Chocolate Mint Strawberry Jam

52 Homesteading Skills in One Year: Project #23: Learning to make chocolate mint strawberry freezer jam

When you’re short on time and you just happen upon quarts and quarts of local strawberries on sale for a ridiculous price, freezer jam is your answer.

Or when your two children decide they want to “help” you make jam and you’re starting to lose your patience, freezer jam comes to the rescue!

Freezer jam is a little easier and quicker to make than water bath canning so when you need to make jam fast – think freezer jam.

I wanted to experiment and make something a little different so I added chocolate mint from my garden. But you can omit the mint if you just want plain and simple strawberry jam.

Chocolate Mint Strawberry Freezer Jam

Ingredients
6 lbs hulled and sliced strawberries (minus a few that I ate)
1 1/2 cups honey
3 cups shredded Granny Smith apples, with skins (Important: If you like a thick jam, use store bought pectin instead of apples. I wanted to try using a natural thickener and although it works, the end result is definitely runnier.)
1.5 tbsp lemon juice
1.5 tbsp finely chopped chocolate mint

Step 1
Mash the strawberries and combine with apples and lemon juice in a large pot. Bring to a boil.

Step 2
Reduce heat and stir in honey and very finely chopped mint. Simmer for about 30 minutes until the jam has thickened.

Warning: This recipe does not become as thick as typical store-bought jam made with pectin. See my note above in the ingredients list.

Step 3
Allow it to cool and then ladle into freezer safe containers leaving about an inch of head space at the top of your jar. Don’t ask me how I know this.

Enjoy!

Ridiculously easy peach fruit leather

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52 Homesteading Skills in One Year: Project #26: How to make peach fruit leather

This weekend was Ella’s and Jack’s big birthday bash. So I thought I would combine my homesteading skills challenge with the party.

You can imagine how excited the kids were when I told them I would be handing out healthy homemade fruit rolls ups instead of the standard candy fare. They were thrilled! Kind of…

This year I planted a peach tree in hopes that someday I will have hundreds of pounds of fruit to process. But even if that never happens, this recipe will still come in handy. Fruit leather is pricey to buy at the store. Making it at home is cheaper, healthier and so easy.

Peach Rolls Ups

How to make peach fruit leather

INGREDIENTS
6 cups chopped peaches (Can also be made with any other fruit. Get creative.)
2 tbsp honey
1 tsp cinnamon

Step 1:
Pop your peaches into the freezer for a couple hours and then run them under warm water to easily remove the peel.

If you want to impress your friends at your next party, you could show them this trick. In fact, you should all come over to my place for a celebration and I can share a bunch of these really cool party tricks. Wouldn’t that be fun? No really!

Step 2:
Preheat your oven to its lowest setting. Mine is 170° F. Line a 11 x 17 baking sheet with parchment paper.

Step 3:
Puree the peaches, honey and cinnamon in a blender until smooth. Pour mixture onto parchment paper and spread to about a 1/8″ thick. Spread the fruit a little thicker along the edges as it will cook fastest here.

Step 4:
Place baking sheet in the oven and bake for 8 to 10 hours or until the surface is smooth and no longer sticky.

Step 5:
While the fruit is still warm, peel off the fruit leather from the parchment paper and cut into strips using a pizza cutter. Roll into parchment paper and store in an air-tight container.

Now who is ready for a party at my place? Only healthy snacks and lots of cool, party tricks. I just know you are excited!

PIN IT FOR LATER!

Pumpkin Spiced Peach Sauce

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52 Homesteading Skills in One Year – Project #5: Learning to water bath can – pumpkin spiced peach sauce

I was not supposed to make pumpkin spiced peach sauce. I was going to can dozens and dozens of sliced peaches and show you all just how fun it could be.

But it was a disaster. I ended up with four jars of peaches. Four. Oh, we’ll definitely make it through the winter now. If there’s an emergency, you can all come over and share my four jars of soggy, floating peaches. Yes, folks. My canned peaches were pitiful. …

Got a few minutes? Try your hand at making pickles.

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How to make crunchy, delicious fermented pickles

Have you seen them? They’re easy to spot. The enterprising individuals who prepare dozens of jars of tomatoes and strawberry jam and then proudly post their freshly-canned goods on Facebook.

You’ve probably seen them at the Farmer’s Market, arms full of baskets of cucumbers, smug in the satisfaction that if the world’s food supply ends, they won’t go hungry. Oh no! They will have pickles.

For years I’ve thought, “I should do that too.” But somehow the complainy pants in me would win out and I’d end up convincing myself I don’t have the time, energy or expertise.

Well, not this year. This is the year I become a real homesteader, darn it. And I did. This week. And I can’t believe I haven’t fermented pickles before. It’s actually so easy my kids can do it.

Note to self: Next year get the kids to do all my canning work. Although, we will really have to work on not eating the produce. Sigh.

Is it difficult to ferment pickles?

