Strawberry Jam - Low Sugar - Instant Pot

One of the things I don't personally like about Weight Watchers is so many pre-made food are either high in points or if you want a lower point choice, you have to get the sugar free option. "Sugar-free" is a misnomer, really it means "artificial sweeteners." There are varying opinions on artificial sweeteners and which ones, if any are ok. I do eat them but I try to do it in moderation.

The other option, one I have often employed, is it make my own from scratch foods when I can that just use less real sugar or in some cases a sugar replacement, like monkfruit, that I am ok with.

With this in mind, I set out to make some low sugar strawberry jam in my trusty Instant Pot.

This jam is 1 point for up to 4 tablespoons, the recipe makes about 5 cups of jam.

Ingredients
4 quarts of strawberries, hulled and sliced in quarters
1/2 cup of sugar
1 medium lemon, juiced
4 tablespoons of cornstarch

Directions
Put strawberries in the bottom of Instant Pot, sprinkle sugar on them and stir. Allow the berries to sit in the sugar for 30-60 minutes. The sugar will draw out the juice from the berries.

Using a small strainer, squeeze the juice from the lemon on to the berries and stir. Set the Instant Pot to pressure cook, high, for 1 minute.

After the cooking cycle has completed, allow it to naturally release the pressure for 20-25 minutes. Should any pressure remain, you can quick release it.

Change the Instant Pot to saute, normal. Stir the berry mixture to break up any large strawberry pieces or if you want a less chunky jam, you can use a potato masher or immersion blender to get a smoother consistency. I prefer it with some berry chunks.

Scoop out about a cup of the berry mixture's liquid into a small bowl. Do this carefully as it's extremely hot. Wisk in the cornstarch until smooth. Return the corn starch mixture to the Instant Pot and stir well.

The mixture should begin to thicken, continue to stir until it's slightly thinner than jam and then turn off the heat. It will thicken a little bit more as it cools.

After it cools, pour it into jars or other containers and store it in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks or the freezer.

I split mine into several containers and put one in the fridge and the remaining ones in the freezer for future use. This jam is a little more tart than you will be used to with store purchased jams, if you want, you can add more sugar but it will increase the points per serving.

This blog is not affiliated with Weight Watchers in any way. This post may contain affiliate links, if you make a purchase using one of these links this blog may receive a small commission. Thank you for your support.

Pizza week continues - Sweet potato arugula

This recipe was actually the inspiration of pizza week. I saw a recipe on thekitchn for sweet potato arugula pizza (this is their photo, I did not get a shot of mine), which just sounded SO tasty. Normally, I don't break out new recipes when I'm cooking for other people, but I decided to make this when some friends came over, not for dinner exactly but weighty nibbles.

First, let me say that the flavor combination was excellent. The sweet potato and arugula are a perfect match. Next, let me say, this recipe did not work at all. The sweet potato do not cook nearly fast enough for them to be ready before the crust is anything other than burnt and I sliced them wafer thin. I highly recommend you make this but when you do, make sure to pre-cook the sweet potato until they are at least half-way cooked either by microwaving your slices or cooking them on the stove in a little bit of water. Seriously, I had to take all of the slices off the pizza, cook them more and put them back on. A royal pain in the bum.

When the munchies were finally ready, I had some very hungry guests (including me) but we all loved this. I would definitely make it again but with pre-cooking my sweet potatoes.

Fresh pesto

Basil leaves are so aromatic they call your name as you walk past, or so I assume, I've never walked past without stopping for a sniff. The plants trumpet the delights of fresh pesto, caprese salad and real napoli pizza.

My basil plant started growing like crazy, especially considering the small pot it calls home. It was growing so much, I had to buy a food processor, seriously, it was a requirement. Plus I found an amazing deal for a small Cuisinart food processor online and now I can make hummus too.

I made just enough to use for one large serving of pasta or about a 1/4 cup.

Ingredients:
20-30 basil leaves
1 clove of garlic
~3 tablespoons of olive oile
2 tablespoons of pine nuts (or walnuts)
1/4 Parmesan or Romano cheese
sprinkling of sea salt

equipment: food processor

Place nuts and garlic and cheese in food process and chop them up. When they are corsely chopped, add salt and basil leaves and pour small amount of olive on top, reserving additional oil to add later (it helps coat the leaves and get them to settle down toward the blades). Chop until fine and well mixed, adding additional olive oil as needed.

Perfection. Or it will be next time - I used way too much garlic, as in 3 cloves, so all I could taste was garlic. When I was breaking apart the head of garlic three stray cloves broke off and I just decided to use them all, because I like crazy amounts of garlic but not that much. I have hope for the next rendition and am contemplating buying another basil plant.

Look for my end of summer post on how to preserve pesto for use during the winter months, after the of season basil harvest.

Pesto is great on pasta, sandwiches, toast with cheese and a variety of other uses. Enjoy the summer!

