Summer and Strawberries - Jam in a Heatwave

The heatwave we've all dreamt of has finally arrived and we are holding our collective breath that if we get complacent it'll be whipped away, Celtic Tiger-style, bringing us down to earth with a bang as the sunshine bubble bursts. We've had so much comeuppance with the pay cuts and the economic freefall in the past year that we hardly dare hope for good times any more, or we'll be put right back in our box again. That's how Irish Catholic guilt works, and it takes more than a sunny day or two to purge that baggage! So carpe diem is the way to go, each day as it comes and enjoy like there's no tomorrow. For me that doesn't translate into a buzz of activity, rather the opposite where indolence and relaxation become paramount.

Today was a near-perfect Sunday, with the Sunday gossip, interviews and newspaper reviews on the Marian Finucane show (although it was the excellent Rachael English standing in for Marian) and a lone brunch on the patio - of our home-grown fresh strawberries and cream on pancakes with maple syrup, and delicious double muesli with yogurt and more strawberries and grapes, all washed down with the ubiquitous cuppa tea and a glass of (Super-Valu) summer fruits drink on the side. I finished yesterday's Irish Times as I haven't been to the shops for the Sunday Times yet, and I read a few more chapters of our online Bloggers' Book Club book for this month - Let the Great World Spin by the terrific Irish/US-based Colum McCann.

Basking in glorious sunshine, I felt really at ease and relaxed. Why alone, you may ask? Teen daughter upstairs doing her homework, and youngest son off playing cricket with the Lismore team in Cork, where he'll be joined by his oldest brother who lives there and also plays for Lismore. Middle son is still in Dublin finishing his MA studies, and hubby Jan is off on a mega-cycle of 120km along the Copper Coast to Bunmahon and back. So I haven't been abandoned, just home (almost) alone by choice. I will mooch down to the shop for the paper, and drop by the Farmers' Market for some great samosas from Pie in the Sky, a new foodie stall by Maeve Geoghegan, whose imaginative dips and salsas and lemonades have to be tasted to be believed.

I've picked about four pounds of strawberries from our polytunnel in the past three days, and have made jam from half of them, as there are too many to eat them all with cream, or on pancakes, or with yogurt in the breakfast muesli - as I did today!

This jam recipe is simplicity itself, and I use special Jam Sugar if I have it, or normal white sugar otherwise. Normal sugar works fine but takes a bit longer to set to just beyond runny.

(I hate stiff jam, and it's perfect when it's not drippy or runny but it doesn't have to pass the upside-down jar test - that's when you hold the cooled jam jar upside down it doesn't move!)

Strawberry Jam

Ingredients

1. 1 pound/500g of sugar to each pound/500g of strawberries
   
2. 1-2 tablespoons lemon juice per pound/500g of fruit
   
3. Water to cover base of pan

Method

1. Hull and rinse the ripe strawberries
   
2. Put in pan with lemon juice and water


3. Cover and bring to boil, then simmer until fruit is soft


4. Add sugar and stir to dissolve - uncovered


5. Bring to boil and reduce heat


6. Boil gently for 10-15 mins until setting point reached - when jam wrinkles on a cold plate when tilted


7. Skim off scum as it forms


8. Pour into warmed glass jars

Handy Tips: Warming the jars in the oven is best, as it sterilises them and ensures they won't break when you pour in the hot jam. Put jars in a cold oven and turn on to a medium heat -150 degrees Centigrade/300 degrees Fahrenheit - for 10 mins.

After you fill the jam jars, seal immediately with metal caps - preferably with the vacuum seal in the lid centre that you will hear pop as the jam cools.

Warning! Setting point can be reached quite fast with Jam Sugar so don't go too far from the kitchen or get lost in an absorbing book or some trash TV show!

Enjoy the jam with fresh-baked bread and butter, or indulge with scones and cream, or on pancakes with cream. This jam will keep for a year but it's unlikely to last that long as it will be finished by Christmas - if you're anything like me - unless you've made a huge stash.

