Sunday, May 13, 2012

Canning Forecast

I was looking through the remains of my pantry to see what I still have remaining.    Only 2 jars left of my McClure's style pickles my way.    Anytime I open a jar of these pickles, they go fast.   I will need to make more this year, and I made a ton of them last year.  I want to say that I made at least a dozen quarts.This year, I need to keep better track of the quantities I make.    I have lots of strawberry jam left, largely because I demoed it at both the Chelsea and the Ann Arbor Farmer's Market, and I made some grape jam and cherry berry spoon fruit so the jam eaters of the house (largely the menfolk) had more jars to eat than usual.   There's also 6 jars left of my most famous canning recipe of all, Salsa #5, but I expect we'll be done with them all by the time August hits (high salsa canning season).   From an old blog post, it appears I made 24 pints and a few stray quarts last year.   I have only one jar left of  pickled Brussels sprouts that I am saving for the Downtown Home and Garden pickle contest this year. One thing I didn't make last year, but wish I did, was corn relish.  I missed that this past winter. 

I decided to crack open a jar of strawberry jam myself this morning to sample my own wares.  This jar could have won the Michigan State Fair blue ribbon if we still had a Michigan State Fair.  The oldest state fair in the country, it ended its run in 2010.   This jar had tons of fruit evenly suspended in a matrix of not too sweet jam, and there were no air bubbles or foam.  It still has a very true berry taste, and smells of a quart of freshly picked berries.  This year, I expect our berries to be here early....maybe by Memorial Day, which would be unusual.   I better start eating more jam.

4 comments:

Karole Lee said...

Happy Mother's Day, Cynthia! Enjoy your Strawberry Jam! Can you tell me the difference between Strawberry Preserves and Jam?

Karole Lee said...

Happy Mother's Day, Cynthia! Enjoy your strawberry jam today! I wonder if you can tell me the difference between jam and preserves?

Cynthia said...

That is a tough one....I have heard that jamm is made from crushed or chopped fruit cooked with sugar, and often pectin and lemon juice. Jam can be a pur�e of fruit or have a soft pulp, but it does not contain chunks of fruit.

Preserves are fruit cooked with sugar to the point where large chunks of fruit or whole fruit, such as berries, are suspended in a syrup base. The texture of preserves is not smooth like jelly or jam.

I guess my jams are really more like preserves!

Karole Lee said...

You inspired me to try your Strawberry Jam Recipe using the homemade pectin.... OH I am so excited! I also used Stevia and only 1-1/2 cups of sugar for the recipe and it turned out GREAT! in total I ended up with 7 half-pints of delicious jam! That means that the nutritional values are: 4 g. of carbs for each serving and only 18 calories... My husband only wanted a PB&J for dinner last night!! I am going to try the homemade pectin with Rhubarb today...