It was a Monday…. which in Mobyland means customer service problems, orders that have to make it to here and there for birthday parties and the occasional fire here and there that needs to be put out. I try not to plan a whole lot for Mondays because in truth, just making it through the day is enough of a problem without compounding it by trying to to be an over-achiever.

So, once the day had calmed down and we had dinner, I decided it was time to process all the strawberries I had gotten on Sunday from the local fruit market. I watched an episode of Dead Like Me on Netflix and cut up 10 quarts of strawberries! And with super red fingers when I was finished up, I got to work, processing them and chopping them up into a nice rough mush. I like my jam to be chunky and full of little fruit explosions on your breakfast toast.

I had a whole case of brand new canning pint jars, the wide mouth ones. I’m trying to slowly build up my stash of canning jars by buying a pack or two each year as I learn to do more canning. I had also gotten a box of wide mouth and normal lids to use my jars from last year. Going to make blueberry butter tomorrow in the crock pot. I know that I might have to buy one more dozen jar because of all the tomatoes I’m going to be processing in a few months. (there are TONS of little greenies on my plants… tons!!!)

This year was so much easier than last year… it was almost a breeze. You just worry so much about canning, but in reality, as long as you take your time and follow the directions, it’s really easy and safe. Like I learned before, illness from canning mishaps is like so puny… like 160? Whereas illness from eating in a restaurant? Oh, it’s unbelievably high… 87 million cases in 2008. It’s far more dangerous to eat out then to eat your own home canned jam! Unbelievable…

Besides, if you think it’s bad, trust me, you’ll know. Crack open a bad jar after a few months and I’ve been told, you will know IMMEDIATELY… Any weird smell or mold or yucky scum, and just pitch it. I have never had that problem. In fact, I’ve found it so easy, I want to try more things this year. Bread and butter pickles are high on the list!

Anyway… it is so easy. You boil the mashed fruit until it’s a good rolling boil, with a box of pectin added. Then you add the sugar needed, bring to strong rolling boil and stir stir stir for a minute on high, then ladle into hot sterilized jars. Add the lids and the bands. Then pop into a hot boiling water bath for 10 minutes. Well, that’s for jam. I think jelly tends to need less of a bath, like 5 minutes. Take them out, set on the counter on a towel (so they don’t shock hitting the cold counter) and let them cool for 24 hours or so. I find them usually cool in about 12 – 15 hours. When totally cool you just test them… push in the top. If it pings back, then they’re not sealed and into the frig they go. If they are good and sealed, then tighen up the bands and label, and pop in the pantry!!! YUMMMY JAM for a year!

Okay, you might be wondering… isn’t it expensive? I don’t think so. I got my 10 pints of strawberries for $10. Sugar was $4 a bag. I bought two boxes of Sure Jell… they were like $2.30 each I believe. And I bought a 12 pack of wide mouth pint jars for $9.99.

That’s it So, I figure that’s about $30 for 12 pints of jam. In my grocery, decent high quality jam runs about $3-$4 a jar. 12 ounce jars. The pints are 16 ounces. Even at $3 for 12 ounces, that is 25 cents an ounce. For my homemade stash it would have cost $48 dollars on the low end and $63 on the higher end. My jam cost only 15.5 cents an ounce. And next year it will be even cheaper since I’ll have plenty of jars for the jam.

Well, I didn’t do it for the money, I did it because I know everything that went into my jam. Fruit, sugar and natural pectin. That’s it. Nothing more. And it’s local and I made it. That is WAY cool. It’s fun to gift a few jars and it’s even more delightful to open a jar when it’s cold and snowing in January and have a big slab of toast with wonderful jam and rejoice in the fact that we made it. Tastes absolutely wonderful.

So don’t be scared… MAKE JAM!!!! It’s so much fun.