a shame to let something so sweet and lovely slip into bland ubiquity. Especially when they can perfume a room or draw your eye on a cool spring morning, gleaming ruby red. When I was a kid, my mother never bought strawberries at the grocery store. One time, we were driving in Finland, on our way to visit my grandmother in Kokkola, my mother came to a screaming halt at the side of the road where a couple of people were selling strawberries out of the back of their car. She was so excited. To her this was a gift, a special moment in time. Perhaps the scarcity she lived with as a child (she was born during World War II, and food was hard to come by in Finland) had taught her the value of those sweet red jewels, early gifts of spring. In any case, we had to eat them at once, or they would lose their flavor she said. And so we did. Happily, we selected berry after berry from the box until they were gone. And then they were no more than a memory, but what a sweet and precious one.

It seems important to me to remember the value she placed on those berries every time I visit the farmer's market. Because eating in season is ephemeral; it changes from week to week. This week you are swamped with berries and asparagus, but next week they could be gone. So you grab everything you can, try and set by as much as you can because you don't know what you will find next week. This is both the joy and sometimes the sorrow of the farmer's market. I have many times come back to find the blueberries done for the season and kicking myself for having missed them.

So I have been trying my hardest to make the most of the strawberries by making saft (a Scandinavian fruit syrup you mix with water to make a refreshing drink) and jam. But I haven't made enough yet. My family already drank the saft, and I only got four jars of jam. So I hope there are still berries left at the market tomorrow. Both of the following recipes were adapted from Bonniers Stora Kokbok, which was my second cookbook--a gift from my mother that is completely beaten up. The spine is cracked to pieces, the book is falling apart, but I wouldn't give it up for the world. Part of the reason it is such a mess is because it was soaked through in a rainstorm during a motorcycle trip from Virginia to Colorado. But that may be a story for another day...

Strawberry Saft

Bring 3 deciliters of water to a boil in a big, nonreactive pot. Add 2 quarts of hulled, well-rinsed strawberries to the water (I am especially fond of the berries and fruits from Reid's Orchards. Their grapes look like little glass balls full of sunshine and taste as amazing. Absolutely gorgeous fruit.) Let the mass boil for about 10-15 minutes.

Line a colander with cheesecloth and raise it over a bowl. (I placed two chairs next to each other so that the colander hung down between them about half a foot over the bowl. You can find stands that will enable you to do the same, but the chairs work well.)

Pour the cooked strawberries into the colander and let the juice drip into the bowl for about an hour.

Measure the juice in the bowl. For every quart of juice, measure 6 deciliters of sugar. Bring the juice to boil and add the sugar. Let the sugar dissolve and the mixture cook for about 5 minutes. Skim the liquid. Then add the juice of one lemon (juice of limes will do in a pinch).

Then you can add it to clean, warm bottles and seal it to save for the winter. (We never get that far though; we end up devouring it in about a week.)

To serve, use 1 part saft to 4-5 parts water or seltzer.

Strawberry Jam Scented With Rosemary

2 quarts hulled, well-rinsed strawberries (let them run off for a few minutes on paper towels)
6 deciliters sugar
1 Tbsp dried rosemary
8 black peppercorns

Wrap the rosemary and the peppercorns into a tight little package with cheesecloth (the rosemary and the peppercorns should not be able to escape during cooking).

In a heavy pot, layer sugar and strawberries. Start and end with a layer of sugar. Let the mixture sit for at least an hour, you can go up to 24 hours.

Bring the mass in the pot very slowly to a boil. Let it simmer for an hour, skimming regularly. (Tips for skimming: (1) Get a skimmer, it makes a big difference and doesn't have to cost a lot. (2) Keep a container of cold water next to the pot. Dip the skimmer into the cold water before and after skimming. Replace water as desired.)

Take out the spice bag and discard it. Spoon the jam into warm, clean canning jars and process in a hot water bath for about 15 minutes. (If you've never done any canning before, I would definitely do a little research to learn some more tips and tricks. Because I am still a novice, I don't want to give you the wrong information.)

If, for some reason, your jam doesn't jell, don't despair. It will still make a delicious topping for pancakes (thanks to my friend Walter for the suggestion), or it will be amazing on ice cream. Now go enjoy those strawberries before they are gone!

Update: To make sure your jams and jellies are safe to eat, check the National Center for Home Food Preservation.