Sunday, May 30, 2010

Canning Strawberries

I cannot believe how much sugar we use when canning - seven cups is not unusual! Here's the sugar for our first batch:


Here are a few of the berries. Later daily harvests have easily been four or five times this amount.


And here's the first batch of strawberry jam. We used the very first recipe in Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving.


The next harvest included a double batch of strawberry jelly and some lemon strawberry marmalade (oh, so yummy!):


All on my own last Wednesday I canned a batch of strawberry jam using liquid pectin (I did not find it superior to the regular pectin, which is cheaper), but I forgot to take a picture of it.

Last night, a friend and I made seven half pints of strawberry syrup (with a bit left over for pancakes this morning). There's nothing like a bunch of sugar and corn syrup cooked with strawberries! I don't have a picture of these either, but they are still on the counter so I may get one before we move them to the hutch. (I'm gathering them all together for a big picture when the June-bearing harvest is over. I'll need it as a reminder of the end results when harvest season rolls around next year and I get exhausted!)

Kansas Dad was out of town for a conference for the last few days (which I can tell you now that he's home). We had a few people come pick, but there were a lot on the vine still. He hit a few this evening (maybe three pounds or so) before the thunderstorms moved in and will have to pick them all clean tomorrow. I think I'm actually looking forward to some more big harvests after a welcome respite. On the schedule so far: strawberry sauce (mmmm....ice cream) and strawberry freezer jam.