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Jazz Up Your Strawberry Jam

06.12.2021 by Raelene Bradley // Leave a Comment

We go every year to a U-Pick orchard down the road from us to pick strawberries as soon as they’re ripe.

They opened for the season this Saturday so Jordan packed up the kids and the harvest buckets and they picked 25 lbs of strawberries in about half an hour.

They came home, washed and hulled all the berries and then I took over. I usually plan to make about 24 pints of strawberry jam – this year I ended up with 30.

We love good old fashioned strawberry jam, but we’re also big fans of jazzed up flavors and so I always make several pints of each of these three flavors:

  • Strawberry Vanilla
  • Strawberry Balsamic
  • Strawberry Lemon (though this year as I didn’t have lemons on hand, I made Strawberry Orange)

The flavors are incredible and so easy to put together (I almost always have these things on hand in the pantry). Next time you’re making strawberry jam, consider jazzing it up a bit!

I use the strawberry jam recipe from the Ball Book of Canning and Preserving. It’s simple, easy to follow, and uses pectin to set the jam. Though I love a natural no-pectin jam, when I’ve got a big batch of strawberries to use up, I like how quickly the pectin jam comes together. I got 30 pints of jars put up in about 3.5 hours.

You can follow nearly any recipe for strawberry jam and just add these flavorings as directed below.

*The ratios mentioned here are for a 4-5 pint batch of jam (using 5 cups of mashed strawberries or about 3.5lbs).

Strawberry Vanilla Jam

There are two ways to infuse your jam with vanilla:

  1. Split a vanilla bean lengthwise and add it to your mashed strawberries (at the same time you add lemon juice and pectin). Proceed as normal, removing the bean just before ladling the jam into jars.
  2. If you don’t have a vanilla bean on hand [raises hand], stir a tablespoon of vanilla into the jam after removing from the heat and skimming off the foam, just before ladling it into jars.

Strawberry Balsamic Jam

  1. Remove the jam from the heat and skim off any foam.
  2. Stir 2 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar into your jam before ladling it into jars. The balsamic vinegar will make your jam a lovely rich dark color and the taste is incredible.

Strawberry Lemon or Strawberry Orange Jam

As I mentioned earlier, I usually make Strawberry Lemon (the zing of the lemon is such a lovely complement to the sweet strawberries), but I didn’t have a lemon in the fridge, so I made Strawberry Orange instead.

Here’s what you do:

  1. Zest one lemon (you should have about 2 tablespoons)
  2. Add the zest to the mashed strawberries (at the same time you add lemon juice and pectin)
  3. Proceed as normal with your jam recipe.

Or if you haven’t got the lemon, zest an orange.

And if you haven’t got a whole orange, go ahead and mince the orange peel you’ve been saving in the fridge to make candied orange peels [this is what I did this week!].

Or if you’d already made candied orange peels and are willing to give them up for the sake of a beautifully delicious jam, mince those and add them to the pot [this would be amaaaazing].

Strawberry Balsamic Jam, just before ladling into jars.

How Do You Use Jazzed-Up Strawberry Jam?

Oh friends, the possibilities are endless.

  • Slather it thick on toast
  • Or english muffins
  • Or bagels
  • Or biscuits
  • Stir it into yogourt
  • Add a dollop to vanilla ice cream
  • Make jam thumbprint cookies

Any way you use it, it’ll be delicious. Promise.

Categories // Blog Post, Canning, Recipes Tags // canning, jam, strawberry jam

Grandma Helen’s Dill Pickles

07.10.2020 by Raelene Bradley // Leave a Comment

I grew up eating the best dill pickles, but I didn’t know it until I left for college. Try as I might, I could never find a commercial dill pickle as good as Grandma Helen’s. I tried all the brands, all the styles, all the flavors. Nothing ever came close – until I started making my own a few years ago, using my own homegrown cucumbers and Grandma Helen’s very own recipe.

And now, whenever I crack open a jar and take that first pungent sniff, whenever I bite into that crisp, crunchy, garlicky pickle, I’m flooded with childhood memories of eating pickle and cheese sandwiches for lunch and sneaking crunchy pickles from the fridge as a midnight snack.

Grandma was a whiz for scoping out a good deal and knew all the right people on the farms and orchards for miles around her teeny hometown in southern Washington. So when she found a good deal on pickling cukes, she scooped up as many as she could and spent the next several days pickling and canning to beat the band.

She put up oodles and oodles of dill pickles (and peaches and cherries and pears and applesauce and tomato sauce and jam and… well, you get the idea). Then she and Grandad would pack their little Datsun pickup to the gills and haul it all to my family’s ranch in northern British Columbia, Canada and we enjoyed her hard work all winter long.

Grandma Helen’s pickles are the best. Hands down. And every time I put up quarts of pickles, I remember how thoroughly she filled each jar – with love, with memory, with devotion. I’m doing the same, and adding an equal measure of family lore and legacy to boot.

