Strawberry Jam

Those of you who have been following me for a while know that last year I started making my own soup and joined a CSA. While I loved both of these, they created a problem. My freezer was overstuffed with soup and veggies. To remedy the situation, I got a pressure canner for Christmas!

I gave it a test run this weekend. If you are interested in making your own strawberry jam, know that because it is fruit, you actually don't need a pressure canner. A big pot in which you boil water would be fine. But I wanted to start on something easy, so strawberry jam it was.

First, you need some canning jars.



Then, you need a lot of strawberries.



Put the jars into the canner and start them simmering. Put the lids in a small saucepan and start them simmering. Remove the husks from the strawberries and mash them.



Add the pectin and put the strawberries in a large pot to boil them. Add tons of sugar and keep boiling. When it is done, you will something that looks like this (you may need to strain off some foam):



Now you are ready to fill the jars. Take out a jar one at a time. Fill it to the designated height, get rid of air bubbles, and wipe the threads and rim. Put the lid on and tighten with a screw band. Put the filled jar back in the canner and repeat until all jars are filled. This step is really where it helps to have special equipment if you are canning jam. But a kit with a jar lifter, funnel, etc is pretty cheap.

When all the jars are filled, get the water boiling and boil for the designated time.



Take out the jars and you are done! Well, hopefully I am done. In 24 hours I can check to see if the lid sealed.

Cookies and sunscreen

A couple of you asked for the recipe to my LOST cookies. Here it is. It's from the Hershey's cookbook.

Secret Kisses Cookies

1. Beat 2 sticks softened butter, 1 teaspoon vanilla, and 1/2 cup sugar until fluffy. Add 1 3/4 cup flour and 1 cup finely chopped walnuts. Beat until well blended. Cover and refrigerate for 1-2 hours.

2. Remove chocolate kisses from wrappers. Heat oven to 375 degrees. Using 1 tablespoon of dough, roll one kiss into a ball. Cover the chocolate completely.

3. Bake 10-12 minutes or until cookies are set but not browned. Cool slightly on sheet then place on wire rack. While cookies are still slightly warm, roll in powdered sugar.

The recipe said this makes 3 dozen cookies, although I only ended up with about 2 dozen. Store in covered container.

The other topic of the day is sunscreen. You may have already heard the dire warnings about some sunscreens having an ingredient (retinol palimitate) that is linked to cancer. The good news is that while most sunscreens have this ingredient, it is relatively easy to find some that don't. The brand we have been using this year does not and we didn't even pay attention to this when we bought it.

The bad news? An even more common sunscreen ingredient is a chemical that mimics estrogen. Oxybenzone is one of the most common ingredients in sunscreen and has been linked to lowered sperm counts and endo (not to mention various forms of cancer and reduced birth weight). The Environmental Working Group has a list of sunscreens you can use, although the best guidance is to use hats, lightweight clothing, and shade to protect yourself from the sun.

It's easy being green

I've slowly been trying to green our lifestyle and especially our food. This year we joined a CSA. Our basket this week included many fresh strawberries (yay!), some broccoli and scallions (good staples) and kale. We never had kale before and it was a little daunting to find a way to use it. We have been getting more food than we need and are sharing it with others. But we couldn't give away all of our kale. So yesterday I attempted a kale soup. It was a big success! I admit it wasn't my favorite soup ever, but it was quite good and packed with nutrients. Here is the recipe. The CSA food is organic and local, so good for us and the environment.

Making kale soup also helped with my new year's resolution. Remember that? My goal was to wean us off of canned soup and the BPA that comes with it. So far I've been pretty successful. We don't buy canned soup, although a few times I had to add chicken broth to my soup that comes in packaging that is likely lined with BPA. So it is one step at a time. I have not ventured into canning yet. I put the soup into ziploc bags and freeze them.

Another eco-friendly change we are making is installing a dual flush toilet handle. We just bought it today and I haven't attempted this yet, but I think it is pretty easy. Basically you replace the flapper with a new one. The dual flush works by having two buttons on the toilet handle. You press one button for a light flush and both buttons when something stronger is needed. I've been wanting this ever since I heard about it. Now that our toilet is leaking from the tank to the bowl, it is time to give it a try!

