Week 13: Mr. B Dog Biscuits

I got a dog almost two years ago and his name is Byron. Due to a change in my work schedule, I was working out of my home a lot and thought it might be nice to have a dog. My boyfriend really wanted a dog, but couldn’t have a dog in his apartment complex. We decided to look online one day for fun and came across this pretty "funny" looking photo of Byron. He was all shaved down and had the longest tail on the planet! We called up the rescue group to see if we could stop by and see him. The next thing I knew, Byron was at my condo with all his stuff and "spending the night" to see if we got along. I was floored! What do I do with a dog? Byron just sat there looking at me, asking what’s next? Help!! I got soooo lucky, with a wonderful, sweet, and even tempered dog. His hair has grown out and I think he is the cutest dog on the planet! (Okay dog lovers, I know YOUR dog is the cutest dog, but hands down, Byron wins!!) We have had people say they were going to bump us off, so they could get my dog! Byron has been amazing and I can’t imagine life without him. If you have a dog, you know they love walks (Thanks Cesar Milan, the Dog Whisperer!) And treats. Byron has a pretty sensitive stomach so I decided to make some homemade dog biscuits that were good and healthy. Well, as an early Christmas present, Byron got a dog bone cookie cutter and some recipes for homemade dog biscuits, so I decided to make some and also give them as gifts to the rest of the dogs on the block! Merry Christmas Dixie, Miho, Flur, Esmay, Ruby, Herbie, Tammy, and rest of the Pasadena dogs!

There are hundreds of recipes out there and I was looking for an easy recipe that I could make up with just ingredients I would always have in the house. Below is the first I have tried and they came out nice and pretty tasty too. It is really just a human biscuit recipe. Byron seemed to like them, so I guess we are good. Enjoy doggies and Happy Holidays!

Easy Dog Biscuits

• 1 cup whole wheat flour


• 1 cup all-purpose flour


• ½ cup wheat germ


• ½ cup dry milk powder


• ½ teaspoon salt (love the Kosher salt)


• 6 tablespoons margarine or shortening


• 1 egg


• 1 teaspoon brown sugar


• ½ cup water (more if needed)


• Optional ingredients: 1 teaspoon: grated carrot, garlic powder, or grated cheese
  

Special items needed: none

Step 1: Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Step 2: Combine flours, wheat germ, powdered milk, salt, and margarine/shortening. Mix until it resembles cornmeal. I love getting my hand messy and your dog will love your scent!

Step 3: Beat the egg and brown sugar together. With a fork is fine, no mixer needed. Stir into the flour mixture.

Step 4: Slowly add water to the mix and stir until it makes a stiff dough. I needed to add more water since my flour is always dry. You basically want the dough to stick together, but not too sticky so you can roll it out.

Step 5: Knead a little and roll it out to ½ inch thick. Cut biscuits with cutter (dog bone shape preferred and loved by dogs. You don’t want to get them mixed up with other cookies in the house.)

Step 6: Bake for 30 minutes. Let cool and store in a sealed container.

Have fun and enjoy your hillbilly treats!

Recipe credit to: www.dragonbear.com/rec-bis2.html. Michelle Jordan, Treat Cookbook.

Week 12: Homemade Marshmallows

Okay, I love sugar! Cotton candy was my favorite treat as a kid and I loved making so’mores over a camp fire. I came across a recipe in the July issue of Bon Appetit for homemade marshmallows by a great blogger, Molly Wizenberg and her award winning blog, Orangette. Check it out! I guess I just never thought of making marshmallows and decided I needed to try them for the holidays. Oh, my gosh!! How amazing are homemade marshmallows! I don’t think I can ever buy store bought marshmallows again. This simple recipe is really good and loaded with sugar, so how could you go wrong?

