Strawberry picking…. so many we made Jam!

Strawberries were plentiful today at Groveland PYO so we picked two large punnets full. Abbie was delighted that my instructions were to pick small ones – this meant that any large berries got consumed immediately!!

A particularly large one...

So to the jam – it takes a while to make because of the leaving stage. We started before lunch and did the boiling at about 4pm.. I will take you through the stages of how we made our soft set strawberry jam. Abbie helped before the boiling stage, but for safety reasons, she didn’t help when the jam was boiling hot.

Soft-set Strawberry Jam

You need:
Strawberries – good to have at least a pound/1/2kg of them
Sugar – I use a 1/3:2/3 mixture of granulated sugar and preserving sugar to get a soft-set rather than hard set (a trick I learned from one of our matrons at school)
1 lemon per 2lbs strawberries
Large pan with lid
Jam jars (I’ll talk about how I sterilize them later)
If you have it… a funnel is helpful to get the boiling hot jam into the jars
2 saucers – put into the freezer

1.Remove all the stalks from the strawberries and put them into a container

Abbie demoing what your strawberry should look like

2. Weigh your strawberries – you will need an equal quantity of sugar – we had 3lb of strawberries, I used 2lbs preserving sugar and 1lb gran sugar

How many strawberries have you got?

3. Combine sugar and strawberries in your large pan and leave to stand, with lid on to deter flies, for about 4 hours. This helps to macerate the strawberries. I don’t chop my strawberries up as I like to squish them onto toast, but you could do for a more even distribution.

The two sugars we used

Before the cooking stage, begin sterilizing your jam jars – there are different ways to do this; I put mine in the dishwasher and run it on the hottest setting. To the cooking….
4. Heat up the strawberry/sugar mixture, stirring to help dissolve the sugar.
5. Keep the jam on a rolling boil, reducing the heat underneath, for 5 minutes (so that it is boiling, but doesn’t rise too far up the pan)
6. Add lemon juice and boil for a further 10 mins
7. Test the set of your jam – take a saucer from the freezer and remove a little of the jam on a teaspoon, put onto the saucer to rapidly cool it. For a soft-set, the jam should crinkle when you push your finger into it.
8. If it doesn’t crinkle, put the saucer back in the freezer keep boiling for 5 mins and then test using the other saucer.
9. Repeat this until you are happy with the set.
10. Cool slightly – maybe until your jars are sterilized – and then fill up the jars (be careful), screw the lids on and leave it until you need it.

Jam for the next 6-12 months!

‘The Report Buster’ – this cocktail is for all you teachers! …. and any sympathisers who just love a tasty drink!

All over the world at the moment there are teachers writing reports….. writing reports….. writing reports….writing reports. It is fantastic to be able to convey the amount of progress that your students have made in a year, but sit at a computer for a couple of hours a night (after a full day of teaching) writing, writing, writing and you’ll need a drink! So this one’s for the teachers! It is a healthy cocktail because of the fresh fruit, to help our our bodies and brains and a little alcohol to ease the day away! I also used my new Norfolk Cordial – but you could use lime cordial or elderflower cordial.

Sip your reports away!

The Report Buster

1 banana
1 cup strawberries
2 cups Tropicana Tropical Juice
Splash Norfolk cordial Red Gooseberry and Wild Elderflower
100ml White rum

Nice and easy…. Bung all in a blender and whizz up – pour over ice into a tall glass – garnish with a strawberry pushed down onto the rim

What a fantastic birthday present – Abbie channels Jamie Oliver in advocating the wonders of smoothie ‘milkshakes’!

Abbie is a lucky, lucky girl – she was given lots of lovely presents, but one came out of the box immediately; a child’s smoothie maker! Thank you, thank you Karen and Edward – your birthday present has gone down a treat! Abbie wanted to set to making smoothies immediately, but we were in a bit of a rush, so I promised that we would use her new gift as soon as we got in from school – you can see that we did…. still in school uniform!!

Food revolution permeates much of my thinking when I’m preparing food for Abbie at the moment… and she would much rather have a smoothie or a friut based milkshake anyday over the lumpy, over-sweet milkshakes served up by fast food restaurants; so this was definitely a great gift.
Abbie made a strawberry and banana smoothie from; 1 banana, 4 large strawberries, 1 small strawberry yoghurt and a splash of sweetened soy milk.

Putting in the yoghurt....

Chopping banana

adding fruit to the mix...

some of the strawberries made it into the mix....

We still have to work on pouring!

There was enough for us all to have and although at times I thought the motor on the machine would give out…. the smoothies were well-made and delicious. We have learned, however that we need to chop the fruit a bit small to help the smoothie maker cope!

We have made quite a few smoothies since, although my favourite was the chocolate milkshake smoothie that we made on Wednesday…. 1 banana, 3 strawberries, a pot of Alpro dark chocolate soy pudding and a large splash of sweetened soy milk – WOW! One that we will be making again.