Homemade Strawberry Jam without Pectin ｜自製草莓果醬 (不含果膠)

Strawberry is almost the first fruit to welcome summer in Ontario; many of the local farms will open to the public for pick-your-own strawberries.  Every year my husband and I will bring our son to a strawberry farm to learn where the food comes from while picking some of the freshest fruit home.

Like many other children, my son always has fond memories of going to a strawberry farm, sampling those fresh fruit right on the field.  He will walk up and down the aisles, finding the biggest and the best looking strawberries between the leaves and shoving them into his mouth.  "It's so juicy! Mommy, look!" my son says happily.  His content face is usually covered with delicious juice.

The 30 pounds of strawberries we picked this summer.

This summer, we brought home thirty pounds of strawberries.  It was a little crazy.  I spent a full two and a half hours hulling them to prepare for the jam making.  It was a mind-over-matter job indeed.

There are two common ways to make strawberry jam.  One is using pectin and the other one without.

Pectin is extracted from high pectin fruit, like apple, through heat and acid.  It is a thickening agent that helps gelling jam or other preserves.  By adding pectin, the jam can solidify without too much reduction in the liquid.  So, it generally helps speed up the cooking process, also resulting in a larger portion of jam.  Though, pectin may cause stiff jam and may also leave some off flavour in the product.

Strawberries contain high amounts of pectin naturally; therefore, it's not necessary to thicken the jam with extra store-bought pectin.   My strawberry jam recipe is the traditional way without pectin, which means that it requires longer cooking time to reduce the liquid to the right consistency.  The finished product is usually about half of the amount of the fruit.  However, the jam is much more fruity and has no off flavour from the pectin.

Thanks for dropping by.  I hope you will enjoy this recipe.

Homemade Strawberry Jam without Pectin

自製草莓果醬 (不含果膠)

INGREDIENTS

8 cups Strawberries

3 cups Sugar

1/2 Lemon of Juice

DIFRECTION:

1. Gently rinse the strawberries.

2. With a chopstick, hull the green leafy top of the strawberries.  Discard the tops.

3. Pour the strawberries in a big deep pot.  Mash them with a potato masher until lumpy.

4. Add sugar and lemon juice.  Mix together over high heat until the sugar is dissolved and the mixture starts to boil.  Reduce the heat to medium.

5. Continuously boil the mixture until it becomes thicker.  Reduce the heat to simmer.  Skim off the foam and stir the mixture occasionally.

6. When the mixture reduces to nearly half, test the jam by dipping a cold spoon in the jam.  If the jam coats the spoon without falling, the jam is ready.  Remove the pot from the heat immediately.

I tested my jam on a cold plate.

7. Bottle the jam in hot sterilized mason jars immediately.

8. Seal the jars in water bath for 10 minutes.  The jars need to be totally submerged.  Leave the jars to cool and check carefully to see if the lid is moving.  The lids should not be movable.  Once cool, store them in a dark cool place.

The best part of making jam for my son was that he got to lick the spoon after I finished the jam.  Another lovely memory!  He said it was a big strawberry lollipop. 

The batches I made this year.  They should be enough to last until next summer.

Yum!

Coated Brazil Nut | 糖裹巴西堅果

Coated Brazil Nut | 糖裹巴西堅果

Ingredients:

1 cup Brazil Nuts

1 cup Fine Sugar

1-2 teaspoons Honey

Pink Food Colorant

材料：

1 杯   巴西堅果

1 杯   幼砂糖

1-2 茶匙   蜜糖

粉紅食用色素

DIRECTION:

Orange Peel Candy ｜ 糖橘皮

After finishing a sweet and juicy orange, don't throw away the  peel.  The peel is actually as flavourful as the orange flesh.  We can zest it and add it to salad dressing or to flavour water.

Another good way to use orange peel is to candy it.  It is a traditional preserved treat that can be eaten as it is or used in baking goods, such as cookies, cakes, or bread.

My son loves these candied orange peels.  He knows I always keep some of this candy in the kitchen and whenever his sweet tooth itches him, he will try to poke around my cupboards to look for it.  Of course I don't encourage him to "search" my kitchen, but just the  cute eager look on his face makes me smile.  I never knew that this traditional candy can catch a kid's heart that much.

Now, we both treasure any orange peels we get, and my son will remind me to save the peels to make candy for later.  "Mommy, we are using the whole orange and we are not wasting food, right?" he says with a proud smile.


Orange Peel Candy
糖橘皮

Ingredients:
1 Orange of Peel
1/2 cup Sugar
3 cup Water


How to make:

1. Slice the orange peel into segments.  With a small knife, remove the white pith that will cause bitterness.

2. In a heavy bottom pot, add the orange peels and water that is just   enough to cover them.  Bring it to a boil and then discard the water.  Repeat this process two times with two changes of water.  This steps can help to remove the bitterness of the white pith that may still be attached.

