The Olsen's make {strawberry} jam

To my surprise, Steve suggested we try our hand at homemade strawberry jam. Who is this man? I was thrilled and chomping at the bit to give this a go. After all, who doesn't love strawberries, especially fresh strawberry jam?! Shockingly, it wasn't as difficult or time consuming as we had anticipated. The best part? It turned out great! We didn't screw it up! I was told to follow the instructions to a T. No short cuts, measure ingredients perfectly, etc etc. And that's what we did.

It seems like a life time ago that we went berry picking. It was only two weekends ago. I guess a three day hospital stay for pre-term contractions will do that. Now that I think of it..I'm wondering if all that bending over and whatnot that involves strawberry picking and jam making had something to do with said pre-term contractions. Oops! Oh well...it is what it is and now I'm on modified bed rest, but at least we've got a freezer full of jam!

It was a perfect Saturday. Not too hot, blue skies and sunshine. The orchard was only a 5 minute drive from our house, and there was free homemade strawberry ice cream that day. Win win! The berry patch was considered "seconds" so it was only 99 cents a pound to pick your own. I will say most of the berries we picked were perfect, besides if there were some bruises who cares? They would soon be mashed up in a jam anyway. After about 45 minutes of dodging thistles and huge yellow spiders {shudders} we had the four quarts we needed. For less than $10 we enjoyed some quality time in the summer sun, strawberry ice cream and whoopie pies. Cheap dating at it's finest.

Now onto the jam making part of this post. Sorry this is getting long. Lot's of pictures will do that. All we did was buy Sure Jell and follow the instructions in the box. Add lots of sugar, some water and pectin, and you're good to go! Oh yeah, don't forget the strawberries.

By the way, four quarts of strawberries made about 24 cups of jam. After we picked the berries, making the jam took less than 90 minutes start to finish. It was soooo easy. We will definitely be making this an annual affair.

Tip: do yourself a favor and buy a strawberry huller like the one below. It was a huge time saver. And we had to buy a potato masher. Who still uses these?

And, voila! Freeze jam up to a year, or can be refrigerated up to a month. Now that I'm home on bed rest I've been enjoying the fruits of our labor with lots of PB&J's. :)

Holly xoxo