Strawberry Honey Butter

 Time to begin canning season 2025.  First up is an amazing strawberry honey butter from the Ball Canning book.  The ingredients are all local, within minutes of home: Strawberries are grown at Kiwan Farms and the honey is from the Henri Dignard Farm in Embrun, just a short distance from Ottawa. 

This butter is sweetened with 3/4 cup of honey and the same amount of sugar.  It’s perfect on biscuits or breads…

Makes approximately 3 250ml jars.

Ingredients

3 lbs         washed and hulled ripe strawberries

3/4 cup     Honey

3/4 cup     Sugar

1 tbsp       Lemon juice

2 tsp         Vanilla

1/4 tsp      Salt

Directions

Purée strawberries in the bowl of a food processor.  Combine strawberry purée with the remaining ingredients in a deep pot set over medium heat.  Bring the mixture to a boil stirring frequently to prevent scorching.  Lower the heat and simmer until the mixture is very thick, about 60 - 90 minutes, stirring frequently.  The strawberry butter is ready when it holds its shape on a spoon.

Ladle the hot butter into hot clean jars, leaving a 1/3 inch headspace.  Remove air bubbles, wipe the jar rims and place the lid on the jars.  Place jars in the steam canner and process for 10 minutes.  At the end of the 10 minutes, carefully remove the lid on the pot, turn off the heat and let the jars sit in the canner for about 5-10 minutes.

** I made two batches instead of doubling this recipe.  If you double, you risk over cooking the strawberry purée.  

Enjoy!

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A Christmas Tradition- Tourtiere

 Tourtieres

To make approximately 6 large pies (1.13 lbs of meat per pie)

5 lbs     ground beef, préfèrably medium, or lean (better)

7 lbs.    ground pork

6 med   carrots, peeled and grated

12 med. potatoes, peeled and grated

12 med. onions, peeled and grated

1 tsp       ground cloves

2 cloves    garlic, peeled and mashed (optional)

Salt        to taste

1 tbsp    dried thyme

1 tbsp    dried savoury

Pepper    to taste

Directions:

Mix the ground meats and place in a large pot to cook.  Add about one cup of water, to keep the meat from sticking at the beginning of the cook.  Cook on medium heat until it is almost cooked through and keep stirring to prevent sticking to the bottom.  Lower the heat, add the grated vegetables and stir them into the meat.  Add the salt, pepper, garlic, cloves and the herbs and stir.  Let the meat simmer for about an hour.  Taste to adjust the seasoning.

Make your pie dough while the meat is cooking.  Follow the directions on the Tenderflake package.  One package will make three tourtieres.  

Grape Jam- it’s not jelly!

I am well acquainted with grape jelly.  It’s my favourite fall treat and so easy to make, especially with a steam juicer which saves hours of work.  This year, I was determined to make grape jam.  But i was not prepared to spend hours « peeling » grapes.  I was very pleased to find a recipe for roasted seedless grape jam on the Food in Jars website- thank you Alex Jones!

Two varieties of grapes were combined to make the jam: beautiful blue Concord grapes and champagne « like » grapes.  Actually, any two or three types of grapes can be combined- I think they add depth of flavour to the mix.  As long as they are seedless…

This recipe makes 6 x 250 ml jars.

Ingredients

3 lbs        seedless red grapes (or 1/2 red and 1/2 another grape) after picking through

1/4 cup    honey

2 cups     sugar

1/2          Lemon, juiced (2 tbsp bottled lemon juice)

Directions

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

Wash, pick over and stem the grapes.  Toss the grapes with the honey and spread them in a single layer on a parchment-lined baking sheet.  Roast for 25-30 minutes, until the grapes begin to give up their juice and the skins wrinkle.

Once cool enough to handle, put the grapes into a large measuring cup and blend with a stick blender to your desired consistency.  Mine is relatively smooth, with a few chunky bits.  You should have about 4 cups of grape purée.

Place the purée, sugar, and lemon juice in a heavy-bottomed pot.  Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, then cook, stirring frequently, until the jam passes the plate test or reaches 220 degrees on an instant-read thermometer.

Remove the jam from the heat and let it sit a few minutes.  Skim off any foam from the top of the jam.  Funnel into prepared canning jars.  Wipe the rims, apply the lids and bands and process in a steam canner for 10 minutes.  At the 10 minute mark, turn off the stove, remove the lid carefully and let the jars sit for approximately 15 minutes.  Remove from the canner and let the jars sit for 24 hours before labelling, cleaning and checking the seals.

Enjoy!