Strawberry Jam

Now is the middle of strawberry season and today we went to Sussex County Strawberry Farm. They have 15 acres of berries, the plants were full of berries and the air smelled like strawberry jam as you walked between the rows.

It only took about 45 minutes to pick six quarts which we then took home and made strawberry jam with about four of the quarts. The jam was extremely easy to make with only four ingredients (5 cups mashed berries, 7 cups of sugar, 1/4 cup lemon juice, 1 box of pectin) and even the canning process was not too bad once you got the hang of it. We ended up with nine, 8 oz jars, the jam is a light, shimmering pink and the strawberry flavor is clear and distinct. Given how easy this was and how well it turned out, we are now looking forward to blueberries in July and peaches in August.

The First Dinner of the Season

Tonight’s dinner had a salad with Oak Leaf Lettuce out of the backyard making it officially the first item harvested this year.

Japanese Pickles

Japanese pickles are not quite a side dish and not quite a garnish. Those little yellow daikon pickles that come with a curry are a good example. Unlike Western pickles which need take some time to make, many kinds of Japanese pickles can be made in a few minutes and are ready to eat in a day. They do not, however, last forever like Western pickles and need to be eaten in a relatively short period.

A common way of making Japanese pickles is to simply slice the vegetables, coat with salt and place under pressure for half a day. The pressure is often applied with a "pickling stone" which is literally just a good sized rock from outside placed on a board, but you can also buy a "pickling press". Pickling presses are a little over priced because they are imported Japan, but are a little bit nicer than keeping a rock in the kitchen.

One of my goals with the garden this summer is to jar or preserve as much of the vegetables as possible. We tried a first batch for practice, it only took about 10 minutes to make and 1/2 a day to pickle and the results were not bad.

Here are two good recipe books and an example of a pickling press:

Quick & Easy Tsukemono: Japanese Pickling Recipes


Easy Japanese Pickling in Five Minutes to One Day: 101 Full-Color Recipes for Authentic Tsukemono

Tsukemono Japanese Pickle Press 2.2 L

http://www.theblackmoon.com is a good site which goes into more detail and also has a number of simple recipes.