Loving Stitches (Happy Belated Mother's Day)

Technology changes rapidly when you're not paying attention to it. It actually changes pretty darned fast even when you are.

I've not been blogging for a while and the online photo editing program I used to use apparently decided to cease operations at some point in the last year or so. Since I only use it for watermarking blog photos, I never noticed that it wasn't there anymore... not until I needed it.

So, better late than never, I give you all my very happiest of Mother's Day wishes. If you're not a mother, I'm betting that you had one, so have a big bucket of happy wishes from me anyway.

And speaking of lateness... while I did finish the cards I made for our moms in plenty of time, I did not get them to the post office in time for Saturday's delivery... this blog post was to be a preview. Oops. It's a good thing I already have a reputation for doing this type of thing... expectations are never too high and nobody gets disappointed! Just being true to myself (har har).

I make 99.9% of the greeting cards we send out which saves us a lot of money and takes me hours and hours to do. Somehow this makes perfectly logical sense to me. It also means I must love you a lot. Seriously, I'm not going to spend that kind of time on you if I don't care for you. Consider it an expression of my love. Because it is. Very much so.

I dragged out the old embroidery basket for the Mother's Day cards I made this year. Links for the design, template and instructions for this lovely card can be found on the wonderful but sadly now also defunct blog How About Orange. I really love how these cards turned out and enjoyed making them so much. I stitched the design onto a separate piece of cardstock (see photo), trimmed it down and then attached it with strong double-sided adhesive to a colored blank card. Simple, easy, and yes, more than a little time consuming.

Some tips from me:

• Don't use a thin cardstock for the stitching.
• Be sure to "strand" your embroidery floss before using.*
• Don't use too long of a length of floss. Yes, it's a drag to stop and start often, but constant twisting and unwanted knots are a bigger drag and take longer to deal with.
• When your floss starts to twist on itself, stop and hold the work up letting the needle and thread hang freely. Pick the needle back up and continue stitching.
• Do use tape to stick the ends of the floss down when starting and stopping (instead of knots). It won't be seen and you won't have any extra bumpy bulk to deal with.
• Don't make more work for yourself by making smaller stitches than the template shows... it's a simple project but takes longer than you think it will!
• Take your time pulling each stitch through. Rush it and you risk knotting your floss or worse, tearing the paper.
• If your holes are too close together and/or your floss has too many strands, you risk tearing through between the holes (think of perforated stamps).
• Use the thinnest embroidery needle that you can get your floss to thread through.
• Don't skip the pre-punching your design step! It's crucial to success.

Cheers, my dears!

Stephanie

* I don't know if "stranding" (to strand) is the correct term, but you'll want to do it anyway. It makes your stitches behave better during and look better after. To do it, cut the floss to a workable length (no more than 20") and pull each strand out separately before recombining the number you want to use (I used three for the card in the photo above). Just grab one thread and pull straight up (not outward), lay it down flat and pull out each of the remaining threads one-by-one.

The Seven Year Stitch

See the quilt in the photo? Does it look familiar? Maybe it looks a little like my blog header up there? Well, there's a reason for that. They are the same quilt, just at different stages of completion. Like a magazine tear-out of a swimsuit model taped on the fridge (horrid thought) might remind someone about their goal of getting in shape for summer, I very cleverly used a photo of my unfinished quilt project for my blog banner. I see it nearly everyday. So, I am constantly being reminded of something I haven't finished. Is that sick or what?

The Phenomenon Of Disappearing Motivation

Anyway, let me just say that the strategy doesn't work. That scantily-clad stick-figure on the fridge will eventually become invisible... transparent. She will just cease to be noticed any more. And then it's July and well... there's always next summer, right? It's the same with my UFO* blog header. I stopped hearing it's motivational message. I simply stopped noticing it. 

Recently, I made a renewed effort to complete the incomplete, finish the unfinished, wrap things up and move on to the next thing... whatever that may be. Sounds so healthy, right? Well it is... and it isn't. That baby quilt, for instance, is for my God-son...

He just turned 7. 

I started the quilt when he was 0.

A Penny For Your Thoughts… A Dollar For Your Age

My Mom started a birthday tradition in our family of giving us kids a dollar for every year we were old. Six years old… six dollars. Seventeen years old… 17 bucks. Thirty-Nine years old… 39 smackers. It wasn't our main gift, more of a token really than anything. We always had a bit of a laugh over it, but it's one of those sweet little things that we always look forward to and remember fondly.  

