Happy Adar! Purim is just a couple weeks away, and we’re thinking about mishloach manot, obviously. So is this month’s Kosher Connection linkup.
Last year, we made hot chocolate on a stick and marshmallows. And of course every year we make hamentaschen.
This weekend, we decided to try and make fruit snacks. A homemade, healthy version of the gummy candies kids and adults love. All you need is some fruit, some kosher gelatin and about 45 minutes and you can make your own fruit snacks, too!
Summer’s coming to an end, so stock up on your berries and preserve them any way you could. Our favorite way to do this is to make jam. Though freezing is probably easier, cooking and preserving the berries is a very flavorful way to enjoy our summer produce all year long. It also makes a really nice gift!
(Berries actually freeze quite well. Make sure to clean and dry them, and then store them in a zip top bag. Make sure to suck all the air out and seal it tight so that the berries don’t get freezer burned. If you want to freeze strawberries, hull them before freezing.)
Last year we made raspberry jam with raspberries we picked ourselves from a local farm. We also made strawberry-fig jam, inspired by my backyard fig tree. This summer we decided to make more mixed fruit jams, and the apricot-nectarine turned out really orange and delicious. This raspberry-strawberry-blueberry jam is an amazing deep purplish pink color. We can’t decide if it tastes better than it looks or looks better than it tastes.
Oh, we took all the photos with my new(ish) Droid-X. Pretty cool, huh?
All jam making directions and tips are from pickyourown.org and the package of pectin.
Ingredients:
Equipment:
For canning:
Instructions:
If you are canning, make sure to sterilize the jars. If using a dishwasher, run it without soap. If using a pot, fill the pot with water and the jars and boil. Do not touch the inside of the jars (that’s why you have the jar tongs), because that will introduce bacteria to the sterilized jars and could result in icky jam! Do this now so it will be ready when you are. Boil the lids, too.
1. Wash the fruit. Sort through it to make sure you have no bad berries or stems, etc.
2. Chop the strawberries.
3. Add the fruit to a bowl and make sure you have 10 cups. Mash.
4. Measure out the sugar. Set aside 1/4 cup of sugar and mix with the pectin. This will allow the pectin to incorporate into the fruit better, and make sure you don’t have lumpy jam.
5. Add fruit to large pot and cook over high heat, stirring constantly. When it comes to a full rolling boiling, meaning it doesn’t stop bubbling even when you stir, time one minute. Add the pectin and stir until it dissolves.
6. While still stirring, add the sugar, a cupful at a time, until it is all incorporated.
7. Continue stirring constantly until the mixture comes to a rolling boil again. After one minute, test the jam to make sure it sets.
8. Take a spoonful of jam and dip it in a cup of ice water. If it gels, it’s ready to be jarred. If not, boil for another minute and test again.
9. Use a ladle or big spoon to fill the sterilized jars. Leave about 1/2 inch of space at the top.
10. Use the magnetic lid lifter to cover, making sure to clean the jars before placing the tops on. Screw on the lid.
11. After all the jam is canned, place in about 2 inches of water and boil for 5 minutes (or more, depending on altitude). You will hear the tops POP, either while they are boiling or after when they are cooling. If you don’t hear the pop after a while, try boiling again or just put the jam in the fridge and use it right away. It will still be good.
12. The boiled jars should last about a year (’til next summer).
This recipe made 10 6-oz jars of jam.
Is there a better way to celebrate your oldest friends, a hot NYC summer day and the awesome strawberry season that we’ve been blessed with than strawberry sangria? I couldn’t think of one, so when my elementary school crew was coming over to my apartment for a dinner party, I conjured this recipe right before my friends started to show up and we sipped sangria until we were ready for dinner.
As you probably figured out by now, I really like Ina Garten. I watch her on the Food Network all the time and own one of her cookbooks, Barefoot Contessa at Home. Every time I look through it, I bookmark more recipes to try. The day after I put a post it on her pavlova with mixed berries recipe, I watched the episode where she made meringues chantilly with roasted berries. I liked the idea of everyone having his or her own serving. I also liked the fact that the berries would be roasted instead of just fresh, especially because the raspberries I had were frozen (yep, from the same batch as the raspberry jam). I also found some packaged strawberries in the freezer, my dad probably bought those when they were on sale.
These were surprisingly easy to make, probably because I used the Kitchen Aid stand mixer. The hardest part was the shaping, but after one or two even that got easier. I didn’t have a pastry bag (uni-tasker!) or a star tip, but I did have a zip top bag and some scissors, and that worked almost as well. Continue reading
If you’ve been following us since the beginning (or if you’ve checked out the archive), you know that our first recipe ever posted was raspberry jam. We couldn’t believe how easy it was to make, how delicious it was, or how quickly our friends and family gobbled it up; we had to make more jam!
