Sneak Peek: Golden Raspberry Jam

I am so excited to be offering three new flavors to the selection of Jams that I will be making for the 2012 Jam season. That will mean there will be 12 Jam flavors for this year!!!

The first one I'm letting you get a sneak peek at is Golden Raspberry.

A little History

The first spring here in our home, Steve went to the local hardware store and picked up three berry plants for a container garden we built on the side of the house. Two raspberry and one Black Raspberry. We planted the Black Raspberry in the middle of the raspberry plants and anxiously waited for the Summer fruit!! To our surprise though, one of the raspberry plants fruit was this pale pink, almost white. The flavor was sweeter than a red raspberry but didn't think anything of it. When we picked the berries, we put all the Black Raspberries together and the Red and "white" together. So when I made red raspberry jam, it didn't taste any different to us but the color was slightly different. We were surprised to see that this plant continued to produce fruit into the fall.

a few berries from our garden

Doing a little research I learned that the "white" raspberry was really Golden and of the Ever-bearing variety. These berries are much sweeter than a Red Raspberry and the plant produces fruit from Summer into Fall making it a great plant for a garden.

Test Batch

Thanks to the crazy winter of 2010-2011, we only got about 1/4 cups worth of Golden Raspberries. Nowhere near enough to make a
batch for selling, let alone gift giving to family. So I held onto them until things quieted down and I could make a small batch for us to taste. I barely got an 8 ounce jar out of the berries but...

Oh, my!! If you like Raspberry Jam, but not so much the tartness of Red Raspberry you will LOVE this Golden Raspberry Jam. It tastes like honey, with a very slight undertone of raspberry tartness. Truly amazing when it warms on toast.

With the crocus already blooming here (opened up today) I am very nervous to see what the berry season is going to be like and am hopeful that I will have enough of these beautiful little gems to make a batch of Golden Raspberry Jam for you!!

feeling blue

Even though we're all slowly but surely coming down with this stomach bug, the boys and I were very excited to give Daddy his Valentine gift!!

A few weeks back, I bought some Turtles from a fellow Etsy teammate, Stacey and just knew they'd be the perfect thing for my husband for Valentine's Day. It was simple, sweet and something he loves but rarely ever eats.

Armed with a box I found on clearance and pink construction paper we'd cut into thin stips with the paper cutter (it's buried under all that paper in the background...she's a workhorse!), Connor and Liam got started on crumpling the paper to make a nest for these sweet little treats. The boys had also worked on handmade cards for Dad earlier in the week and were absolutely thrilled to be able to put their mark on Daddy's gift.

We cut an entire sheet of construction paper and had enough strips left to hide his surprise with some ribbons of paper on top.

For our family, we've always celebrated quietly. Steve's favorite thing was to cook dinner for me for Valentine's Day since I cook most other days. An honest, sincere gesture that shows how much he appreciates me, by cooking for me. I was confident that even though this gift was small, it was going to be greatly appreciated. He absolutely loved them!! As a matter of fact, he's hiding them so he can enjoy them slowly...
 Sadly though, he wasn't able to cook me a special Valentine meal because half of the family is still not eating most foods. I feel terrible that we're still under the weather, but I know he will have his chance to cook me a delicious meal and I look forward to that day. Being Valentine's Day, I decided that if we were going to have homemade Mac n' Cheese, I'd make it Special!! While the sauce was coming together nicely, I added a few drops of food coloring and dyed the cheese sauce pink... Happy Valentine's Day!!

I hope you all had a chance to spend some time with the one's you love this Valentine's Day, which as we all know is celebrated every day when we tell them that we love them!

Coming up later this week: Sneak peek at a New Jam flavor and Sandwich pocket recipe

"fruit on the bottom" Yogurt cups

Here's a fun way to use your favorite Fruitful Delights jam, make your own "fruit on the bottom" yogurt cups!!

If you really want it to be completely homemade, you can also make your own yogurt. I've heard it's amazing and you can make it to whatever thickness you like. I included a link to a recipe, if you'd like to try it. If you do, please let me know how it is. I haven't had a chance to try making my own yet.

 "fruit on the bottom" yogurt cups

Here's what you need:

about 6 ounces of your favorite plain yogurt
a jar of jam (i'm using Red Raspberry)
a container to store it in

Super Easy!!
All you need to do is spoon out about 3 ounces of yogurt into the bottom of the container (I'm using a ball canning jar because I have lots of them, but any container with a good sealing lid will work).

Carefully spoon your jam on top of the yogurt. You can use as little or as much jam as you'd like to give your yogurt the fruity flavor you desire.

Then top with more yogurt. Of course you can put the jam anywhere you'd like in the jar. On the bottom for the real "fruit on the bottom" or even on the top!! I topped mine with some crunchy Grape Nuts cereal making it a wonderful parfait.