Another year, another dollar

Nowadays it comes in the form of a check, but when we were younger, Mom would get creative and do things like use all quarters and tape them together into a long garland. Fun stuff like that. If Mom had known about "money-gami" or "dollar-gami" (origami with dollar bills), she would have totally gotten into it. I have recently mastered the "Shirt & Tie" fold which is on the um... simpler end of the difficulty range. In other words, it's completely do-able.

If it doesn't fit, they can always ex-change it

So next time you forget to buy a gift for someone, or can't figure out what to get them and think that giving money is the best idea (it could happen)… do something creative with it like fold it into a shirt, or a ring, a butterfly… or even a viking helmet. It gives a whole new meaning to the term "folding money"!

• I found the easy to follow "Shirt & Tie" instructions here.
• There are even more amazing dollar folding ideas here.

Notes: If you have the time, ironing your bills (no steam!) before folding helps to crisp them up and the finished product will look that much better. A bone-folder is great for getting sharp folds, but the side of a pen or butter-knife will work also.

Blood-Orange Ginger Tea Bread

Ready or not, it was time to start using the blood-oranges on our tree. These are the fruits that were on the tree when we bought it back in December. According to various sources, the fruit should have been ripe anywhere from late-February to May. It's now June and whether they were ready or not... I was.

I had dreamed of making something that would highlight the gorgeous ruby flesh of these first fruits; something simple, elegant, and fruit-forward. But alas, they were still a tad too tart. Chalk it up to a Northern-esque climate and an especially cold and wet Spring. I do keep harping on that, don't I? Well, you can take the girl out of So. Cal. but you can't take the So. Cal. out of the girl.

Let's just say I'm feeling a real affinity with this orange tree right now.

Marshmallows & Cocoa

Here it is the end of February and it's colder than ever... time for a big mug of hot cocoa with homemade marshmallows! I've never made marshmallows before but it looks like a lot of fun (and the homemade ones I've tasted are so much better than the store bought). I'm game if you are! Here's a list of links to some yummy hot chocolate and marshmallow delights... go snuggle up to one of them tonight and keep the bitter winter chill far far away.

J'adore... Le Chocolat

Let's get right to the heart of the matter, the soft (or chewy) center of things, if you will. Sure, the fancy heart-shaped box of chocolates is nice, but homemade chocolates (or other candy) have the added advantage of forethought and time investment going for them. The store-bought says, "I stood in line and used my credit card for you", while the homemade says, "I looked up recipes, bought ingredients, and spent the afternoon creating this with my own two hands just for you (not to mention the huge mess in the kitchen)".  And if it doesn't turn out so great, it's still awfully sweet...

A Bowl-a Granola

I'm clearing out the bookmarks this month and will be posting lists of links to stuff I've been wanting to make, but haven't gotten around to yet. There are, after all, only so many hours in the day. Believe it or not, I occasionally spend some of those hours in other parts of the house, and when it's really nice weather I like to be outdoors. But, yeah, mostly I seem to find myself in the kitchen....  

Here are the front runners in homemade granola. Which will be the first one I try? It's anybody's guess... they all look great—from the low-fat to the addictive and everything in-between....

• Homemade Granola ...at Grocery Shrink
• Addictive Olive Oil Granola ...at The Kitchn
• Gluten-Dairy-Sugar-Free Homemade Granola ...from Joy The Baker
• Granola ...from Alton Brown
• Homemade Granola ...from Chez Larsson
• Instant Lowfat Granola  ...at Grocery Shrink
• How To Make Granola ...at Serious Eats

Money Doesn't Grow On Trees (But Limes Do)

Impulse purchases are almost always a bad idea.* You spend money on something that sparkles and winks at you when your defenses are down and before long you find yourself wondering "What, in Heaven's name, was I thinking" (and by the way, where did all my money go)?

Now, antiques are a whole different story. I've learned the hard way (on a handful of occasions) that when it comes to antiques (or any other vintage or one-of-a-kind cool thing), the rule is: "Buy it now—it sure won't be there later" (and by the way, where did all my money go?)

