Freezer Jam - Strawberry 1st, every other flavor later

And then as the season goes on - more fruits can get the same treatment. (see below*)

Strawberries get a bath

That's right - those barely here, and then they are GONE strawberries blew through town.  And I got one day to make things with them before the disappeared until next year.  I gave up a day of sailing for this.

Little jars of jam to be given out to people who need some love.

So how does this happen?

Step 1:  Clear the decks.  This can be done thoughtfully, with careful planning ahead, or ruthlessly by ignoring everything and everyone for the 1 (half†) day this process takes.

†half is a word up for dispute in this case.

Step 2: Get your hands on a flat of strawberries - the kind you buy in the morning and that looks forlorn by the evening and starts to grow fuzz if you do not refrigerate them overnight.  Get 2 flats if you are crazy, or working with a friend.

Step 3:  Get granulated sugar (all pretend sugar, "cane juice crystals" and the like contain an incorrect balance of water, or the wrong chemicals entirely - go with the tried and true this time) , plenty of Ball's Instant Pectin and more canning jars than you think you will need, especially if are getting dainty ones to share.  Run them, the rims and the lids through the dishwasher on the hot/sanitize cycle and leave them in there until you are ready to use them.  (Or boil them all for 5 minutes in a big pot and leave them on the stove at just warm - but submerged.)

Step 4: Wash out the sink and dig up a drinking straw and a pairing knife.  Clean out some big bowls or tupperwares, and be ready to use them all.

OK - dump one layer of strawberries in the sink and let them swim.  Swish them around so they get nice and clean with out getting bruised.  

Pull out any strawberries with any obvious bruising, trim them and start your bin of cleaned strawberries.  Move on to the non-bruised strawberries.

Take them out one by one, and push the drinking straw through the pointy end of each strawberry up towards the leafy cap, and pop out the tough core.

Each of your strawberries will have a neat little hole in them, and the cap will be removed.

Take a layer of strawberries in a medium sized container, and smash them with a fork (or a potato masher).

Dump the smashed, juicy strawberries into a large bowl.  Work through the berries in the sink, and any subsequent batches until you have this very juicy, rough berry "soup."

Measure out sugar and pectin for 1 batch of Jam (recipe is on the side of the instant pectin - or see below*), and stir them together. 

Add the right amount of strawberry"soup."  Stir together and ladle into the warm, clean jars.  Screw on the lids, let 'em cool a bit and stick them in the freezer, but leave some in the fridge to eat tonight, tomorrow, and soon.

This works with yogurt, ice-cream, toast, and works remarkably well as the strawberries for a fall (winter, Valentine's Day?) strawberry shortcake.

*Super Fast Strawberry Freezer Jam
(courtesy of Ball's Instant Pectin)  For 2C of Jam

1 2/3 C smashed strawberries (substitute raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, marionberries, cherries)**
2/3 C sugar
2 Tbs Instant Pectin

Stir together the sugar and pectin
Add the fruit and stir for about 3 minutes
Ladle the jam into freezer safe jars (or study freezer-happy plastic snap top containers)
let set for 30 min and enjoy, or pop in the freezer for future use.

**You can also do this with peaches, apricots or nectarines or plums.  But peel, pit and finely chop.  And use 1Tbs bottled/ pasteurized lemon juice to keep the pH correct to stop the bad bugs.

Applesauce!... or The Perils of Procrastination.

Even the modern girl can Can.

So, I've been trying to find time to make applesauce again.  If you've never had good, homemade applesauce, you most likely won't find this exciting, but good applesauce is like fresh ground, fresh brewed coffee vs. Sanka (that weird freeze dried, de-caf coffee-ish stuff).  A whole different animal, and totally worth the trouble.






When we moved into our current house, the dwarf apple tree produces a BUMPER crop of apples, and about 1/2 way into the apples growth, my son and his friend (both about 3 1/2 and the time) pick about half of the apples.  They were still somewhat green but tasty, and I hated to see them all go to waste.  So I made applesauce for the first time.  Pretty easy, except for the straining.

Did that through a sieve.
What a pain.

Everything old is New Again... Why did we give this up?
 This is better than a bendy straw! 

This year, I have a food mill for the first time.











And so, when I finally went to the fruit stand to get a box of apples, I was relieved to see that Gravensteins were still there.  I was worried I had missed them.
I almost had.

Ugly Apples get a Bath

And since the end of the season was approaching, the "scratch and dent" boxes were out - for $5, I could get about 15lbs of ugly apples.

Looks don't matter for apples sauce (or chutney for that matter).  So I got three (3) boxes. (see also; 3x15 = 45 = ARE YOU NUTS!)
I made a small kiddy-pool's worth of apple sauce.  It is good.  Very, very good.  Especially the cinnamon spiced.  I made so much I had to break out the canning equipment.




If I had just gotten apples when they were first coming off the tree, I would have gotten 1 box, and that would have been the end of it.

 And I wouldn't have gotten into this fix.

 Ah well, we have apple sauce for a big chunk of the school year, and I don't have to think to hard about how to round out my son's lunch.
And it is so good, it deserves to be eaten with ice cream.

How does one do this?

I'll give you the starter size recipe.  Once you taste the results and get the hang of it, you can decide if you want to make the plunge (in my case literally) into large batch applesauce.  Because I love my new toy so much, I will give the food mill instructions.  NOTE: If you only have a sieve and a spatula, you MUST peel and core your apples.  And where I say, pour it into the food mill and turn the crank, you just need to use a spatula to press it though the sieve.

Ingredients:

8 new summer apples (what ever size you have) (you can us.e ANY apple... but the best sauce comes from new crop apples, sweet, flavorful, fruity.)

about 1 C water
1/2 tsp salt

(for spiced applesauce - 2 Tbs cinnamon, 4 cloves, 4 allspice berries, & maybe more cinnamon)

Equipment:

1 BIG pot (about 8 quarts - a spaghetti pot)
chopping knife
cutting board
non-conductive spoon (wood or plastic, not metal)
food mill (or sieve... see note above)
spatula
zip-top bags or tupperware you are willing to freeze

Cook!:

Cut the apples into quarters (if you have  a food mill, throw in everything.  The extra pectin from the skins etc., will make for a richer sauce.  Just try it.  Trust me this once.) and throw everything into the big pot.
(For spiced applesauce, also add the whole cloves and allspice berries)
Pour in the 1 C water, and place over high heat for 10 minutes.

Turn down the heat to med low,  and stir the apple occasionally for about 20 more minutes or until the apple flesh turns mushy (feel free to squash the apple pieces with the back of the spoon).

Pour the apple mush into a food mill placed over a large bowl, and turn the crank to separate the yummy from the yucky.

Discard the yucky bits, and stir in the 2 Tbs of cinnamon.  Taste.  Adjust.
Add more cinnamon if you want (red hots are always a fun way of doing this, they give the sauce a fun pinky-red color).

If the sauce seems too thin, return it to the original pot (rinsed out) and cook at a high simmer/low boil to steam off excess water and thicken up the sauce.

As soon as it is delectable, ladle into zip-top bags or tupperware, and cool & freeze for future consumption.

Since this is high in sugar & acid, it will keep well frozen for at least a year.

If you a a canner, this is prime canning material.  Unlike jelly, this is not rocket science.  Just get it hot, and process it.

P.S. I highly recommend Snoqualmie Honey Cinnamon Ice Cream as a pairing.