I decided to package these up this year and give marshmallows as gifts to friends. My first batch I decided I was going to make peppermint flavored marshmallows since I had a little peppermint extract left in the pantry. A word of caution, take it easy with peppermint flavoring! It is pretty strong stuff compared with vanilla extract, so go light and mix it with vanilla. I used about 1/8 teaspoon and I swear my sinuses clear with this batch of marshmallows. Experiment and have fun! Almond extract is my next experiment. Enjoy!

Homemade Marshmallows:

• Nonstick vegetable oil spray


• 1 cup cold water, divided


• 3 envelopes unflavored gelatin, 1/4-oz envelopes


• 2 cups superfine sugar (regular white sugar is fine too, but this melts really quickly!)


• 2/3 cup light corn syrup


• 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt


• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract (or any other flavor)


• ½ cup sweet rice flour or potato starch or corn starch


• ½ cup powdered sugar

Special items needed: candy thermometer

Step 1: Line 13x9 metal pan with tin foil. Spray foil with non-stick spray. I lined the tin foil so it went over the top edges so I could use it as handles to take out the marshmallow slab later.

Step 2: Pour ½ cup of cold water in your heavy-duty mixer (I love my orange Kitchen Aid mixer!) If you have a whisk attachment use that. It seems to work well. Sprinkle your 3 envelopes of gelatin over the water in the mixer. Let stand for about 15 minutes while you are mixing up the rest.

Step 3: Now the fun part, making candy! How scary! Okay, this part is actually pretty easy. I was pretty frightened about HOT molten candy and getting burned, which seems to be a trend of mine lately. Combine the sugar, corn syrup, salt, and remaining ½ cup cold water in a medium saucepan.

Step 4: Over medium heat stir until sugar dissolves and then raise the heat. Now place in or hold your candy thermometer in the saucepan and just let the syrup come to a boil. Boil, without stirring until the syrup reaches 240 degrees (soft ball measurement), about 8 minutes. Be sure not to touch the tip of the thermometer to the bottom! We already broke one thermometer and got mercury all over our dish, so out that one went!

Step 5: Remove syrup from heat. Turn on mixer with the water and gelatin on stir/low speed. Now the tricky part, just slowly pour the syrup into the mixer. I would go really slow and careful. This liquid is pretty hot and you will notice steam starting to come out of the mixer as it cools. Pour all the syrup in and slowly begin to raise the speed to high or 10 on the Kitchen Aid.

Step 6: Mix until very thick and stiff for about 15 minutes. It will really start getting white and fluffy! Don’t be tempted to touch the beautiful fluffy stuff while mixing!

Step 7: Add in your vanilla extract or any extract flavoring you would like. I noticed by adding a little liquid to the fluff, it really would move around so pour in the extract slowly and let it mix for about 30 seconds.

Step 8: Scrape marshmallow mixture into the prepared pan. Smooth top with a wet spatula. Let stand at room temperature until firm, about 4 hours.

Step 9: I know there seem to be a lot of steps, keep going you are almost to the sugar coma finish line. Now stir together the rice flour and powdered sugar. I found sweet rice flour at Whole Foods, which was pretty reasonable and has a nice flavor. (Other recipes I saw used potato starch or just plain old corn starch.) Now you will sift a good amount of your sugar-starch on your working surface. I put down a cutting board since I was going to cut into the marshmallows. Turn the marshmallow slab out onto your sugar-starch surface and peel off the tin foil. It is pretty sticky so you can put some of the sugar-starch on your hands as you are working with it. Sift more sugar-starch on the top of the marshmallow slab to coat.

Step 10: Coat your knife with the cooking spray just this once and cut into pieces. Bon Appetit has you cut them into 24 pieces the size of 2 inches, but these seemed a bit big, so we cut them into about 1 inch size. Up to you and how big your want the marshmallows. Try mini-marshmallows! Toss each marshmallow in the remaining sugar-starch mixture and coat. Much easier to handle now that all the stickiness is gone.

Step 11: Eat! If you don’t finish them right there and then, you can store in an airtight container for up to 2 weeks. I put mine in a big zip lock bag and that seems to be working fine.