So you wanna know how easy it is? It’s so simple that all you really need to make fermented pickles is water, salt and cucumbers. If you want to get fancy, you can add some spices.

You put this stuff in jars and then you observe. That’s right. It ferments all by itself. All you need to do is stand back and watch as your plain old cucumbers turn into delightful, crunchy pickles that are now more healthy than the original cucumbers.

What the heck is fermentation and why should I eat it?

Fermentation is the ancient art of pickling long before there was canning. Fermenting turns your food into natural probiotics. So instead of popping a probiotic pill, you can eat fermented foods, which, according to Dr. Mercola, actually contain 100 times more probiotics than a pricey supplement.

One quick Google on the Internet will result in tonnes of information on the health benefits of probiotics from boosting your immune system to detoxifying your body. I don’t know if it’s all true, but I think I feel better after I eat a pickle, don’t you?

Forget about investing in the stock market – make pickles

Now before I get into the details of pickle making, I have a secret to share. I regularly go to a local health foods store in Moncton and buy jars of fermented pickles that must have real gold dust in them since each jar costs about $9.99.

Now my husband has no idea how much these pickles cost so to any family members out there who I know read every word of my blog (right guys???) don’t mention it, okay? Anyway, the point is — look at how many pickles you can buy for just $14.99.

Since water is free and salt is cheap, the cost savings of making your own is huge. Forget about investing in the stock market — start making pickles!

How to make fermented pickles

INGREDIENTS

Pickling jars – I used 1 L sized mason jars.
Cucumbers – I’m told it’s best, especially for beginners like myself, to choose the small pickling cucumbers versus cutting up the regular sized cukes. This helps guarantee a crunchy pickle. No one likes soggy pickles.
Un-chlorinated water (Note: If your water is chlorinated and you don’t have a filter, let the water stand overnight and the chlorine will evaporate.)
Pickling salt
Grape or oak leaves, if you can find them
Spices of your choice. Here are a few ideas to get you started: fresh herbs like dill, parsley or lemon balm, mustard seeds, hot chilies, onion, garlic cloves, fennel seeds, bay leaves, celery leaves, cinnamon sticks, cloves, peppercorns.

Step 1

Wash and dry your mason jars.

Step 2

Dissolve your salt in a pot of water. I wanted a really salty, sour pickle so I used 2 1/2 tbsp of salt for each 1 L jar, but according to www.culturesforhealth.com, you can experiment between the ranges of 1 to 3 tbsp of salt for each 1 L jar.

Step 3

Wash your cucumbers and put aside any bruised or questionable looking cucumbers.

Freshness is one of the keys to crunchy pickles so if your pickles are not at their finest, you can plump them up by soaking them in iced water for a couple hours.

Step 4

Cut the ends off the cucumbers. Actually, you really only need to slice the flower end off the cucumbers as they contain enzymes, which can soften the pickles during fermentation. But I wasn’t taking any chances. I just cut both ends off. You can also pierce the cucumbers with a fork a few times to allow the brine to better penetrate.

Step 5

I added either a grape or oak leaf, which supposedly maintains the crispiness of the pickles thanks to their natural tannins. I put one leaf on the bottom of each jar along with my spices. I tried all kinds of combinations – dill and garlic; bay leaves and onions; cinnamon and cloves; lemon balm and lovage (a perennial herb that tastes like celery). Go crazy and experiment.

Step 6

Pack your cucumbers tightly into the jar and cover with brine, leaving about 1 inch of headspace so your bottles don’t explode when the brine begins to bubble up.

Now this is really important – The brine should cover the vegetables at all times or else they will start developing mould and your pickles will be ruined. So long as they remain under the anaerobic safety of the brine, they’ll be fine.

To keep the vegetables submerged, I packed everything tightly into the jars, but there are many other ways to do this. For some ideas, check out this post.

Note: To prevent any little pieces of herbs or spices from floating to the surface, I used whole pieces of herbs and wrapped any smaller spices, such as cloves and peppercorn, in a grape leaf and stuffed them in the bottom of my jar. This is only necessary if you not using something to keep your vegetables submerged.

Step 7

Screw on the lids (but not too tightly in order to let some of the fermentation gasses escape) and set in a location at room temperature, out of direct sunlight. Soon you’ll see bubbles of carbon dioxide gas in the brine, which means you’ve been successful and the brine has started to acidify.

Step 8

Now here is the tricky part. There doesn’t seem to be a cut and dry date for when fermented pickles are done. It seems to depend on the temperature of your home and how sour you like them. It may take 3 days or it may be weeks. Half-sour cucumbers usually ferment at cool room temperatures for about a week and full-sour cucumbers ferment for about 2 weeks, according to Fine Cooking, The Science of Pickles.

Step 9

Once the pickles are done to your liking, screw the lids on tight and place in the fridge or other cold storage facility. You can eat them right away or save them for a cold wintry day when you just need a taste of summer.