strawberry jam...

This picture makes my mouth water a little. My family loves homemade strawberry jam. Growing up, we would always go to the local strawberry farm (45-50 minutes away) and spend a morning picking many many pounds of strawberries. We would then stop in town on our way back home and pick up the supplies needed to make strawberry jam. The rest of the afternoon into the night was spent cleaning berries and making strawberry jam. Growing up my brothers and I would complain about this whole process a lot. I even remember trying to pretend to be sick one year so I didn't have to go pick. But we loved having that jam for the rest of the year. And as soon as I moved away from home, that was one thing that I really missed. Store-bought jams just don't compare at all when you have only ever eaten the homemade stuff. So Mom and Dad would start rationing out jars to us, and it was a huge deal if they came to visit and brought one along (ask them to describe the giddiness of my response, even 10 years later!). For the past number of years, I kept saying that I should go and help Mom and Dad with jam so that I could take more jars home. But with 3 small children, that just wasn't an option, especially with the berry farm being so far away. But it has always been on my list to learn to make jam, and this year the opportunity kind of fell into all of our laps. Mom and Dad were here for W's birthday and Father's Day, and were going to stay until Tuesday. We had no plans for Monday, and then my Dad asked "Do you have a strawberry farm near here? How about making jam?" So we looked everything up Sunday evening and Monday morning when S went to work (sure, he used "work" to get out of doing strawberries, likely story...), Dad stayed home to watch the boys, and Mom, Grace and I went out to pick strawberries. The kids were very tired and crabby that morning, and you would have thought that I would have scrapped the whole idea. But I was so excited, that I figured even if we only made one batch of jam and sent the rest of the berries home with Mom and Dad it would be worth it! It turned out to be a great day, I learned a lot from Dad and Mom, and in the end we had 30 pints of strawberry jam! But just to help me remember the process for next year, here are the instructions from SureJell and some pictures.

1. Gather supplies needed: SureJell, sugar, jars, screw band rings, NEW lids, canning funnel, stockpot, bowls, measuring cups, ladle, rubber spatula, trivets, bath towel, hot pads.
   
2. Wash jars and screw band rings in hot soapy water. Rinse well and air dry.
   
3. Pick strawberries (we did not take the camera along, so G drew a picture of us picking strawberries).
4. Admire strawberries (ok, maybe a few of these steps are added to the SureJell instructions). Aren't they beautiful?
5. Pour boiling water over lids in a small bowl.
   
6. Tape SureJell instructions to cupboard for easy reference.
7. Clean strawberries, removing stem and hull (tip - inserting a straw in the end of the strawberry really does this step quite easily).
8. Mash berries in 9x13 cake pan with a potato masher.
9. Measure out 5 cups of mashed berries.
10. Measure 7 cups of sugar in a separate bowl (G loved this job. And yes, I know this jam has a ton of sugar in it, but it is not like you are having all 7 cups on one piece of toast for breakfast! I do ration this to my poor children with awful teeth, though.)
11. Pour berries into large stockpot. Add one package SureJell and 1/2 Tbsp butter (to prevent foaming).
12. On high heat, stir with flat bottom wooden spoon CONSTANTLY (see my Dad for stirring lessons. Yes, it does matter.). Bring mixture to a full rolling boil (one that does not stop bubbling when stirred).
13. Add sugar quickly (KEEP STIRRING!). Bring to full rolling boil again, and boil for exactly 1 minute (helps to set timer for 1 minute before you get to this point so all you have to do is hit start).
14. Remove from heat (to big trivet) and skim off foam into small bowl.
15. An aside - once cool, skimmed foam is great snack for kiddos with animal crackers. Keeps them busy for quite a while so you can make more jam!
16. Back to jam. Ladle quickly into prepared jars (canning funnel REALLY helps here), filling only to the start of jar threads.
17. Wipe jar rim and threads (have thick bath towel laid out for filled jars to set on).
18. Remove lid from hot water (don't burn fingers, found a cool magnet tool to get lids out which worked awesome), place on jar, and screw on ring over lid very tightly (careful here, hot stuff!).
19. When all jars from the batch are filled and covered, turn them upside down for 5 minutes (careful, again, hot stuff!).
20. Say quick prayer of thanks that your youngest child took 3.5 hour nap and then spent another 30 minutes in high chair happily eating.
21. After 5 minutes, turn jars right side up and let cool on towel for 24 hours (within an hour or so you should hear the wonderful "joink" of the lid sealing - any jars that did not seal after 24 hours, refrigerate and use first).
22. Wash pot and spoons and other sticky things, rinse and repeat whole process until berries are gone, or you are out of SureJell or jars. In which case mash rest of berries to be had over giant bowls of ice cream later that night...on second thought, make sure you mash some berries regardless to be had over giant bowls of ice cream later that night!
23. Admire all your beautiful hard work again before putting in pantry to be enjoyed all year long (best if jam is used within a year - NEVER been a problem).

Thanks, Dad and Mom, for the help and the jam lesson (we on again for next year? will have to get S in on it next time. =). I loved every bit of it, am looking forward to continuing the tradition, and am ecstatic to have the jam to enjoy too!