I checked out a few other web sites and blogs online about making marshmallows and they are all pretty close with ingredients and methods. Some people put in food coloring or cocoa for a chocolate marshmallow. You can also use cookie cutters for fun shapes for the kids in all of us! It’s easy and they are sooooo yummy! Enjoy a little hillbilly cookin'. Happy Holidays!

Calories: 52 calories each if cut into 24 pieces. It’s nothing compared with the calories in your cocoa!

Recipe credit to: Bon Appetit, July 2008 Issue
http://www.bonappetit.com/magazine/2008/07/homemade_marshmallows

Family Cookbook Update

Okay, I just got my printed copies of my family cookbook that I discussed in Week 6. It turned out Amazing!! Thank you Blurb.com!

Once I had completed all my photo edits and inputting the cookbook recipes, I just had my boyfriend proof read it (Thanks Scott!), and I submitted it for print. Pretty simple. The books arrived all individually wrapped in plastic for protection. I chose hard cover with a cover wrap so I could add additional photos. I also ordered premium paper for the book for a few dollars more per book. My cookbook was 62 pages and each book was under $30 each for the 6 I ordered. So, Blurb.com really did a good job and the print quality was really nice. I am really pleased and my family will love this special holiday gift.

Week 10: Limoncello

I came across this recipe in Cooking Light this year and thought it would make great Christmas gifts for friends. My boyfriend had tried limoncello with some Italian friends of his and we thought this would be a fun gift. Limoncello is an Italian liqueur that is good over ice, a lemon drop martini, mixed with sparkling wine, or could be splashed over fresh fruit. (I always add a little alcohol to my fruit salad, usually an orange flavored liqueur). This recipe could not be easier, getting the lemon rind off was the most work. I looked up some other recipes on the web and there were variations of how much time to let the limoncello sit, but 2 weeks worked for me. Also if you can use a peeler and just take off the yellow part of the lemon, it might give the liqueur less of a bite. I was amazed on the color the vodka took on. The lemon rinds were pale and almost white when they got done doing their magic. I found some nice bottles at the Container Store with a lid that holds pretty well. I also peeled a long lemon rind into the bottle for effect! I am putting together a gift basket for a friend with limoncello, two martini glasses, and a few martini recipes to use the limoncello. Nothing is better than a homemade gift for the holidays and nothing is more hillbilly than bootlegged limoncello! Enjoy!

Limoncello:

• 4 cups vodka


• ½ cup lemon rind strips (about 7 lemons)


• 3 cups water


• 1 ½ cups sugar

Special items needed: none, just time

Step 1: Combine vodka and rind in a glass bowl with a lid. Let stand at room temperature for 2 weeks.

Step 2: Strain through a sieve into a bowl; discard solids.

Step 3: Combine 3 cups water and 1 ½ cups sugar in a large saucepan. Cook over medium heat until the sugar dissolves, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat, and cool to room temperature. Add to vodka mixture.

Step 4: Divide limoncello evenly among 3 sterilized (750-milliliter) bottles, and seal.

Yield: 7 cups (serving size: about 1/4 cup) Store in the refrigerator up to 1 year.

Calories: 125 per serving.

Recipe credit to: Cooking Light, November 2008

Week 7: Crochet Rag Rugs

Here is another great holiday gift idea, make homemade rag rugs! I remember these great rugs as a child and they always reminded me of Grandmothers and old farm houses. There is something great about a rag rug and the practicality of using up old scraps of fabric was a perfect way to make something useful and needed, back in the old days. I am half German and the term "use it up" came up a bit when I was a child. Nothing went to waste, my Dad would find ways to use up things and create something different out of something old and broken. Heck, my home office desk I have is an old door that my Dad painted, added some book shelves, and used on old metal clothing rack as the base. It does not get more "use it up" and hillbilly than that! The hole for the door handle makes a great spot for all the cords and cables!

