Strawberry Jam Time

Hey There,

This post has nothing to do with stamping, but does have to do with another passion of mine, preserving food.   Whether freezing, dehydrating or canning, it’s very comforting to me.

Reminder regarding ordering from the brand new Stampin’ Up! catalog on June 1, 2012.   Ordering will be down until 12:00 noon Mountain Time while they switch over to the new catalog products.   After that we can order all those new products!!!!!   There are so many sets I cannot wait to get my hands on.

So in the mean time. . . . .

As you can tell I’ve been jamming, lol.  Strawberry jam that is.

I have made a few batches now.  My little strawberry patch, which is full of June barring strawberry plants has been a bit confused by the very mild and warm Spring we have been having.  So my June barriers gave me wonderful strawberries in May instead.

This is my little strawberry patch.  Nothing fancy, but it works for us.

We get a good bunch of berries every day.  Yummy!

So, with Russ and I picking berries everyday we needed to do something with them.   I did freeze a couple of batches of clean strawberries.  That’s the easiest thing to do to preserve them.  All you need to do is wash and hull them.  Put them on a cookie sheet lined with freezer paper so they don’t touch each other.  Put the cookie sheet in your freezer until the berries are frozen solid and then put the berries in a freezer bag, squeeze the air out and continue freezing the berries for up to 6 months.   Great to throw in those smoothies.

My favorite thing to do with strawberries is make jam.  I’ll walk you through my process.

Ingredients:

8 cups strawberries, hulled and halved if large

2 cups sugar

1/4 cup bottled lemon juice

Okay, here we go. . . . .

Clean and hull your berries.  Cut them up into a bowl, add the sugar and stir it in.   Cover and refrigerate the berries over night to coax out the wonderful berry juice.

Boil your jars and lids to sterilize them.

Put the berry/sugar mixture in a non-reactive deep pan.   Bring to a boil, stirring and crushing the berries.  Stir in the lemon juice.  Continue to cook, stirring frequently until the jam reaches the desired gel point, about 25 minutes.  Remove the pan from the heat and then let it rest for 5 minutes.    Skim the foam off of the top of the jam and then fill your jars, leaving 1/2″ head room.   Put your lids on.

Process using the boiling water method for 10 minutes with the lid on.  Turn the heat off and remove the lid and let the jars set in the canner for another 5 minutes.

Remove the jars from the water and let set for 24 hours.  Check seals, label and store.   Yummy!

I used my cricut machine and cut these cute little strawberry tags and used them as my labels.  Punched a hole in the strawberry and ran twine through and around the lid to attach them to my jars.

Gotta love Spring time and Strawberry Jam.   This is good on ice cream too!

Until my next post. . . . .  . . .

Hugs,

Get ready for Brayer and Direct to Paper Workshops!  I am coming to the following locations, click the location name for more information.