Thursday, May 9, 2013

Making Granny Proud: my strawberry freezer jam experiment

On Monday of this week I learned that the strawberry patch we went to before was lowering their prices to get some ripe berries picked.  So...at the last minute the kids and I went out to the strawberry fields.  A few friends joined us and we had a great time driving out to the Montezuma countryside.  The weather was a little on the cool side, but it was so nice to be outdoors.  The kids helped me pick a little, but they mostly had fun just running around, playing on the seesaws, and eating some of the delicious strawberry ice cream.  Days like that are the ones I want to take slow...freeze in time.  Soak it in.

I ended up picking about 5 lbs of strawberries that day and my plan was to try to make some strawberry freezer jam.  I had heard that it was a little less complicated than jelly (no jar or lid boiling).  It took me a while to start cutting my fruit up, but by Tuesday I knew I had to get down to business if it was going to happen.  So after I had lunch cooking, I got busy!

I was able to use some recycled jelly jars...which was great!  Another great thing was that my berries are pesticide, fungicide, and herbicide free.  So I know that this will be better option for us.  Here is the recipe I used:

Strawberry Freezer Jam
4 cups crushed fresh strawberries (I had trouble crushing mine by hand, so I put them in the blender....so they were really mushy.  I left a few unblended, so that helped chunk it up a little.)
2 1/2 cups sugar (the recipe called for 3 cups, but I only had 2 1/2...so that's all I used.  My jam is definitely sweet enough!)
1 (1.75 oz) package of dry pectin (I used the SureJell that you can do less sugar with...I think it's a pink package in the jello section)
3/4 cup water
*I also squeezed the juice of one lemon in there...just because I thought it would give it some extra flavor.  I think it worked because I can kind of taste the nice lemon flavor in there...but not too much so it's not too sour.  It's optional, though, and not on the original recipe.*

Mix berries with sugar and let them stand for 10 min.  Stir pectin in water in small saucepan.  Bring to a boil over med-high heat.  (and keep stirring it...I stopped for a minute and it started trying to stick) Boil 1 minute.  Stir the boiling water/pectin into the berries.  Let it stand for 3 min. before pouring it into containers.  Place tops on containers and leave 24 hours.  Place in freezer until ready to use.

I just took my jar with the small amount out a few minutes ago to taste.  I made a piece of toast.  My jam was kind of like a frozen slushy.  I'm not sure if I'm supposed to take it out and refridgerate it when I'm ready to use it or not.  I guess I'll figure that out : ).  But it was still good a little cold.  The warm toast helped "melt" it a little. 

My Granny is the ultimate jelly maker.  She has even gone out into the woods by her house, picked wild grapes and made jelly out of it!  Amazing!  She's done some jelly making tutorials with me before, but I've always been a little intimidated to try it myself.  This was a good first step!  I'm going to try and take her a little sample of my strawberry jam this weekend for Mother's Day...I hope I make her proud. : )

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