Henny Penny Farmette

A favorite breakfast on our farmette includes hot bread (like biscuits or popovers), slathered in butter and spread with homemade jam. We have many fruit trees from which to make jam but we love the sweet tartness of wild plums. These wild plums are smaller than regular plums or apricots, so you’ll need to pick enough to fill about a gallon-size bucket.

This sweet-tart jam makes the perfect accompaniment to croissants, toasts, muffins, and biscuits

You’ll love this delicious jam spread on almost any kind of bread, roll, or cracker. Serve it alongside some firm breakfast cheese or your favorite goat cheese. Because of the balance between sweet and tart flavors, it greatly enhances the taste of roast pork or chicken, too.

Making wild plum jam doesn’t require a lot of skill. But you will need some simple kitchen tools like a tall pan (like a soup pot), a large bowl, measuring spoons, a colander, long-handle wooden spoon (for stirring hot jam), and a paring knife.

Pictured a jars with lids and rings–the type used in canning jellies and jams.

Required items include a hot-water canner, six or seven preserving jars with lids and rings, and a jar-filling cup, a jar lifter, a foam skimmer, and a magnetized ring lifter. If you don’t already have them, purchased these items in a hardware or diy store where canning jars and utensils are sold.

The smallest plums we picked have tart skin but sweet flesh

The PREP steps:

1. Start by picking the fruit and sorting out those plums with blemishes or bird pecked holes.

2. Wash the fruit.

3. Remove the stones. (I use a big bowl for this so I can save the pitted plums along with their juice to make the jam).

The JAM COOKING process.

1. Place 5 cups pitted plums with their juice in a large, deep pot.

2. Squeeze juice of one-half lemon into the pot.

3. Add 4 cups sugar. Stir to mix the ingredients.

4. Bring to a boil and stir constantly for 15 to 20 minutes or until the gel stage is reached. Skim off foam, if necessary.

5. Slowly and carefully stir in five tablespoons of Classic Pectin powder. Mix well. (You can test the gel consistency using a metal spoon chilled in the freezer. The jam should slowly roll to the edge and hang together instead of running off like water.) Remove jam pot from heat.

6. Ladle the hot jam into sterilized jars. Place a lid on each jar and then screw on the rings.

7. Place in the boiling water of a hot-water canner and process for 15 minutes.

8. Remove each jar of jam and listen for the pop of each lid. Let cool in a draft-free area. Label and store.

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I visited the Clayton Valley Farmer’s Market on Saturday and picked up six baskets of large strawberries trucked up from Watsonville, about a two-hour drive from my farmette.

Of the various cities claiming to be the strawberry capital of the world, Watsonville surely must rank as number one because it produces tons of berries to support its claim–California produces eighty percent of strawberries in America. Many, if not most, come from Watsonville.

Those berries in the green plastic baskets at the farmer’s market were huge and delicious and sweet. Perfect for making into  jam. Strawberry jam, seemingly, is everyone’s favorite, and this year I’m making some extra batches.

The recipe is quite simple, with only five ingredients.

Each jar will sound a pop when it has correctly sealed

STRAWBERRY JAM

Ingredients:

6 1/2 cups of washed, sliced strawberries (about 2 quarts, plus a little more)

1/4 cup thinly sliced lemon peel

7 1/2 tablespoons powdered pectin

1 tablespoon of lemon juice

6 cups granulated sugar

Directions for Preparing Jars:

Place nine jars in the dishwasher.

Simmer the rings and lids in a skillet on low heat.

Fill the hot-water canner with water enough to cover the jars by two inches. Bring the water to a boil.

Directions to Make Jam:

Slice the lemon peel off and remove any remaining white membrane from the peel.

Slice the lemon peel into thin strips.

Thinly peeled lemon skin imparts a subtle flavor to the jam

Place lemon peel in a small pan, cover with water, and boil for five minutes.

Drain the water off the lemon peel.

In a large pot, combine lemon peel, strawberries, pectin, and lemon juice. Bring to a boil.

The lemon peel enhances the strawberry flavor and helps preserve the intense red color

Stir in the sugar until it is dissolved and then bring the pot to a roiling boil.

Boil hard for 1 minute, stirring constantly to avoid the jam sticking to the bottom of the pan.

Remove the jam pot from heat and skim off any foam as needed.

Remove the jars from dishwasher and turn upside down on a paper towel. Before filling the jars, wipe around the jar mouth to remove wetness and turn upright to fill.

Steam rises off the jars during the 15-minute boiling period to process the jam

Ladle the hot strawberry jam into each jar, leaving 1/4-inch head space. Wipe any jam spilled on the jar lip that might void a good seal. Then set the two-piece caps in place and screw tight. Process in the hot-water canner for 15 minutes.  Makes 9 jars.