Apricot Freezer Jam

I can't believe that with all the posts I've done on this blog I haven't done one on freezer jam yet. Freezer jam used to be my staple jam over cooked jam.  It is easy easy easy and I've never had a batch fail, even when I had to go change diapers or break up the quarreling children in the middle of the jam session.  Seriously, freezer jam is the best for busy mom types who have way too many little people distractions to stand over a pot of jam continuously stirring while it heats up for 15-20 minutes then immediately put it into hot jars and into the canner.  With freezer jam, you don't have any of those absolutes on timing and you don't have anything hot your kiddos can get themselves into trouble with either.  So I used to do almost exclusively freezer jams until my freezer got filled with other stuff and my kids got a bit bigger where they can take care of themselves and their own problems if I can't right away.  Now I do more cooked jams, but some things are just plain better tasting as a freezer jam than a cooked jam.  Strawberry is one.  Apricot is another.

I got some apricots from a friend.  They were small and hard even though most of them weren't green anymore, so normally I would have let them sit in the box and ripen for another day or two.  However, this time I was going out of town and didn't have time to let them get more ripe.  So I made the jam with them as they were.

What you'll need:
Apricots (or other fruit if you're doing a different flavor jam) Enough to make 3 cups smashed fruit.
A box of pectin (I like MCP in the yellow box)
4 1/2 cups Sugar, 1 cup corn syrup, 1/2 cup lemon juice as called for in the recipe in the pectin box.
A pot or bowl to mix it all in.  You won't be cooking it, so any bowl will do as long as it's large enough to hold the smashed fruit and sugar.

First, wash your apricots.  If you're not using your apricots right away, don't wash them.  Water gets in the top and the inside turns brown if you wash them then wait until tomorrow to make the jam.  Yep, experience.

When the apricots are washed, you'll need to get the pits out.  If they're nice and ripe, you'll need a knife, but if they're still stiff they'll tear open without damaging the fruit.  To pit an apricot, find the little crack that runs down one side.  Sorry the picture's kind of fuzzy, but you can see the crack on the left side.

Then either cut through that crack and around the other side or pull it apart at the crack with your thumbs or fingers.  Toss the pit in the trash and your apricot is ready for the next step.

Now, if your apricots are nice and ripe you can put them in a bowl and mash them with a potato masher.  Mine weren't soft enough for that, so I used my food processor.  You just want to pulse chop them--don't liquefy them.  After they are mashed or chopped, measure the amount called for in the recipe.  Mine was 3 cups.  Add the lemon juice if called for now and mix it up.  I added the 1/2 cup lemon juice the recipe calls for.

Once the fruit and lemon juice are mixed together you can go get the legos out for the kids or whatever--the lemon juice will keep the fruit from going brown while you take care of whatever you need to.  If there's no pressing concerns, move on to the next step.

Add the pectin a little at a time and stir it in.  Some pectin brands have you cook the pectin on the stove in some water--that's why I like MCP, there's NO cooking to make their freezer jam.  The instructions say to stir it every 5 minutes for 30 minutes to dissolve the pectin, but this is totally flexible.  You can set a timer for every 5 minutes if you want or not.  Stir it every so often until it's been at least 30 minutes since you added the pectin.

Now you're ready for the next step.  Add the corn syrup.  The corn syrup helps keep the jam from crystallizing in the freezer.  Then add the sugar.  You can add this a little at a time or all at once.  It's easier to stir it in if you add it a little at a time. 

Now the instructions say to stir it constantly until the sugar dissolves, but guess what?  If you don't stir continuously, nothing burns to the bottom of the pan!  I usually treat this about like the pectin--I'll stir some then let it sit then stir some more.  You'll know the sugar has dissolved when you take a taste of your jam and  it's not crunchy.  Pretty simple.

Once the sugar has dissolved, you're ready to put it in jars.  A canning funnel is great here for a little less mess.  You can also use other containers like tupperware, etc.  Just leave a little space for expansion as the jam freezes.

Put lids on the jars or containers and let them sit at room temperature for a few hours (the instructions say 24, but I've put it in the freezer sooner than that without trouble), then put the full ones in the freezer and the half full one in the fridge so you can have it on your toast in the morning.

