Homemade Pear Butter The Lazy Girl's Way

Most of my happiest times in the kitchen are when I'm making something completely from scratch. I love experiencing the farm to table connection--knowing where my food comes from and taking a few simple, whole food ingredients and transforming them into a dish that is as impressive as it is simple with my own hands right in my own kitchen. It's incredibly satisfying to me.

One farm to table connection that I enjoy tremendously is belonging to an organic co-op from which I receive a box of organic produce every other week. I recently accumulated quite a generous supply of pears since we've been getting either Barlett or Bosc pears in every box lately and no one in my family has been eating them. I don't know why that is--we like pears! Not our favorite, but we still like them. Anyway, faced with about a dozen overripe and slightly bruised pears in my refrigerator bin, I decided to make some pear butter with them. I found the perfect recipe at a wonderful new-to-me cooking, gardening and farming blog called Farmgirl Fare. I love this site and will be sure to visit it often. I encourage you to check it out, too--especially if you like growing and eating your own fruits and vegetables.

If you ever find yourself interested in making pear butter, I cannot recommend enough that you try Farmgirl Fare's method that she outlines in detail in her post Recipe: How To Make Really Easy Low Sugar Pear Butter in the Oven (with step-by-step photos). This is the best pear butter recipe EVER. It's so incredibly easy and wow does it taste amazing, too! The only caveat is that you have to have a food mill for this method. I don't have one, but borrowed my friend's. I think I'm going to ask Santa for one for myself.

Jars of Homemade Spiced Pear Butter

Here's my version of Farmgirl Fare's recipe and photos from my day spent making pear butter yesterday:

Pear Butter 
5 lbs. really ripe organic pears (I had Bartlett and Bosc) 
1/2 cup sugar 
4 teaspoons fresh lemon juice 
2 cinnamon sticks (or 1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon) 
1 teaspoon whole cloves (or 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves).

Cut the pears into chunks. Don't even peel or core the pears. Perfect for lazy girls and boys.

Run pears through the food mill over a big bowl. Okay so you can't be lazy here. It's a bit of an arm workout, but honestly not so bad.

All that remains after running 5 lbs. of pears
through the food mill. 

5 lbs ripe pears yields approximately
8 cups of pear purée

Run pear purée through the food mill again for a smoother purée, if desired. I did this right over the baking dish in which I'm going to bake the pears.

Running the pear purée through the food mill again
to ensure a smooth pear butter.

Add sugar and lemon juice to pear purée and stir well.

Pour the pear mixture into a 13x9 glass or ceramic baking dish. Add cinnamon and cloves to the pear mixture.

Cinnamon sticks and whole cloves
added to pear mixture... ready for the oven.

Bake in a 300 F oven for 3-6 hours or until the pear mixture thickens to the consistency you like, stirring once in a while. You can be lazy that whole time if you want to!

The longer you bake the pear butter, the thicker and richer the flavor. I like mine thick like softened butter. The flavor is more intense and it spreads on bread just like butter, but so much healthier for you!

Finished pear butter.

Remove pear butter from oven and you're done!

You have a few different options for storing your pear butter:
1. Transfer the pear butter into clean glass jars with lids and store in your refrigerator for several weeks.

2. Transfer some of the pear butter into a clean glass jar to store in your refrigerator for several weeks and freeze the rest! I like to freeze foods in glass jars, but I know a lot of people are not comfortable freezing glass jars because of the potential for breakage if the jar falls out of the freezer. In that case, you can also use plastic containers or those plastic zip-top bags.

3. Spoon your pear butter into 4 oz. or half pint canning jars, leaving 1/4" head space at the top and processing in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes. Be sure to run a knife through the pear butter when you've spooned it into the jars to get rid of any air pockets before you process them in the water bath. This is the method I chose to do so that I could gift some pear butter to friends for Thanksgiving or Christmas.

And that's it! Sounds pretty easy, right? I hope you give it a try the next time you have some overripe pears on hand. Or maybe you'll let some pears get overripe just to make this delicious, low sugar pear butter. If you do, dont' forget to read through Farmgirl Fare's entire post on How To Make Really Easy Low Sugar Pear Butter in the Oven (with step-by-step photos).

Some serving suggestions for pear butter:
+spoon onto your morning oatmeal
+spread on bread or toast
+stir into plain yogurt
+spread on a cheese, ham or turkey sandwich
+spread on a cracker topped with a bit of brie or other favorite cheese
+any other suggestions? 

