— Janet Evanovich
Jam on a winter took away the blue devils. It was like tasting summer.
― Sandra Dallas
The jelly, the jam and the marmalade, and the cherry and quince preserves she made. And the sweet-sour pickles of peach and pear, with cinnamon in 'em, and all things rare. And the more we ate was the more to spare.
— James Whitcomb Riley
I can remember my mother making jam when I was a kid. Strawberry jam, as a matter of fact. She even grew her own strawberries, although I don’t know if she grew enough to use only her own berries or not.
A few years ago, the daughter made raspberry jam and I was really impressed. She’s also make dill pickles and pickled beets. Despite all the other things I’ve made from scratch, I’d never tried any kind of canning. It seemed like such a long, involved process that I was thoroughly intimidated.
What I’d like to know is, why did no one ever tell me how easy it is to make jam??
Seriously. Berries + sugar + lemon juice = jam. Easy peasy. Last year I went strawberry picking with a friend and came home with a couple of baskets of berries. I procrastinated long enough that I ended up having to discard about half of them, but the rest . . . I found a low sugar, no pectin recipe online and gave it a try.
Best jam ever. My only regret was that it was kind of late in the season and the only jars I could find were big ones. So I only got like two and a half jars of jam. But I was so impressed with myself that I bought berries from the grocery and made a second batch, which was still good, but not as good as the first batch. My advice? If you’re not picking your own berries, buy them from a farmer’s market.
This year I stocked up on much smaller jars. And my friend and I hit the strawberry fields much earlier and came home with three baskets each. But seeing as I still had strawberry jam left over from last year, this year I decided to try something different. I also had a bunch of rhubarb, and who doesn’t like strawberry/rhubarb? Well, besides the hubby.
So the first batch of jam was strawberry rhubarb, and I have to admit I was kind of surprised at how well it turned out. I don’t like real chunky jam, so I used an immersion blender during the cooking process and that made it a little smoother.
I still had plenty of strawberries though, so the next batch was strawberry pineapple. I would have never thought of combining strawberries and pineapple on my own, so thank you Google. I ended up making a second batch of this one, which is a good thing because this is one the hubby likes.
Then I went to lunch with a friend, who asked if we could stop at one of the orchards on the way to lunch because she wanted to buy some strawberries. Unfortunately, the orchard was out of strawberries, but they had something called haskap berries.
I’d never even heard of haskap berries before, but my first thought was, would they make good jam? Turns out, they do. Eight cups of berries and four cups of sugar equals twelve little jars of jam.
But wait, I’m not finished yet. It’s raspberry season now. Having seen raspberries selling for much less than the strawberries in the grocery stores for the last several months, my friend and I were a little taken aback at how expensive they were, even when we picked our own.
I’m thinking the raspberry crop isn’t that great this year, because the berries we picked weren’t all that great. Still, I had enough for a batch of jam, and that’s what counts. Raspberry jam is the hubby’s favorite, and I’m very tempted to go pick some more to make him his own batch. But it’ll have to be soon because berry season doesn’t last forever. The strawberries are already done, and this is the second week for raspberries.
But unless I find more raspberries, I think I’m done making jam for a while. It’s been really hot and humid, and cooking jam on the stove doesn’t make it any cooler. But there’s still lots of other fruits out there, and I haven’t tried making jelly yet.
In the meantime, guess what my family’s getting for Christmas this year? LOL
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