Last Saturday AM we went strawberry picking at Tougas Family Farm with little E’s playgroup friends.

Mike and the other dads strawberry picking

About 10lb of strawberries



7 cups of sugar
It also took me a while to get the hang of filling the jar up to the required level of headspace (the amount of space you have to leave at the top of the jar when you fill it up; to take into account the expansion of the jar’s contents that occurs while processing for 10 minutes or however long in rapidly boiling water). I realized later that my canning kit had a headspace measurer, which worked better than dangling my tape measure next to the jar to try to get a reading. With each jar, though, the process went much faster. All in all, however, I was busy in the kitchen for about 4 hours.
I think I even heard the seals on the jars forming (the lids seal and become hollowed inwards so you know they are securely sealed, just as the jars you buy in stores only have pop-up lids after you open them). It was funny to be watching TV and hearing little popping sounds from time to time. Though maybe it was just something falling apart elsewhere in the house.
Finally, a few words about the individual recipes:
The Strawberry Jam recipe from the Complete Book of Home Preserving was a great beginner’s recipe. In fact it’s the first recipe in the book and notes that it is an extra-detailed recipe as it’s for beginners. And it did have lots of helpful detail–for example, measuring out all the sugar beforehand so you can dump it in to the bubbling berries all at once (I can imagine it would be hard to keep track of seven cups of sugar as well!). The recipe was simple–just strawberries, pectin, sugar, and lemon juice and the results were great. Of course, this is mainly a function of having good berries. I wondered how similar this would taste to store-bought jam but I really do think it was better. I think the flavor was quite complex, I almost taste an herb/spice quality which surely has to do with the fact that the strawberries were perfectly ripe when harvested and the jam was made immediately after so no flavor was lost. Note I got slightly less than the 8 cup yield, so the last jar went into the fridge to enjoy immediately.
The second recipe was a bit more “gourmet” perhaps. (As is the nature of all the recipes in Well-Preserved. There’s not a lot of recipes in there, but the ones that there are are very elegant). The nice thing was it didn’t use pectin (as I didn’t have any left). Also the use of balsamic vinegar sounded like it would make a rather refined product. Due to the lack of pectin, I think, this recipe was required to be cooked for about 40 minutes before canning. You then add the strawberries to a jar with a slotted spoon, ultimately leaving you with a fair amount of strawberry syrup which you can preserve as well. All in all, I got 2 pint jars of jam and one of syrup. (The recipe was meant to give you 6 cups; and you could use 8 or 16 oz containers. I wonder if I would have had a better yield using smaller jars?)
I’m looking forward to going to more “pick your owns” this summer. Cherries are next, followed by raspberries, blueberries, and pecks of peaches and bushels of apples!

