Photograph from The Bitten Word What is freezer jam? So called because it keeps so well in the freezer, it is, according to Clay and Zach at The Bitten Word, the perfect way to preserve summer fruit without distorting its flavor. "Making freezer jam is delicious and incredibly easy. With traditional jam, you thicken the fruit by cooking it and boiling it down. In making freezer jam, however, you use pectin to thicken. And since you don't cook the fruit, the jam tastes intensely like the fresh fruit itself." Find the recipe at their blog, The Bitten Word....
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Food makers across the country have taken the idea of a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) program and run with it. There are thousands of traditional fruit and vegetable CSA programs in the United States (go to LocalHarvest to find one in your neighborhood). Generally, consumers sign-up in the winter months for a "share" of a local farmer's harvest come spring and summer. This ensures that farmers get cash for repairs, seeds, supplies, and tools when they need it most: in the barren, vegetable-less winter months when they have no regular income. Doing sign-ups in the cold months also allows farmers to make a better guess of the demand for their product and how much they should plant. Below are...
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What's the difference between jelly and jam? Can you make a peanut butter and jam? Technically that's still PB&J, right? And what are preserves? Marmalades? And conserves? These days, when it's easy to just pick up a jar of Smucker's at the supermarket, why should we bother to try to make sense of these terms?
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