Welcome Strawberries!

Glorious, Aren't They?

Two weeks ago, I drove out to Penns Valley to pick up 15 quarts of fresh-picked strawberries. The Amish family from whom I purchased them was busily plucking these delicious wonders from their mother plants as I drove down the gravel lane to the farm house. Warmed by the sun and still gritty from their natural habitat, these babies were delectably perfect! The first real fruits of the season, I marveled at them, and I marveled at the young Amish boy who told me with a deadpan face that they had planted 3,000 plants that year - 500 each of six different varieties, making for a product that was unique throughout the valley. I could hardly wait to get them home to make jam!

My mom and I have made jam together many times before, but always the fairly simple, but wonderfully delicious, freezer variety. This year, I was determined to apply my newfound canning skills and make homemade canned jam on the stove top. The process was much more involved, and took about 3 hours, but went (mostly) without a hitch, and resulted in a delicious product. Last summer, I did a lot of canning, but was so hurried about it that I really didn't do much documentation of the process, something I hope to change this summer, beginning now....

To make this jam, I used the recipe in the Ball Blue Book of Preserving. I use that book for most of my canning- Ball just knows what they're doing!

The first step in the canning process is to carefully clean and top the strawberries, and then crush them (I use a food processor and pulse 2-3 times, careful to avoid a puree).


Pour the crushed strawberries into a pot, adding about 6 cups of sugar to 2 quarts of strawberries (nobody said this was a calorie-free endeavor!!), and then stir the mixture together:

(While caveats are usually reserved for the end of a post, I will put mine here, as this is where a critical decision occurred...Had I read the Ball Blue Book in any sort of detail, I would have picked up on the suggestion that one NOT multiply a jam recipe. I did not pick up on this. What follows this point took me about 3 hours to accomplish, when it should have taken, oh, I don't know, maybe 30 minutes?? - Next year will tell. End caveat.)

Bring the mixture up to boiling, and then you let it cook, stirring often to prevent sticking. You will eventually start to see the natural pectin in the strawberries at work, as the little gelatinous lumps you see in a jar of jam will begin to form. Note: One must be careful during the cooking process, especially the boiling part, as the mixture will foam, and could easily become Mt. Vesuvius, particularly if you've done as I did and broken the non-multiplication rules of the recipe:

The "high water" lines in the pot tell all. We nearly had an eruption! Notice the foaminess.

Once things have gotten cooking, and you think it's starting to form actual jam, there are (supposedly) a few ways to test readiness. The first is by a simple temperature check. What you do here, is determine first the boiling point of the strawberries, and then add 8 degrees. Once it's there, it's done. I really wish I had read this before I started. I'd already gotten well beyond the boiling point when I found these guidelines on a hidden page in the Blue Book. (a general pointer about the Blue Book is that this happens all of the time. It's chock full of tips and tricks that are not on the same page as the recipes...you'd do well just to read the whole thing - or at least the pertinent section - before launching into actual doing, but where's the fun in that??!!)

Anyhooo....the second thing you can do is test with a spoon - it's called the sheeting test, I believe. If you take the spoonful of jam away from the heat and it drips off, it's definitely not ready. If it plops off in bigger blobs, it's getting there. If it comes off in a lovely "sheet", well then it's good to go. This test didn't seem to do it for me either, btw.

Finally, you can put some jam on a plate, put the plate in the freezer until it gets to be "room temperature," and then see whether it's "set up." I found this method to be the best, though still not quite perfect. (Don't you wish I'd thought to photograph this long part of the process?)

In the end, we decided to add just one packet of liquid pectin to the mix to ensure gelling, and called it done. The thing about hot jam is that it's, well, liquid. One can never really know the outcome until it's been poured into jars, canned, and then cooled for hours on end. The whole process reminded me that a lot of canning relies on faith - faith that things will taste good, faith that the jars will seal, faith that it will set up correctly when it cools, etc.

At long last, we were ready for canning. This part is fairly easy. Simply ladle the hot jam into hot jars, carefully place the lids on, and then boiling water bath process for 15 minutes. Photos of that sticky process follow....When all was said and done, my eight quarts of strawberries and 24 cups of sugar (yowza!) yielded 11.5 pints of jam, which I will ration very carefully through the year! The one sad thing about strawberry season is that it is horribly short, so that batch will likely be the first and last for the year.