Do you like fruit butter? What's your favorite kind?

Do you ever can fruit or vegetables at home?

Other posts I've written on canning and home preserving:
Home Canning Tomatoes
Grape Plum Jam (refrigerator jam)
Putting By
{Super Easy} Golden Raspberry Jam 
Jam Session  (Soft Strawberry Jam)

 
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Weekend Cooking, a weekly blog event hosted by Beth Fish Reads. Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food related post to share--a food related book review (fiction or nonfiction), cookbook review, movie review, a recipe, random thoughts, gadgets, food quotations, photographs, etc. Please visit Beth's blog for more information and join the fun! 

Note: your post does not have to be posted on the weekend, but do visit Beth's blog over the weekend to link up your post. 

Library Loot LVII

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and Marg from The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library. If you’d like to participate, just write up your post-feel free to steal the button-and link it using the Mr. Linky any time during the week. And of course check out what other participants are getting from their libraries! This week's Library Loot is at Marg's. 

Here is my latest library loot. This is from two different visits to two different local libraries--my town library and the library from the next town over which is actually closer to my house! Oh, plus a new release from the latter mentioned library that I asked my friend to get me because they don't allow out of town residents to borrow their new releases. And books are considered new releases for a whole year! Kills me. Thank goodness I have a few friends in that town who don't mind getting on the hold lists for me. ; )
 
Deep Kiss of Winter by Kresley Cole and Gena Showalter
Pleasure of A Dark Prince by Kresley Cole

I've been on a roll re-reading and catching up with Kresley Cole's Immortals After Dark (IAD) series, filling in the gaps of the books I don't already own with trips to the library. Omg this series is like candy! You stick your hand in the jar and you just want more, more, more! You can't stop eating. It's such a fun series. It's FUNNY and fun and lovable and adventurous and the characters go through hell for each other and their loved ones and get so torn up over their promises, their allegiances and their desires. It's oodles of alpha fun mixed with some seriously kick ass modern women who know what they want, or at least have a wild time figuring it all out. Anyway, I read Deep Kiss of Winter last week. LOVED the IAD story of Daniela the half Valkyrie and half Ice Fey Maiden and the vampire Murdoch Wroth. I wasn't crazy about the Gena Showalter short which is from her Alien Huntress series. The characters fell kinda flat for me and it just seemed everyone's motives were all just based on sex and instant desire without a whole heck of a lot of emotion. You can read my review of this book on goodreads HERE.

Next up is Pleasure of A Dark Prince, book NINE (!) in the IAD series. This one is the story of the Valkyrie named Lucia the Huntress [the Archer]--and Garreth MacRieve, Prince of the Lykae [werewolves]. This story is taking place around the same time as the other stories in this series, so in the beginning, Garreth doesn't yet know that his brother and the true King of the Lykae, Lachlain MacRieve still lives and is in fact in hot pursuit of his mate, the darling and timid half vampire, half Valkyrie Emma. That's book two. Anyway, I've already over a hundred pages into this story and really enjoying it. I like Lucia a lot and love the way Garreth is just over the moon for her. They're pretty darned adorable. I put it down, though, to read my September TBR Challenge book which I ended up not finishing in time anyway. Can't wait to get back to Pleasure of A Dark Prince soon!

Dream Lake by Lisa Kleypas 
This is third book in Ms. Kleypas' latest contemporary romance / chick lit Friday Harbor series. I'm looking forward to reading this one. The main character, Sam Nolan has some serious problems that will require a woman with patient and generous heart.

I haven't borrowed graphic novels in a while, so I browsed the shelves hoping to find some that might be fitting for the RIP VII reading event going on now. Here's what I brought home:




The Arrival by Shaun Tan.
Critically acclaimed, this one.

Fables: The Dark Ages 
by Bill Willingham, Mark Buckingham, Peter Gross, Andrew Pepoy, 
Michael Allred and David Hahn.
Winner of Twelve Eisner Awards! Saw this one on Marg's blog and I know Kelly reads them, too, so when I saw this one at the library, I grabbed it. I couldn't tell which book it is in the series, but it was the only one of the series my library had. Turns out it's the 12th one! Ho hum. Think I might like to hunt this series down and start with the 1st book.