Strawberry jam

Strawberry balsamic jam
YUM! I use to make jam and preserve vegetables a lot when I was in high school (I grew up in rural CT) but haven’t done it since I made the move to urban living when I was 19. The older I get, the more tempted I am to do so…
As to the stains little E likes to make. Wait for the blueberry season, these stains are much worse!!!!! :o)
I really like the pattern on your strawberry jam jars. They look so pretty. And both jams look really delicious. I think I’m going to try the balsamic jam, too…
Me again…. I just made a strawberry nectarine vanilla jam. The balsamic jam has to wait cuz I don’t have any balsamic vinegar at hand right now. And you got me frightened with this whole botulism thing so much, that I actually water bathed (is that the right word?) the jars for the first time in my life. I don’t have a preserving canner yet, but it’s possible in the oven, too, I found out. What is a headspace measurer? I know what you need it for, but I have no clue what it looks like. Can you post a picture so I get an imagination? I never ever measure headspace, I just estimate about 1/2 inch.
That sounds great. I don’t think botulism is as big a deal with fruit either–I am a bit neurotic about this stuff, honestly. My grandmother used to seal her jam with wax, which I can’t imagine working if you use the waterbath method, I will have to ask her what she did. She now does water-bathing but she’s been making jam for over 50 years so I’m sure however she used to do it is not “approved” now. Sorry for passing on my neuroses. 😉
Did you ever order well-preserved?
Sorry–forgot to reply to the headspace question. I got it in my Ball Canning Kit (the main US canning manufacturer):
http://www.freshpreserving.com/products/ball__home_canning_basics_kit/3.php?page_id=20
It is really the bubble remover tool, but also has grooves on it to show headspace (that’s why I initially didn’t figure it out).
Yes, I did order “Well-Preserved” and I received it a couple days ago. Most of the recipes really DO sound elegant, and there are quite a few I’ll definitely try out like the canned tuna (even though I’ll have to find out who can lend me a pressure canner), canned tomatoes (maybe even from my own backyard: the first tomatoes are growing now!!!!), the marinated red bell peppers… I’m not too happy with the fruit section, though, because almost everything there is canned with alcohol… I know the actual alcohol disappears while cooking but I’m not a fan of serving kids things that taste of alcohol. They shouldn’t associate jam or sweets with alcohol, I think. But still, many of these things will make nice presents, so I’ll try them anyway.
Sara, these strawberries, and this jam, look delicious! What a beautiful post, photos and all. I went over to (my sister) Mel’s house last weekend to find her and her partner boiling a huge vat of berries for jam/canning. We had a bit of a discussion about pectin and sugar… but when you get down to it, I just like the taste. Maybe one day soon I’ll expand my repertoire to canning. Maybe one day soon the sun will come out. Who knows! 🙂
Hmmm…I was like, yay alcohol!
I was intrigued by the tuna, but over an hour with the pressure canner going? Forget it. I don’t really like canned tuna that much anyway. Nor can I imagine smoking fish indoors, but it’s pretty cool how she explains it, whether you want to do it or not!
I like canned tuna, that’s why this recipe is really smiling at me (don’t know if that’s an English expression, but that’s what we say in German when something sounds really intriguing).
Where are the recipes for your jam?
Do I have to find the books to get them?
Hi Virginia, thanks for visiting. I didn’t post the recipes as they are a bit long and also I didn’t want to leave anything out (as there are the “technical” details as well). I found both books quite easily at my local library (though the second has a waiting list as it was recently profiled in the NYT). I think similar recipes should be easy to find in most jam books, including the strawberry-balsamic version. Almost everything is in the Ball book (the first one I mention).
Sooooo, I made the strawberry balsamic jam. I cooked it for like 50 minutes and thought it wouldn’t thicken at all. Then I thouht: who cares, I just pour it into the jars. I filled one jar with the slotted spoon, and this was such a clingy mess that I decided to put it back in the pot and just pour it into the jars. Thus, no syrup! But the weird thing now is: the jam is soooooooooo thick, I don’t wanna imagine how thick it would be if I had done the slotted spoon thingy!!!! It’s REALLY sweet (way too sweet for my taste), but we like it with yogurt, but it’s not possible at all to mix it with the yogurt. So I put it in the microwave for a little while so it heats up and becomes liquid again, and then I can stir it into the yogurt. I’d be interested in hearing about the consistency of your balsamic jam… Btw, I’m into making jam with agar agar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agar) right now so I can add sugar to taste. I add about only 1/3 of the amount you usually need to make jam. Of course, this means, it’s not as durable as conventionally made jam. But we go through quite a lot of jars quite quickly with all the yogurt and breakfast and such, so I don’t really mind.
Hi SBC, i think by hulling all they mean was to pick off the green stem…unless they made a typo and meant culling, meaning to sort and discard those with rotten spots.
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Here’s how I make strawberry jam…using the natural pectin found in apples and lemons:
http://motherskitchen.blogspot.com/2009/06/canning-strawberry-jam-without-pectin.html
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My Question Is, Does The Strawberry Jam Recipe In The Ball Book Call For Pint Jars? I’m Looking To Can Strawberry Jam But Since We Eat So Much Of It I Wanted To MakeInPointSize Hats, BuWantToMakeSureIDoTheRecipeCorrectly.
Sorry autocorrect, Im looking To Make Jam In Pint Jars Rather Than 8Oz Jars