Sticky Business!

Finally, notice the difference in color between Mom's freezer jam (uncooked) and the canned jam (cooked). I'm so excited to get to eat both this year! Each has a different flavor. The freezer variety bright, fresh, and sweet. The canned variety is like molasses, decadent in a different way.


Now I'm looking forward to zucchini season - can't wait to put some of this goodness on some homemade Z-bread!! (To Be Continued.....)

Sowing the Seeds

I always begin to feel like a mother when Spring starts to show it's sleepy eyes, peeking out through the cracks of the frozen, tired ground. It's planning time, shortly followed by early planting time.

This is year #2 for the Great Simplicity garden, and I'm looking forward to increased variety in produce, as well as a slightly better idea of just what I might be doing out there. The primary evidence of that is my attempt at planning out the garden. Note that this attempt might already have been foiled by my >$100 seed order because I just had to have everything that looked even a bit delicious or beautiful!

Nevertheless, I feel more equipped this year. I'm starting some plants from seed this time - many more than I did last year. And I've got a journal. A real paper journal. And I've even written in it. To date, I've planted several pepper and tomato varieties indoors, and just two days ago transplanted some onion seed starts from indoors to out. (just after finally tilling the garden with a Mantis - my new LOVE and now highly coveted piece of yard equipment. Maybe Santa will think of me and my garden this year ;) ) There are also some Japanese yellow eggplants - but I don't have high hopes for them.

I've direct sown spinach in the garden, and have plans to begin the root veggies this coming weekend. So far, everything is running along fairly smoothly. Those of you who are seasoned gardeners are probably laughing at my momentary confidence with the status of things...May will bring with it better weather and a fury of planting and staking, followed by wave after wave of harvesting through June, July, and August...oh yes, and there will be canning.

Right now, in the quiet of the preparatory season, I am content, and excited about the fruit that is to come.

On Winter

As you may have guessed, I'm not one to wax poetic about winter. (that's an awfully strange phrase, by the way, isn't it? wax poetic?) Anyhow, I feel like I owe you at least a little snippet of my winter. It's not my favorite season, but I do tend to be pretty productive in order to combat the cold weather blues. Here are a few of the highlights...


I was fortunate to attend many Penn State football games this season (the team was 11-1!), but this game was probably the most special...and the COLDEST! It was the last game of the regular season, November 22nd, against Michigan State. The stadium was like a snow globe...

And it was the first game my Mimi had ever been to. We didn't sit in the same section, but we did tailgate a teeeeeny bit before the game. My mom and I sat huddled together and stayed for the entire game! It was a good one!

Mom and Mimi

Shortly thereafter, B and I boarded a plane for Atlanta, GA, now home to B's parents. It was our first time to their new home, as well as our first visit to Atlanta. It was truly special to be able to spend a long weekend together with his side of the family after a long period of being apart. It's also always a treat to be able to go somewhere warm when it's "supposed to be" cold outside...This is one of my favorite pictures from Atlanta, because it shows the clear blue sky of the warm day it was, the Autumn colors on the trees, and the Christmas wreaths decorating Olympic Park. Ya just don't see this in Pennsylvania :)

Christmas always comes quickly, riding the coattails of Thanksgiving. And I'm always grateful for this as it lifts the spirits at just the right time of year! As in the past, this year there was much production in my kitchen. I always try to learn a "new" recipe from my Grandma's old recipe files. Last year I tried springerles. They were yummy, but I didn't quite get the technique down. I've also continued the annual tradition of making an applesauce spice fruitcake - a treat I cannot go without!

This year's new addition was Lebkuchen. They are spicy molasses cookies with a lovely lemon glaze. They're the kind of cookie that just get better with age. For that matter, so are the springerles and the fruit cake. I have a thing for baked goods that can stick around for awhile :)

Lebkuchen

The most special accomplishment this Christmas, by far, was the fact that the gifts B and I gave were almost entirely homemade. And if they weren't homemade, they were bought from local artists and businesses. It was the great fulfillment of our garden's and kitchen's bounty. I don't think I can go back to store bought presents again...(remind me of that in a few years if/when I've got a kid or two...)

The New Year always brings with it a new batch of library conferences to go to. They seem to come in quickfire succession. The Midwinter conference of the American Library Association took me to Denver this year. I really wasn't a fan. The picture of the stallion might give you a clue as to why. There was, however, fabulous food to be found, for which I was grateful!

