Strawberry Jam (made with local strawberries!)

Strawberry season in my town starts early April, and there are a few strawberry stands that sell daily-picked strawberries. The local strawberries are truly the sweetest strawberries that I've ever tasted. The strawberries you get at grocery stores are not very sweet, and sometimes are super tart, as they are chilled and delivery time takes longer. The best time of day to get the strawberries are in the morning, when the fruit is still moist, and the hot sun is away, and also to beat the crowd-- sometimes the strawberries are all sold out (and you feel like such a lazy person for not waking up at 7 am when the stands open, just for strawberries)! Anyways, my obsession with strawberries and buying $11 worth of six pints of strawberries ended up with I eating too many strawberries and getting the stomach bug (too much acidity in the stomach, maybe?)- at least I made jam during that time of obsession, and here is what I have to rave about these strawberries:

Ingredients: (from the Sure-Jell recipe, makes four 8-oz. jars)

2.5 cups strawberries, pureed
3.5 cups sugar
1.75 tbsp pectin

How to Make:

1. Wash and peel stems off strawberries. Puree the strawberries in a blender.

2. Pour the puree into a nonstick saucepan on medium heat.
3. Add 1.75 tbsp of pectin to the mixture, and bring to a boil.

4. When the mixture is in a rolling boil, add the sugar, stirring constantly.

5. Once mixture returns to a boil for one minute, remove from heat.

 

6. Pour the mixture immediately into sterilized hot canning jars.

7. Seal the jars, and place them in a hot water bath canner. Boil the jars for 10-15 minutes, depending on the altitude at your location. Remove from heat and let cool.

Peach Butter

This year's peach harvest yielded many, many peaches. So many peaches that we were running out of ideas to make use of them. It's difficult to store peaches too, as they get mushy very easily whether stored in the refrigerator or left unpicked on the tree. And those peaches ripe so fast and at the same time! Usually 75% of them are ripe by the beginning of July, and we have to harvest them all during continuous 90+ degree hot days. My sister searched some ideas, and one particularly interesting idea was making peach butter. I've tasted apple butter before, but peach butter! This was sure something interesting to try, as I've gotten so bored of making peach jam. I used up 27 whole ripe peaches for two batches of peach butter. It was sure a fun-filled cooking adventure with my sister (who made peach BBQ sauce) on the Fourth of July.

Ingredients: (makes 4 cups of peach butter)
18 peaches
2 cinnamon sticks (1 tbsp ground cinnamon)
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
2 cups sugar

How to make:
1. Wash and cut an 'X' (this will make it easier to remove the skin) on the peaches, and soak them in hot water. Place in ice water bath and remove the skin. Dice peaches and place into a blender.

2. Puree the peaches in a blender. For ultra smooth peach butter, you can process the peaches longer.

3. Pour the peach puree into a nonstick pan on medium heat.

4. Add the cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and sugar.

5. Cover pan slightly with the lid so that steam can get out. Boil the mixture on medium heat for 30-40 minutes, until the mixture reduces in volume by one-half.

6. Pour the mixture into sterilized glass jars for canning.
7. Seal the jars and place back into a water bath canner for 5-10 minutes for processing.
8. Remove from heat and let cool.

Orange Marmalade

This year's orange harvest from the orange tree in my backyard was plentiful- a total of 133 pounds of oranges! Each year the fruit gets sweeter, and this year the taste sure did not disappoint. The sweet, yet tangy orange, paired with my aunt's home-grown lemons, made for a great orange marmalade. I adapted the Sure-Jell recipe to make this orange marmalade.

Ingredients:

4 oranges

2 lemons

3.5 tbsp pectin

2.5 cups water

1/8 tsp baking soda

5.5 cups sugar

How to Make:

1. Slice the oranges and lemons into quarters, then into thin slices. (Some recipes call for peeling off the rinds, then boiling the oranges to remove the white fiber part of the fruit. I went for the faster approach, which is to include all parts of the orange into the marmalade.)

