Thursday, May 21, 2009

Is Four Pounds Enough for a Batch of Jam?

The strawberry patch is starting to produce some nice berries. These were picked on Saturday and weighed over four pounds.
I picked out the best ones to make freezer jam with but only needed about 1 pound (2 cups of crushed berries) to go with 4 cups of sugar and one box of pectin. That made 5 cups of jam. (Not pictured.)

I still had about 3 pounds of strawberries left, so we thought a few seconds to figure out tasty ways to use the leftovers. I put them on cereal and ate them whole, but the tastiest way to have them was sliced with sugar on them and then cream poured on top. It was really, really good. This is what it looked like.
By Monday evening, there were no leftovers. Tuesday morning, I picked about five more pounds of berries. Tuesday evening I made another batch of jam. They are supposed to sit for 24 hours at room temperature to “firm up” before refrigerating or freezing. Since they were supposed to sit out anyway, I had Mom take 5 containers to Utah to share. Joseph and I could not eat all of the leftovers fast enough so I washed and froze some of them.

Tonight, I will pick more and possibly make another batch of jam. If things go according to plan, I will take more jam to Utah to share in 2 weeks. Obviously, I will need to check my bag with way over 3 ounces of jam.

Hopefully, we will continue to get strawberries for a while, but I am concerned that the squirrels have found them. I saw two very fat squirrels having breakfast in the berry patch when I went to work this morning. I guess “sharing” takes on a new meaning.

3 comments:

John said...

That bowl of creamy strawberry goodness is making my mouth water! I'm excited to have some of the freezer jam in Utah.

Katie said...

I love eating strawberries with cream and sugar. It's my favorite. I have already tasted the jam and it was amazing.

Karen C. said...

I can testify that the strawberries and cream tasted heavenly. Its pretty fun to have the option of fresh strawberries to eat every morning. Strawberries are a good invention. I think Heavenly Father was pretty amazing to think of it!