Strawberry Jam

A couple nights ago I made my very first strawberry jam. I was inspired by the canning lessons from the holistic moms group and also from being tired of paying five bucks a jar for the stuff, since we go through it quite often here. Louis helped me by haggling for a flat of organic strawberries at the end of the downtown farmer's market. He got a great price and the only other ingredients I needed were a bag of organic sugar and a lemon. Oh, and the jars. I bought a pack of the small, BPA free Ball canning jars from Target.

I checked out the Ball recipe book from the library and followed the recipe for "old fashioned jam" which meant I didn't have to bother with adding pectin. The whole pectin thing still confuses me because there's the commercially available pectin and then something the holistic moms talked about called Pomona. I'm still not clear on the difference, so that's why I chose the simplest recipe I could find.

I didn't have a rack to put at the bottom of the pot, so I just wadded up some foil and it worked fine. Maybe now that I've proven I could do it and enjoy it, I can invest in a proper rack and a metal funnel. Ooh, and maybe someday, someday, I can invest in a large stovetop pressure cooker so I can sterilize my instruments in it, too!

The one thing that was tricky was that the recipe said to mix together the strawberries and sugar on the stove until the mixture started to "gel," meaning it was the right consistency for jam. It would have been super helpful for the recipe to also include the fact that it would take a full hour of stirring before the jam reached that consistency. I'll know for next time, but that was a long hour of not knowing if I was doing it right.

By the time I filled the jars and cleaned up, it was 3 am. Canning is hot and tedious work but I really enjoyed it. It's way more fun as a party, with other people pitching in to help, but I could also do the solitary late night thing with the right kind of music.

Louis broke into one of my jars the first thing next morning and he thought the jam was delish. I'm so freaking proud of myself. I cannot wait to do another recipe! I feel like I'm looking for a fix. Totally feel an addiction coming on...