My husband and I made strawberry jam on Monday. He was off work for our two year anniversary and I was glad for the extra help. Actually, he did most of the work since I had to stop and feed Walker and run to the store for more sugar and pectin. I love my husband! Anyway, we used the recipe from the Ball Blue Book and it is so delicious! It doesn't even compare to store bought jam.
We ended up tripling the recipe because we had so many strawberries. Basically all I did was get the berries ready and my husband did the rest.
We ended up with seven pints and two quarts. We gave a lot of it to our family because that's a lot of jam! But we kept plenty for ourselves. :)
I've been wanting to start canning for the last couple years, but things haven't worked out for me. I'm so glad I finally got to try it out! I plan on canning blackberry jam, blueberry jam, pickles, dilly beans, tomato sauce, and pear butter this year. We'll see how much actually gets done.
**I just read that your not suppose to double or triple your jam recipes because it won't set right. We tripled it and it set perfectly fine. Has anyone else heard this?
What are your canning goals for the year?
For Christmas last year, I made triple berry jam (which was a favorite among all who received it as a gift - I will be making a triple batch this year!), strawberry, and what I call blu-strawberry (blueberry & strawberry jam) along with apple pie in a jar and applesauce.
ReplyDeleteI have doubled recipes with no problems what-so-ever. I buy the low-sugar pectin in a large container from WalMart for less than $6. It calls for less than 4 cups of sugar/batch. Also, if a jam isnt as thick as I want it, I just add a little bit more pectin until it is to the consistency that we like.
Triple berry jam that I made last year is found at the following link.
http://www.kraftrecipes.com/recipes/surejell-for-less-no-60057.aspx
I used strawberries, blueberries and red raspberries: all picked locally (2 from a pick-your-own farm and 1 from our berry patch).
This year, I am looking forward to canning apple pie in a jar (a big hit as gifts), applesauce (it's too easy and so yummy that I couldnt imaging NOT doing it), triple berry jam, strawberry jam, apple butter, tomato sauce and salsa. My goal is to can enough of these items to last us through the fall, winter and spring, but we will see how the garden produces this year! :-)
I prefer to freeze the vegetables such as green beans, snow peas, squash and the jalapeno's. This way, I dont have to buy a pressure cooker/canner.