Skip to main content

J is for Jam


Strawberries are in season in Texas. We bought a bunch. The kids have been loving them. The best strawberries are fresh from our garden, but we only get a handful of those at a time. They are a perfect before bed snack. For recipes that involve lots sugar and plenty of cooking time we use store bought strawberries. Julie has been hopping around the house saying "strawberries" for days. She also has utterly refused to wear clothes. She screams and shouts and kicks and thrashes while I get her dressed and then immediately removes all of her clothing as soon as she can. I've decided this is not a battle I'm willing to fight, so she spends most of the day in just a diaper. (I am willing to fight with her to keep a diaper on. I hate cleaning the carpet.) But when I said it was time to get out the strawberries and make jam she ran into the kitchen, grabbed her apron, and said "Put it on Mom." I did not make her ask twice.

In addition to convincing Julie to get dressed, the jam turned out to be one of our more successful projects. Strawberries can be adequately sliced (or mangled) by a child with a butter knife, there are only three ingredients, and only two of those need to be measured. With a long enough spoon, Spencer could easily avoid being splattered with hot jam while stirring. I was a little nervous about him filling the jars, but I should have had more confidence in his abilities. He did a lovely job. I'm a fan of the little 4 once jars because I like miniature desserts and because when the kids make their own peanut butter sandwiches they will use an entire jar of jam no matter it's size. -L





Strawberry Jam was a perfect dessert for this week.  No eggs, and he got to use the masher.

It's not quite berry season here in Boston, so we opted for frozen berries.  Isaac was disappointed when he tried to snitch a strawberry and couldn't bite into it.  We just made a small batch and since we love jam we didn't bother to process it (unprocessed jam should last about 2 weeks in the fridge). And of course homemade jam needs homemade carbs so we baked a batch of biscuits.  -H




Printable recipe here
Processing chart here

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

D is for Devil's Food Cake

Making a cake is always a multi step process. Making a cake with Julie involves two baths and a load of laundry. We had to start this project twice because Julie was a little overzealous with the baking soda the first time around.  Spencer made his devil's food cake in a tuna fish can so that he could have his very own cake. Then we used the rest of the batter to make cupcakes. Honestly, I sent the kids to go play while I made (and sampled) the frosting unassisted. -L ---------------------- Isaac's favorite part of making cake is greasing and flouring the pans, followed by measuring the flour.  He was impatient waiting for the cake layers to cool and snitched bites out of each layer.   We froze the cake layers for a couple hours, which made them easier to stack and frost.  Devil's Food Cake is a staple at our house.  We have tested many recipes over the years and this one is our favorite.  (Althou...
Post a Comment
Read more

B is for Butterscotch Pudding

Separating eggs with a preschooler is intense. Luckily this recipe doesn't require tempering the eggs. (I'm saving that skill for later in the alphabet when we get to ice cream.) Printable Recipe here
Post a Comment
Read more

F is for Flan

I had originally planned to make fudge for F. Then Spencer informed me that he doesn't like chocolate. I don't understand. I love him, but I don't understand. I've never made flan before. We consulted Heather and America's Test Kitchen and decided to give it a try. I think we made a perfectly respectable first attempt. This recipe started off as an exercise in sibling rivalry. Julie kept saying "macaroni pan" and Spencer loudly and forcefully continued to remind her that it was actually a sauce pan. After a few minutes of shouting at each other about the pan there was a brief wrestling match to determine who would get to stand on the step stool and who would stand on a chair. Around the time they started throwing sugar at each other I decided that perhaps I had started this project a little bit to closely to lunch time. We took a break for a snack. Things were much more congenial after everyone had a full stomach. Spencer got frust...
Post a Comment
Read more