Stallion in the Snow Glorious Japanese Food

Finally, to sort of nail the lid on the coffin of Winter, and kick off into Spring, I joined a group of friends (the same group who gathered to learn the ways of bread, cheese, and yogurt--now affectionately known as the "cheese choir") to learn from a local expert baker how to make springerles - the right way. This was such a meaningful workshop for me, because I knew that in learning, I was carrying on a family tradition. I firmly believe that I channel my grandparents' spirits in the act of baking the food they lovingly made when I was a child and that I can still taste to this day.

Before taking this class, I never thought of baking springerles as anything but a Christmas activity, but the variety of molds available and their different applications (making paper, topping cupcakes, etc.) inspired me to give them a try in other times of the year. Here now, for you, a Springtime springerle.

Fresh cooked does not equal fresh food

As you've probably guessed, B and I really like food - everything about it! Cooking food. Growing food. Preserving food. Eating food. Probably one of our most favorite things, however, is sharing food with others. Many of the best times of our married life together have occurred while seated around a dinner table, or in a kitchen, with friends. More and more, we enjoy doing this in our own home above going out to eat. But at least once a month - sometimes as often as once a week when the chefs get tired - we leave our home and go out to eat at a restaurant.

Restaurants, after all, have their own value. No one has to set the table, or leave the group to check on the progress of the next course. There's no clean up, which I think is my favorite perk of all. Everyone gets to relax. For the size of Happy Valley, there is a pretty decent selection of restaurants, however there are a few standouts and the rest could be defined as mediocre. Asian food is something that is particularly hard to come by. We actually have a good Korean restaurant, but when it comes to Chinese and Japanese food, medium- to crappy quality reigns.

This past weekend, however, a groups of friends and we decided to try out the local Hibachi restaurant, the Fuji & Jade Garden. I'm calling it out by name because - well - they deserve it. For those who don't know, at a hibachi restaurant, you and your party sit around a griddle, where a chef performs as he cooks for you...twirling eggs, artfully clanging spatulas and knives, creating fiery volcanoes of towers of onions...it's stir fry meets circus clown. Though in some restaurants it might go so far as to qualify as performance art. Not in Happy Valley...

We were met at the door by a host who acted as though we were interfering with his day by wanting to be seated. He frowned when we asked to add a member to our party's reservation, even though there were at least 20 empty seats in the hibachi area of the restaurant. When said member was a bit late, and we called to check on her order, the bar tender (who came to the table to take our drink orders) chastised the caller and asked him to "next time step over to the bar," even after we explained why the call was being made.

We shrugged off the lukewarm welcome and each of the six in our party ordered something slightly different, and all dishes tasted good. Though I have to say, for the $60 that B and I spent on dinner (stir fried meat, veggies, noodles and rice) and drinks, we could have made a feast in our own kitchen! Still, the night was fun, our chef was entertaining and kind, and the food seemingly fresh.

Here's where it goes down hill for Fuji & Jade. I use the word seemingly with purpose. Food being cooked in front of you is freshly cooked food. It cannot be guaranteed to be fresh food. Two of our party got sick later that night. Each had ordered something different from the menu. Today, I learned of two people who ordered food on a separate day for a different occasion who were suffering from actual food poisoning from the place.

It really makes me angry when this kind of thing happens. Cooking as much as we do in our home, I understand that it is not difficult to take precautions to make sure that no one becomes ill from eating the food you make. For a restaurant - who the public put their faith in to serve good food that is safe to eat - the situation is inexcusable.

Has this experience made me any less likely to eat out? Certainly not! Every chef needs her day off and a good round of beers, but every food consumer also needs to be careful of what she's walking into when she agrees to let someone else do the work for the night. In this case, food quality was sacrificed for a half-assed performance. Sometimes too many people are working in the kitchen on too many different shifts. On other occasions, judgment goes out the window. In all honesty, my gut told my something wasn't quite right about the place when the host was so rude to us, and this often happens as we stand in line at an overcrowded chain restaurant or a place with gross restrooms...but we ignore it. As with the rest of life, our guts are usually right about these things - especially food things!! - so the next time your gut tells you to run away from a restaurant, be sure and listen!