Being broke really cures you of impulse shopping (or antique shopping, or frankly most other kinds of shopping as well). The value of a dollar becomes so crystal clear, it pings. While this kind of clarity is a good thing, I do tend to get kind of obsessive over using up every last scrap of food we buy. To throw food away is like tossing cash straight into the garbage can. Oh sure, it can be put into the compost bin so it's not totally wasted... but that's some mighty pricey compost. You might even call it rich.

So here it is... my confession... I made an impulse purchase. I couldn't help myself. It was such a good deal, and it sparkled and it winked at me. So without thinking it through, I bought it. I bought a 5-pound bag of limes. My justification was that as a seasonal produce item, it fell under the Antique Rule: it may not be around next time (if it is, the price will certainly be a lot higher). Besides, think of the wonderful things I could make with them!

Some Like It Hot

...and some, well, some do not. I fall into the latter category at least when it comes to food. Why then am I so intrigued with making my own mustard? Well for one thing... we ran out. Yep, currently mustard-less. Now, while mustard is not something that we put on a lot of the foods we eat, when we do use it, it's generally crucial to the outcome of the dish we're making. Like grilled cheese sandwiches for example. O.K. maybe Chicken Dijon* is a better example. But a smear of spicy mustard inside a grilled cheese can be pretty dang fabulous.

"I'm not headlined in the bills, but I'm the mustard in the salad dressing just the same." [O.Henry, "Cabbages and Kings," 1904]

Also entering into the equation is my ongoing pursuit of saving a buck, learning new things and avoiding excess packaging. Etcetera. As such, I attempted to wade into the shallow end of home mustard making, looking to splash around a little and get my feet wet. Instead, I suddenly found myself pushed into the deep end, street clothes and all. Now, to an experienced swimmer, that might be amusing, but to those more comfortable on terra firma... sheer panic.

Meyer Van Marmalade

Marmalade. Just say it slowly a few times: mar-ma-lade. Slightly exotic sounding, it's name reveals a somewhat more complex nature than its sisters, Jam and Jelly. They're both sweet girls of course, everybody likes them, but marmalade has seen a little of the world, lived life, and has come home to tell you about it.* Both the dark and the light of it; the bitter with the sweet.

Traditional orange marmalade was essentially born from someone making the most out of what they had: in this case, a boatload of inedible bitter oranges. In a country that is not exactly known for its sunshine and citrus, they were probably happy to get whatever of those exotic fruits that they could.

My favorite store-bought marmalade was from Scotland and came packaged in white glass jars. It was an occasional special treat when our budget allowed. I would keep the jar in the fridge and only use it on weekends, when I wasn't in a hurry and could appreciate it more. It has virtually nothing in common with the domestic brands available, and is a world away from the little plastic single-serving packets found in diners and chain eateries in this country. Good orange marmalade is like dark sunshine in a jar. And it is at its best when smeared thickly on top of crispy hot sourdough toast that's been slicked with butter... and accompanied by a big mug of strong hot tea.

Money Can't Buy You Love

My mom loves dark chocolate infused with chili pepper... I must admit to finding it pretty darn good also. The flavor kind of creeps up on you and then builds with each successive bite. It's subtle and intense at the same time. Hard to explain. It's the kind of chocolate that is best in small amounts; to eat too much of it is to ruin the pleasure of it. Besides, it's easy to restrain yourself when your mouth is on fire! Purely by chance, I recently ran into the perfect thing to satisfy our chili/chocolate needs without breaking the calorie-bank at the same time: Spicy-Hot Chocolate Biscotti. One bite and I knew I had to share these with her.

What it's really all about
Mom has always considered Mother's Day to be what she calls a "Hallmark holiday", in other words something fabricated for no other reason than to sell people stuff by playing off their guilt and good feelings. I tend to think of Mother's Day (and Father's Day, etc.) as not so much a day for the celebrated person to feel celebrated, but for the rest of us to take time during our self-centered lives to think about, in this case our mothers, and how much they mean to us. Part of me is thinking that I only believe this because I'm currently unemployed and therefore unable to lavish gifts on my mom. Maybe so, for it is precisely that limitation that opened my eyes to the retail guilt-fest all around me.