There you have it.  Freezer jam.  So simple--give some a try, especially if you get hold of strawberries or apricots.  Yum.

Super Easy Currant Jelly

Hey, check out my post over at Utah Preppers for super easy, super yummy currant jelly.  Perfect for all those currants and you don't need powdered pectin or exact measurements of currant juice.  Excellent on homemade bread. :)

Plum Jam (Cooked Version)

Okay, I'm missing summer.  We've had a good bout of snow lately and while the sledding has been fun, warm would be nice.  So in honor of all the snow, here's another flashback to summer post.  Plum Jam.  Cooked jams are not too difficult and a little bit of fruit can actually make more jam than you might think.  And one of the best parts about making jam is that you can make "variations on the theme" jams that you'll never find in a store, like cherry-strawberry or plum-pineapple or peach-jalepeno (hubby's personal favorite).  So in this post we'll talk about making jam from plums, but the general process applies to making cooked jam out of almost any fruit.

I'm using the recipe out of the MCP pectin box, other recipes may vary on ingredient amounts. You'll need:
plums (5 3/4 cups chopped)
sugar (8 1/2 cups)
lemon juice (1/2 cup)
pectin (I like MCP, but any boxed pectin works)
jars (pint or half pint are good)
lids and rings
water bath canner

Step 1: Wash your plums.  I got these plums from a friend who got them from a friend of hers who had too many on their tree, but then my friend picked too many of those so I got a box of them.  They're kind of funny looking plums--not the kind you get in the store.  They are harder, very purple/blue on the outside, very green on the inside, and kind of oblong shaped.  Any plums work.

Step 2: Pit and chop the plums.  Cut the plums in half to get the pits out.  I used my scary food processor to do the chopping.

Step 3:  Put the chopped plums in a pot with the lemon juice and heat it up.  Doesn't look very "plum" colored does it?  As you heat, the color bleeds from the skins and it all turns a nice plum color.  About this time is also good to get your water in your canner and start heating that up.  You'll also want to put all your lids in a little pot of water and heat them up a little.

Step 4: In a separate bowl, measure all the sugar.

Step 5: Once the sugar is ready, add the pectin to the pot of hot fruit and mix it in.  Don't add the sugar yet.  You can also add just a dab of butter or margarine to the pot (about 1/2 tsp.)  This will reduce the foaming that happens when you cook the jam and make a better looking jam.  Why it works, I do not know.  Canning magic.

Step 6: Bring the fruit mixture to a full rolling boil on high heat, stirring constantly (this is why you want your sugar already measured).

Step 7:  Once the mixture is boiling, stir in the sugar all at once and return to a full rolling boil.  Once you hit the full rolling boil, start your timer and let it boil for 4 minutes.  See?  Nicely plum colored now. :)

Step 8:  After four minutes, remove the jam from the heat, skim any foam, and scoop it into the jars.  Wipe the rims and put your hot lids on.  Put the jars in the canner and process for 10 minutes.  Make sure the water is 1-2 inches over the lids of the jars, add more water if you need to, then wait to start the canning time until it's boiling.

After 10 minutes, remove the jars from the canner and put them on a rack to cool.  I use the ultra cool upside down oven rack with the opposite end supported by a plate.

Label and put them away.  Jam of any kind makes great gifts or can quickly go with a loaf of bread or rolls to a potluck or family in need--a lot of these went out at Christmas this last year.  The last round I did, I didn't have enough plums so I opened a can of crushed pineapple and used that to make up the fruit volume.  That's my standby when I don't have enough fruit to finish a batch of jam, so we've had peach/pineapple, strawberry/pineapple, apricot/pineapple, and now plum/pineapple jam.  They're all good.

Juicing Berries and Making Jelly

I'll be playing blog catch-up as I can get to it--a few more crazy busy weeks ahead, but lots to share, so hang in there--I'll put up posts when I can catch a few minutes! We'll start with a project from a couple of weeks ago--Mulberry/Currant Jelly. Yummy. If you've only had jam and jelly from the store, you're missing out! Jams and jellies are pretty easy to make and holy cow they're way better than most of the store stuff. You'd be surprised how little fruit it takes to make a batch of jam, so go ahead and give it a try next time you get a sack of fruit you don't know what to do with.

