Make the Jam

An easy way to get the taste of fresh fruit year round is to make your own jam. I make strawberry jam every June, when the berries are at their ripest. You can make jam with just about any fruit though: peach, raspberry, blackberry, mulberry, etc. It is easy and fun to do and fresh jam tastes so much better than anything Smuckers produces.





Recipe:

5 cups of crushed strawberries (about 2 pints noncrushed)

½ tsp butter

1 box of 1.75 oz of powder pectin

7 cups of sugar

Crush strawberries and place in a large kettle. Add butter and pectin and stir. Heat mixture to a rapid boil. Add sugar all at once and stir. Bring mixture back to a boil and boil for one minute. Remove from heat and ladle into jars. Wipe the lip of the jar to make sure there is no jelly on it. tighten lid and process.

Processing:

Bring a very large kettle of water to a boil. (start heating this water before you start the jelly). Place jars in the water for 5 minutes and then remove (you want 1" of water over the jar tops, once submerged. Any more or less could affect the pressure on the jars, risking them cracking while processing.) Let cool until jars seal. Once jars are sealed, every half hour turn jar upside down for half hour and then right side up for half hour, etc. This makes the strawberries disperse evenly throughout the jelly .

The recipe makes 8 half pints.