Edgar Allen Poe's Tales of Death and Dementia
by Edgar Allen Poe, Illustrated by Gris Grimly
This is a re-loot. Borrowed it earlier this year and never got around to reading it. Thought it would be a great RIP book. It's actually a picture book for teens! I hope to review it and maybe post some images of the illustrations and text inside.

You just KNOW I had to go check out the new cookbook shelf, too. I do that every visit. Here's what I'm reading in cookbooks right now:

 
Food in Jars: Preserving in Small Batches Year-Round
by Marisa McClellan.
Written by a popular food blogger. So many food bloggers are writing their own cookbooks these days. Such an awesome opportunity for the home cook. Really fantastic. Anyway, if you visit my blog regularly, you know I love making food from scratch, including jams and more recently canned tomatoes. Looking forward to finding some inspiration and recipes to try with this one.

Preserve It! by Lynda Brown
This cook was right next to Food in Jars, so I thought it would be a nice complement to my cookbook reading this week.

What are you reading from your library right now?

What was the last cookbook you bought or borrowed from the library?

Home Canning Tomatoes

Today was tomato canning day as I joined two of my friends and their families in their annual tomato canning project. We ordered 12 bushels of plum tomatoes from a local farm and washed, cooked, crushed, cooked again and canned them all into 180 quart jars of homemade tomato sauce! My friends have been doing this every August for at least the last decade, so they have the process down pat by now, but wow--what an impressive project. I kept my phone in my pocket so I could snap a few pics along the way.

This is about half of the tomatoes...
washed and ready to be cooked.

Tomato day started bright and early at 7am in my friend's backyard with five adults and two helpful teenagers. We were set up on her driveway, patio and a bit of her lawn area with the different stations--cleaning tomatoes, cooking tomatoes, processing tomatoes, and cooking and canning the sauce.

The first cooking process.

Giving the tomatoes a stir.

While the burners for cooking the tomatoes were being set up by my friend's husband, the rest of us started washing the tomatoes in tubs of water and cutting away any damaged or moldy parts, of which there was very little. Out of 12 bushels of plum tomatoes--which is upwards of 636 lbs of tomatoes, we may have had only 1 or 2 lbs of tomato waste when we were done washing.

Tomato cooking well under way.

Once the three burners were set up and lit, tomatoes were put in the huge stock pots with a bit of water to prevent burning and they were cooked until they started to break down. In the meantime, we kept washing more tomatoes and several bunches of fresh basil.

Fresh basil for the tomato sauce

Cooked tomatoes waiting to go through the tomato mill

Once the tomatoes were turning into stewed tomatoes, they were spooned into a mill made especially for processing tomatoes. The tomatoes are essentially crushed and skin and seeds of the tomatoes are separated from the sauce. The skins and seeds go into a bucket and the sauce goes down a little chute into another big huge stock pot.

Processing the cooked tomatoes into sauce.

Below is another view of the tomato mill. You can see the skins and seeds going into the bucket on the left and the sauce goes down the chute into the pot on the right.

Another view of the tomato mill

The huge stock pot of sauce now gets put onto another burner where it cooks down some more, this time with handfuls of fresh basil and kosher salt.

Tomato sauce with basil
simmering away,  almost ready to be ladled into jars.

When the sauce gets a little thickened, it gets ladled into quart-size canning jars. One person ladled the sauce into the jars using a funnel and two others put the lids and bands on, wiping the rims as needed. The sauce is so hot that a proper seal was created as the sauce started to cool without having to process them in water. I've always processed jam in water, so I had a little trouble trusting this process without the water, but soon we heard all the lids popping sealed, so it worked! An hour or two later I checked all the jars I brought home and they were all sealed.

Gorgeous jars of homemade tomato sauce.

By the time the last of the jars were filled, clean up was well under way. Pots were scrubbed, the mill was cleaned and all supplies were put away. By 2 o'clock in the afternoon, you'd never know tomato day had taken place. Unless, of course, you visited the basements of these three families. There you'd find dozens of jars of homemade tomato sauce just waiting to be cooked into spectacular meals for our families over the next year. :)

I've canned homemade fruit jams many times in the past, but have never canned tomato sauce before. Nor have I been a part of such a big production as this was today, but thanks to the years of experience and fine tuning, the work was efficient and the day went very smoothly. I'm curious to see how long my 30 jars of tomato sauce last me. February? April? Will I make it to the next tomato canning day in August 2013? We shall see.


Have you ever canned your own tomato sauce? Jam? Pickles? Anything else? 

