I recently discovered that my local farmer’s market jam lady has moved to North Carolina, and will no longer be selling her jams here. Sad tear. So, instead of trying to find a new jam lady, I thought I’d try my hand at making some jelly of my own.
I started looking up recipes on pinterest. I’m going to be honest here, the whole canning process terrifies me. What if the jars aren’t completely sterilized? And any time a candy thermometer is introduced into a recipe, I get a little squeamish.
I decided to start myself off easy and was delighted to see you could use a crock pot for some kinds of jelly. Yes, a crock pot!
I got to rough chopping some strawberries and rhubarb I had around the house and in just an hour or so, the house smelled divine!
Ingredients:
1 lb fresh strawberries
2/3 lb rhubarb
1/3 cup raw turbinado sugar (feel free to add more if you want it super sweet)
dash of cinnamon
dash of nutmeg
Step one, “chop” the fruit. And by “chop” I mean slice the strawberries in half (remove the stem) and cut the rhubarb into 1-2 inch slices. Toss everything into the crock pot and cook on low for about 6 hours. At about the 4 hour mark, I removed the lid, mashed up the mixture with a potato masher for about a minute, then left the lid off for the final 2 hours.
Your jam will be a bid chunky, so if you don’t like that, I would suggest either starting off with smaller bits of fruit or running the jelly in a blender at the end.
This recipe will make about a jar full of jelly, which is perfect for us. I didn’t want to have to can, so this is just the right amount for the two of us to use up in a couple of weeks. Use it on everything from greek yogurt and toast to waffles and ice cream.
I’ll be testing other jelly recipes in the near future. If anyone has a great hot pepper jelly one, let me know! I need it to make my favorite salmon recipe.
never settling 