Guest post: Making Strawberry Jam

And so another ambitious jam season begins. This weekend Marc, Erin and I headed out to Saanich to collect a piece of the spring/summer bounty. Strawberries were at the top of the list, although SunWing: I could not love you more.

So, jam! This winter/early spring, I really had to ration the jam I managed to make. This year, I hope to avoid this notion, or delay it, by making quite a lot more than last year.

I use a Nigella Lawson strawberry jam recipe with one major difference. I like her recipe very much (balsamic vinegar! no pectin!), but she doesn't process her jam in a water bath. A lot of the British recipes I've looked at don't bother with this. I can't totally abandon it though, so I process it for 10 minutes. It hasn't led to any problems with consistency or anything like that, and it makes me feel better, so I figure it's worth it.

I hope to seduce Erin with the ease and payoff of all of this.

I'm thinking I've got the payoff part in the bag, don't you?

Making Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp

Another trip to the farm called for another strawberry rhubarb dessert recipe. This time I made a Bowen family favorite. You'll see from the amount of sugar involved that it's easy to love!

Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp
Adapted from a recipe by Lorraine Bowen (my mother-in-law)

Put 2 cups of rhubarb, 2 cups of strawberries, 1 cup of white sugar and 2 tbsp of flour in a baking dish and toss. Combine 1/2 cup of brown sugar, 1/2 cup of flour, 1/2 cup of rolled oats and 1/2 cup of room temperature butter and cover rhubarb mixture. Bake for 45 minutes at 300.

Making Strawberry Rhubarb Fool

I'm pretty sure there's nothing better than picking strawberries and eating the ones that are too soft to keep until later, the ones that are warm from the sun.

I picked a bowl of strawberries at Dan's Farm on Saturday, and after we froze some and ate some more, I decided to make the Strawberry Rhubarb Fool recipe from my Fresh cookbook.


The crazy simple recipe goes something like this: simmer a cup of chopped rhubarb with a half cup of water and a half cup of sugar for 20 minutes. Add a cup of strawberries for five more minutes. Blend. After cooling, fold into two cups of whipping cream that you whipped during the simmering. Cool some more.

The fool was super tasty, but I felt strange eating what is essentially a bowl of whipped cream; it felt both too indulgent and not indulgent enough. Next time I think I will serve it with a piece of angel food cake. I also wonder how it would work in an Icebox Cake, but I'm not sure if I'm willing to find out.