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Weekend Cooking, a weekly blog event hosted by Beth Fish Reads. Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food related post to share--a food related book review (fiction or nonfiction), cookbook review, movie review, a recipe, random thoughts, gadgets, food quotations, photographs, etc. Please visit Beth's blog for more information and join the fun! 

Note: your post does not have to be posted on the weekend, but do visit Beth's blog over the weekend to link up your post. 

Lime Curd {from homegrown limes!}

A few weeks ago my husband was in Texas visiting two aunts and an uncle while also participating in the MS 150 cycling event. Knowing how much I love gardens, he was texting me photos of his aunt and uncle's modest but prolific backyard garden. Not only was I envious of their prolific garden, but they were growing all sorts of edibles that can't survive the climate in my zone 6 backyard--lemons and limes, for example. Imagine walking into your backyard and to pick a lemon off a tree to squeeze into whatever dish you're preparing right at that moment!

To my delight and great fortune, my husband's aunt and uncle sent him home with a big ziploc bag full of adorable baby limes. They look like lemons on the outside and like juicy miniature oranges on the inside, but I've been assured they are indeed limes. I have no other choice but to believe them despite what my eyes tell me.. because what do I know of backyard varieties of homegrown citrus fruit? Besides, the fragrance and taste is closer to supermarket limes than to either lemons or oranges. So limes they are!

I wanted to do something special with this bounty of limes and aside from homemade margaritas, which I would be the only one in my house enjoying, I decided on lime curd. Most people are familiar with lemon curd, but if you don't know what curd is, it's essentially a citrus custard without the cream. The final product has a creamy consistency and sweet tart. Think of a lemon filling in a layer cake.

I came up with this recipe after looking up lime curd recipes online. I essentially compared the butter-juice-sugar-egg proportions from other recipes and then kind of made up my own based on the amount of lime juice I ended up with from my limes, wanting to reducing the amount of butter called for in most recipes, and wanting to use egg yolks as opposed to whole eggs in my recipe since I had several egg yolks in my fridge already after needing egg whites for other recipes last week and I know omitting the whites will result in a richer, creamier curd than if the whites were added as well.

Lime Curd 

5 tablespoons butter, cut into pieces 

1 cup lime juice 

1 cup sugar 

5 egg yolks 

pinch of salt

test for proper
consistency

• Juice the limes and then strain through a sieve to remove any seeds and pulp. 
• Melt the butter in a heavy bottomed, non reactive pan on medium low heat. 
• Add the sugar, lime juice, egg yolks and pinch of salt, whisking mixture until smooth. 
• Heat mixture over medium low heat, stirring frequently with the whisk or a spoon until mixture thickens, about 10-15 minutes. The lime curd should be thick enough that when you put a bit on a plate and run your finger through it, there is a path left that does not fill back in with curd. Like in the photo on right photo.. 
• Remove from heat and let cool for a few minutes then transfer into a clean glass jar. 
• Cover surface of curd with parchment paper to keep a skin from forming as it cools. Or if you're like me, forget the parchment paper and just peel the skin off (and eat it!) before using the curd.

Makes 1 3/4 cups.
Store lime curd in the refrigerator for 1-2 weeks--if it lasts that long!

So what do you do with lime curd? Here are some ideas:

• make a yogurt parfait with alternating layers of plain, nonfat yogurt and lime curd, topped with diced kiwi, pineapple, strawberry or blueberries 
• spoon it on biscuits or scones make a trifle with cubes of pound cake, lime curd and top with berries and whipped cream. 
• Cut a pound cake in half horizontally, spoon lime curd onto bottom layer and top with the other half of pound cake. Top with whipped cream and blueberries for a special dessert. 
• Line a tart pan with a graham cracker crust, fill with lime curd and top with sliced fresh fruit for a delicious fruit tart dessert. 
• Prepare a lightly sweetened pie crust in a pie pan, fill with lime curd and top with fresh whipped cream for an instant lime tart. 
• Spoon out the top of mini corn or blueberry muffins with a melon baller and fill with lime curd. 
• Add small layers of crushed graham crackers and spoonfuls of lime curd to homemade vanilla frozen yogurt in a freezer safe container for a lime tart frozen yogurt! 

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Weekend Cooking, a weekly blog event hosted by Beth Fish Reads. Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food related post to share--a food related book review (fiction or nonfiction), cookbook review, movie review, a recipe, random thoughts, gadgets, food quotations, photographs, etc. Please visit Beth's blog for more information and join the fun! 



