Photo courtesy of Sarah Culver I go through these phases where I totally forget how completely wonderful certain food combinations are. Like peanut butter and jelly. How the two just obviously need to be together. We went on this food tour and the last stop served a fried/grilled PB&J sandwich. It was awesome. The melty, gooey peanut butter, mellowed by the sweet, almost refreshing jelly...so, so good. It immediately made me want to eat as much peanut butter and jelly as I could...like, just on a spoon. Mouthful after mouthful...
**Side note - so I'm saying "jelly" because it sounds weird to me to say "PB&Jam", but really, what I'm offering you, is Jam (pureed fruit), not jelly (fruit juice).
Anyway, I realized why I had not been doing so, and was reminded as to why there's no jam/jelly in our fridge. Have you ever looked at the ingredients?! In one of my food science courses we made Jams and Jellies, and let me tell you, there was a lot more sugar and pectin going into those recipes than fruit. Which was so weird to me because fruit is already do awesomely sweet! Now, what you should know, is that the sugar is necessary to bind with the pectin to form the network of connections that gives you that gel-like consistency. However, I just felt like there HAD to be a better way. So, because I really wanted some PB&J, I made my own.
Sugar-free (except the natural sugars in the fruit, itself), and added-pectin-free (fruit naturally has pectin; it's what helps make your pies bind together a bit instead of just completely falling apart!). My version has no added sugar and the added bonus of omega-3s (yea, pretty awesome!). So get to it. And eat it, immediately, hot off the stove, with some rich peanut butter, on a....spoon.
Easy, Natural Jams
*I've got very little measurements for you because it will depend on your fruit of choice, cooking time (reducing), etc.
Fruit (I've done strawberries, blueberries, cherries, and grapes), maybe a cup?
Chia seeds - start with probably 1 Tbs.
lemon juice (optional)
honey/maple syrup (if you think it needs sweetening)
Chop/puree your fruit. This most recent time, I blended up my grapes until they were juice and a few lumps of un-processed grape bits. With strawberries, I just roughly chopped them and then mushed them up as they heated and softened; same thing with cherries. I just let the blueberries cook whole and soften.
Then, in a small saucepan, I poured in my grape mush and a Tbs of chia seeds, stirred, squirted in some lemon to brighten it up, and then heated over medium high heat until it began to simmer/boil. Stir occasionally, letting the chia seeds absorb the liquid and thicken, and some of the other liquid to evaporate. If it still looks really runny after a few minutes of gently boiling, add more chia seeds and mix. When you've reached your desired consistency, remove from the stove and consume or let cool before storing in the fridge!
*I used very sweet, dark purple grapes and needed NO additional sweetener. In fact, next time, I would probably either add more lemon juice or a mix of green and red/purple grapes to make it a bit more tart. If you're using something like strawberries that aren't super ripe or are less sweet, you may want to add a bit of honey or maple syrup. If you wanted to do something like rhubarb or apple, I would probably chop and cook/bake the fruit a bit first to get it nice and soft before adding the chia seeds and trying to let it become soft and gooey. Too much reducing or too many chia seeds can result in more of a paste than a jam (I've done it for pop tart fillings...a recipe for another day...); it will still taste good, but probably not be the consistency you want. Add gradually and just keep an eye on it so you can stop it when you're happy with the product. Really, it's only ever taken me maybe 5-10 minutes of cooking time. :)
Anyway, I realized why I had not been doing so, and was reminded as to why there's no jam/jelly in our fridge. Have you ever looked at the ingredients?! In one of my food science courses we made Jams and Jellies, and let me tell you, there was a lot more sugar and pectin going into those recipes than fruit. Which was so weird to me because fruit is already do awesomely sweet! Now, what you should know, is that the sugar is necessary to bind with the pectin to form the network of connections that gives you that gel-like consistency. However, I just felt like there HAD to be a better way. So, because I really wanted some PB&J, I made my own.
Sugar-free (except the natural sugars in the fruit, itself), and added-pectin-free (fruit naturally has pectin; it's what helps make your pies bind together a bit instead of just completely falling apart!). My version has no added sugar and the added bonus of omega-3s (yea, pretty awesome!). So get to it. And eat it, immediately, hot off the stove, with some rich peanut butter, on a....spoon.
Easy, Natural Jams
*I've got very little measurements for you because it will depend on your fruit of choice, cooking time (reducing), etc.
Fruit (I've done strawberries, blueberries, cherries, and grapes), maybe a cup?
Chia seeds - start with probably 1 Tbs.
lemon juice (optional)
honey/maple syrup (if you think it needs sweetening)
Chop/puree your fruit. This most recent time, I blended up my grapes until they were juice and a few lumps of un-processed grape bits. With strawberries, I just roughly chopped them and then mushed them up as they heated and softened; same thing with cherries. I just let the blueberries cook whole and soften.
Then, in a small saucepan, I poured in my grape mush and a Tbs of chia seeds, stirred, squirted in some lemon to brighten it up, and then heated over medium high heat until it began to simmer/boil. Stir occasionally, letting the chia seeds absorb the liquid and thicken, and some of the other liquid to evaporate. If it still looks really runny after a few minutes of gently boiling, add more chia seeds and mix. When you've reached your desired consistency, remove from the stove and consume or let cool before storing in the fridge!
*I used very sweet, dark purple grapes and needed NO additional sweetener. In fact, next time, I would probably either add more lemon juice or a mix of green and red/purple grapes to make it a bit more tart. If you're using something like strawberries that aren't super ripe or are less sweet, you may want to add a bit of honey or maple syrup. If you wanted to do something like rhubarb or apple, I would probably chop and cook/bake the fruit a bit first to get it nice and soft before adding the chia seeds and trying to let it become soft and gooey. Too much reducing or too many chia seeds can result in more of a paste than a jam (I've done it for pop tart fillings...a recipe for another day...); it will still taste good, but probably not be the consistency you want. Add gradually and just keep an eye on it so you can stop it when you're happy with the product. Really, it's only ever taken me maybe 5-10 minutes of cooking time. :)