Print Recipe

Grandma Helen's Dill Pickles

Whenever I crack open a jar of these pungent, garlicky, crunchy dill pickles, I'm flooded with childhood memories of Grandma Helen's kitchen. These are hands-down still the best pickles I've ever eaten.
Prep Time30 mins
Cook Time20 mins
Cooling/Rest Time1 d
Total Time1 d 50 mins
Course: Side Dish
Cuisine: American
Keyword: canning, dill pickles, pickles
Servings: 8 quarts dill pickles

Equipment

  • Large Roasting Pan
  • Sterile Quart Jars, Bands & Lids
  • Stainless Steel Pot
  • Wide Mouth Funnel
  • Ladle

Ingredients

  • 3 quarts hot water
  • 1 quart vinegar (see notes)
  • 3/4 cup pickling salt (see notes)
  • 8-12 cloves garlic, peeled
  • 8-12 fresh dill heads
  • 1 peck fresh pickling cucumbers

Instructions

  • Clean and sanitize 8 quart jars.
  • Add 1-2 garlic cloves and 1-2 fresh dill heads to each jar (if it’s a large garlic clove, 1 is enough, use 2 if they’re smaller. Same for the dill heads).
  • Pack each jar with fresh pickling cukes. (see notes)
  • Meanwhile, bring the water, vinegar, and salt to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer.
  • Ladle the pickling brine into each jar, removing air bubbles, and leaving a 1/2″ headspace.
  • Add lids and bands and transfer the jars to a large roasting pan with approximately 2″ water in a preheated 350° oven. Leave 1-2″ between each jar. Once all the jars are in the oven, start a timer and let them process for 20 minutes.
  • Remove jars to a towel on the countertop and let cool undisturbed for 12-24 hours.

Notes

  • I’ve known Grandma to use both white vinegar and apple cider vinegar. I like both, but tend to use white vinegar more often. Apple cider vinegar produces a little sharper taste. Experiment with both to see which you prefer.
  • “Pickling salt” is often also called “canning salt.” There’s nothing particularly special about it except that it has no added caking agents (an additive used in many salts to keep it from caking into clumps, but those caking agents make your brine cloudy when you can with them).
  • Grandma always reminds me to pickle cukes as fresh as I can get them – preferably within a couple hours of picking. Wash them well in cold water, scrubbing with a little brush to remove any spines and trim the blossom ends.
  • Packing jars is a bit of an art – choosing just the right size cucumber to fit in just the right spot – I’m still getting the hang of it. They should fit snugly, but not be too tight that the brine cannot penetrate between the cukes; it’s better to pack too loosely than too tightly.
  • I like to use regular mouth quart jars for pickles – the shoulders of the jar help keep the pickles submerged under the brine.
  • I use our turkey roasting pan to process the jars – it’s wide and flat with high sides.  I add about 3 quarts of water or approximately 2″ and add it to the oven as it preheats. When the oven is hot, I add brine to the jars one at a time and add the jar to the pan in the oven. Once all the jars are in, start your processing time.
  • The oven method gets the jars good and hot, destroying any bacteria and sealing the jars as they cool. But it doesn’t cook the cucumbers as intensely as a water bath and so they seem to stay crunchier.
 
To add a little zing:
I like Grandma’s basic version for dill pickles a whole heck of a lot. But I’ve also added to it with great success. Try these combinations for a little more zing in your pickles. Use just one, two, or all three.
Before adding pickles, add the following to each jar:
5-6 peppercorns
1/8 tsp yellow mustard seeds
pinch of crushed red pepper (or more if you like ’em really spicy!)
 
May your pickles be tasty, crunchy, and deliver the perfect amount of pucker. If you use Grandma’s recipe, let me know how it goes! Happy pickling, friends.

 

Categories // Blog Post, Canning, Recipes

belvederefarms

This time of year I worry about too much grass gro This time of year I worry about too much grass growing too fast before I can get the cows over to eat it down and make the most of it.
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As a grass farmer, it’s the very best kind of problem to have: grass tall enough to get lost in.
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Speaking of which: can you find the baby? Comment with a 👍 when you do!
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#grassfarmer #grassfedbeef #iamyourfarmer #farmraisedkids #intensiverotationalgrazing #grassfed #grassfedbutter #farmlife #homesteadlife #supportlocalfarmers
That milk pail foam tho 🤩🤩🤩. . Those firs That milk pail foam tho 🤩🤩🤩.
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Those first few weeks hand milking can be disheartening. Dribbles and squirts, milk running down your wrist, sticky fingers, and sore forearms. 
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Milking is a skill. No one is good at it right away. It takes practice. The more you practice, the better you get. The faster you get, the more sure and even your squirts.
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And then one day, there will be foam in the bucket and you’ll know you’ve arrived. Your squirts are fast and firm and sure and the sustained pressure of all that milk hitting the pail makes the most gloriously frothy foam.
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Keep at it friend. Whatever skill you’re working on now. Just because you’re not that great at it right now doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing or that you won’t get better.
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Keep working. Keep trying. Keep learning. The foam will come.
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#farmlife #milkmaid #modernmilkmaid #milkmaidlife #milkcowlife #handmilking #rawmilk #homesteadskills #traditionalskills
Transcript of a real-life conversation we had this Transcript of a real-life conversation we had this morning:

Me: Whaa? Why is there a frozen turkey on the counter?!

