Jam Fan (or Alex's hero!)

It wasn't on my list of things to do, but it is something I kind of forced myself into . . . I made strawberry jam! YEAH!

Previously, on Crunching Along, I blogged a little about my new favorite book, The New Self-Sufficient Gardener. In it, J. Seymour discusses what to do with surplus harvest. I didn't exactly have a surplus harvest, as my starwberry plants are too young to produce this year, but I did pick a bunch of strawberries with my friend, her children, Little Dude and Bananie.

Now, Little Dude can eat his weight in strawberries, I've seen him try. I can eat a few myself, but Bananie is a little young for citrus-esque berries. We ended up with surplus strawberries and my choices were: a. eat as many as I could before they rotted, b. give them to the horses and mule in the pasture behind out house, or c. make jam. I picked "C." Hey man, when in doubt, Charlie Out!

So, I went online, did a little quick research, flipped through Mr. Seymour's book some more and decided, this can't be that difficult. I needed to purchase a few things:

1. Pectin (I could have made my own with apples and will probably try to later on, but not for a first go.)

2. Jars with ring tops and lids.

3. A canner (a special pot enabling easy raising and lowering of the cans into and out of their "bath").

4. A jar picker-upper (I am not explaining that one . . . it explains itself).

This is what I actually purchased: pectin and the jars.

I put the steamer basket from our rice/veggie steamer in my biggest soup pot for a canner and used some not-for-canning tongs instead of a picker-upper. The soup pot worked great . . . the tongs, not so much. I don't know that these tongs are for picking up anything, at all.

So, core the berries, smush the berries, boil the berries with pectin and sugar, pour mixture into clean jars, burn fingers on hot jars, screw lids on jars, re-screw because it wasn't tight enough the first time, burn other fingers on hot jars, place (drop if I am being honest) hot jars into almost boiling water, wait 10 minutes, sweat, open windows, try to pick up jars, drop again, re-try the pick up with inadequate tongs, burn hand on hot pot, get jars onto towel to set, grab cold beer to soothe singed fingers, drink beer while admiring handy work . . . and . . . BAM! You've got JAM!

(Let the water from the "bath" cool overnight and use it to water plants in the morning!)

Now, to make this mildy cerebral . . . the difference between jam and jelly is this: jam includes actual pieces of the fruit, jelly is the gelatinized juice of the fruit. I am a jam fan myself and it seems to be a little easier to pull off. It also doesn't take as long in the bath, so you get to the beer quicker.

The jam is setting and I've been hearing the tops suction down with a little pop, so at least they are sealed. As was stated by a friend, if they don't set, strawberry syrup is great on pancakes! Another friend just said I was their hero. So, go ahead, be a hero, make jam!

Me and my jam!