3. In the same pot, combine all the ingredients.  Bring it to a boil and then lower the heat to a simmer.  Continuously simmer until the liquid reaches a syrupy consistency.  Remove the pot from the heat.


4. Place the peels on parchment without overlapping them.  Allow them to totally dry and keep them in an air-tight container.

Save the syrup for dishes like roasted radish or carrot.

Thanks for stopping by.  I hope you enjoy this recipe.

Spruce Pine tips and recipes ｜ 嫩松葉食譜

Around early May until mid June, the young shoots of the pine and spruce start to come out from their brownish papery shields.  These bright green young shoots are edible, tender, lemony-pine like, and rich in Vitamin C.   

My family and I were walking in the woods, looking for some other edible plants when we spotted a huge spruce tree that filled with these yummy tips.  Many tips had just emerged, while many others were still waiting for their time.

Young spruce tips are always best collected when they just come out from their papery casings.  After the tips become bigger and the colour turns deeper green, they lose the delicate citrus flavour and I will not collect them anymore.  After a few taste-tests to make sure we found a good tree, we started to collect the tips.

These tips are actually the young shoots of the tree and they will turn into branches and needles once mature.  So we paid careful attention not to accidentally over harvest the tips from the same branch or from the same area.

My son said he had to give each spruce tip a "taste test".


My son wasn't in the mood to stop and watch his mommy pick the spruce tips, which seemed to take forever.  He wanted to keep walking.  He stared at me while I chewed my second spruce tip.

"Do you want to try some? It's delicious." I handed him a tip.  He shook his head.  Frankly speaking, my son often hesitates to try wild edible plants although we forage all the time.  Perhaps many wild plants are rather pungent or bitter for his taste.  My husband and I just have to try different ways to teach him to enjoy the gift from the wild.

"Are you sure? It taste like spring." I nibbled again on the tip and handed it to my son.  "What does spring taste like?" He said curiously.  "Kind of like lemon or some type of citrus, but with the taste of pine," I answered.

He picked a green tip from the tree and took a teeny-tiny bite.  "Mmm, it's so yummy!" He smiled and slowly savoured the rest of the tip.  "Can I have another one?" he asked.  Since I wasn't sure how many pine tips a kid should have per day, I told him he could only have one or two.  Later, I saw him sneaking a few more into his mouth on the other side of the tree.  Well, it's really hard to stop him when there were thousands of tips dangling on the branches in front him.  So, we moved on.






Last week when we visited my in-laws, we found their spruce tree was also filled with the young tips.  My son immediately picked one and introduced it to his grandma and grandpa.

"It's packed with Vitamin C.  You will just need to eat two pine tips to fill your need every day!" my son said, announcing his new find.  Although my in-laws are not wild-edible enthusiasts, they nibbled a little.  "Oh yeah, it does taste a little like citrus, " Grandpa said.

"Just eat two, okay?" my boy said, with a very proud smile on his face.

Thanks for stopping by.  I hope you will enjoy these recipes.





Spruce Tip Sea Salt



INGREDIENTS:
1/2 cup Spruce Tips
1.5 cups Sea Salt


DIRECTION:
1. Rinse the spruce tips with cold water; pat dry.

2. Finely chop the pine tips with a knife.

3. Mix the sea salt with the pine tips and stir until combined.  Loosely cover it with plastic wrap and allow it to completely air-dry; stirring it once every day to even out the drying.  Store it in an air-tight container and it can be kept up to three months.

Pine salt is good to be used on white fish, frittata, or roasted root vegetables.




Spruce Tip Mayonnaise 



INGREDIENTS:
1 cup Japanese Mayonnaise
10 Pine Tips
2 tablespoons Lemon Juice
1 tablespoon Honey



DIRECTION:

1. Rinse the pine tips in cold water; pat dry.

2. Finely chop the pine tips.  Mix it with the rest of the ingredients.  Chill it before using it.  Can be stored in refrigerator for two days.

Spruce tip mayonnaise is delicious as vegetable dip, or served with white fish.

Spruce Tip Sugar

INGREDIENTS:

1/3 cup Spruce Tips

1.5 cup Sugar

DIRECTION:

1. Rinse the spruce tips with cold water; pat dry,

2. Finely chop the spruce tips.  Mix it with the sugar.  Cover the mixture loosely with plastic wrap.  Allow it to completely air-dry; stirring it once everyday.  Store it in an air-tight container and it can be kept up for three months.

Spruce tip sugar is perfect as an additional flavour for cookies and drinks.