Show and Tell: Sushi

My sister gave us sushi plates and knives for my birthday. She thought there was a sushi mat included, but there was not. We searched for a sushi mat (OK, we didn't search very hard) but didn't find one. Until DH managed to find one for my Christmas present! So now we have a complete sushi kit. And here is what we did with it:





We made three kinds of sushi: California rolls (crab sticks, avocado, and cucumber) and two veggie rolls (cream cheese, cucumber, and avocado and scallion, green pepper, and zucchini). We weren't going to try to do anything with raw fish, so this was pretty simple.

Here are a few action shots:





It was much easier to make than we expected. I thought this was something you had to train to do for years and your first attempt would be disaster. But we stuck to some easy recipes and good directions (find them here). It was a lot of fun, too.

This is International Blog Delurking Week. I know there are some of you lurking here and I would love to get to know you better. Leave a comment and tell me if you ever had or made your own sushi. What type of sushi do you like?

And, this is my first time participating in Show and Tell. Go to Mel's place to find out what others are showing.

Pasta

My husband's grandparents owned an Italian restaurant. I've never met his grandparents and the restaurant was sold a long time ago, but the memory of the restaurant is a relatively big deal in his family. His father would talk about working there. The recipes have been handed down and being able to replicate the sauce or meatballs is considered a feat.

For once we had an un-busy weekend, so we decided to fill it with making big batches of the sauce and meatballs. I've recently gotten into freezing food. Rather than buying things at the store that likely have preservatives, I like to make big batches and either store in a cupboard (for dry goods) or freeze. For example, I've started making my own muffin mix, taco seasoning, and bisquick. I also buy berries in bulk and freeze them because we make a lot of berry smoothies.

So this weekend we made his family restaurant sauce and meatballs. For good measure we decided to make our pasta as well. His family never made their own pasta, but we thought it would be fun and figured that was something we are supposed to do as yuppie urban intellectuals.

You know how your spouse can always surprise you no matter how long you've been married? Well, that happened. I mean, I always knew he was a direction-follower, but I never realized before how important some directions were. As we were putting together our shopping list, he mentioned that he doesn't want to get some ingredients at our neighborhood grocery store. He had to get special tomatoes that they only sold at Whole Foods. No problem, I thought. Then I saw his shopping list.

Canned tomatoes. He had to make a special trip to Whole Foods for canned tomatoes? It's not like he's getting specialty organic-grown tomatoes. They are canned!

Once we opened up the cans, his direction-following continued. See, he bought whole, peeled canned tomatoes. And then proceeded to crush them. Now, I wondered, if you are buying canned tomatoes anyway, why not buy crushed canned tomatoes? That is not what the recipe calls for at all.

The sauce and meatballs turned out great. Just like his family makes. The pasta was a different story. Since we wanted enough to freeze, we decided to make four batches. We measured out four times the flour and four times the eggs and tried to make the dough.

Emphasis on tried.

We were not getting anything remotely looking like a dough we could roll out. We added another egg. I re-read the directions. I searched for another pasta recipe to see if some people added water. This recipe had more elaborate directions and read them out loud.

Me: "Knead the dough until smooth, firm, and elastic."

DH: "You mean it's not supposed to be dry and crumbly?"

We added some water and another egg. Finally it started turning into something we could call smooth and elastic. We have made pasta before, a few years ago, and seem to remember having this much trouble making it then as well. After our last fiasco (where we tried to roll out the dough with only a rolling pin and ended up with VERY thick ravioli) we bought a manual pasta maker. Once we got the hang of it, it was pretty easy, although repetitive.

For future reference: making four batches of pasta can be tedious. We had fun making the first half. But we had to keep going and keep rolling. By the end we just wanted to throw the rest of the pasta in the trash.

The ravioli turned out great (we used a spinach-cheese filling). Let's hope the linguine turned out well.