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Making Strawberry Lemon Preserves

Last week, I hosted a canning workshop with my CSA… and it was a great time! We learned how to make strawberry lemon preserves, perfect for this time of year. It was a small turnout – 4 people plus myself and the teacher – but that made for a nice intimate gathering. We all learned a lot, and even after three years of canning, even I learned some important tips (and some in hindsight that seem like no-brainers). Canning 101 techniques are always good to revisit.

aj explaining something
Our teacher, AJ Simone

AJ had already combined the strawberries, lemon, and sugar and let them macerate for a day before the workshop. He mentioned that the CSA strawberries he used made a huge difference in the end product – they were far superior to supermarket strawberries. Of course, the strawberries we got from Hepworth Farms were simply incredible, and were probably the best strawberries I’ve eaten outside of the ones my grandfather used to grow in California.

strawberries and lemons cooking
Strawberries and lemons cooking

This collage shows the strawberry-lemon mixture from the initial draining, to the resulting juice that will boil down to a syrup, to the fruit cooking in the syrup.

The kitchen sure smelled amazing during this whole process.

Strawberry Lemon Preserves Processing Collage
Processing the strawberry lemon preserves

This collage shows the processing of the preserves, from spooning them into the sterilized jars, to screwing on the lids, to processing them in the hot water bath.  I’m fortunate to have a nice big pot for processing – a 16 quart stockpot! It gets used pretty much in the summer only (I bought it years ago on sale).

This is the final product:

the finished product - strawberry lemon preserves
The finished product - strawberry lemon preserves

This was one delicious batch of preserves. And look at that color! I loved the pure strawberry flavor combined with the tang of the lemon – it’s definitely not too sweet. And that’s understandable with the proportions in mind – 3 pounds of strawberries, 2 whole lemons, and only 1 1/2 cups of sugar. One can get away with a relatively low amount of sugar because pectin isn’t being used in this recipe.

This recipe makes about five half pint jars worth of preserves, but sometimes it can come out to 4.5, which is what happened to our batch. We ate the .5 amount, yum. AJ was an excellent teacher and I’m hoping we’ll see more workshops led by him in the future.

To learn how to make the preserves, head on over to AJ’s blog, Handjobs (For the Home), for the full recipe for strawberry lemon preserves. For a few more pictures, as well as full sizes of the images in this post, check out my photoset on Flickr: CSA Workshop – Making Strawberry Lemon Preserves.

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Lemon Water

lemons

One of the things I’ve been doing while straightening out my eating practices is to drink lemon water in the mornings.   I first became aware of the benefits of lemon water via Joy McCarthy’s twitter feed.  She’s a big proponent of lemon water and encourages pretty much everyone to drink it.

So, why is it a good idea?  Well, lemon juice mixed with water creates a beverage that, when imbibed, helps to raise the body’s pH level.  Lemon juice, when metabolized, is very alkalizing and therefore can help balance out an acidic body.  Being acidic is not a good condition to be in – if this is the case, one is more susceptible to falling ill, feeling fatigued, etc.

Lemon water helps to stimulate digestion as well, and ameliorate heartburn and bloating.  Some people believe lemon water is helpful for weight loss, too, but I’m not absolutely sure about that.

It’s very simple to prepare – just cut a lemon in half and squeeze it into a glass, then add 8-12 oz of water.  That’s it!  I drink it first thing in the morning, but some people also drink it mid-day and in the evenings as well.  In the mornings, the key is to drink it first thing before you eat anything.

After you drink it, though, it’s best to rinse out your mouth with water to get rid of as much of the residual acid as possible – while lemon juice is alkaline when metabolized, it is acidic in the mouth and can affect tooth enamel and such.  Wait about a half- hour to brush your teeth.  Brushing too soon after drinking/eating things acidic can do more harm than good, as the tooth enamel will still be too soft – you’ll most likely be removing a microscopic layer that could have been repaired by the minerals in your saliva.   So, be careful in this respect.

For me, I find that I feel sort of “cleansed” after drinking lemon water.  Some years back a massage therapist friend of mine told me that drinking lemon water after body work or rigorous exercise has a detoxifying effect, too.  I like drinking it after I run.  I also find that when I drink lemon water regularly, I have less sugar cravings and my digestion is calmer.  All good things.

Definitely try it out and let me know what you think!