Jamming

Well, I tried my hand at canning jam this week. It was my first time and I think it went quite well! I went to Page Farms in Raleigh yesterday and picked a whole row that was about 12 pounds. I don't think I planned on getting that many but I decided to fill up the bucket and then basically challenged myself to pick the whole row, so I did. The only mishap occured when I was carrying my 12 pounds of strawberries to pay for them and the bucket handle broke sending my berries all over the ground! I picked them all back up and besides the fact that many were a little smashed they were just fine.

I did my canning using the Ball canning cookbook and everything went really well. Drew helped me with my first batch last night, which was great because I needed to work all the kinks out and then I did another batch today all by myself! I added two tools today that were life-savers- a potato masher and strawberry huller. Those two things made everything go so much more quickly! I'm also a big fan of the jar grabber and the magnetic lid lifter. We bought these in a canning starter kit and they were definitely worth it. I also did two variations of jam- one regular with just sugar and lemon juice and another with sugar, lemon juice and balsamic vinegar. I think the vinegar really brings our the strawberry flavor. It's delicious!

After all this I ended up with four 16 oz. jars, eight 8 oz. jars and three plastic containers that I just put berries and sugar in to use on ice cream and pancakes and such. I'm pretty pleased with how everything turned out and am excited to try something else!

Just a few pics of my berries and the first batch of jam...