2. Boil the sliced fruit in 2.5 cups water and 1/8 tsp baking soda.

3. Add the pectin into the mixture.

4. When the mixture is in a full rolling boil, add all the sugar.

5. Bring the mixture back to a full rolling boil. Once full rolling boil, keep stirring for 1 minute. 

6. Remove from heat and ladle into hot, sterilized mason jars. Seal tightly.

7. Put the mason jars back into the stock pot and boil for 10 minutes.

8. Remove from heat and let cool.

Grape Jelly

Ingredients:

≈3.5 lbs grapes (about 5 large clusters of grapes), [need 5 cups grape juice]
3 cups white sugar
4 cups brown sugar
1.5 cups water
3.5 tbsp Ball classic pectin

How to Make: (takes about 2 hours)

1. Wash and remove grapes from stems.

2. Blend grapes on low setting in blender/ food processor, just enough so that skins are removed and grape juice released.
3. Boil the grape juice and 1.5 cups water in a pot for 10 minutes. Grape juice color should darken to a deep purple color.

4. Remove from heat and strain the juice to separate from the seeds and skin.

5. Boil the strained juice and add pectin.

6. Once mixture is at a rolling boil, add the sugar. Heat to rolling boil for 1 minute.

7. Remove from heat. Scrape off foam, if desired.
8. Ladle hot jelly into hot, sterilized jars. Seal lids and bands.
9. Place jars into stock pot and boil for 10 minutes if you are in a low altitude area.
10. Remove jars from pot and let cool. Seals should "pop," indicating a proper seal. Refrigerate or store in cool, dark place.

Peach Jam

     

This year's harvest from the peach tree in my backyard was massive! The peaches ripened around July 10, and by the time I picked them, they had ripened a bit much. I had wanted to learn how to make homemade jam for quite a while, and this became the perfect opportunity. I adapted the Sure-Jell package recipe to make this jam.

I have no idea what our peach variety is called... it has either dark red or white color on the inside.

Ingredients: (Makes 3 pint-sized jars)

4 cups diced peaches (about 12 whole peaches, peeled and pitted)
2 tbsp lime juice
5 cups white granulated sugar
3.5 tbsp Ball low or no-sugar needed pectin

I used Ball brand pectin. Got this from Safeway for about $5.

This is how pectin looks like. It helps solidify the jam and makes it set.

Tools:

Stock pot
Tongs
3 pint-sized Ball jars
Strainer
Non-stick pot (A non-stick pot is ideal for cooking the peaches, since the sugar doesn't stick to the bottom, as in a stainless steel pot.)

How to Make: (Takes about 2 hours.)

Pre-step: Remove lids & bands from jar. Sterilize glass jars in a stock pot filled with boiling hot water. Simmer lids and bands in separate pot.

1. Wash peaches. Cut an "X" on each peach (for easier peeling). Boil peaches in hot water. Transfer to ice water bath. Peel off skin. Dice peaches into either small or large chunks.

Boiling peaches in hot water to remove the fuzzy skin

2. Drain the excess water from the diced peaches through a mesh strainer. (You don't want too much water in the fruit, otherwise the jam will become like syrup.)

3. Boil peaches, lime juice, and pectin, STIRRING CONSTANTLY. 

4. Add sugar, STIRRING CONSTANTLY. Bring to boil for 1 minute, then immediately remove from heat. (You must boil for 1 minute, or the jam will become like syrup. Do not let the sugar stick to the bottom of the pan. Remove from heat once boiled, otherwise you will get burnt jam!)

Burnt jam resulting from sugar sticking to bottom of stainless steel pot

This is good-looking, non-burnt jam.

5. Remove jars from stock pot. Ladle hot jam into hot jars. Seal the lids and bands on the jars.

6. Boil the filled jars for 10 minutes, if you are in a low altitude place. Increase boiling time if you are in higher altitudes.

7. Remove from pot and let cool. Jars should make a "pop" sound, indicating the jars are sealed. 

8. Refrigerate or store in a cool, dry place.