Jams

 

Prairie Recipes

By

Collette

Recipes abound for the making of jellies, jams or preserves. The nuns at Elizabeth’s school might have used the following 138 year-old recipe.

Strawberry Jam

4 cups of sugar

4 cups whole strawberries

Mix two cups of sugar and ½ cup water; bring to a boil. Add two cups strawberries; cook for ten minutes. Add remaining two cups of sugar; stir until dissolved. Add remaining two cups of berries; boil for ten minutes. Pour into shallow pan; cool overnight. This allows the strawberries to stay plump and whole. Place in sterilized jars; seal. Process in hot water bath for ten minutes. Yield: 2 pints.

If the nuns did not use a water bath, they might have placed a thin layer (1/4  inch) of melted paraffin on top of the jelly and then sealed the jars. Still another way was to heat jars in boiling water, add hot jam mixture to the hot jars, seal them and turn upside down to cool. Neither one of these methods is recommended by the FDA today.

Many people like the simplicity of refrigerator or freezer jams and jellies. The following is a simple, easy recipe.

Refrigerator Strawberry Jam

1 pound fresh, trimmed and halved strawberries 2-3 teaspoons lemon juice

2/3 to 1 cup granulated sugar                               red food coloring

2 tablespoons powdered fruit pectin

Mash berries leaving some larger pieces. Using a heavy skillet place berries, 2/3 cup sugar, pectin and lemon juice in the pan. (Start with 2/3 cups sugar and add more if berries are not sweet.) Boil five minutes or until slightly thickened; add a few drops of food coloring, if desired. Cool; place in sterilized glass jars. Seal tightly and refrigerate keeping up to three weeks. Yield: 2 pints