Slow cooker ribs - dinner success! Diet fail!

I've been staring at ribs at the grocery store all summer. More than once I put them in my cart, wheeled them around while I did my shopping and then decided to return them to the meat section. They can be a bit pricey and I felt they were impractical for one person because the packages are so large! But earlier this week at my local Safeway (or un-safeway as it's known around DC), they had country style pork ribs for .99/lb. I couldn't pass it up, so I bought some (5lbs!) and took them home.

I had no idea what to do with them.

I don't remember ever eating ribs until my mom married my step-dad. He makes a mean rack of ribs - bar-be-cued, beer marinated, slow-cooked or smoked, they're always delicious.

They seemed a good match for the crock pot, they could slowly cook and become tender and juicy while I was at work. After my numerous crock pot disasters, I did not want to risk messing up my ribs so I called mom to get rib advice. She told me to broil them before I put them in the crock pot but otherwise there wasn't anything special I needed to do except cover them with bbq sauce.

So one night I set out on my rib adventure. I rubbed them with garlic, sea salt and paprika. I would have also used pepper but I was out! I set the oven to broil and cooked them 8-10 minutes on each side. Alright, one side was a little longer because I got distracted and forgot to take them out. Oops.

I let them cool a bit and placed them in my crock pot. I poured BBQ on top and a little bit of water, maybe 1/2 cup. I put the crock pot in the refrigerator for the night and then in the cooker the next morning before work. I turned it on low to cook while I was gone, it was about 9 hours before I got home.

Results? They were fantastic. I had made 2.5lbs and put the rest in the freezer. For dinner that night I think I ate a pound of pork. Did I mention I'm on a diet? Yea a pound of pork for dinner is a huge diet failure but it was good I could not help myself. I think I could have eaten all 2.5lbs in one sitting.

I should have probably put a little more liquid in the crock pot because the exposed parts of the ribs got a little charred looking but even the charred bits tasted amazing. I can't wait to make the other half but I should probably wait a few weeks, since I'm supposed to be dieting...

Don't 'trifle' with me

I set out on a mission to make a "simple & summery" dessert to take to a Sunday BBQ. Apparently I made a trifle. I wasn't sure what to christen my creation but my friend assured me given the creamy layers it was a trifle. She lived in France for a while and is an expert in all things pastry, so I trust her judgment.

The trifle was a big hit. I was a little surprised when I had an empty bowl to take home because it was pretty big and not the only dessert at the BBQ of 10 odd people. I'm taking it as a compliment, though I would not minded having some for lunch today.

Strawberry Summer Trifle

1 3.4 oz box chocolate instant pudding (small box)
1 3.4 oz box vanilla instant pudding (small box)
4 cups of milk, divided
1 container of whipped topping, divided
8 oz cream cheese, divided
1 quart of strawberries, hulled & sliced
12-14 graham crackers

Equipment: Large glass bowl/serving dish, rolling pin

Using 2 cups of milk, mix chocolate pudding according to package directions in a medium sized container (allow space for additional ingredients to be added). Following the same directions mix the vanilla pudding in a separate container. Allow both puddings set. Mix 4 oz of cream cheese and 1/3 of the container of whipped cream into each pudding flavor until well blended (you can use a whisk but a hand mixer works better).

Place graham crackers in a zip-lock bag. Close the bag tightly, removing all the air. Crush the graham crackers into roughly dime-sized pieces using a rolling pin.

Layer the ingredients in a glass container until it's either full or you run out. The straw berries should be pushed up against the glass so you can see them clearly from the outside. The layers should be in the following order:

graham cracker
chocolate filling
strawberries
vanilla filling
repeat until container is full or ingredients are exhasted. Top with remaining whipped topping and sprinkle with small amount of graham crackers and garnish with strawberry.

You can make this a day in advance, but it should be prepared at least 2-3 hours ahead of time to make sure it's properly chilled.

Sensational Summer Sangria

Sangria is amazing on a hot summer day - fruity, refreshing and sinful. It'll also get you schnokered.

This isn't exactly your classic sangria but it's a delicious flavor blend that I dare you not to love. It was a big hit at my last BBQ at least, even the more "macho" attendees were forgoing the iced beer in favor of this fruity fare.

Sensational Summer Sangria
1 bottle red wine (something not too dry and not too pricey)
32 oz citrus flavored sparkling water (I used tangerine-lime flavor)
4-6 shots of tequila (or a little more or a little less)
1 lemon
2 orange

Pour the wine, sparkling water and tequila in a punch bowl. Slice lemon and oranges, squeeze their juice into the bowl and toss them in.

After I made the first batch and had a sample glass, I immediately left for the liquor store to buy more tequila because I knew there would a second batch needed. Typically sangria would be a rum drink but I feel that tequila is in the "tropical family" and therefore acceptable. The flavored water replaces the juice some recipes call for but adds a nice fizz, which is remarkably refreshing on a hot day.