I just called to say "I love you"...
My mom doesn't want more tchotchkes or dust-catchers*. Goodness knows, she still has all the ones I've bought her before: innumerable scarves, vases and trinket boxes, clogging up her cupboards. She is unable to unload them even though she doesn't need or want them... simply because they were "a gift". They sit there unused and un-thought of. On the other hand, I still remember the day I saw her weep when I accidentally broke the little plaster hand-print that I had made for her back in elementary school. An imprint of little me, a frozen moment in time. A memory. That kind of thing makes a girl stop and think.

Honoring moms should involve more effort than money. When I moved away, I would often forget to send a Mother's Day card in time for her to receive it (I'm lame that way), so I thought "Well, I'll just call her instead". Just! As if that phone call was not as good as getting a mass-produced greeting card in the mail. Don't get me wrong... I LOVE greeting cards: I love getting them in the mail and I love sending them. But I look back and realize that a phone call from a daughter who lived far away was infinitely more desirable to my mom than any greeting card could ever be.

For the mom who has everything 
Spend effort, spend time, spend... you. Make mom a nice brunch to the best of your abilities (even if it's just eggs, toast and coffee) and don't even dare let her clean up! Wrap her up in a big hug. Don't live close by anymore? You can still spend time on your mom even if you can't be with her. Make her a card this year... with your own hands. Call her. When you think about it, time is maybe the single most precious thing we can spend on another person. I spent this morning baking my mom a batch of these biscotti because I think she'll really like them (and probably all the more because I made them myself).**

I need to hurry up and pack these now or there won't be any left to send... I can't seem to stop nibbling at them! Biscotti just happen to be the perfect cookie for shipping: they're sturdy and will keep fresh for up to a month as long as they're wrapped airtight. And since they're not sugary butter-bombs, they can be enjoyed any time of day. They're really great for dunking too... if you're so inclined.

Spicy-Hot Chocolate Biscotti
Inspired by: Chocolate & Spice Biscotti at Design*Sponge.
Adapted from: Chocolate Biscotti on page 144 of Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home To Yours, 2006.

2 cups all-purpose flour
½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder (dutched or natural)
2 tablespoons instant espresso powder
¾ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon cayenne pepper
½ teaspoon good cinnamon
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs and 1 teaspoon of good vanilla
1 cup almonds (toasted or blanched)
¾ cup chopped chocolate chips
powdered sugar for dusting

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Sift the dry ingredients together (first eight above) and set aside. In a large bowl, or the bowl of a stand mixer, beat together the butter with the sugar on medium speed until pale (no more than 2 minutes). Add the eggs and vanilla and beat for another 2 minutes.

With mixer set to low, add the dry ingredient mixture in 3 additions, mixing only until dough forms. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and mix in the almonds and chocolate. Turn the dough out and knead briefly.

Divide the dough in half and roll each into 12" logs. Flatten them down with your hands to about 1" high and 2" across. Carefully move the flattened logs onto the baking sheet. Just before the first baking, liberally dust the tops of both logs with powdered sugar and a small sieve.

Bake for about 25 minutes. Don't worry if they spread out and crack some. Let the logs cool for about 20 minutes on the pan. Be sure to leave the oven on for the next bit of baking.

With a serrated knife, slice the logs on the diagonal every ½ - ¾ inch. Put the slices back on the baking sheet, standing them up rather than laying them flat. Bake the cookies for 10 minutes, then rotate the pan and bake for another 5-10 minutes more. Move the cookies onto a rack to cool.

My Notes: I tried chopping up regular chocolate chips in the food processor... it was really loud. Use a knife. Slow and steady when slicing the logs if you've also put nuts in there. I left out the nuts for the batch I sent to my mom and MIL. 

*...and please don't remind me about all the bad ties, mustache mugs, and beard-trimming kits that my sweet dad had to fake being excited about on "his" day! Come to think of it, Dads would like these biscotti too.

**In fact, once she tries them, I'm pretty sure she'll be as totally infatuated with these dang cookies as I am! She'll probably also say, "You know you didn't have to do that!". But then, that's the whole point: I didn't have to, I chose to. I wanted to... and here's the big secret: You get more from the giving than from the getting. Get it? Got it? Good!

Mayo & Mustard

I remember going over to my friend's house after school one day and there was her big sister, making mayonnaise. So detached was I from "real" food that I didn't really know what mayonnaise was made of, or (even more amazing) that you could make it yourself at home. Once we finally work our way through the big ol' jar of mayo in our fridge*, I am going to start making our mayonnaise from scratch.