I know some people make sugar-free jam but I find that this 50:50 mix works fine to make a deliciously sweet jam - the lemon offsets any excessive sweetness - and it preserves it perfectly - they don't call jams preserves for nothing!

The photos - from the top:

• My perfect brunch on the patio
• The view of the garden today
• Lismore Farmers' Market on the Castle Avenue
• Pie in the Sky stall
• Strawberry bed in the polytunnel
• From Strawberry to Jam - various stages

Blackberry picking - a Recession-Busting Sentimental Journey

The weather has been lovely for the past few weeks, and we are all grateful for this Indian Summer after three wet and dreary months of supposed summer . One of the bounties of this late good spell has been a fantastic crop of blackberries in those hedgerows that have escaped the ravages of the industrial hedge-cutters that have transformed our highways and byways into regimented straight-edged bordered roadways.

I guess it is good and safer to have some control over our wild roadside borders, but the downside of all the traffic and road improvements is that it is a bit of a gamble with your life to go for a stroll down any road where there are no footpaths (pavements), and also the dearth of any wild fruit like blackberries in the ditches. (I use that term advisedly - it means a hedge to me, though Dutch hubby assures me a ditch is a water-filled drain or moat in Holland! We agree to differ on the semantics, I always called hedges ditches so I will hardly change now!)

Anyway, blackberry picking and foraging in the hedgerows for the lucious black fruit that ruins your hands and dyes clothes a deep purple generally beyond redemption has fallen foul of two things since my childhood halcyon days - traffic and pollution on the roads and also the hedge-cutting machines. I spent hours blackberry-picking as a child out the roads along with all the other kids in the town, and we fought for the best bushes, as we could sell our fruit to a local shopkeeper who presumably made jam or sold them on - I remember getting 6d (old pence from pre-decimalisation 1972 days) a pound so there was a great incentive to get bucketloads. My mother didn't get much of a look-in for her jam unless I was feeling very generous.

Imagine my delight then this year when I was in a remote part of my work area one day and coming out of a house I saw the brambles heavy with ripe blackberries on a narrow country lane where there were few houses, no agriculture and fields with undisturbed hedges where a cutter could hardly get by. There were a few cows and horses in the nearby fields, and I made sure that I came to work armed with some plastic containers the next day.

I spent a few lunchbreaks this week picking pounds of fruit, and the pickings were so rich I managed to fill two containers with about 1-2 pounds of berries each in the space of about a half-hour, leaving me enough time to have a sandwich overlooking the beautiful sea views you see in the top photo.

I made jam over the course of this week about 4 times, and a few tarts with apples and blackberries, while I gave away a couple of pots of jam and still have over a half-dozen.

The recipe for the Blackberry Jam is here and it is simplicity itself - and delicious!

BLACKBERRY JAM

• 2 pounds or a Kilo of Blackberries - wash in a colander and pick over for any blemishes and little bugs that can get on them.
• 300ml water.
• One Pound sugar for every pound of fruit.

Method

• Boil the blackberries and water in a covered pot until fruit is soft.
• Add sugar and mix wel.
• Boil and skim off any foam that rises to surface.
• Turn down heat to a steady simmer.
• Simmer/boil gently till setting point reached (wrinkles when dripped onto a clean plate)
• Warm jars in oven and pot jam when it stops bubbling
• Cover jars immediately with metal caps or jampot cellophane covers and rubber bands.
• When you hear lid pop closed it has sealed and jam will stay fresh for a year or more until opened.

It is delicious on oven-fresh baked bread and with rice pudding or yoghurt, ice cream or with a number of desserts - you can use it with other fruit in summer puddings for added flavour as it is so intensely flavoured.

The tart you see in the photos is similar to my earlier post on Apple Tart but with the addition of about a cupful of blackberries along with the sliced apples and sugar. No need to add cloves or cinnamon as the flavours blend wonderfully and should stand alone. Delicious with whipped cream or ice cream!

At any rate, enjoy yourself! It is a real labour of love and a great sense of achievement to have such wonderful food from free stuff - a real recession-buster in the "current economic climate"!