Note: your post does not have to be posted on the weekend, but do visit Beth's blog over the weekend to link up your post. 

Grape Plum Jam

Or how to make jam out of the fruit in your fridge that is past its prime. ;)

I know I keep saying it and I know you still don't believe me, but it really is very easy to make your own jam! The jam that I made developing this recipe makes a small batch that you prepare and then store in a clean jar in your refrigerator. I created this recipe using fruit that I had on hand in my refrigerator that is a bit past its prime. I used grapes and plums, but you could also use fruit such as berries, peaches, apricots, and even the juice from a pomegranate or citrus. Fruit can be wrinkly and a little soft, cutting away any bruised spots, and do not use fruit that has mold on it.

For this recipe, I had a bunch of very fragrant and flavorful Niagara grapes that had been sitting several days too long in the fridge. They were very sweet and flavorful, but I admit that I was lazy about eating them because they take a bit of work to eat. That sounds really lame, but the thing is these grapes have thick, tart skins and three or four seeds inside each tiny globe, so after popping one in your mouth, you have to work the sweet pulp from the skin and the seeds, and then you spit out the skin and seeds and swallow the pulp. Like I said, a lot of work for a little bit of grape. The skin and seeds of these little grapes are edible, but the skin is tough and I don't particularly like biting the seeds. I also had three plums that were a little wrinkly and mushy in spots. So I decided a grape plum jam would be a great way to use these two fruits.

Grape Plum Jam
Use flavorful grapes such as Niagara or Concord grapes and black or red plums for the best jam color.

1 small bunch of Niagara or Concord grapes (about 1/2 lb.)
3 plums
1/2 cup granulated sugar

Wash the grapes and remove from stems. Put the grapes in a medium sauce pan and add a cup of water. Bring grapes to a boil then reduce heat to a simmer, stirring frequently and breaking the grapes up with a spoon as they soften. Simmer for 10 minutes or so, adding additional water if necessary so the grape mixture has the consistency of pureed soup.

Strain the grape mixture through a fine sieve over a bowl. Press the grape mixture with the back of a spoon to extract as much grape juice and pulp as possible. Discard skins and seeds and return strained grape mixture to the saucepan on medium-low heat.

Coarsely chop the plums, skin and pits removed. Add sugar and additional water if necessary until the fruit mixture the consistency of a thin soup. Bring the fruit mixture to a boil and then reduce the heat so the jam cooks at a very gentle boil. Cook the jam for 15-20 minutes or until it is thickened to jam consistency. Remove jam from heat and ladle into a clean jar.

Store in the refrigerator for one month, in the freezer for longer storage.

This jam tastes delicious on warm crusty bread or even over ice cream.

Enjoy. :)

Putting By

Fall is here. The days are short and cool now and the growing season is definitely winding down in this zone 6 region of New Jersey. The farm down the street still has some fall vegetables in the ground including some lettuces and plenty of hardy fall greens such as collards and beets, but tender vegetables such as tomato plants won't survive a frost, which could occur any day now. My surprise late blooming cherry tomato plant has several clusters of tiny green tomatoes, and I'm starting to doubt they're going to make it to maturity. I'll try to encourage it to hang in there a few extra weeks by covering the plant with a sheet at night to keep it warm. Don't laugh! All the garden experts say to do this!


If you're unfamiliar with the term, 'putting by' refers to the process of preserving or saving an abundant supply of a crop for future use. For someone who didn't even tend a vegetable garden this season, I had quite a productive season of preserving summer's bounty. I visited three different 'U pick' farms throughout the season to pick strawberries, blueberries, and two different varieties of raspberries. I also ordered extra basil and red peppers through the co-op for preserving for the winter.


Here's a look at what I preserved this season:

Strawberry Jam 

{this photo is from my strawberry jam post back in June}

This is a photo of the strawberry jam I have left... 

Rum Soaked Preserved Cherries

Don't these jars of cherries look gorgeous? I came across this recipe for rum soaked preserved cherries and boozy cherry molasses (not pictured but oh so good!) from Rebecca of the Foodie with Family blog while on the Tasty Kitchen forum. I love the way these jars of cherries look and thought they'd be a fun, novel treat to use to make martinis or even serve over ice cream. They're really, really delicious and were incredibly easy to make.

