Tuesday, June 14, 2016

Combining Fruits with Herbs

Today's farm share included two quarts of beautiful, almost too ripe strawberries! And fresh herbs. After visiting The Tangled Garden in Nova Scotia, I have been inspired to try to include herbs into some of the jams I make. So I was torn a bit between strawberry-lavender and strawberry-thyme. After polling the 14 year old, thyme won.

Also, for the first time in a while I used liquid pectin. I'd stopped using it because sometimes it failed on me but today it worked fine. I guess it can't be old so, if I'm going to use it I have to buy it new each time.

Anyway, I used the immersion blender to crush the berries more thoroughly than usual in the hopes that there would be less floating of the fruit on the tops of the jars. Usually the fruit all sits at the top and there is a clear strawberry jelly at the bottom. Not this time. This is more of a chunky purée. So. Five cups of strawberry purée, two sprigs of thyme, 7 cups of sugar and a pouch of Certo. This made 9+ cups of jam. I fished out the cooked thyme sprigs and put two tiny, fresh stems of thyme into each jar before I poured the jam. Also, I'm setting two aside for the fair.

Also in the share: cilantro, garlic scapes, spinach, mustard greens, braising greens, komatsuna greens, and radishes. Looks like I'll have to make those strangolapreti dumplings again! Tonight, though, I will toss some of the spinach with chicken tortellini and alfredo sauce. Mmm.

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