I couldn’t think of a better way to kick off Strawberry Season Week than with strawberry jam!
It really doesn’t get any better than your own homemade jam – and it is so rewarding to make your own. I’m not much of a canner so my style is the freezer storage style, but feel free to use this recipe to do it up canning style if you want to!
We hit up our local U Pick strawberry patch last weekend, and the berries were just gorgeous! Michigan may have horribly long winters, but man do we have beautiful seasons for all sorts of berries. The farmer we picked from that weekend said that our cooler spring and slow warm up to summer has made for a fantastic strawberry season!
Search around and ask around your area and farmers markets for local U Picks – it is SO worth it! We paid ¼ of the price per pound for our strawberries than they were being sold for at our farmer’s markets that weekend!
And I don’t have to mention the memories you will make with the kiddos 🙂 The girls loved every minute – this was Claire’s first year she could actually pick something, as last year she was about 14 months when we went picking hanging out in my baby carrier! My 4 year old was an old pro and was so helpful! Don’t underestimate what those littles can pick – they were a huge help!
We came home with 30 pounds of strawberries. It came out to just about half of that I used to batch up our freezer jam. Feel free to half the recipe if you don’t want this much, or double up if you need more!
a simple real food recipe :: honey sweetened strawberry freezer jam :: taking advantage of local u picks :: strawberry season week!
Author: Renee - www.theSIMPLEmoms.com
Ingredients
- 16 cups mashed strawberries
- ¾ cup fresh squeezed lemon juice
- 3 ½ TB calcium water from the Pomona Pectin package
- 2 TB pectin from the Pomona Pectin package
- 1 ½ cups raw honey (Could use organic pure cane sugar. Start with this amount and you can always add more – this is a very conservative amount for the amount of berries – we tend to like our jam to taste more like the strawberries and even have a little “tart” to it – you will be able to taste the jam before jarring it and can always add more. The sweetness of your berries makes a difference as well.)
Instructions
- Put the strawberries, lemon juice, and calcium water in a large stock pot and stir well. Bring to a boil.
- While the strawberry mixture is coming to a boil, put your honey and pectin into a bowl and stir together.
- Once the strawberry mixture comes to boil, pour your honey/pectin mixture into the stock pot, and stir continuously for 2 minutes to ensure the pectin dissolves completely.
- Once the mixture comes to a boil again turn the heat off, and take a quick taste to see if you want to add more honey or sugar.
- Ladle the jam into your jars. Let them come to room temp before setting in the freezer WITHOUT lids on – once they are frozen and expanded you may lid them (give them about 24 hours).
Kitchen Tips:
- The jam will thicken completely as it cools.
- Don’t make more work for yourself! I literally took the berries right out of the sink where I washed them, into a mixing bowl to mash with a potato masher
, and measured into the large stock pot
the 16 cups. I didn’t even get to making the jam for about 3 days – just store the stock pot with the mashed berries in the fridge til you are ready to make your jam or just do them up the same day
- This batch made 12 pints of freezer jam. I stored them in various size containers since we go through times were we use up more and sometimes were we just need a little. Double up if you want more – this is more than enough for lasting us most of the year along with the raspberry jam we’ll make in a couple months 😉
- I love THESE
containers for freezer storage!
- HERE
is what the Pomona Pectin package looks like. Check out your local health food store to see if they carry it – ours is pretty small scale and they actually do!
- Need more ideas for using up those strawberries?? Try strawberry lemonade kvass, strawberry ice cream, strawberry smoothies, strawberry rhubarb crisp, or fresh strawberry lemonade!
Have you been strawberry picking this year? What do you love making with your haul?!
This post was shared at Real Food Forager’s Fat Tuesday!
strawberry rhubarb creamsicle
June 26, 2013 at 10:03 am[…] when we visited our local strawberry U Pick patch for the summer this year, my wheels started turning on how I could make something “different” […]