Stawberry Jamming - 2014

 

My littles are creatures of habit, especially my boy. Every morning he wakes up before the sun, shuffles in to our bedroom, and asks the same question, “Can I have some yogurt?” I usually buy a big container of Stonyfield organic banilla yogurt (banana-vanilla flavor) and put some in little snack size Rubbermaid containers because it's much more economical than buying individual cups of yogurt. But there have been a few nights where I've gone to the fridge to get Beebo's yogurt cup ready for the morning and we're out and I have to make a dash to the grocery store to pickup more because ya know if he wakes up and there's no yogurt in the house the entire neighborhood is going to be waking up too! His desire for routine comes naturally to him, since I'm the same way. I enjoy the same thing for breakfast pretty much every morning – there's just something comforting about knowing what comes next.

Yogurt isn't my little man's only vice. He really loves a good PB & J, made with, what he refers to as “Mama's Famous Strawberry Jam”. So you can imagine what happened when this mama ran out of her “famous strawberry jam” this past year. I tried not to tell him at first. I went to get a jar of jam from my reserves, and the cupboard was bare. So I reached for a jar of apricot jam instead. But when he took a bite of his sandwich he saw right through my feeble attempt at a swap, scrunched up his nose and said with indignation, “Hey! Dis is not Mama's Famous Strawberry Jam!” No sir, it was not. I had to fess up and tell him we were out of strawberry, and I couldn't make any more because strawberries were not in season yet. On my next trip to the grocery store I tried to put a jar of strawberry jam in my cart, but I just couldn't do it. All those funky ingredients that I couldn't name gave me the creeps! I promised that as soon as I could get my hands on some fresh Michigan strawberries I would refill our stock of strawberry jam.

 

 

Well, I'm happy to say that time has come! This weekend we took a little break from home renovations (OYE! - a tale for another time), and ventured to a local strawberry patch. My children LOVE to pick fruit and veggies. Have you taken your kids to pick anything? Try it, I bet they will love it just as much as mine do! So many berries end up in bellies, and that's okay because it's all part of the fun. My babes put on aprons and sun hats and bring their little buckets along and help pick the berries that are destined to become the jam they'll enjoy for at least the next year. I just love when I hear them ask, “Mama, is this from the strawberries we got to pick?!” And I get to say YES! YOU helped make this awesome stuff!

 

 

Every year I run in to the same problem: How many jars of jam do I make? And then I curse myself for not keeping better track. And I search the internet for how many pounds are in a quart of strawberries, and how many quarts are needed for a batch of jam, and how many pints of jam does a batch make, and why do all these recipes make half-pint sized jars?! It's frustrating to say the least. So I decided to write all that down this year so my future self won't have to look for it again. You're welcome, future self. I figured we'd go through about 1.5 pint sized jars of jam per month, so we'd need at least 18 pints of jam to put away for the year. The recipe I found makes 8, 8 ounce jars of jam per batch. Since I'm using 16 ounce jars, that means a batch will get me 4 jars. I would need to make 5 batches of jam to fulfill my family's yearly jam needs. Now that I had an idea of how much jam I needed to make, here's what other information I gathered...

• Strawberry Measurements
• 10 cups of whole strawberries = 6 cups smashed = 2 quarts = Approx. 3 pounds = 4 pints of jam
• How many pounds of berries will I need?
• 5 batches x 3 pounds per batch = 15 pounds of berries
• How many quarts does this equal?
• 5 batches x 2 quarts per batch = 10 quarts of berries
• How much will the berries cost (based on 2014 u-pick prices)?
• $1.65 per pound x 15 pounds = $24.75

This information helped tremendously when we went out to pick. It was nice knowing how many pounds of berries I needed to leave with, since the strawberry patch was 45 minutes from our house. I certainly didn't want to make a return trip if I didn't get enough berries the first time. Which didn't end up being a problem because my little family picked almost 24 pounds of berries! The next challenge was getting all of these berries made in to jam while they were still good. Commence Jam Marathon 2014!

I basically processed berries and made jam for the next 12 hours. And what I ended up with was 22 ½ jars of ruby deliciousness.

 

 

I don't think my original pound figures were quite right because I used up all of the berries and only ended up with 22 ½ pints of jam. I'll have to remember that for next year. I'm so happy to have so many jars to put away for the year, and hopefully we won't run out again this year. In case you were wondering, here's the price breakdown for my strawberry jam-a-thon this year:

Strawberries (local, u-pick): $39.35

Sugar: $2.50 per bag x 2 bags = $5.00

Pectin (Mrs. Wages Low Sugar Powdered Pectin): $1.99 per box x 5 = $9.95

Total Cost: $54.30 or $2.41 per jar

I think the cost and time is totally worth it! I love having jars of yummy red goodness in my cupboards made with fruit that my family picked, that was locally grown, and that I canned! So cool! Do you want to make your own jam too? Why not?! I found my recipe on the PickYourOwn website, and it can be found HERE. Take a look around this website while you're there. It has become an invaluable resource to me. Whenever I'm looking for information on what's in season in my area, or where I can go to pick, I go to PickYourOwn.org. And they have many great recipes to help you figure out what to do with all that fresh, locally grown produce. Plus each recipe that I've encountered on this site usually comes with a breakdown on cost as well, so you can know a rough figure on how much a batch of each particular recipe will cost you to make.

I hope you'll take advantage of the beautiful red strawberries that are in season right now, and make your family a batch of delicious strawberry jam! Happy jamming!