Wednesday, June 3, 2015

Strawberry Fields

This past week we made our way to go pick strawberries at Swann Farm twice, first in the sun , later in the rain. Between two trips we spent a ridiculous amount of money on berries, but in addition to eating our weight in them fresh, we also froze lots for smoothie making, and I tried my hand at making jam. If I'm being honest, even though neither of my batches of jam turned out quite right, I feel pretty damn accomplished just for giving it a try. They didn't really set (I'm trying low sugar recipes), but they make great strawberry sauce, best poured over bowls of vanilla ice cream.

Trying my hand at new things always brings me a lot of satisfaction. Motherhood and to-do lists and all the things that come along with raising kids and running a house can feel all-encompassing. But I don't want that. I still want to hold on to who I am, and who I am really likes getting excited about new things. This summer I have lots of canning and preserving goals, in part of that whole "less" concept I'm trying to embrace. While I doubt I'll be able to can enough tomatoes to make it through the year, I can try. Trying is at least half the fun.

If anyone has any tips on low-sugar jam recipes, please let me know. Also, if you have any good books recommendations on the subject, pass them my way.

|
Posted by Unknown at
Labels: , ,

2 comments:

  1. Kate.June 3, 2015 at 10:08 AM

    Oh you know I have thoughts about it! I use Pomona's pectin (http://www.pomonapectin.com/) - it's a different type of pectin that doesn't require sugar to set. So you can use low/no sugar, honey, alternative sweeteners, etc. And this won't help you with those strawberries, but Marisa McClellan's next book is about low-sugar fruit preserves (foodinjars.com). Email me if you have specific questions, I'm happy to walk you through anything - blueberryfiles@gmail.com

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. UnknownJune 3, 2015 at 10:41 AM

      Score! This is exactly what I'm looking for. I just ordered some of that pectin and now I need to go wander around her site and figure some stuff out.

      Delete