So I think I have always been fascinated by rag rugs. Using old pieces of cloth, scrap fabric, old sheets, and clothes was truly a brilliant way to take things that were no longer functional as their original use and turn them into a usable rug for the floor, bath, or kitchen. Nice & hillbilly! I learned how to knit about 5 to 6 years ago, but I had never crocheted before. One Christmas while visiting at my boyfriend’s family, his step-Mom taught me how to crochet a rag rug and I have made a dozen since. I love it! There is only one stitch you need to know for this project and if you do not know how to crochet, I would recommend picking up a simple book on how to crochet or go online. I have the Idiot’s Guide to Knitting and Crocheting. I also found a few websites below that may help. Here are some of my tips on making a crochet rag rug.

http://www.diynetwork.com/diy/lv_floors_ceilings/article/0,2041,DIY_14112_2269669,00.html

http://vintagechica.typepad.com/the_life_and_times_of_thi/2006/10/rag_rug_tutoria.html

Special items needed:

• Large crochet hook. Size K or Q


• Scissors


• Fabric cut into about 1" strips

Step 1: Select your fabric. I know I spoke of using up old cloth, but I actually like going to the fabric store and selecting "pretty" colors that go together, you decide. I like to have about 3 to 4 complementary colors that will look well together. Try for contrasting colors so the rug pops out a bit. Don’t worry about too many patterns on the fabric since you will not really see a lot of detail in a fabric pattern. I try and find fabric on sale that is less than $2.00 to $3.00 per yard to help keep costs down. I buy about 2 to 3 yards of each fabric. It will depend on how big you want your rug and you may want one color to dominate the rug. I find that the fabric usually costs me about $25 to $35 for each rug. I usually have left over fabric at the end of a rug and I incorporate it into another rug.

Step 2: Wash your fabric first. It will make it easier to work with and softer. I was taught to iron the fabric so that it is smooth, but I am not real big on ironing so I just try and fold it and smooth it out as best I can.

Step 3: Folding & cutting. Your goal is to try and get long strips of fabric when you are done. So, you want to fold the fabric end to end, and then fold it over on itself a few times so that when you cut it, you will have strips that are the length of your fabric (2-3 yards long). I usually have a rectangle of fabric about 12-20 inches long now and I can still easily cut it with scissors. You don’t want the folded fabric too thick or it will be hard to cut. Now you are going to cut about 1-inch strips. Use a ruler if needed, but I don’t get too crazy with the size, they are all going to get folded and crocheted together. I separate each fabric color into their own bags so they are easy to get to, see, and find.

Step 4: Now you are ready to begin crocheting your rug. You can decide if you want an oval or circular rug. If you want an oval rug, you are going to crochet a chain of about 20 stitches (more or less depending on the size of the rug). For a circular rug, I always get a little crazy when I do this, but I somehow just start crocheting around a chain of 3 or 4 stitches. This is where you are going to have to follow instructions from a book, but basically you create your chain, and then you keep crocheting around and around your chain. The key is to add extra stitches especially at the corners/turns and add them frequently at the beginning. The fabric will buckle and curl if you do not add extra stitches every so often. (I know this is vague, but I just add an extra stich every 10 stitches or so at the beginning of my rug)

I usually take the strips and fold it in half, you will find some fabric has the darker color as the front and a lighter color on the back. I try and fold so that the lighter color does not show. It is not perfect, but I try and get my main color on the outside. Also, I try to end my rug with a dark color since the edge of the rug will get the most foot traffic and get dirtier.

Step 5: Connecting fabric strips. Since each piece of fabric is between 2-3 yards, you are going to have to add and incorporate new pieces as you go. I usually crochet until I have about 3-inches of fabric left, I then take a new strip and lay it/overlap it on the back side of the fabric I am crocheting. It will be a little thicker at this junction, but if you fold the fabric over and continue crocheting, it will just work into your next few stitches. There are always a few ends that pop up sometimes, but that is part of the character of the rug I think. To change fabric and color, you just lay your new color just like you did the rest of your strips. I always love seeing the new color evolve as you work it into the rug.

