I'm in a Jam

I have wanted to learn to can, preserve, and make jams, jellies, and pickles for awhile now. I finally decided that this week was the week to learn. On my own. And waiting for someone who knows how to get in the kitchen with me was just getting old. So I went to the hardware store, bought a Ball Canning Kit, and sat down to read all about it.

I bought 6 quarts of fresh strawberries Wednesday, and walked in the door at 10:30 AM with them. By 12:30 PM, a mere 2 hours later, I had my last jars coming out of the water bath! That really went quickly, and that included the capping and slicing of berries, bringing the berries, sugar, and pectin to a boil, pouring into cans, sealing, and processing in the water bath. I had a blast doing it. And there's something very rewarding about putting up jam for your family. You know there's no evil corn syrup in it, only really good stuff. I like that.

As beginner's luck would have it, my jam didn't set up. I went back and reviewed the recipe that I had tripled, and realize that I had not tripled the sugar, only doubled it. I figured that was my problem, so this morning, I emptied all the jars, ran them through the dishwasher again, brought the fruit back to a boil, and added the missing 7 cups (egads!) of sugar. I also added more pectin, this time trying the liquid pectin, rather than powder. Wow, I really like the liquid pectin! Much easier and less mess. To bad it's more than twice the cost of powdered pectin. But the jam is firming up, and I have 22 jars of homemade strawberry jam to show for my effort.

I used to sit in my grandmother's kitchen and watch her can jams. Sometimes it was freezer jam, but most often, it was heat-processed jam. Many memories came flooding back to me as I made my own jam. Things I had forgotten, or thought I had until it happened. Like skimming off the foam. When I was a kid, I got to eat the foam that rose to the top of the boiling fruit. It would usually firm up in the bowl pretty quickly, and was a wonderful treat for a kid. Still warm, and about as fresh as jam could get.

Another thing I forgot about was the ping! plink! poing! of the processed jars of jam sealing themselves upon removal from the water bath. As they cool, they seal, and make a very rewarding little ping! sound that let's you know all your effort was not for nothing. But I had forgotten about hearing those sounds from the other room until I heard them myself.

I just made myself a piece of sourdough toast, buttered it, and put a little of the strawberry jam foam on it. Man, that's the best jam I've had all day. Beautiful and red, smelling so fresh and sweet. And on sourdough buttered toast? Well, not much is better than that, I don't' think.