Seamus (4): Because I like turkey and chicken meat.

Me: So you went out to the barn…

S: …and got in the freezer. And brought in a turkey.

Me: Oh, love. We can’t cook a turkey until we have a stove [kitchen reno still on going 🤦‍♀️].

S: Well, then you can cut it up and cook it piece by piece in the microwave.

Me: Actually, that’s not going to work.

S: (looks outside) Well, it’s raining today but tomorrow when it’s not raining we can make a fire and cook it outside on the fire.
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Ever the problem solver, he was full of ideas. 🤣🤣
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I did finally convince him to put it back in the freezer and wait until we have a stove - with the caveat that we cook it for his birthday.
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#kidssaythedarndestthings
#farmkid #farmlife #homesteadmama #lifeonthefarm #farmraisedkids
We have two cows in milk right now: Sandy (old fai We have two cows in milk right now: Sandy (old faithful and best friend, there on the left) and Clara (new to our farm and momma to Ruby).
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How much work is two cows vs. one? I was so nervous about adding a second cow because the additional time/labor was an unknown, but when it comes right down to it, it’s about 20 mins more time milking. That’s it.
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Everything else is pretty well the same. It takes the same amount of time to bring them in to the milking shed. The same amount of time to move them to fresh grass. It still takes under an hour door to door to milk & do what needs done, and even less for evening milking.
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And since our oldest boy (14) helps milk the majority of the time, that extra 20 minutes doesn’t often figure in. Many hands (and even just one extra pair!) make light work.
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It does take a little more time to deal with the milk: more time straining, more time washing jars, more cream to skim, more butter to churn. But if more cream and butter are the cons, I’m here for it.
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What would you say is the biggest obstacle holding you back from getting a family cow?
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#familycow #milkcowlife #keepingafamilycow #milkcow #homesteadlife #rawmilk
Mud pie hearts. . Just because this day or month o Mud pie hearts.
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Just because this day or month or season or year is hard does not mean you are not heard or seen or loved. There is beauty all around, if we have eyes to see it, hearts open to feel it, and wild, barefoot, dirty, outdoor-loving farm kiddos to deliver it.
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#farmkids #wildandfree #mudpie #mudseason #springonthefarm #homesteadmama #farmmom
My cup - ahem. shirt - runneth over. Same same. . My cup - ahem. shirt - runneth over. Same same. 
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I gather eggs every morning and again every afternoon. Farm life is a constant reminder that there is #alwayssomethingtobethankfulfor 
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#farmfresheggs #farmeggs #rainboweggs #farmlifebestlife
Hello Friends! Jordan here, and it has been a hot Hello Friends! Jordan here, and it has been a hot minute. I went to Las Vegas last week to visit my brother and we made beef tongue tacos. I love using the whole animal and this was a fun process with a delicious outcome. You can check out the blog to get the recipe. Happy Cinco de Mayo!
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#wholeanimalbutchery #wholeanimalcooking #beeftonguetacos #tacosdelengua  #cincodemayo #grassfedbeef #homesteadkitchen
T-minus 3 days until our first frost and we’re s T-minus 3 days until our first frost and we’re spending these lovely fall afternoons gathering in the last of the garden.
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Today: dried beans (Christmas Lima and Cherokee Trail of Tears), Reagan’s sunflowers and luffa, the last of the tomatoes (gah! they just won’t quit!), and the rhubarb.
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Tomorrow: chopping, freezing, cooking, and canning.
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Months from now: bellies full of homegrown garden goodness.
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#homegrown #gardenlife #farmlife #preservingtheharvest #garden #fallgarden #ohiogarden #growyourown #sunflower #familygarden #kidsinthegarden #gardeningwithkids #happyfall #harvesttime #harvest #fallharvest
Hello, fall. 👋 You’re long overdue and oh so Hello, fall. 👋 You’re long overdue and oh so welcome.
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This morning was the first I stayed in a long sleeve shirt to milk and didn’t have sweat dripping down my face.
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It’s the first the temperature has dipped below 60* (even though the humidity is a resilient 100% what with the rain, mist, and fog).
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Technically, our first frost date should have been this week, but Ohio’s holding out and it doesn’t look like that’s gonna happen for another two weeks at least.
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In any case, it finally (finally!) feels like fall and oh am I ever so here for it. So much so that once the must-do chores are done (yogourt, butter, beans and laundry), I fully intend to curl up on the couch with a cuppa and read.
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#fallonthefarm #hellofall #fall #fallleaves #fallscene #farmlife #farm #ohiofarm #smallfarmcharm #simplehappycountrylife #homesteadmama #home #ilovefall #october
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