I love cooking fruit jam. Back in Canada on our farm I had access to a lot of fruit: raspberries, red and white currants, plums and grapes grew on our farm, I bought strawberries, cherries and apricots, and always cooked plenty of jam for our own use and to give away. My favorites were raspberry jelly, red currant jelly and an experiment I once tried - a combination of strawberry, raspberry and gooseberry (VERY good - sweet and tart all in one).
Now that we're on Maui, I'm confused. I can't figure out the fruit growing seasons. From what I can tell, you can get local Kula (upcountry Maui) grown strawberries year round (I could be wrong). Some days I go to farmers' markets and they have papayas, other times they have mangoes, but I haven't figured out the seasons and am a little too embarrassed to ask. Once I found lilikois (passion fruit) - fortunately I bought two bags of them that time, because I haven't seen them since. I used them to make lilikoi-papaya jam. It was amazing! The Lilikoi added just the right amount of tartness to the otherwise bland papaya jam.
Lilikoi. I squeezed the juice through a sieve - a little labor intensive, but worth the work.
The unthinkable has happened - we have run out of jam, so today I made peach jam. I think the peaches are from California, but it tastes good. One jelly I am eager to try is Roasted Pineapple Jelly - I saw a jar of it at Ono Gelato and am intrigued....
