Strawberry Time!

My house has smelled so good lately!! I've been working on a huge box of strawberries turning most of the super red, super sweet local farm grown strawberries into jam. I was able to get 20 jars total. 1 has already been eaten and 1 was given away to grandma for bringing us more sugar to finish a batch of jam. Unfortunately it's probably not enough to last us the next year. Even though I usually make peach and blueberry as well, strawberry is my husband's favorite so it goes fast.

We went fishing over the weekend at a neighbor's but I was the only one that caught anything.

Wake up and smell the peaches!

It's peach season here in my neck of the woods so we drove up to a local farm and orchard and picked up a big bag of peaches. They were by far the sweetest and juiciest peaches I think I've ever tasted in my life. Many of them were devoured as they were but the rest had another fate. After getting the hang of making jam with strawberries and blueberries already this year I thought I'd try peach jam. Even through following the directions exactly I thought I had turned it into candy. Thankfully it came out with a nice jam consistency but the little pieces of peaches in it taste like they've been candied. I don't know how much of it I will be using on toast with breakfast but it will definitely make a delicious vanilla ice cream topping!

The remaining peaches found their way into the jars with just a light syrup. This was my first try at just canning something simply the way it is instead of turning it into a jelly, jam or relish. I've been having great luck getting all of the jars sealed but I'll have to wait and see how these are when I open the first jar.

Mmmmmm.... I LOVE Jam!!

Yes, I made more strawberry jam!! Cowboy and L bought me 4 more quarts of strawberries at a local farm market. I prepared them and put them in the freezer until I had time to make the jam. I followed the recipe in the Ball pectin package again and got 9 jars! (one went right to the fridge when cool to eat!)

When I went to buy the case of jars I also picked up the book from Ball, their Blue Book Guide to Preserving which I checked out from the library many times last summer and for a very

reasonable price it was a good investment for me!

Canning and Preserving: First batch of 2010

For the first time last year I attempted canning and it went great! Since last fall when I did my first canning, my mom passed my grandma's canning pot onto me so I couldn't wait to do more!!

The first canning of the 2010 season: Strawberry Jam

It would be even better if I had grown the strawberries, but I bought them. I just used the recipe in the Ball's pectin box. I think I might try a lower sugar recipe because this is super sweet, but it's REALLY good!

One thing I learned is that the 8oz. jars set up better... so we're just going to eat the bigger jars first! I cracked one open this morning to put on toast and it was delicious!