Making Strawberry Jam 2011

Its become a delightful Spring tradition.

Linzi comes over and we make the first batch of jam for the season. The Hmong fruit stand has beautiful strawberries. There is always a nice selection of other truck farm vegetables along with the strawberries. We bought an overflowing flat and half flat to start. Its been a rainy late spring and the berries have plenty of sugar in them. Some of them are not quite as dark red as they are some years but overall they have magnificent flavor.

I had gathered up all of the old jam jars that I could put my hands on in the house. They were tucked in all of the nooks and crannies of the various dishes. That was enough for the first batch. The next batch we were off to Target to pick up a set of one pint jars. We bought them out.

This year we are trying out a new pectin mix. Its called Pomona's universal pectin. One box uses 16 cups of fruit. The usual Sure Jell low sugar makes a batch with 4 cups of fruit. There is a calcium water component sin Pomona's that activates the citrus based pectin. It could be used for any level of sugar added jam or jelly. The pectin, or jam thickener is usually based on apple or pear starch.

The mountain of strawberries that we bought amounted to two huge batches. We used the outside stove to boil the jars and took the jam making inside this time because the outside gas stove was generating a little yellow on it flame do to water from recent rains in the gas system.

The calcium water was integrated into the strawberries to start. They the berries that were crushed in the food processor were heated to a boil. Sugar with the pectin was stirred in. The whole big pot was allowed to come to a boil again and as it was boiling, butter and my lemon juice ice cubes were added. We only used 4 cups of sugar for each 16 cup batch of strawberries.

It will be interesting to see how this all works out. The box and testimonials of people who have used this method are all very positive.

What makes it easy to make is my partner helping out. It also helps to have a 17 quart magna lite aluminum stock pot.

The chance to spend some time with my daughters is truly priceless. Thanks to Linzi coming down and a chance to meet up with Heather for a full weekend Mother's day we have had a great month of reunion with the family.

Thanks girls for taking some time in your busy lives to spend some time with us!

: ) Pat