Farm Fridays: Strawberry Rhubarb Jam

First canning project of the year! I must say that canning is pretty easy once you've got the hang of it. At the beginning of my third canning season I have no problem throwing down a batch of jam in the middle of the afternoon, working alone while also working on some bread dough. (Obviously, since I was making jam, I needed to bake some bread to slather it on. Isn't that how everyone does it?)

I learned that baking bread and canning jam actually go pretty well together. The heat and humidity produced by my boiling water canner created a wonderful environment near the top of my fridge for my dough to rise in. I've been having a lot of trouble lately with dead yeast, but this time either I got a really live batch or the conditions were ideal, because my dough rose like crazy! It's so big that it doesn't fit in any of my tupperwares (usually I have to squish the top of the loaf a little, but even squished, these loaves don't come close to fitting). I finally found a container to fit one loaf after Jeff suggested cutting large slices off to leave out for French toast tomorrow morning. (Did I mention that my husband is a genius?) But I digress . . .

Jam had to be made because I am now officially on a rhubarb kick. I'd never had it before last week - I'd been wondering what all the hype was about, so I decided to make a strawberry rhubarb crumble I found on smitten kitchen. It was glorious - the sour tartness of the rhubarb was a lovely complement to the sweetness of the strawberries. And the filling turned out rather jam-like, planting the seed of an idea in my brain. I found myself, late at night, combing the internet for a great strawberry rhubarb jam recipe to try. Lo and behold, I found one by one of my favorite bloggers, Marisa from Food in Jars, posted on Food52. The recipe was really simple - just strawberries, rhubarb and sugar - and straightforward. The jam cooked down exactly as she said it would, into a bubbly, rich red mass. I got so excited by my success that I failed to take any pictures of the jam before getting it into the jars. No matter how many times I do this, I can't get over how easy it can be. If I can do it beautifully in the middle of the afternoon, with no help, only half paying attention, I think there will be a lot of small-batch jam making this summer!

Strawberry Rhubarb Jam
Recipe by Marisa from Food in Jars, posting on Food52.

1 lb strawberries, cleaned, hulled and diced
1 lb rhubarb stems, cleaned and sliced into 1/2" pieces
1 1/2 c sugar

Add the strawberries and rhubarb to a glass or ceramic bowl and cover with sugar. Stir it around a few times so that all the fruit is coated. Let sit for at least an hour, until the sugar draws the juices out of the fruit.

Pour the contents of the bowl into a stainless steel saucepan. Bring to a rapid boil, then cook about 8-12 minutes (on my powerful burners in a wide skillet, I think it was done even before 8 minutes). Marisa says " It is done when it is quite thick; you can tell that it's ready when you draw your spoon or spatula through the jam and it doesn't immediately rush in to fill that space. It will also make a vigorous sizzling noise when stirred." (I knew I was done when that sizzling noise became more pronounced.)

(I wish I had pictures of the jam cooking to share, but as I said above, I got excited and filled my jars too quickly!)

Spoon the jam through a funnel into half-pint canning jars. Depending on how much moisture you got to evaporate, you may get three half-pints (I got just shy of three - you want 1/4" of headspace for jam, so that third jar was too low for me to try to seal). Process in a boiling water canner for 10 minutes.

Happy canning!

Preserving: Classic Grape Jam

Let me just say that my jam-making skills are in their infancy. All I have to my name are a batch of chili-tomato jam (which is so hot that we've been afraid to use it on anything!) and a batch of strawberry jam afflicted with fruit-float. Delicious, but wanting. But that doesn't faze me in the slightest. Success only comes through perseverance, so I will persevere. 

After coming home from Peace Valley Winery with our half sinkful of  grapes, Jeff and I rolled up our sleeves and began prepping for jam-making. I had a blast separating the grapes from their skins - just pinch them and the green centers pop right out of the purple skins. (A fun task for kids, I'd imagine, and more hands would prevent it from becoming tedious.)

