What a busy couple of weeks.
First there was my in-laws’ family reunion, followed by EPC’s Aunt and three cousins staying with us for a few days, topped off with strawberry picking and preserving, and then a BBQ at EPC’s Dad’s place.
I certainly got a lot done, but man am I tired!
Since we had company staying with us for a few days, I figured they needed something special for breakfast, so I made up some delicious Sunny Boy Whole Grain Muffins. I have been on a Sunny Boy cereal kick for the last few weeks, so I decided to take a look at the recipes on their website and came across a wonderful looking recipe for hearty (read: non-cupcake style) muffins.
I loved the muffins and so did the relations.
We enjoyed them with a dollop of homemade nectarine jam gifted to me by a coworker, as I didn’t make the strawberry jam until the weekend after they left.
The muffin recipe wasn’t followed exactly, because I was in a hurry and wasn’t paying attention to what I was doing. This can be a disaster when you are baking, but fortunately the recipe was saved by the addition of some large flake oats to soak up the extra milk. If you end up adding twice as much milk like I did, you can save the recipe by adding 2/3 cup large flake oats. In addition, I swapped out the all purpose flour for whole wheat.
And now on to the sweet stuff.
The strawberries were incredible.
I picked 50$ worth of strawberries in 45 minutes. Don’t ask me how many berries that equates to, but it was a lot and the picking was easy too. In case you live in the Edmonton area, I picked my berries at South Windermere Gardens.
Aside from berries for eating and freezing, I was able to get two batches of jam. Both jam recipes come straight off the Bernardin website. The first, No-Pectin Strawberry Jam (shown on the muffin pictured above) was made with the addition of unripe berries.
No pectin jams are nice, because you make them with a bit less sugar. You still need to add sugar though. I have made the mistake of trying to do it with less than the recommended amount of sugar and, trust me, it doesn’t really work so well.
The second jam I made was Strawberry Balsamic Jam.
It is to die for.
If you are looking for a different jam, this is the one to try. Bernardin recommends serving it with cheese and crackers, but it is also great with plain yogourt, slathered on fresh bread or by the spoonful.
I can’t wait to serve it to guests this winter as a sweet addition to a cheese tray!
Cookbook Cooks 