Here's the Homemade Yogurt recipe I found on the simple dollar. She does hers in the crock pot, which makes trying this even more appealing!!

Do you have a favorite homemade yogurt recipe? Have you tried this recipe? I'd love to hear your thoughts on any great healthy homemade recipes! Feel free to post in the Comments below

Comfort food to the rescue

Having two kids pretty close together has had it's challenges, just like anything in life. There are highs and lows and sometimes those lows leave us feeling pretty defeated. We as a family seem to be (for the first time ever) in a cycle of sick kids. Connor out of the clear blue developed RSV and a double ear infection at the same time. Three days later, little Liam wasn't himself, it turned out to not be sickness instead it's his two year molars. Around and around we have gone with the sniffles, dribbles and cranky kids, all of which seems to run relatively smoothly until Liam picked up a stomach bug. My heart broke for this little person, who wasn't afraid of what was going on to him. Steve and I were frantically trying to get him and his bed changed in the middle of the night and the whole time he was saying "okay" and "thank you". Even with his maturity and grace in this situation, for me, it felt like I'd been balancing all of my dishes on my head and this new "plate" brought the whole stack crashing to the floor.

Two days into his feeling icky, I too was feeling wiped out. I can't take this away, make him feel like himself and it breaks my heart seeing him so ill. Sleepless nights have been spent listening to the baby monitor for his stomach to change it's mind about what he'd eaten, even though all day he's kept his B.R.A.T diet food down.

Thursday, we decided we'd make Breakfast for dinner. There's something so comforting about having Pancakes, Eggs, French Toast or any of your favorite breakfast foods, for dinner. So at 11am, I was able to sneak away from the little ones and get the Bread Machine going on some dough for our favorite, Egg Bread recipe. I have tried using the Bread Machine for the entire bread making process, but have found the crust to be a little too crunchy. So I just use the dough cycle and then I let it rise and bake it in the oven.

Fresh, homemade bread is the BEST for French Toast!! You can slice the loaf to your desired thickness, the bread has a heartier consistency so it doesn't get mushy when dipped in the egg mixture and it tastes amazing.

Just the smell of cinnamon in the kitchen was renewing my spirits. Making me feel as though this last week hadn't been as hard on all of us as it had felt. Liam was given one slice, which he ate most of (which was great!), Connor ate 3 slices!! He was a hungry little hippo. A few hours after dinner, with our bellies full and our spirits high, we engaged in a fun game of "keepaway" with a plush basketball. They were chasing each other, blocking, tackling, whatever they could do to get a hold of that ball. It was a wonderful evening filled with smiles and lots of Laughter.

I am amazed at how a simple dinner of egg, flour, sugar, salt, yeast and milk could have such a renewing factor on this family's spirit. Comfort Food. Sometimes that's all it takes.

If you'd like my recipe for Egg Bread, please let me know. I'd love to share it with you!

Not your Grandma's Jam

This fall after we'd picked somewhere around 70 pounds of apples, I had my recipes all lined up of what I wanted to make. Of course there was Apple Butter and Applesauce (my kids LOVE my applesauce), even Apple Peach Jam. After all of that, I still had quite a few apples left so I went digging for something different! I came across this recipe in an old cookbook of mine and it sounded intriguing.

The apples were only slightly cooked, still skinned and cut into bite size pieces. Raisins and Walnuts were the other two main stars of this "Jam". I had to try it! The method of preparing this particular product was a bit different for me, but the end result was something extraordinary. I call it Apple Conserve and it is amazing when served with pork or lamb instead of Mint Jelly.

Having nut allergies in the family, I was very concerned about selling it in my Etsy shop, fearing someone may not see that it contains walnuts. The views of it have been wonderful and I've been amazed that I haven't just sold one jar, but someone came back for a second.

The out pour of support from both Etsy and Facebook has just been so wonderful. I really look forward to announcing the new flavors for Fruitful Delights 2012 season this April. I will have all of the flavors that I currently make, as well as a few new ones and I will also be making many of my flavors in Sugar-Free versions!

Check back on Friday for my post about Sandwich pockets...it was an interesting experiment!

Homemade PopTarts

I haven't had a PopTart in what seems like 20 years, but I'm sure it hasn't been that long. How could you go wrong with sweet gooey jam wedged between two pieces of pastry!!
I've been thinking of recipes to show how to use Fruitful Delights jam in ways other than a sandwich...there are so many different things you could do. Hoping for guidance with some recipes to work off of, my sister emailed me and told me to check out foodgawker . I must warn you, it can be quite addicting and I recommend looking at it on a full stomach!! (you've been officially warned) After drooling over the amazing photos of these delicious treats, I came across a recipe for Homemade PopTarts. Her recipe is slightly varied and I included the link at the bottom of this post with the recipe.
For someone who isn't an avid baker with pastry, it can seem a little scary, but it's not! Super easy.

