The result thus far? Nine lovely jars of pickled asparagus, three jars of honey strawberry jam, and three pint jars of strawberries frozen in simple syrup. I put some cracked cardamom seeds in two of the frozen strawberries. Hopefully we'll like the flavor! (See my page titled "Food '14" above for links to the recipes.)
I went down to the basement to take stock of the jam. I have 6 8-oz. jars of strawberry jam (made with sugar) left over from 2011. We don't eat a lot of jam made from sugar, but I did want to try a no-sugar recipe. In the past I haven't liked the low or no sugar strawberry jam, but I thought I'd give a crack at the honey jam and make up a half batch. It is very good. The honey flavor is definitely there, but the strawberries shine through. It's a winner!
My daughter and I went strawberry picking and picked 6 pounds of strawberries. Not too many, but my back was giving me problems and my daughter was "done". So we left while we were ahead! I'd still like to get some more for the freezer, both for smoothies and for packing into simple syrup. Frozen berries like this are the perfect start of a delicious fruit salad, and they last a long time in the freezer.
I'm happy canning season is here! It's a lot of work, but work well worthy of my time! How about you? Will you be canning or putting anything up this summer?
6 comments:
It's a great feeling to have jars and bottles of thing squirrelled away for the winter months. I love cardamom seeds they are one of my favourite aromatic flavours. I love them in rice pudding or hot milky drinks.
I don't think I'll be doing any preserving this year apart from the elderflower syrup I've already made as we are moving soon.
Thanks for sharing.
deb
Love preserving season! It's always such a busy time of the year :) Yours looks great.
Canning season is happy season!
Awesome start!
I just got strawberries to make jam at the Farmers' market today--looking forward to it! Thanks for sharing.
Hi Tammy, I love asparagus but have never had it pickled! That's interesting. I'm not the one who's involved in the canning, my daughter is. It's definitely a lot of work, so I try and relieve her of other responsibilities when she's busy in the kitchen.
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