• Homemade Mayo and More Homemade Mayo at the Passionate Homemaking blog
  
• Julia's Mayonnaise from pg. 86-88 of Mastering the Art of French Cooking, vol. I by Child, Bertholle & Beck (2009)

In the meantime, I want to make some "fancy" mustard. Hubs and I both really love all of the Sierra Nevada mustards, and a nice honey-mustard is sure good on sandwiches. One of our favorite things is to shmear a strong flavorful mustard on the inside of a grilled-cheese sandwich before cooking it. Mmm.

So, in the continuing interest of "make do and bloody well make it yourself", we're going to try to recreate some fabulous mustards at home.

• Best Mustard Ever from Alton Brown at FoodNetwork.com
• Beer Mustard II at anyideasfordinner.com
• Homemade Guinness Mustard from bitchincamero.com
• Four different homemade mustards from Martha Stewart (MSL/Nov 1996)
  

*Waste not want not.

Colors Not Found In Nature

"It's fruitcake weather!" I can't make these cookies without thinking about A Christmas Memory, the short story by Truman Capote. Sweet, wistful, and wonderful; one of those stories that is heartbreaking and heartwarming at the same time. So good when done well. And this one surely is. There is an old television production of it starring Geraldine Page that is excellently done. It used to air every year around the holidays, and hopefully still does. As good as that teleplay is, it's the book that always grabs at my heart the hardest. To read the words is to be rewarded. Rewarded by the elegant writing, tangible descriptions, sweet and tender sentiment... I will read it again this year. Like fruitcake, it's tradition.

My Mom used to make these cookies when I was growing up, but it's a big job these cookies. I started making them the year I got married. I'll never forget it: I bought 6 lbs. of pecans when I needed 6 cups. We put pecans in everything that year. This year I added flour in when it should have been sugar. But it all worked out. It always does, one way or another.

Twelve dozen cookies later and I was finally done. The music on the stereo came to an end and the house was suddenly quiet. I leaned against the counter, closed my eyes and bit into one of the cookies... in that one moment was the Christmas of my childhood. I heard bells chiming. Turns out they really were! There's a church nearby that plays bells every hour. It was five o'clock. My senses and memories converged, just for one perfect moment. Every once and a while that happens. Or maybe it happens all the time and I only notice it every once and a while.

From Pâte de Fruit To Plum Jam

Today I recooked the two big jars full of failed Pâte de Fruit from two weeks ago with half of a split vanilla bean until all the sugar from the outside of the candies dissolved. When it reached temperature I filled pint jars and processed them in the water canner according to directions in the Ball Blue Book Guide.

I ended up with just under two and a helf pints of Plum Vanilla Jam. The vanilla is not super noticeable, but it was only an afterthought after all. The jam is a little on the thick side (due to all that extra time in the cauldrons), but it tastes pretty good, and slathered on a crispy hot piece of buttered toast... you'd never know it was once a botched batch of Pâte de Fruit.

psst... I won't tell if you don't!

• Plum Jam adapted from Plum-Vanilla Preserves recipe, page 308, Williams-Sonoma Holiday Favorites, 2004.
• Remake instructions for "soft spreads without added pectin", page 122, The Ball Blue Book Guide to Preserving, 2009.

Blackberry Syrup

I am over my love of real maple syrup. When we needed to take out a loan in order to buy some, I said, "That's it. We're breaking up." Who needs it anyway? (Shush! Me too, I'm just not admitting it.) I don't think I've ever heard of a year when the blackberry crop was set back by a bad winter. Certainly not in California. Heck, have you ever even tried to get rid of a blackberry vine growing in your yard? God love 'em, they just keep coming back, year after year, after year. You know that saying about lemons? Well, it applies here too: If life hands you a ton of free blackberries, maybe think about making syrup with them. Make a big batch of it for all the pancakes, waffles, oatmeal, yogurt and ice cream you'll have in the coming year. And while you're at it, blow "raspberries" at those maple-tapping syrup producers and their high-priced tree sap.*

• Blackberry Syrup (also Blueberry Syrup and lots of other good canning info to check out)

*Yeah, I know... when prices come down I'll probably be in front of you in line to buy it. But that doesn't diminish in any way the total summer-in-the-middle-of-winter goodness that is homemade blackberry syrup on a stack of hotcakes in January. In fact, while you're at it, throw a vanilla bean in with it.