Red Raspberry Jam

Golden Raspberry Jam 

{click here for recipe}

Spicy Peach Preserves with Jalapenos

I made these spicy preserves to serve as a snack with cream cheese and crackers, but I also tried it blended with some dijon mustard as a glaze for pork roast and it was delicious. 


I spent weeks researching the food chemistry of preserves for this recipe that I created and fretted about the proper ratios of acid, sugar and pectin since all three of these play an important role in not just the flavor and consistency of the jam, but also in preserving the fruit against spoilage. Hopefully my recipe is safe for consumption. ;p

Cinnamon Applesauce

Homemade applesauce is SO EASY to make and tastes a gazillion times better than any kind you can buy at the store.

Basil Pesto 

I was never a huge fan of pesto until I tried my friend's pesto several years ago. I asked her what was in her pesto that made it taste so good and was surprised to learn that it wasn't what she added, but what she didn't add that made her pesto so good. The secret was not adding Parmesan or other cheese to the pesto. I learned that although I happen to really like Parmesan cheese... I just don't like it my pesto. I spent the rest of the summer experimenting with blending basil, garlic, olive oil, nuts and sometimes parsley, until I came up with my signature recipe. Now every summer I make sure I make several jars of pesto for the freezer to get me through the winter. A little bit goes a long way, so hopefully these three jars, plus one that made it to the freezer earlier in the summer, will be enough to last us until next season.

Roasted Red Peppers

Roasting red peppers is an easy way to preserve a bumper crop of red peppers for the winter. Delicious on a grilled turkey panini with some pesto.

Antipasto Stuffed Hot Cherry Peppers

These hot cherry peppers came from that box of red peppers I special ordered from my organic co-op back in September. I had asked for sweet red bell peppers, but discovered about two dozen hot peppers thrown in the mix, so decided on making a gourmet appetizer out of them. This recipe for stuffed hot peppers is made by wrapping cubes of provolone cheese with prosciutto, stuffing them into hollowed out hot cherry peppers and marinating in olive oil, vinegar with minced garlic and dried oregano. I used a combination of white balsamic and red wine vinegars for the marinade.


I also prepared about four half quart freezer bags of frozen blueberries and frozen sliced red peppers to use throughout the year. The blueberries I use in pancakes, muffins and other baked treats, in smoothies and sprinkled frozen right on my cereal or plain yogurt for breakfast. The red peppers I'll use in stir fries, fajitas and in stews. Once their frozen, you don't really want to eat them raw because the texture isn't so appealing as they defrost, but you could if you really wanted to, I guess.


It was my intention to make dozens of jars of jams to give as Christmas and Hanukkah gifts and still have enough for my own family to enjoy throughout the year as well. I made the mistake, however, of leaving the jars out on the kitchen counter or dining room table for a few weeks. Why was this a mistake? Because every time a friend came by and spied them, she not so delicately hinted that she wanted one right then and there and didn't want to wait for Christmas. Now my gift giving stash has been dramatically reduced and I may have to make a few more jars of something between now and December. I'm thinking of cranberry sauce, apple chutney or maybe even a citrus marmalade. Any ideas?


What foods do you preserve? 
{canning, freezing, or other preservation method...}  


Which would you rather receive at Christmas or Hanukkah:
cranberry sauce, apple chutney or orange marmalade? 

{Super Easy} Golden Raspberry Jam

If you love homemade jam but don't have the time for canning or are simply intimidated by the whole canning process, I have a super easy recipe for homemade jam just for you! Experienced jam makers will love it, too. You'll have fast, easy and delicious gourmet jam in 15 minutes. I promise!

I made this jam using golden raspberries that my youngest daughter and I picked ourselves at a nearby farm earlier this week. You might also find golden raspberries at local Farmers' Markets and specialty grocers. If you can't find golden raspberries, don't fret! While the color and flavor of the golden raspberries make for a special and unique jam, you can also make this recipe using red raspberries.

The ingredients are so incredibly easy, you'll be able to make this jam on a moment's notice from now on. All you have to do is weigh your raspberries and use the same weight of sugar. A half pound of raspberries and sugar make one 8 oz. jar. All you do is heat the berries and sugar until the sugar dissolves, boil and stir for 5-7 minutes, then pour it into a clean jar. That's it! I'm telling you, it's that easy!

