Grace and I are reading the Little House on the Praire Series and so much of their days were spent preparing food and working in the kitchen - canning food for the winter...so what perfect time for my sweet friend Nancy to come over with a flat of sweet organic strawberries this morning and we got right to work! Aprons on, water boiling and strawberries getting mashed. We made her low sugar recipe of strawberry jam - can't imagine what regular sugar recipe is like - this is perfectly sweet. We ate it by spoonfuls as it was foaming and ready. Yum. So much fun. AND our time was lessened since we had such great helpers - Grace washing and drying the red morsels, Hudson mashing and Penelope eating. Now I will go to bed dreaming of the morning when I can go to the bakery and buy my favorite french baguette (cest si bon) and butter it up with some strawberry jam. Even more ambitious - make fresh brioche - something I have always wanted to do!
nancy's strawberry jam
6 pints of organic strawberries - washed, destemmed and crushed
4 cups of sugar
Crush berries with a potato masher to consistency you like - we crushed to a smooth texture.
Put in a large pot.
Mix 1/4 cup of sugar from 4 cups and 1 box of Sure-Jell in a small bowl.
Stir pectin sugar mixture into strawbs.
Add 1/2 tsp butter to reduce foaming, if desired.
Bring to a full rolling boil (a boil that doesn't stop boiling when stirred) on high heat, stirring constantly.
Stir in remaining sugar quickly. Return to rolling boil and boil exactly 1 minute, stirring constantly.
Remove from heat. Skim foam (delicious to eat with a spoon ;)
Ladle quickly into cleaned and boiled jars. Leave 1/8 inch at the top.
Cover with lids and turn upside down for 5 minutes. Turn over and make sure the lids have "popped" or look almost concave. If lids spring back they are not sealed.
Store at room temp for 1 year!
