Sunday, June 21, 2009

Strawberry Jam


This spring we have had a bumper crop of strawberries. We had been eating most of them as a small snack when working in the garden or a small handfull after dinner as a treat. However the last few days we have been have been unable to sneak down to the garden much. So this afternoon Jess and I went and picked almost a gallon of strawberries from our little 4x4 patch. We decided that this would be a great time to put some away for winter use so we made a batch of strawberry preserves from the Bell Blue Book. we held back a bit of sugar and it appears to have been just a touch thin when I last checked on it but the spoonfull I tasted after we were done canning the rest was a delight.
We also made another batch of garlic scape pesto with walnuts. We made this one with a handfull of spinach as it is just about to bolt. It turned out great. I got the idea to add the spinach from the comments to this post over at Simple,Good and Tasty. We put most of it in the freezer for pasta suppers this winter.

Hope everyone had a great Father's day weekend and made the most out of the longest day of the year.

5 comments:

Lee said...

Thanks so much for the link back to our site. I really enjoy your blog and I appreciate it! (You're in our blog roll too, by the way.)

Stonehead said...

We're still waiting for our strawberries. Ours tend to ripen in mid-July. Still, we have oodles of rhubarb to eat and preserve—and I love rhubarb so I don't mind waiting for the strawberries.

Frustrated Farmer Rick said...

Stoney, Here in the middle of the continent it goes from cold and gloomy to hot and steamy usually in about a week. We seem to have gotten there early this year. And yeah rhubarb is one of my faves too.

Lee, No problem, it is good to see other people with common interests localy.

Anonymous said...

Lucky you! I've yet to see a single ripe strawberry in my patch. We've had a slooooooooooow spring to say the least.

Frustrated Farmer Rick said...

We have been pretty lucky this year. We got around 2 gallons of berries from one 4x4 bed that was planted up with just 4 plants last spring. Gotta love that chicken manure.