I had some currants from our baby currant bushes, but it was not enough for a batch of jelly until I got some mulberries from a friend. Then it was jelly time. Now, usually I make jam because it seems like less waste, but currants are SOOO much seed and skin compared to the juicy part of the berry that I thought I'd better jelly them instead.

To make jelly, you first need juice. To get the juice from a soft fruit like berries, apricots, plums, etc, first wash your fruit:
After the fruit is washed, smash it up. You could use a hand potato masher (silly, I don't have one). I used my kitchenaid on low:
Measure the mashed fruit and put it in a pot.
Repeat with any other fruit you're going to juice for the same jelly--here's the mulberries. I left the little stems on them since I knew I was jellying and they'd get strained out of the final product. If I were making jam, I'd have to pull all those little stems off (they don't like to come off without mashing the berry up pretty good).
Put all the mashed fruit in a pot, add a little water (I think I put in about 3/4 cup) and put it on the stove.
Cook it until the fruit is all soft and cooked.
Now you're going to strain the juice off. Here's a method I remember in my kitchen as a kid, so I did the same thing. There might be other ways, but this works pretty well without much work. Put your strainer in the pot that will collect the jelly (yes, it's on the floor).
Put a few layers of cheesecloth in the strainer (yes, my floor is clean).
Pour the cooked fruit in the cheesecloth (no, my floor is not clean anymore).
Get a dowel or broom handle and a couple of chairs and set it up like this:
Now tie the cheesecloth around the dowel and carefully pull the strainer out from under it. I guess you could leave the strainer in, it really doesn't hurt anything.
Let the juice drip from the fruit for a while. If you want really clear jelly, don't squeeze the bag. If you want all the juice you can get even if you get some pulp with it, twist the bag and squeeze out more juice (that's what I did).
In your pot is magical fruit juice. Phew. That was enough for one day. I put the juice in a couple of jars and put them in the fridge for the night. (you sure don't have to do that--you can skip right on to making the jelly if you want, it was just that it was already past my bedtime, so I had no desire to make jelly that night.)

Now we'll make the jelly. Find a good jelly recipe. I used a recipe for "berry" jelly from my Ball Blue Book. Here it is:

3 1/2 cups fruit juice
1 package powdered pectin
2 TB lemon juice
5 cups sugar

I did not use the recipe for currant jelly because my juice was about 2/3 berries and 1/3 currants, so I went with the berry recipe instead. Most pectin boxes have recipes inside them as well. Measure the juice into a pot and add the lemon juice if it's in your recipe. You can add a little water to bring it up to the full amount of juice if you want. The second batch I did, I didn't have enough juice so I put some apricot nectar in--now it's kind of a mixed fruit jelly instead of mulberry/currant, but still turned out purple and delicious. Another option to make up the amount of juice if you're short a little bit would be to use whatever juice you have in your fridge, maybe a grape or apple. It's not concentrated enough to make the whole jelly batch with it, but it's okay if you need to make up a half cup or so of liquid.
Okay, now we've got the juice in the pot, add the pectin and stir it in. Bring to a boil, then add the sugar and stir it in. Bring back to a rolling boil and boil for however long is specified in your jelly directions (mine was 1 minute hard boil). Hard or rolling boil is a boil that doesn't stop when it's stirred. I stirred most of the time it was cooking.
Meanwhile, heat your jar lids in a pan of water . . . yeah, I usually forget this step until I'm ready to can and then have to heat them up fast to put them on the jars. Don't skip this step--the lid makers have gotten cheaper on the gooey stuff that seals the lids over the years and it just doesn't seal right if it's not put on the jar hot. I used to be able to put the lid right on the jar without heating it and it sealed fine, but not anymore. Heat your lids.
After the boiling, remove the jelly from the heat and ladle hot jelly into jars leaving 1/2 inch or so headspace.
Process 5 minutes in boiling water canner and then pull them out, let them cool, and enjoy on your toast the next day :)
Besides tasting better than store jam or jelly, canning your own also saves a ton of cash over buying it. AND you can make whatever kind of jam or jelly you want, so you're not limited to the varieties on the store shelf. Seriously good stuff there.