Strawberry Balsamic Jam

It's the tail end of strawberry season here in GA. Our little family spent last Saturday morning picking two and a half gallons at an orchard about an hour from us in Blue Ridge. It cost the three of us $48 to do so, which seems like a lot at first. When you factor in that you get a tractor tour of the orchard, two and a half gallons of perfect strawberries (because why would you pick bad ones?), and all the strawberries you can eat while picking...it's actually a pretty good deal. The Woodman and I figured that the same amount of strawberries purchased from the grocery store would cost $60-100; and you would have to throw a good portion of them out due to spoilage. By the time I was able to clean and hull all the strawberries (24 hours after picking), I only had to throw out two berries from the entire bunch!  Plus, have you even eaten a strawberry freshly picked and warmed by the sun? If not, you are missing out on one of life's greatest pleasures. Five year old Peanut ate more than he picked and went around the whole time telling the Woodman and I how fresh the berries tasted. :)

Waiting for the tractor ride. Do you like my hat?

Om nom nom!!!!

 We have picked our own strawberries every year for the last several years now. About half of our haul is always earmarked to make strawberry jam. I play around with the rest...last year I made strawberry lemonade concentrate (yum!!!). This year I'm going to: make strawberry lemonade muffins, freeze pureed strawberries for homemade strawberry ice cream, and freeze solid berries for the Woodman to make smoothies. For the purpose of this blog post, I'm going to focus on the jam. The recipe for the jam comes from the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving. It is literally the very first recipe in the book, so it must be good!

The day that I wash and hull the strawberries, I take a square baking dish and place the strawberries in it in a single layer. I then use a potato masher and crush them up. I transfer the crushed berries into a ziploc baggie, stopping once I've gotten five cups of crushed berries. I then put the baggie into the refrigerator until the day I make my jam. This also freezes beautifully if you want to make the jam later on in the year. Some basic canning knowledge and equipment is required to make this recipe. If you don't know how to can, it's pretty easy once you get the hang of it. I taught myself how to can things by researching it on the internet.

Strawberry Balsamic Jam

Ingredients-

***Makes about eight 8-ounce jars****

• 7 cups of granulated sugar
• 5 cups crushed strawberries
• 1 Tbsp. lemon juice
• 3 Tbsp. good quality balsamic vinegar
• 1 package (1.75 oz/49 to 57g) regular powdered fruit pectin
• 8 (8oz) Ball mason jars, lids, and screw bands

Step 1- Clean your jars, lids, and screw bands. Sterilize jars in hot water canner and heat the lids while preparing the jam.

Step 2- Measure the sugar ahead of time and set aside. Sugar needs to be added all at once.

That's a lot of sugar!

Step 3- Add crushed strawberries to a large, deep stainless steel sauce pan.

Step 4- Add lemon juice, balsamic vinegar, and fruit pectin. Whisk until pectin is dissolved. Bring to a full rolling boil over high heat, stirring frequently. (Optional- Add up to 1/2 tsp of butter during cooking to help cut back on the foam produced during the cooking of fruit. This will make step 6 a lot easier)

Step 5- Add sugar all at once and stir continuously until the mixture returns to a full rolling boil that cannot be stirred down. Then, boil hard while continuing to stir constantly for a full minute.

Step 6- Remove from heat. Use a slotted metal spoon to skim of foam produced during the cooking of the fruit.

Before skimming off the foam

After skimming off the foam

Step 7- Remove a clean, sterile, hot jar from the water canner. Do not dry jar. Using a canning funnel and a ladle, add hot jam to the jar, leaving a 1/4 in headspace. Wipe rim and threads of jar with a damp cloth or towel to remove any food residue, put on a hot lid, and screw on a band until fingertip tight. Do not over tighten!

Step 8- Return jar to canner, and repeat with the rest of the jars. 

Step 9- Put the lid on the canner and wait until the water gets to a full rolling boil over high heat. Once it begins boiling hard, start your processing time. Here in GA the processing time is 10 minutes. The altitude where you live changes the processing time, so do a little research on the internet to check your altitude and see how it affects processing time. Once the jars finish processing, remove the canner from heat, remove the lid, and let the jars sit in the canner for 5 minutes. Remove the jars from the canner, sit them upright on a towel in a draft-free place, cover them up with another towel, and let cool, undisturbed, for 24 hours. 

Step 10- After 24 hours, remove screw bands and check lids to make sure they all properly sealed. If they didn't seal, they must be refrigerated at this point or reprocessed (after adding a new, hot lid). Rinse and dry screw bands. Loosely reapply lids, if desired, label your jars, and store in a cool, dry, dark place. Try not to eat a whole jar in one sitting!!!

Happy jamming! :)