Strawberry Jam
Yesterday began my foray into canning. Saturday morning Sara and I went to the Hunts Strawberry Farm and hand picked fresh strawberries. (Anyone that wants to know where to pick your own, check out the NCFarmFresh.com website... that link takes you to a list of all the pick your own sites in NC). It was all kinds of fun to get there early, find our own rows and start picking. I picked two very large buckets full of berries. When I got home Saturday night I stayed up to wash and cap my berries and then I flash froze half while I set the other half in a bowl in the fridge to be made into jam later.
On a bit of a side note: If you want to freeze your berries and you don't want them in a massive clump in the bag, flash freeze them. You can line a cookie sheet with plastic wrap and then take the clean berries and line the cookie sheet with them in a single layer. Then slip the sheet into the freezer overnight. The next day take your berries and put them in a freezer safe bag. This way you can take out as many as you want or use them for frozen drinks, without having to take a knife and attack a giant frozen clump, ruining about half of the berries.
Anyhow, Sunday I was so tired from the weekend that I didn't get around to making my jam but I did eat a small bowl of the berries covered in sugar... they tasted FABULOUS! Monday after work I started my jam. It's a bit of a boring process, the jars have to be sterilized and kept hot, the lids boiled, and the berries mixed with sugar and the juice of one lemon have to be cooked. The whole process took about an hour and a half to two hours. But when it was over... I had six jars of my very own homemade strawberry jam! Now I'm dying to learn how to can so that I can work on my food storage. I think a portion of my next paycheck might just go towards buying fresh fruit and veggies so I can experiment with canning. Seriously, it's more rewarding than fun but in my opinion the rewarding part is all you need.
On a bit of a side note: If you want to freeze your berries and you don't want them in a massive clump in the bag, flash freeze them. You can line a cookie sheet with plastic wrap and then take the clean berries and line the cookie sheet with them in a single layer. Then slip the sheet into the freezer overnight. The next day take your berries and put them in a freezer safe bag. This way you can take out as many as you want or use them for frozen drinks, without having to take a knife and attack a giant frozen clump, ruining about half of the berries.
Anyhow, Sunday I was so tired from the weekend that I didn't get around to making my jam but I did eat a small bowl of the berries covered in sugar... they tasted FABULOUS! Monday after work I started my jam. It's a bit of a boring process, the jars have to be sterilized and kept hot, the lids boiled, and the berries mixed with sugar and the juice of one lemon have to be cooked. The whole process took about an hour and a half to two hours. But when it was over... I had six jars of my very own homemade strawberry jam! Now I'm dying to learn how to can so that I can work on my food storage. I think a portion of my next paycheck might just go towards buying fresh fruit and veggies so I can experiment with canning. Seriously, it's more rewarding than fun but in my opinion the rewarding part is all you need.
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