Salut!

It's summer (almost)!

Ahhh...summer! Summer is potentially the best season for eating, fresh produce abounds and I'm tempted to while away the days in a hammock eating fresh fruit or sit on a picnic bench with some BBQ. sigh.

Misty daydreams about summer perfection aside, the season offers ample opportunity to enjoy inexpensive, quality fruits and vegetables. With this in mind, I recently attended a BBQ - the first of many of the season, hopefully - and made one of my favorite deserts for the occasion, fruit pizza.

Fruit pizza is something of a modern classic, or so I feel and it's the perfect treat on a summer day. It's fresh and cool to the taste and takes advantage of the season's bounty. That's right, I said bounty. I'm feeling very nostalgic or something today. When my mom would make fruit pizza, my sister and I would gorge ourselves on it, arguing that it is really only good for 2 days.

Fruit pizza

Crust (can be made ahead & frozen):

4 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup butter
1/4 cup white sugar

Press crust into the bottom of a 9x13 pan and bake 10-12 minutes at 350 degrees, or until lightly brown.

Sauce:
8oz cream cheese
3TB sugar
1/4 fruit juice (orange, pineapple, apple)

Blend all ingredients together and spread evenly over crust.

Topping:
3+ different types of fruit, sliced (I recommend the combination pineapple, strawberry and banana)

Sprinkle fruit slices over sauce until desired coverage is reached.

Glaze (keeps fruit fresh):
1/2 cup fruit juice (orange, pineapple, apple)
1TB of corn starch

Mix fruit juice and cornstarch in small sauce pan and cook on medium heat until it thickens, about 5-8 minutes. Drizzle glaze over fruit.

Eat within 2 days, 3 maximum.


Tips & tricks

1. If you use canned pineapple in its own juice (not syrup) there will be enough juice to make your glaze and sometimes also the sauce
*If you're in a hurry, you can use pre-made sugar cookie dough and will get more or less the same result, just be careful of the baking time.

2. I think it goes without saying, but some fruit will hold up better than others. If you use bananas or apples make sure to get each of them with a dab of the glaze to keep them from turning brown.

3. If you're feeling fancy you can also make this as individual tarlets. Make your crust in a greased muffin pan, letting them cool before trying to take them out, then spread (or pipe if super fancy) the sauce in and top with fruit. These really make a lovely impression but are slightly more work.

4. Take care not to let the glaze get too thick or it will be very gelatinous on the top of the pizza. In the one pictured above, I let it cook just a little bit too long.

Guacamole weekend

I ate enough guacamole this weekend to make up for not eating it my entire life. wow. I bought 5 avocados last week and 4.5 went into guacamole. Why would I buy 5 avocados you may ask? Well, I like avocado (a lot) and they were on sale for a $1. Ok, they're on sale for a $1 like every two weeks but these were actually good, not ones that had been sitting around for a week and were over-ripe.

Moving on, I think I tried every possible incantation of Jess' guacamole recipe. When I was at the store buying my ingredients, I was talking on the phone...yes, I was THAT person...which was a bad idea, because I forgot something - the lime.

Jess and I had a whole text conversation about the lime juice and if it was actually important, poor Jess has become my guac consultant. I asked her if I could just use a little OJ instead, you know still citrus and will prevent the guac from oxidizing (ie turn brown). Jess was anti-adding OJ, too much sugar. Did I do it anyway? Yea...and I'll be honest, I don't think it mattered much. The little splash of OJ I used did not really add that much sugar and I'm sure it was useful in preventing oxidation.

Jess's recipe is:

I omitted onions in all versions. ewww!

Guac round #1 (2 avocados, Friday night)
Jess' recipe with OJ for lime juice

Round #1 was pretty tasty, I had some friends over Friday night and they hardly touched the guac. Ok it was pretty soon after dinner, but basically I ended up eating it all myself and it was a huge bowl.

Guac round #2 (1 avocado, Saturday night)
OJ for lime juice and no Jalapeno

This was just for me, and I was feeling lazy...do I really need to cut up Jalapeno? I decided no. This one was the worst, I guess it needs a little zest, even if I don't particularly like spicy food.

Guac round #3 (.5 avocado, Sunday afternoon)
Jess' recipe

Around this time I was tired of guac, especially since the two times I had made it were less than fabulous but I had all those avocados in the fridge! So in the morning I made it to the store and bought a lime and it really made a difference. This was amazing and I remembered why I could not stop eating it at Jess' house! The lime juice gave it a fresh quality that it was just missing without it.

Guac round #4 (1 avocado, Sunday night)
Jess' recipe

Yes it was so good I made more later the same day, that 1/2 an avocado was just not enough! I think the photos is this version - doesn't it look deliciously chunky? Oh looking at it make me want guac again!?!

Just goes to show you, don't mess with perfection and sometimes it's worth it to go all the way back to the store to get that one item you forgot.