Pâte de Fruit (Part Deux)

While I'm waiting for the Plum Pâte de Fruit (Pâte de Plum?) to cool, I figured that I might as well try making some with the left over blackberry slurry that's sitting in the fridge. It's certainly easier than making jam in this heat, and I'm not sure what else to do with it. I thought about blackberry syrup but the process is the same as for jam (too hot). Or I could make blackberry smoothies every day for three weeks. That would surely be too much of a good thing. One thing I know: I'm not going to waste it. I worked too hard for it! If it had been a nice cool foggy morning when we went a-pickin', I might feel differently. It wasn't. The sun was up early and by the time we got to the shrubs, it was already hot. We were sweaty, tired and stained purple by the time we were done, and my legs were sore for three days where I had leaned against the ladder for so long. Then there was the washing of the really ripe warm berries which was no small feat in itself. Have I mentioned how long it took to put all of it through the food mill? Crank, crank, crank, keep cranking, crank, crank, crank some more... (hint: it's not electric). No sir, I'm not wasting a drop of that blackberry juice.

Pâte de Fail

My beautiful but rapidly ripening Italian prune plums were calling to me. "Use us or lose us!" they pleaded. There was a partial box of prune plums from CostCo and 5 or 6 random homegrown plums that someone gave us. With some difficulty, I pitted all the plums I had (almost 4 lbs.), and made a huge mess in the process. These are definitely not freestone plums (klingon is more like it). Thinking there's got to be an easier way to pit them, I spied my melon-baller* in the dish rack (recently used to core pears with). It worked surprisingly well. I wish I'd thought of it earlier. Less mess.

ER Jam Session

It's 1:30 a.m. and I just finished making a batch of ER jam. Yes, emergency jam. The strawberries we bought just two nights ago needed to be used "stat!" (right away), and the blackberries that we picked this morning were so ripe they were falling apart while we were picking them. Oh, and it was a scorcher today. Surely, the kitchen (and I) would get over-heated during this whole thing, so I waited until late at night to start. The fog never came in, and it never cooled off. Bad weekend for this venture, I'm afraid.

Overall, it went pretty well. Most of the delays and hitches were due to my attempts at coordinating everything this first time out (in other words, my not knowing what to do). Who can you call after midnight with jamming queries? There is no 24-hour jam-support hotline that I know of (unless you have a Mom who is a jam-making night-owl). I just did my best and prayed it would all work out and not end up being a colossal waste of time, money, fruit, water, utilities, and oh yeah, sanity. In the end, the lids all "pinged", signaling a good seal. The next day all the seals passed their test and were holding tight. All was right with the world. Except for this darned heatwave.

Triple Berry (ER) Jam
I followed this recipe for Bumbleberry Jam, substituting blackberries for raspberries and doubling all the quantities. The final yield was 1 quart (divided between 1/2 pint jars).

Notes: I had read that wild blackberries had more seeds than proper varieties, so I ran mine through a food mill (medium) before I did anything else. Got rid of most of the seeds and ended up with a bowl of opaque purple slush (some might call this "dye"). Then I picked over and washed the strawberries. I had a little more than 4 cups of them and the recipe called for 2 cups, so I decided to double it. There was certainly plenty of blackberry "slurry" and I had lots of blueberries. The jam came out a little thick, but it's spreadable. The blackberries kind of steamrolled the other berries in terms of color and even flavor, but they all add to the overall taste of it.

Bumbleberry Jam

What else can you do with a whole bunch of fruit? Make jam! Sometime in the next week or so, I will make my first batch (ever) of jam. I like the idea of making an entire year's worth of something in one afternoon. Sweet!

This recipe I found on gardenopolis looks like the front-runner so far... Blueberry-Strawberry-Raspberry No-Pectin Jam. We're starting to see blackberries ripening on the roadside, so I may use those instead of the raspberries (free is always the most cost-effective option afterall). And then I can call it "Brambleberry Jam"!

Strawberry Jam

A smattering of pectin-less strawberry jam recipes...

• Easy Strawberry Jam recipe at intimateweddings.com
• a simple strawberry jam recipe that I found at Allrecipes.com
• Classic Strawberry Jam plus a recipe for Lemon Scones to go with it!
• Berry Jam Formula from the NCHFP.