It’s just after midnight. I worked a full day and had a great day. I visited a new farm on the way home and bought a lot of strawberries (thanks to Jodi for the location). A lot. I stopped elsewhere to get rhubarb, sugar and some extra lemon juice. Ate dinner, started cleaning strawberries.
I had planned to make strawberry-rhubarb jam. Plans have a way of changing. I’m less than an hour from a self-imposed deadline of 1:06AM est (there’s a very long explanation to why I try to post at this time every night). I had a massive change of plans, mostly due to recipes and part due to moving slow.
I couldn’t possibly be having more fun.
What started as a simple rhubarb-strawberry jam has become three different batches – only one is complete so far. The finished batch is an amazingly dark strawberry jam/sauce that is currently “popping” sealed on the counter as I write. We will not know if it is jam or sauce until it sets for a week or so because we did not add additional pectin to the fruity goodness (all explained in our preserving link above – this saves a LOT of sugar). We opted for giant berry chunks and used the rich flavour of demerara sugar to add depth and colour to the batch. We’ll post the recipe with tomorrow’s post.
Since we had so many strawberries, we also started off a patch of whole preserved stwawberries. They are currently in the fridge “plumping” (a fancy term for marinating in a measured amount of sugar). They will be jarred whole tomorrow that recipe will be posted then as well):
As for the rhubarb? I couldn’t find a tested recipe for strawberry-rhubarb jam without pectin, so it’s in the fridge. I’m going to preserve chunks of it tomorrow – we can always add it manually to our sweet berry jam! We made just over 3 liters (12.5 cups).
Dana’s been creating a lino-cut that will make it’s appearance on the site at a later date (let’s just say it’s not pro-molasses!).
We joked that we are living the life of the 1900′s – somewhat appropriate since our apartment is from the 1800′s. We couldn’t be having more fun and I really encourage you to either give preserving a try or to add a new twist to your current list of preserves!
[...] “Berried” Alive – in Strawberry Jam and preserves and rhubarb and… Jam isn’t the only option. We love having whole strawberries (and other fruit) in simple syrup. Awesomest on ice cream, cocktails or mash it to your own spreadable mess on toast. We also do separate rhubarb so we can make our own mix and match flavour combos later (and each person can alter how sweet or how tart they want it by making thier own custom jam on their toast). [...]
I was wondering if I could add demerara sugar to my boiling strawberries so I’m glad I found your post. I added a bit of vanilla and orange zest in addition to the sugar and it has an amazing flavor.
[...] Strawberries – Jam. [...]