So far, we're thrilled with this batch. The recipe doesn't call for added pectin - it uses what is naturally in the grape skins to set the jam. All of my jars sealed nicely, popping as soon as they were removed from the hot water. We've yet to open one and try it out, but based on the pan leavings we consumed, the set seemed fine and the jam tasted delicious! And, wonder of wonders, we managed to get fifty percent more jam than the recipe called for (six half-pints instead of four). This is a miracle, as we have a history of managing to reduce recipe yields by half. I imagine this has something to do with differences in stove heat and pan size and cooking time. But in this case, it doesn't matter - it just means that there's more jam for us to enjoy!

Important note: What makes this recipe so wonderful is that we used fresh, in-season grapes. I'm sure you could use seedless supermarket grapes and save yourself some hassle, but you'd be losing out on flavor. Supermarket grapes are sweet and unassuming; the more delicate seasonal varieties explode in your mouth, the sweet balanced with tart and a flavor that is quintessentially grapey. Go to the farmers market and grab yourself some in-season, local grapes if you really want good jam!

Classic Grape Jam
From Put 'Em Up. 

8 cups grapes (about 2 lbs)
1/2 c water
4 c sugar 
1/4 c lemon juice

Pinch the grapes to separate the skins from the flesh, putting them in separate bowls. Place the skins in a large nonreactive saucepan, add the water and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer 15-20 minutes.

Meanwhile, simmer the grape flesh until it loses shape, about 8-10 minutes. Cool slightly and put through a food mill to remove the seeds.

Add the seedless flesh to the grape skins. Stir in sugar until it dissolves, then add the lemon juice. Bring to a boil, then simmer, stirring, for about 10 minutes, until you reach the gel stage (I was using the sheet test, recommended by Marisa from Food In Jars).

Remove from the heat and let rest for 5 minutes, skimming off any foam. Process 10 minutes using boiling water method. (The recipe claims it will yield 4 cups, but I got 6 and the set seemed fine.)

Preserving: Strawberry Jam

In the previous post, I mentioned getting two quarts of strawberries from the farm this weekend. One quart would have meant gorging ourselves on delicious berries, but two quarts meant it was finally jam time! (Don't worry - there were still some to spare for gorging.)

Strawberry season is short and precious. I spend months looking forward to it, hoarding recipes that I will make when I am flooded with delicious berries. Yet, once those berries arrive, I find myself loathe to do anything but eat them straight up. I want to preserve the flavor, but I don't want to deprive myself of any berry-eating in the process. So while I've purchased and picked a number of pints and quarts so far, it took until this weekend, with its two days in a row of berry-picking, for me to be willing to sacrifice some berries for my future enjoyment.

I've only made jam once before and was surprised at how easy the process was. Of course, since the jam I made was chili-tomato, the process wasn't much fun. I seem to recall wearing sunglasses as I stirred the mixture, to keep the noxious pepper fumes from singeing my eyeballs. It was hard to breathe in that kitchen. And poor Jeff, who chopped all those peppers, had tingly fingers for days. Strawberry jam is not at all like that. Hulling berries is simple, mashing them up is fun, and the jam gels up lickety-split. I just wish I got more out of the batch (somehow, the recipes I make from this book yield half as much as they should - this time I got two and a half cups, rather than four. I have no idea why).

Now that I have delicious jam, I need to bake a batch of fresh bread to enjoy it on!

Quick Strawberry Jam
From Put 'Em Up!, my go-to canning book.

1 c sugar
1 tsp Pomona's Universal Pectin
4 c strawberries, washed and hulled
1 tsp calcium water (comes with the pectin)
1/4 c bottled lemon juice (the acidity of fresh lemons can vary widely, so bottled juice is safer)

Whisk together sugar and pectin in a small bowl and set aside. Measure out the lemon juice and calcium water and keep them ready.

In a nonreactive saucepan, mash the berries with a potato masher (the fun part!) until they reach a fairly even consistency.

 

Slowly bring to a boil, stirring constantly to prevent scorching. Stir in the calcium water and lemon juice, then slowly add the sugar and pectin, stirring to dissolve. Bring back to a boil, still stirring. When the mixture reaches a boil, remove from the heat.

Let rest five minutes, stirring occasionally to release any air bubbles. Skim off the foam. (I neglected this step - all the stirring dissipated my foam so much that I couldn't corral it with a spoon. I'm not sure what difference it makes.)

Ladle into clean half-pint (or 4 oz jam) jars. Process in a boiling-water canner for 10 minutes, then rest 5 minutes more before removing.