That’s pretty much it. It is great to work on this while watching TV, I feel so much more productive and am creating a beautiful rug! Once you get the hang of it, it goes pretty fast and you can stop anytime when you have decided the rug is big enough or you run out of fabric. Have fun and enjoy!!

Week 6: Family Cookbook

It is the beginning of November and the holidays seem just around the corner. I have begun to think about Christmas gifts for my family. I know it may be early, but all my family lives back in the mid-west and I have to ship everything to them, which takes a week and I don’t want to pay a fortune in shipping costs. So, that means I need to be done with shopping, wrapping, and ready to ship by the first week in December or so! That is a month out!!

I mentioned I wanted to give some holiday gift ideas and some of the homemade jams and quick breads are great for local gifts. But what about something special for my parents that really have everything they need or will buy whatever they need throughout the year? An idea struck me! I come from an Italian family on my mother’s side and a German family on my father’s side. (Interesting household & combo!!) The Italian side is very animated and loud talkers, the German side is quiet and reserved, but it seems to have worked out pretty well with my parents celebrating their 40th year wedding anniversary this year!! The one thing that both sides of the family have in common is the love of cooking and great food! (Thank God, my youngest brother became a chef!)

So, with all that said, what about a family cookbook? I have seen cookbooks sold at school fund raisers or my parent’s church produced a cookbook. I thought this would be the perfect gift for my parents, brother, cousins, and hey even myself. So off I was to find a software program or web site to set up the cookbook. Now the challenge began. There are a ton a website out there that will produce 1,000 cookbooks for you! I didn’t want that, I want to make maybe 5 cookbooks! Finding a site that would do small production for a reasonable costs, under $50 or so was the harder part. This is the criteria I was looking for in a web site for producing my cookbook:

• Free software


• No minimum quantities of books, I only need a few


• Economical, it depends on how big your book is, but between $20 to $50 would be reasonable


• Template application that would be easy to edit and put in photos
  Not just a simple plastic spiral bound cookbook. I wanted something a little nicer and classier.


• Production time relatively short, under 2 weeks to produce. (Hey, I have a month to get this done!)
  

Well after testing a few free software programs and trying out their format and templates, I found a site that so far is working out great. I am about half way through inputting all my recipes, so I have not gone through the production process yet or seen the final product. I will Blog about the end result in a few weeks! So the site I chose was... http://www.blurb.com/

Check them out. They have templates for cookbooks, photos books, wedding books, poetry, etc. and there are different size formats you can choose for your book. You can sign up for free and download their software program for PC or Mac for free. The software is called, Booksmart and is pretty easy to use. I am not much for reading instructions or taking a tutorial and you can pretty much just cut and paste your text into the template. There is flexibility to change the book pages, add photos, change the style on each page, and just be creative. It is a bit like scrap booking, but digital.

Here are a few things I would recommend to start your family cookbook.

• Put all your recipes in a digital format. I set up separate Word files for each section of my cookbook so it would be easy to just copy and past my text into the software.


• Scan any recipes you are not going to type in and put them in a .jpg format. You can insert them as a photo in the cookbook.


• Sort through any photos you want to include in the cookbook. These can be uploaded easily in the software and inserted into your cookbook. Make sure your resolution is medium to high, since it will be printed. I tried to use some ClipArt and the software told me it was too low of a resolution to use and look good.


• Input all your recipes first and then work on the color templates, background colors, etc. I found myself playing with this and not getting the cookbook together. Get the whole thing done and then pick your color theme and even insert your photos at the end.

That’s really it! It takes time to copy and paste the data, but I think the book is going to look beautiful and will be a special treat for my family at Christmas. Good luck, have fun, and enjoy. Let me know how your cookbook comes out. I would love to hear any stories or share some special recipes you found. I am excited to share my Grandma Zita’s recipe from probably the 1940's Hunting & Fishing’s Cookbook, Squirrel with Dumplings. Now that's Hillbilly!

