happy 4th!
today i made strawberry jam with one of my daughters. i thought i would post the recipe here, just in case you, like me, have a ton of strawberries at home (mine are from a u-pick place, but maybe next year i can have home grown!):
4 cups strawberries
4 cups sugar
1 TBSP lemon juice
1 TBSP pectin
mush up strawberries or dice finely, then add sugar. pour in lemon juice and pectin. bring to a boil, then simmer for 5-10 minutes, stirring frequently. when finished, skim foam off top of mizture.
pour into hot sterilized jars and process in water bath canner.
this recipe made just shy of 3 pints- not great for the work involved, but i was told never to multiply a strawberry jam recipe or it will fail. last year, i did 4x whatever recipe i was using, and although it tasted great, i think the texture was a bit off… so, our jam is a work in progress- but i didn’t want to leave you hanging…
on other fronts: nothing.
we had people stop by on the way home from the parade today, and a few drive-by-and-wave people (sigh of relief!), but nothing noteworthy. our tomatoes and squash seem to be loving the heat, so that is kind of cool- i’m always relieved and somewhat baffled when i see the plants doing well, since i’m not exactly a master gardener… maybe my husband has some garden mojo i don’t know about???
anyway, off to make supper. enjoy yours! -julie
Jul 04, 2011 @ 19:05:24
This sounds good and I have about 30 lbs from strawberry patch( not from by garden, they never make it in the house) I really hope after you win this case you continue to do your blog. I really look forward to it! Glad today was more peaceful! Talk to you soon- Ryan
Jul 04, 2011 @ 22:24:56
Yum yum yum! You have to save a jar for me!
Jul 05, 2011 @ 06:02:14
Hi Julie
We went strawberry picking on Sunday. I’d send you some English grown strawberry’s although your local council would probably block it at customs!!!
Michoel
Jul 05, 2011 @ 12:41:55
oh dear, you criminal 😉 i’ll bet the kids loved that! and our local council would probably just eat them all themselves!
Jul 05, 2011 @ 12:49:01
done!
Jul 09, 2011 @ 00:13:48
I came here from an article and have been reading through all your posts. I don’t envy you the stress, but I applaud your courage. I was going to wait until I got to a post from today before I commented, but wanted to give you a hint about jam.
I regularly double/triple/whatever jam recipes. Essentially the problem is that it takes a LOT longer to make when you do that because you still need to reduce the liquid present, and the more liquid, the longer it takes to cook some of that out. At the same time, the berries cook longer. You might not like that. However, I do it all the time, and I never worry about how thick or thin my jam is because homemade jam is ALWAYS yummy! 🙂
Your recipe is great, although you don’t need the pectin if you don’t want to add it. You can be sure gardeners hundreds of years ago didn’t add it. Or they did by chopping a green apple or two and mixing it in the cooking procedure.
If you want to reduce the foam on top of your jam, many old-time preservers will tell you to add a dollop of butter (not margarine) to strawberry jam to reduce the foam produced. I’ve tried it and it works.
Good luck!
Jul 09, 2011 @ 07:33:08
What a great idea you just gave me. I can take my grand kids out to pick strawberries tomorrow. They really need to get off the video games and computers for a change.
Jul 10, 2011 @ 00:25:00
aha! thanks for the tips- can’t wait to try them next time 🙂 -julie