Thursday, July 11, 2013

Strawberry JAMboree

This jam project went like most of my projects usually do: it was ill-advised from the start, I made decisions on a whim, several things went wrong, I ended up kind of winging it, but it turned out pretty dang good in the end.

To begin, a brief update about my life is that I've moved to Boston! I live in Somerville and work in Cambridge, and I really really love it here. No more high altitude baking woes, although things turning soggy is a new obstacle that I've had to deal with....

Now this jam thing all started at the farmers market in Davis Square. I'm always on the lookout for good strawberries, and I have pretty strong feelings about what makes a strawberry good. These memories are tied to my family, summers in Europe, and stuff that's important to me, so when I say strong feelings about strawberries, I mean it. The strawberries you get in the grocery stores are pumped full of who-knows-what growth hormones, and they're probably genetically modified to hell, and the end result is a strawberry that's as big as my hand, white on the inside, practically crunchy, and almost flavorless. So when I saw a stand at the farmer's market just bursting with little cartons of beautiful red strawberries, I got pretty excited. That excitement led me to make a stupid decision. 1 pint of strawberries was pretty expensive. Because people want you to buy a lot of whatever they're selling, 3 whole quarts of strawberries was also pretty expensive, but not much more than just one measly pint! Think of the savings!




So that's how I ended up with 3 quarts of strawberries. And I realized that I can't eat 3 quarts of strawberries. And that I'm a fool. But I'm a fool who has been meaning to make jam for quite some time, and jam was going to be the answer to my strawberry problem. I can can. So I headed out to Market Basket for some pectin.

The first jam snag happened because Market Basket only carries instant pectin. Most jam is made with regular pectin, and it has to be boiled. The boiling is what sanitizes everything, and help the jam keep from spoiling. Instant pectin, however, is a little different from regular pectin. Like The Hound, instant pectin is scared of the flames. He wants to stay far away from heat, it really screws him up.
just like instant pectin. 
Maybe his brother, Sure-Jell, pushed his face into the flames as a child. Maybe his sister Pomona did it. Either way, you're not getting instant pectin anywhere near heat.
you gelatinous bitch. 
So how do you make jam without boiling everything? Either you eat your jam before it has the chance to mold or spoil, or you stick it in the freezer, the other place where gross stuff goes to die! It might not be the way your grandma made jam, but a lot of people say that freezing jam helps it keep its fruity flavor a lot better than boiling the heck out of it. So my jam would be freezer jam.

Snag 2 was the fact that I'm trying to be more healthy, and jam has A LOT of refined white sugar. But I had just bought way too much honey (I clearly have a problem with amounts) at Follow the Honey, one of my favorite stores in Harvard Square, and I decided I'd just use honey instead of sugar. I'd seen jam recipes that used honey before, so I figured it would probably work.

And it did work. And I now have a couple jars of delicious strawberry honey jam in my fridge, and 3 more in the freezer. And ya'll have a recipe for strawberry honey jam:
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Strawberry Honey Jam

6 cups sliced strawberries (about 1 1/2 quarts)
1 1/2 cups honey
Juice from 1 lemon
7 tbsp instant pectin

Put all your strawberry slices (you want these to be pretty small) into a bowl, and mash them up. It would be easiest to do this with a potato masher, but who has one of those? Just improvise. For example, I used the bottom of a mason jar. Next, dump this strawberry mash into a pot, and put it over medium-high heat. Add the honey and lemon juice, and stir it all until it bubbles a bit, and the honey has melted and incorporated with the berries. Take it off the heat, and leave it to cool. Since you'll be using instant pectin, you pretty much have to let it cool all the way back to room temperature. Once your strawberry mash/honey/lemon mixture has cooled, add the instant pectin and stir. Pour immediately into mason jars, tupperwares, or whatever you're keeping this jam in, and let it sit for about 30 minutes so the pectin can go about its business gelling everything up. After 30 minutes has passed, you have jam! At this point, you can put as much as you think you'll eat in a couple weeks into the fridge, and put the rest into the freezer. Also, because this jam is made with honey instead of sugar, expect it to be at least slightly runnier than most jam, and a good deal runnier than jelly. Mine came out pretty solid, definitely more solid than I'd expected, but this is just a heads up.

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Now you've got some berry delicious jam! So far, I've had mine over greek yogurt, and in the almond butter and jam sandwich that I take to work every day.

I'll leave you with these images of jam-related puns. 

I wish I could have attended Ms. Day's JAM-boree.