Week 5: Pumpkin Bread

Well, fall has arrived, well barely in Los Angeles, it is going to be 90 degrees today! But I grew up in the mid-west and loved fall, the change in seasons, falling leaves, hot food, and stews. I also LOVE pumpkin! I can’t wait for this time of year to try all kinds of great pumpkin recipes. I have experimented with all kinds of varieties of pumpkin and each is so different and great. Below is my current list of pumpkin cookbooks I recommend and try a few new things each year. The first two cookbooks have a good amount of photos, I love photos in cookbooks! I want to see what my food should look like when it is done!

• The Pumpkin Cookbook, Hamlyn


• Pumpkin, Joanna Farrow


• Pumpkin, A Super Food for All 12 Months of the Year, DeeDee Stovel

I do have a funny story about a pumpkin and raisin cheesecake that I made one year for Thanksgiving. My boyfriend and I were spending Thanksgiving at his grandparent’s house one year and I decided I was going to make this really interesting pumpkin cheesecake and I was going to buy "pumpkin in a can", but decided to cook a fresh pumpkin from scratch. I am not sure what pumpkin I chose, but the pumpkin flesh was soooo bright orange that my cheesecake was nuclear orange, not your traditional brown looking pumpkin pie. The taste was great, but the looks I got from the family were interesting and people were too scared to try it. More for me! So I am back to canned pumpkin, easy, hastle free, and the taste is fine. Here is a recipe I developed since there are hundreds of variations of pumpkin quick bread. I wanted to share this recipe since it is truly the best quick bread I have ever had.

Pumpkin Bread:

Sift together:

• 2 cups white flour


• 1 1/3 cup almond meal (Trader Joe’s has an affordable house brand)


• 3 cups sugar


• 2 teaspoons baking soda


• 1 ½ teaspoons salt


• 3 teaspoons cinnamon (I go heavy on this)


• 3 teaspoons nutmeg (I also go heavy on this spice too)


• ½ teaspoon ginger
  

Mix together:

• 1 cup vegetable oil (Try some other oils for extra flavor like Walnut oil)


• 4 eggs slightly beaten


• 2/3 cup water


• 2 cups canned pumpkin
  

Special items needed: Almond Meal and Walnut Oil if wanted

Step 1: Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Step 2: Sift together all the dry ingredients. If you do not have almond meal, you can use all white flour or whole wheat. I found that the almond meal really adds extra flavor and moisture to this bread.

Step 3: Mix together the wet ingredients. I bought some Walnut oil to try a little nuttier flavor to the bread. Canola oil, veggie oil, whatever you have should work fine. You are putting in a cup of this stuff, so this is not a "low cal recipe", but it tastes good.

Step 4: Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and stir until mixed. Pour into 3 average sized greased and floured loaf pans or what I like to do for the holidays is to buy some of the small disposable metal pans to give as gifts. Fill about 3/4 full so there is some room to let the bread rise some. If you grease them with oil first and shake around some flour in the pan to over the oil, it is easier to get the bread out later.

Step 5: Bake for about 50 minutes to 1 hour or until the toothpick comes out clean. Cool for about 5 minutes and then turn out on a rack to cool completely. Store in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks or freeze since this will make 3 loaves. Calories per slice is about 123 calories with just flour and 134 calories with the almond meal, each loaf yields 12 slices.

This is the best quick bread I have ever made and I love quick bread!! You can use muffin tins if you wish. I found this is a great gift for the holidays and you can make them up ahead of time. Have fun, Happy Halloween, and enjoy!

Week 3: Homemade Strawberry Jam

I had intended to write about how to make homemade butter this week, but I have been having some difficulties and after about an hour of shaking a jar of whole milk, I decided that this was not going to be easy. One of the purposes of this Blog is to find easy homemade things to do and make, not shaking a jar until your arm falls off! So, I need to do some more experiments with how to make butter and hopefully next week I will have an easy method!

