Posted: 8/14/2010 5:26:19 PM EDT
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My mom was down last week for a couple days, and while she was here, she showed my wife the basics of canning.
While she was here they canned up a bunch sliced peaches, peach jam, sliced apples, and apple pie filling. I was out looking for a job, so I wasn't able to take pics or notes for that batch. The other day china mart had fresh California strawberries on sale for $0.99 per pack. We bought 16 packs and went home and made some strawberry jam. 
Cleaning & prepping the strawberries 
Into the blender 
Suregell in the pan 
Stir in the strawberries 
Bring to a hard boil 
Add sugar, then bring back to a boil 
Reduce heat and skim off the foam 
Fill the jars 
Into the pot for boiling for 15 minutes 
After 15 minutes boiling, remove and let cool 
The best damn sammich maker evar!! 
We are hooked! Right now she is the kitchen making some grape jam (red seedless). I showed her ODT's thread, now she wants to try to can some meats.
I'll be going to buy some more jars here real soon. Gene |
to you for having a wonderful wife to make it for you!
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You got a problem? |
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Quoted:
What a great thread! That jam is beautiful. I grew up on jam like that, but now my mom makes freezer jam. I've never tried either on my own, but I want to. Thanks for posting the cool tutorial! Kitties Thanks. My mom learned from her grandma when she was just a young girl. I too grew up on homemade jam. As a kid, we used to drive from SoCal up to Oregon to pick wild blackberries / rasberries growing in the forest up there. We would come home with a van full of 5 gallon buckets (about 25-30 buckets IIRC). My mom would spend the next week or so, making jam. She would give most of this away to family & friends at christmas time. I've been wanting for years, to learn how to make jam (for some reason I always thought there was more too it  ).
Now I need to plant some blackberries & strawberries in the garden area, so we won't have to buy them next time. Nothing better than homemade jam on some fresh homemade bread.
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Quoted:
Quoted:
What a great thread! That jam is beautiful. I grew up on jam like that, but now my mom makes freezer jam. I've never tried either on my own, but I want to. Thanks for posting the cool tutorial! Kitties Thanks. My mom learned from her grandma when she was just a young girl. I too grew up on homemade jam. As a kid, we used to drive from SoCal up to Oregon to pick wild blackberries / rasberries growing in the forest up there. We would come home with a van full of 5 gallon buckets (about 25-30 buckets IIRC). My mom would spend the next week or so, making jam. She would give most of this away to family & friends at christmas time. I've been wanting for years, to learn how to make jam (for some reason I always thought there was more too it ).
Now I need to plant some blackberries & strawberries in the garden area, so we won't have to buy them next time. Nothing better than homemade jam on some fresh homemade bread. There is more to jelly. I'll never make jelly because of all the straining and it has to be clear and perfect yadda yadda yadda. HOney is the only think I'll fool with that has to be strained. I'm not deseeding any small fruit. I don't have the patience for that. So if you can't eat the seeds, I'm not canning it. Feral did some gorgeous grape jelly––that was last year I think–– and it looked so good, but I'll just drool over his and go buy it from the store. So I'm a jam girl. I like strawberry and blackberry best anyhow. My grandmother made her jams and purposely left chunks of berry in there. I think there can be problems with doing this––I'm told you have to be careful or the jam will go bad more easily with chunks of fruit in it. I dunno if this is true or not, but hers was wonderful. |
| In Ontario we used to go with my grandmother (2 or 3 adults and a bunch of kids) and pick wild strawberris and raspberries. The strawberries were on the ground and really tiny and you had to do a lot of hunting to come up with a bunch. The raspberries grow on bushes and have thorns and you had to keep an eye out for black bears. The reward––the best pies and jam in the world! |
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Thanks for the kind words bwall.
We went by china mart today, and to my surprise, strawberries were $0.99 again.
So we picked up 17 packs and some more jars. My wife is in the kitchen now, prepping the strawberries, getting ready to make another batch. 17 packages should get us 16 pints. This time we are using 1/2 pint jars. 
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fv_LrK7nqWc
Another cool tip is to add a little butter so it doesn't foam as much. Look at the link at 4:06. |
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Quoted:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fv_LrK7nqWc Another cool tip is to add a little butter so it doesn't foam as much. Look at the link at 4:06. Yep, she already adds butter.
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Very nice. THanks for the pics and the writeup.
I haven't yet made strawberry jam for myself yet, but my parents used to make it all the time, but put it in the freezer and didn't use a water bath canner. Anybody know how freezer jam compares to canned jam? I loved that freezer jam. |