{Super Easy} Golden Raspberry Jam

1/2 pound raspberries

1/2 pound sugar

In a medium, non-reactive saucepan, heat raspberries and sugar, stirring until sugar is dissolved.

Bring jam to a boil and stir continuously for 5-7 minutes, testing for gel set** after the first 5 minutes.

Ladle jam into a clean jar and let cool before storing in the refrigerator.

Jam will keep in the refrigerator for two weeks, but I bet it won't last that long!

Keep jam in the freezer for longer storage.

**How do you test for gel set?
+Put a small plate in the freezer for 2 minutes.
+After boiling the jam for 5 minutes, remove the plate from the freezer and spoon a small amount of jam onto the plate.
+Return to the freezer for 2 more minutes.
+Remove from freezer and push the little puddle of jam with your finger. If the jam is set, you the jam will "wrinkle" in front of where you pushed. See the wrinkles in my photo? No? Well, they're there on the side there to the right of my finger where the jam is light in color...

My jam set properly. :)

+If you don't get the "wrinkle," boil the jam for another 2 minutes and test again.
+Don't worry if you can't get the jam to set the second or third time. Just give up. LOL. No seriously... your jam will just be a little softer. I promise it will taste just wonderful whether it's too runny or too thick. Who cares? It's homemade gourmet jam! You'll love it just the same.

Serving ideas:
+On toast, crackers or french bread with a slather of Brie ...
+On plain or vanilla yogurt ...

+Use as a condiment on a turkey sandwich ...

Isn't that gorgeous?

What are you waiting for? Head to a farm or farmers market near you, get a hold of some raspberries and make some jam this weekend!

Enjoy! :)

A special little shout out and thank you to Tracy from Sugarcrafter with whom I consulted about modifying existing jam recipes. If you haven't already visited Tracy's site, it's a must for all your seasonal sweet tooth needs. She's already in full swing fall mode with amazing pumpkin recipes, like her Pumpkin Baked Alaska. Oh my.

So who's making {super easy} golden raspberry jam this weekend?

You know you want to! =)

A Jam Session

Yesterday I made homemade strawberry jam using the recipe for Soft Strawberry Jam in the 3rd edition of Well Preserved by Mary Anne Dragan. I have made jams before--strawberry, blueberry, mixed berry and peach, but this strawberry jam is the most delicious jam ever.

I have borrowed the Well Preserved cookbook from my library twice now and I just love it. So much so that I've decided to buy my own copy. I love the range of recipes from the classic to the novel, the clear, easy explanations and directions, and that it includes recipes for all sorts of fruit jams, jellies, preserves, conserves and also sauces, relishes, chutneys, and salsas. The author even includes recipes for dishes in which the preserved foods are a key ingredient.

Most of the recipes in Well Preserved are prepared without adding commercial pectin, which I find appealing because I try to follow a whole foods approach to food preparation. In other words, I strive to prepare and eat foods made from whole foods and whole ingredients that are in the form as close to their natural state as possible or that have been processed minimally and in a straightforward way. Not that pectin itself is a bad thing as an added ingredient since it is derived from pectin rich foods, but there are other ingredients such as preservatives and stabilizers in the package of pectin that I'd just rather avoid if I could. In the case of this jam, the ingredients are just strawberries, sugar and lemon juice.

The name of the jam is Soft Strawberry Jam, so it did turn out soft and slightly runny compared to most jams, but the color, flavor and fragrance is unbelievable. It is SO good.

Making homemade jam is actually quite easy to do. You just need to be a little organized with your supplies and your order of operations, and you need to set aside a whole morning or afternoon to dedicate yourself to jamming. If you don't want to bother with the processing part, there are a lot of great recipes for freezer jam out there that you just cook and then store in your freezer until you're ready to use. That's how I started making jam years ago until I decided to try canning one year just for the experience. It was so much easier than I expected and now it's the only way I make jam. Want to see how I did it?

For complete canning instructions, visit http://www.freshpreserving.com/ or borrow a book on canning and preserving from your library. I do not include all home canning and food safety guidelines guidelines in this post.

A Strawberry Jam Session:

Rinse and drain berries well.

Wash canning jars in warm soapy water, rinsing well. Then to sterilize the jars and canning lids, put them in a pot of water to cover, and keep the water hot and just simmering until ready to fill them.

