Strawberry Jam

Ben: Do you know what the preservation room is for?

Riley: Delicious jams and jellies?

Those lines from one of my favorite movies always make me smile. I wish I had a whole room dedicated to preserving food! There’s just something so satisfying about a colorful array of jams, jellies, soups, and salsas lining the pantry shelves in gleaming glass jars. Sigh.

Since this week is all about strawberries for me, I’m sharing two of my favorite strawberry jam recipes. The first one is just your basic low-sugar strawberry jam, but once you taste it, you’ll never go back to commercially prepared jams again! The second recipe is a strawberry lemon marmalade that adds a tangy twist on a traditional sweet favorite. This recipe also brought home a blue ribbon from the Florida State Fair, so even a few food judges liked it!

I hope you enjoy the recipes. If you still don’t do any canning, I urge you to try. Find a friend that you can borrow a water bath canner from or just use a stock pot and give it a try. It really is easy. The most time consuming steps are washing and sterilizing the jars and washing, hulling, and slicing the fruit. If I’m alone, I’ll put a movie in the laptop, pull a stool up to the counter, and enjoy myself. If I have help, then the conversations flying around the room really lighten the task.

If you’re not sure how much to make, think about how often you can get the ingredients at a good price and how much of the jam your family will eat in a week. I can only get strawberries at a good price once a year, so I multiply the amount we eat in a week times fifty-two. At one point, that meant 52 pints of jam, at least. Now that I make several other jams besides strawberry, we only need 12 to 24 pints for the year. And, yes, properly prepared jars will last the whole year and still taste great!

Oh, and don’t forget to can with Christmas in mind! Just about every time I can anything, I can an extra batch of half-pints which are set aside for gifts. No more gift-giving stress for me. I do have to get better about adding a note to the gift tag to get my empty jars back, though. No sense letting perfectly good jars go to the land fill when they could be refilled with homemade yumminess.

Strawberry Jam

3 cups sugar, separated

1 package low-sugar powdered pectin

8 cups cleaned, hulled, crushed strawberries

½ teaspoon butter

Prepare canner jars and lids.

Measure sugar into a large bowl. In a small bowl, mix ¼ cup of the measured sugar with the pectin.

Place strawberries in a large, stainless steel Dutch oven. Stir in pectin mixture. Bring to a boil over high heat, stirring constantly. Add butter. Add sugar all at once, stirring constantly. Return to a full rolling boil. Boil hard for 3 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from heat. Skim off foam.

Ladle hot jam into hot jars, leaving ¼ inch headspace. Remove air bubbles. Wipe rim. Center the lid on the jar, and twist ring onto jar until tight. Be careful not to over tighten.

Place jars in water bath canner. Jars must be completely covered with water. Bring to a boil and process for 10 minutes. Remove lid, and wait 5 minutes. Remove jars, cool, and store.

Makes 3 pints.

Strawberry Lemon Marmalade

1/3 cup thinly sliced lemon peel

¼ teaspoon baking soda

4 cups sugar, separated

1 package low-sugar powdered pectin

4 cups cleaned, hulled, crushed strawberries

Juice from one lemon, about ¼ cup

Prepare canner, jars, and lids.

Combine lemon peel, baking soda, and enough water to cover in a small pan. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Boil for 5 minutes. Drain and discard liquid.

Measure sugar into a large bowl. In a small bowl, mix ¼ cup of the measured sugar with the pectin.

Place strawberries, lemon juice, and lemon peel in a large, stainless steel pot, mix well. Stir in pectin mixture. Bring to a boil over high heat, stirring constantly. Add sugar all at once, stirring constantly. Return to a full rolling boil. Boil hard for 3 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from heat. Skim off foam.

Ladle hot jam into hot jars, leaving ¼ inch headspace. Remove air bubbles. Wipe rim. Center the lid on the jar, and twist ring onto jar until tight. Be careful not to over tighten.

Place jars in water bath canner. Jars must be completely covered with water. Bring to a boil and process for 10 minutes. Remove lid, and wait 5 minutes. Remove jars, cool, and store.

Makes about 6 half-pints.