 Homemade PopTarts adapted recipe from Will Cook For Friends

Here's what you need:

1 - ready to use, store bought pie crust
2 - Rolling pin
3 - Your favorite flavor of Fruitful Delights jam (we used Peach)
4 - a fork, a knife and a spoon


Let your pie crust come to room temperature. You can use homemade pie crust if you'd like (half a full recipe) but I lost my pie crust making mojo years ago!
With your rolling pin, gently roll the pie crust out to thin it and make a rectangular shape (if you can).
Cut the pie crust into even rectangles. Here's where you go with the flow. Depending on the size of your pie crust and how big of a tart you want, you can get anywhere from 3 to 6 finished tarts. Since I was doing this with my kitchen elf, I kept it simple and cut out 6 rectangles (see photo below)

You can take the excess scraps and make additional pieces by rolling them together, but 4 year olds don't always wait.

Using a Tablespoon, carefully spoon out HALF a spoonful onto three rectangles. Do this twice. Jam is pretty thick and by doing it in smaller amounts gives you more control of where it ends up. Gently spread to even it out. Keep it at least a half an inch from the edges. (see photo to right)

Carefully place the other three slices on top of the jam and press the edges together, stretching the dough if needed. To be sure I had as little oozing of jam goodness as possible, Connor crimped the edges with our fork.

Depending on how many of these you're able to make, you may want to keep the rectangles you aren't using in the refrigerator to keep the pastry cold, but it's pretty cool in our house and we had no troubles with it.
 
Then carefully wrap each tart in plastic wrap and freeze until completely frozen 2-3 hours. You need to be sure that the jam filling is completely frozen so the inside cooks evenly with the crust.

Once they're completely frozen, and you're ready to bake, preheat the oven to 325 degrees and line a baking sheet with foil or parchment paper. Remove each tart from the plastic wrap and put on the cookie sheet, leaving space between them.

If you'd like an additional crunch, you can do an egg white wash and sprinkle some sugar on top of them before putting into the oven.

Bake 20-25 minutes or until the tops are golden and bubbly.

Let cool 5-10 minutes before eating...I'd make a double batch of this next time...there wasn't even a chance to take a picture of one with a bite taken from it. Amazing!!

I love that they can be made to suit anyone's tastes...

You could: make a glaze for the tops (like the toaster kind), sprinkles, any flavor jam or jelly, make them any size you wanted...

It's not even necessary to bake them completely. Let's say you don't want to eat them today, you could bake them partially and refreeze them. Then when you wanted to have one, just pop it in the toaster oven or microwave. I wouldn't recommend the toaster in case of filling oozing out.

Simple, delicious and fun to make. Enjoy!

What motivates me

As a parent, I want the best for my kids. And for us, that started with a healthy relationship with food. My kids have to fight genetics (diabetes runs in my family) and it was so important for us to lay a solid foundation for them when it came to food.

Meals that I make from scratch is one of the most important ways I can show my family that I love them, but it does not mean I have to slave over the stove for half the day. What it does mean is lots of fruits and veggies! Every day starts with a bowl of fruit, either with or without a whole grain cereal. They're kids, so they snack on things like animal crackers and Goldfish, not cookies and chocolate bars. I'd love to hope that when Connor is 12 and he's hungry between meals, he'd choose an apple or banana over a bag of chips...


We have a vegetable garden. Actually it's a few of them, scattered on our small piece of property, where we grow tomatoes, green beans and bell peppers. We also grow parsley, basil, chives and lettuce. It is so great to be able to make homemade sauce for spaghetti! I fill it with onions, tomatoes, fresh basil and parsley and when we have them in the fridge, carrots. I found making meals from scratch gave me control over how many veggies I could pack into each meal and that was so great!

bread maker ready to go!

So when my husband surprised me with a Bread Maker for our 5th Anniversary (I love practical gifts!) I was SO excited!! Reading article after article on the benefits of homemade bread from Money Saving Mom, I was amazed at how simple it was. One more thing I could do for my kids...what kid doesn't love a sandwich and now I don't have to worry about the bread having too much sugar in it.



Knowing how many preservatives, sugar and salt are in pre-packaged foods is what moved me towards starting Fruitful Delights. This is my chance to offer you all a little taste of the wholesome goodness that I offer my family.

Connor helping make scones

The world moves so quickly and it's so easy to get lost in it. Taking 30 minutes to make Homemade Mac n' Cheese (with steamed cauliflower thrown in) helps me slow it down and enjoy my kids while they're still young. Cooking is a great way to spend time with your kids too! You can teach them math, the importance of patience, hand-eye coordination and the joy on their faces when the meal is complete and they can see that they were a part of it, priceless!!
I hope you have a chance to roll up your sleeves and make something for someone special!