At this point, I fill my canning pot half full with water, heat it on the stove until simmering, and keep it simmering until I'm ready to process the jars of jam. You don't need to buy a pot specifically made for canning, but it is helpful because it will be wide and deep enough to hold the jars and it will come with a stainless steel rack to keep the jars in place in the hot water. The pot I use is a big lobster pot that I picked up at my supermarket a couple of years ago that comes with a removable steamer that sits about 1-2" off the bottom of the pot and I just set the jars of jam on top of that.

While the processing pot is being heated up, I set to work slicing the berries.

Mash berries in a large pot with a potato masher or the back of a large serving fork.

Bring the berries to a gentle simmer over medium heat and simmer for 2-3 minutes.

Add the sugar and lemon juice,


Stir to dissolve sugar and raise heat to medium high heat.


Bring jam to a steady boil, stirring frequently, if not constantly to prevent jam from scorching or splattering out of pot. Maintain jam at a boil for 15-20 minutes or until thickened then remove from heat.

The fragrance of homemade strawberry jam simmering away draws my first customer to the kitchen....


Useful magnet tool.


Used to lift bands and lids out of simmering water.

You actually don't need to sterilize the bands because they don't come in contact with the jam, but I always forget that and end up sterilizing them anyway with the jars and lids.

Jar grabber tool. What is this thing called anyway?


Jar grabber tool is used to grab hot, sterilized jars out of simmering water and then placed onto a kitchen towel to be filled with jam.


Ladle jam into jars using a wide mouthed funnel if you have one.

Leave 1/4" headroom between the top of the jam and the top of the jar.

Wipe edges of jars with a damp paper towel to remove any traces of jam that may have dripped.

If you have any left over jam in your preserve pot that won't fill another jar, simply put it in a jar and store in the refrigerator.


Remove the lids from hot water using the magnet tool and center them on each jar one at a time.

Carefully place the bands on the jars and screw them on until finger tight. Don't over tighten. The bands are really just there to keep the lids from coming off during processing... not to keep the jam air tight.

Using the jar grabber tool, carefully lower the jars of jam into your large canning pot that is half full of already simmering water.

It's kind of difficult to see it from this photo, but note the water level in the canning pot only comes part way up the sides of the jars of jam. The jars are not completely covered yet.

Arrange the jars so that they are evenly spaced and are not touching each other or the sides of the pot. This is where a canning pot with a rack to keep the jars in place would come in handy.


When all the jars are in place, fill the pot with more hot water to cover the jars by 1-2". I just use the hot water from the pot I was using to sterilize the jars and lids in.

A wooden ruler works great for determining if you've added enough water to cover the jars. Just insert the ruler in the water so that the end touches the top of the tallest sitting jar, and the water line will show when you pull it out. Then just keep adding water until you reach the 2" mark.

Cover pot with lid and bring to a rolling boil. Once water is boiling, set the timer for 10 minutes to process your jars.


Insider's tip: While the jam is being processed in the boiling water, find a piece of french bread to sop up the jam stuck to the bottom and sides of the pot in which the jam was cooked. Not only do you get the first taste of the warm jam {Yum!}, but it's a delicious way to start the clean up. ;)

Remove jars from boiling water using the jar grabber tool and place on a towel to cool. Within a minute, you should hear the seals being formed with a little pop from each jar. Some will pop within a couple of minutes, and some may take a little longer and even seal without the pop.

Leave the jam on the counter over night and check the next day to make sure each jar sealed by gently pressing on the center of the lid with your finger. If you can push the center down and it pops back up, then it did not seal properly and you need to store the jam in the refrigerator. I think you can actually re-process the jar in a water bath again, but I'm usually too lazy to do it.

I actually had one jar this morning that didn't seal from yesterday's processing. I think it didn't seal properly because the lid was not centered exactly on the mouth of the jar. Maybe I should go through the motions of trying to reseal it just for the experience so I can say with confidence how to do it. I'll think about it. ;)

Jam should keep for a year stored in a cool dry place. Be sure you hear a pop or the sound of the seal being broken when you open the jar. If you think the seal has been compromised, don't eat the jam.

Most likely your jam will be enjoyed long before the year is over and you'll be dreaming of getting to the strawberry fields again next June to make more all over again.


Enjoy! :)

What's your favorite flavor jam?

Mine is strawberry, but I also like other berry jams, too and orange marmalade.

What's your favorite way to eat jam?

I like jam on toasted bread for breakfast. I think I may end up using some of this soft strawberry jam like strawberry sauce over ice cream.