Well, this recipe on how to may your own homemade strawberry jam is about as easy as it gets. I found that the jam in the grocery store was okay, nothing special and if you wanted to buy a really good brand of jam or jelly, then you would pay a fortune. My Mom suggested I try making my own, so to the store I went to buy some basic canning supplies and pectin. Well, low and behold, my grocery store did not have any pectin, just gelatin, and no glass canning jars. I then realized that I don’t think anyone in LA makes their own jam. Okay, there may be a few out there, but you really have to go out and search to find some supplies, find pectin, and jars. I did go to another "main stream" grocery store just last week and found a box of pectin. Look for the Sure Jell brand in a yellow box. I found some fancy, crazy pectin at Whole Foods, Pomona’s Universal Pectin, which looks more complicated, but I am sure it will be fine. The other place to find pectin is at a hardware store?! They also have canning jars. We are NOT going to can this recipe, so don’t get scared and think you are going to spend hours in the kitchen. This is actually a freezer jam recipe that you can just stick the extras in a plastic container and put it in the freezer. We will attempt canning in another Blog, as soon as I find an easy method.

Now the fun part, let's make some delicious jam! The box of Sure Jell has a bunch of recipes for all kinds of fruit, so try them based on what is in season or what I did, just buy a bag of frozen strawberries and go.

Easy Strawberry Freezer Jam:

• 2 pints strawberries (fresh or frozen) If you buy the frozen, you don’t have to de-stem them. Just thaw the berries the night before you want to make your jam. Really simple.


• 4 cups sugar (yes, I know this is a lot of sugar, but just do it)


• 1 box of Sure Jell pectin

Special items needed: just some containers to store your jam in.

Step 1: Crush the strawberries in a bowl. I have a potato masher or you can use a fork to get the berries mashed.

Step 2: Add your sugar to the crushed strawberries and mix. The box says to let stand for 10 minutes. I just added the sugar, mix and go to the next step, while I guess the berries are resting & getting jacked up on sugar.

Step 3: Open the pectin mixture packet and mix with 3/4 cup of water into a small saucepan over medium to medium-high heat. Now you just bring the pectin and water to a boil, continue stirring to make sure the mixture is disolved. Boil for 1 minute while stirring constantly. Remove from heat.

Step 4: Pour the hot pectin mixture into your bowl of sugared up strawberries and stir. You just want to make sure everything is mixed together well for a few minutes. That’s it! Yes, that’s it. Tada, strawberry jam!!

Step 5: Okay, you need to pour your jam into containers. I put a few in glass jars that I am going to use or give as gifts, and then the rest in a plastic container that will go in the freezer. Make sure to leave some room/space at the top to allow for expansion in the freezer.

Step 6: Let stand at room temperature for 24 hours to set up. Then stick in the refrigerator for up to 3 weeks and you can freeze the rest. This can all be done in about 15 minutes plus your resting time.

This makes about 5 cups of jam, so it is great as gifts for the holidays. The jam tastes sooo good! I found that I am using this jam all the time now, on pancakes, toast, etc. I also put a teaspoon on my homemade yogurt from Week 1. It gives it a little sweetness and is all natural. (well there is a ton of sugar, but still natural) I am going to try some of the other recipes in the box of Sure Jell, but this is an easy and great way to have something homemade and boy are friends impressed with homemade jam! Enjoy.

Recipe credit to: The Box of Sure Jell pectin

52 Week Posts

I love learning and exploring and decided that I am going to post a new post every week for the next year! Yes, 52 posts on various recipes, tips, and how to guides of simple things you can learn and do to become a little more hillbilly. I have some ideas, but would love to hear form you on things that you would like to learn to better enjoy the simple life.

Have you ever made butter? What about about easy homemade ice cream with a zip lock bag? How to keep your cast iron shinny & beautiful. Looking for some homemade Christmas ideas for great gifts? Let me know what you are interested in and I will do some research and see if there is a simple and easy way to get to do it.