We have these fabulous friends that up and moved two states away recently. Two whole states! Thankfully, they have occasions to come back and even drive through our state on their way to see their daughter. We joke that our house is their unofficial B&B. But, we weren’t going to be home on her last visit for a family event, we left about an hour after she arrived. Good thing we had an hour. I had her favorites on hand: Diet Coke, muffins and 3 Musketeers Bars.
She left us a yummy surprise, homemade strawberry jam! From strawberries she picked herself no less! We tried to ration the jar, really we did, but it was gone way too fast.
So here I am staring at the empty jar missing that jam, and my sweet friend.
I had a half full container of strawberries in the refrigerator and daydreamed about making jam. But how? Surely it wasn’t that hard; but I didn’t want to stand over a hot stove stirring for a long time. It’s hot in my corner of the world right now and it’s only going to get hotter. We have a fun little cooking school nearby where I’d taken a scone and curd class. The instructor also showed us how to make jam in the Instant Pot. I added strawberries to my grocery list and off I went. Major sad face in the produce section though, the strawberries were awful. Like, even grocery store awful. I stood there for a minute contemplating ditching my entire list and heading to Sprouts right then and there but food for the week was much more important than two pounds of strawberries. At least I told myself that as I picked up everything I needed.
Before I got in line to pay I went back to the produce section. Yep, the strawberries were still really bad but the blueberries looked really good and they were on sale! I grabbed a big container and skipped to the checkout line. Surely making blueberry jam was going to be as easy as strawberry.
Thankfully it was. Silly me didn’t take enough pictures during the process so it’ll be a blog post all on it’s own. Suffice it to say, I can’t believe I’ve never made it before. When it was all said and done, I had three and a half jars. Thankfully it’s freezable but I still wanted to make something with this fancy new homemade delight.
My favorite raspberry dessert, old world raspberry bars, jumped into my head. Even better, I already had all the ingredients! I love it when that happens.
I love this recipe because of how quick and easy it is to put together. It bakes a while but that means the house smells really good! If you have little ones that like to help in the kitchen, this is a great recipe for them to be involved in. It’s also a snap to make in the RV. You’ll have neighbors smelling them bake from the oven vent if you have the micro-convection oven. I think that’s a great way to meet the neighbors in your RV neighborhood.
Heat the oven to 350 and grab a bowl. Chop the pecans, not too finely because you don’t want pecan crumbs. Coarsely chopped is probably the best term here.
Combine the flour, sugar, softened butter, pecans and egg in a bowl and beat until well mixed.
Set aside 1 1/2 cups of the mixture and press the rest into a greased pan. You can use and 8-inch square pan or a pie plate. I use an 11 x 7 dish that works perfectly, both at home and in the RV.
Spread the jam on the mixture going close to the edge, but not touching the pan. Drop pieces of the remaining mixture on top of the preserves.
Bake 45-50 minutes until lightly browned. Y’all know me well enough to know that I could not wait to try a piece. It was heavenly. If you can wait, cool completely before cutting.
Blueberry Crumble Bars
- 2 1/4 cups flour
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 cup butter or margarine, softened
- 1 egg
- 1 cup chopped pecans
- 10 ounces (3/4 cup) blueberry jam
Heat oven to 350. Combine all ingredients except preserves. Beat at low speed, scraping bowl often, until well mixed. Reserve 1 1/2 cups of mixture and set aside. Press remaining mixture into a greased 8-inch square or 8″ pie plate. Spread preserves to within 1/2 inch of edge. Crumble reserved mixture over preserves.
Bake 40-50 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool completely. Cut into bars or pie pieces. Great heated with ice cream on top.