It’s Strawberry Season!

Also, Strawberry Jam and Strawberry Pie

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Here in Western New York, strawberries are the official start of summer. No matter what the calendar says, summer begins the first day I can pick up a quart of small, local berries at the East Aurora Farmers’ Market. The season is short, the berries are amazing and I cannot get enough of them.

Strawberries are my favorite fruit, simply because they are first. They are the first local fruit to come out, after a winter of eating bananas, apples and fruits flown in from all over the globe. I freeze a lot of fruit, both from the farmers’ market and from our backyard, but the first fresh fruit of the year is a huge treat.

Strawberries are a nutritional powerhouse. Just one cup contains 3 grams of fiber, more than 100% of the daily recommendation for vitamin C and only 46 calories. Strawberries are rich in antioxidant and anti-inflammatory compounds and have been linked to reduced risk for heart disease, cancer protection and reduced loss of cognitive functioning. (Need help with developing healthy eating habits? Click here.)

Not to mention, they’re delicious. Strawberries provide all of these benefits, plus they taste great. I slice them and add them to yogurt and cereal. Thinly sliced, they make a great topper for whole-grain toast spread with peanut butter. Toss them into a salad with goat cheese and walnuts or coat whole strawberries with melted dark chocolate chips for a low-guilt dessert.

High-guilt strawberry desserts abound, of course. We generally have strawberry shortcake once a season. My Fourth of July Strawberry Pie is usually the way we celebrate local strawberries’ last hurrah. I also freeze some berries to use for baking over the winter and to pair with the following spring’s rhubarb in a pie or crisp.

The biggest use of strawberries in my house, though, is making jam. I make a ton of jams and jellies each summer. We eat a lot of PB & Js in this house, although sometimes the PB is swapped for almond butter. Since we don’t eat meat, if someone needs a sandwich, especially in a hurry, PB & J it is.

Homemade jam is also amazing on toast, of course, and baked goods like muffins and croissants. It can be stirred into plain yogurt or oatmeal or even thinned out with a little water or juice to make a compote for pancakes or French toast. It’s also nice to give as a gift. I put my jam through a boiling-water canner so that it’s sealed and can sit on a shelf until it’s needed.

The big problem with jam is sugar.  Traditional jam recipes call for a terrifying amount of sugar, sometimes more than the amount of fruit in the recipe. Most jam recipes involve pectin, a natural substance found in fruits and vegetables. Pectin is a type of fiber and causes the gelling of the fruit and juices when making jams and jellies. Fruits used to make jams and jellies contain their own natural pectin, but adding commercial pectin creates faster, more consistent, gelling. The downside of pectin is that it requires a certain amount of sugar to gel. Not enough sugar in a pectin-jam recipe can lead to runny spreads.

Like many people, I learned how to can from The Ball Blue Book Guide to Preserving. My edition, the 100^th Anniversary Edition, was released in 2009. It is a creased, tattered softcover splattered liberally with tomato juice and has berry seeds stuck on its pages. It contains the very first recipe I ever used for Strawberry Jam. The recipe calls for two quarts of strawberries and seven cups of sugar. It yields eight half-pint jars, or about eight cups, of jam.

I’ll wait while you do that math and retrieve your jaw from the floor.

That means that each cup of jam contains slightly less than one cup of sugar. Why go through the trouble of making the jam when you could just make a peanut butter-and-sugar sandwich?

I could not, in good conscience, go on making this jam. I wanted my jam to be full of delicious, local strawberries, not sugar. (To the Ball Blue Book’s credit, they do also give recipes for low-sugar jam – you need a special, low-sugar pectin to make these recipes.)

Through trial-and-error, I found that making no-added-pectin jams was not for me. My jams never gelled. Other cookbooks called for doing things like boiling apple peels to extract the natural pectin from them and then adding that liquid to your jam to set it. No thanks. I like making jam, but I didn’t want it to take the whole day.

I finally landed on Pomona’s Universal Pectin. Pomona’s pectin is activated by calcium rather than sugar. Each box contains a pectin powder and a small packet of monocalcium phosphate powder (we’ll call it calcium powder for short). The calcium powder is mixed with water and this solution is added to the fruit at the beginning of the jamming process.

