Monday, July 4, 2011

The Organic Kitchen - Classic Strawberry Jam


This long weekend I did something I've wanted to do for a long time - make strawberry jam! Every year I have lamented the passing of strawberry season without a pantry full of preserves, so when I found myself with a three day long weekend I made it a priority. 


My parents and I made the trek to a local, organic strawberry farm where the picking was ripe and the berries were plentiful!  



After a short hour in the summer sun, my fingers were stained pink and my baskets were full, as was my belly! The farm owners instructed us, with a good dose of humor, that over-ripe berries shouldn't be picked unless it was to eat right then and there, which I was all too happy to oblige!



Next, after washing and prepping, the berries were ready to prepare. I have to admit, having never undertaken this before, I greatly underestimated the time involved. My sister and I worked together and after getting a late start (7 pm) we were in the kitchen jarring until 1am! The results, however, were more than worth it! We worked from Ashley English's book Canning & Preserving, part of the Homemade Living Series we featured in the last issue of the magazine. I love her recipe as it uses the natural pectin in the strawberries and uses a lot less sugar than other recipes I'd found - the jam was still perfectly sweet when done! 



The finished product - you can see how deep and ruby red the jam turned out - a result of the perfect organic strawberries I'm sure. I'd forgotten how good local, seasonal strawberries truly are. I can't wait to do it again!  And I have to say, I'm officially hooked on preserving! We ended up with 10 jars each, the perfect year's supply.



3 comments:

  1. There's nothing better then organic strawberries! Looks gooood!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Organic is the way to go. In the kitchen and in emergencies. I've found the best solution for green pest control Portland to be by using Green Choice Pest Control. I'm curious if any others have found this company or used them in the recent past?

    ReplyDelete
  3. gorgeous photos - looks like such a wonderful day!

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