Since the pectin does not require sugar to do its gelling, you can add sugar to taste. The instruction sheet that comes in each box gives guidelines for sugar based on the type of fruit you’re using. I almost always use the smallest amount suggested.

Using only a tiny amount of sugar means that my jams and jellies taste much more like the fruits they started out as, and less like a bowl of sugar. It also means that they are better for us than the traditional recipes.

Strawberry jam is just one of the jams and jellies I make each year, but it’s the first of the season and it kicks off summer for me. Have a fantastic Fourth of July and stay safe and healthy!

Thanks for being with me on this wellness journey.

Just a reminder – whenever you’re canning, be sure to follow directions and recipes exactly. Canning is very safe when done properly. If you’re new to canning, consider a website or book from a solid, trusted source and read the preparation sections carefully. I’ve included some resources here.

National Center for Home Food Preservation

Healthycanning.com

Preserving with Pomona’s Pectin by Allison Carrol Duffy and the Partners at Pomona’s Universal Pectin

Strawberry Jam

4 quarts strawberries

1 ½ cups granulated sugar

1 box Pomona’s Universal Pectin

1. Clean and hull strawberries. Crush berries using a potato masher or pulse 8-10 times in a food processor. Measure 4 cups crushed berries and transfer to a large pot.
2. Following the Pomona’s Universal Pectin directions, prepare the calcium water. Add ½ teaspoon calcium powder and ½ cup water to a lidded jar. Shake well and set aside.
3. Wash and rinse your jars, lids and bands. Place jars in canner and fill with enough water to cover jars. Heat canner to boiling or near boil. Add lids to a small saucepan and cover with water; heat to a simmer (do not let lids boil).
4. Add 4 teaspoons calcium water to crushed fruit and stir thoroughly. (Remaining calcium water can be refrigerated for later use.)
5. Add 4 teaspoons pectin powder to sugar and mix thoroughly.
6. Bring crushed fruit/calcium water mixture to a full boil. Add pectin/sugar mixture. Stir vigorously for 1-2 minutes while mixture returns to full boil. Remove from heat.
7. Empty hot water from jars and set on a towel. Fill jars with hot jam to ¼” of top. Wipe rims clean with a damp dishcloth. Set lids on top of jars and screw on bands. Put filled jars in boiling water to cover and boil 10 minutes. Turn off heat and let sit for an additional 5 minutes.
8. Remove jars to a folded towel. Let jars cool for one hour. Check lids to make sure they have sealed; the centers of the lids should be “sucked down”. (You might hear the occasional “popping” noise as the jars cool – this is the sound of the lids sealing.) If any of the jars have not sealed, move them to the refrigerator.
9. After 24 hours, remove bands. Wash jars thoroughly with soap and water to remove any jam from the outside of the jars. Label and store. Unopened jam will store on shelves for one year. Opened jam should be refrigerated and will last about three weeks.

Makes 8-9 half-pint jars

Fourth of July Strawberry Pie*

One 9-inch pie crust, pre-baked**

2 quarts fresh strawberries

1 cup water

1 cup granulated sugar

3 tablespoons cornstarch

Whipped cream, preferably homemade

1. Clean and hull the strawberries. Crush 1 cup of the strawberries using a potato masher. Add the crushed berries and water to a small saucepan. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 3 minutes.
2. Strain the juice from the cooked berries. If needed, add water to make 1 cup berry juice.
3. Add sugar and cornstarch to saucepan. Slowly add berry juice and whisk until smooth. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly. Cook until a thick and clear glaze forms. Remove from heat and cool slightly.
4. Arrange remaining berries in pie shell. Pour glaze over berries. Chill for 2-3 hours. Serve with whipped cream.

Makes 6 servings.

*High-guilt dessert

**I am terrible at making pie crust. I always buy mine. I like the Wholly Wholesome brand – it already comes set in a foil pie pan. Remember to use pie weights or another lightweight pie pan inside your crust as you pre-bake it to keep it from bubbling. If you are skilled at pie crust, by all means make your favorite recipe.