When Heavenly Father wakes you up before your alarm and says it is time to get rolling because there are things to do, places to go, and people to see, well, you just better get up and get rolling. This was one of those mornings. I am very glad I heeded His prompting.
It would be unwise of me to share all the things I did this morning because I am such a bad example of so many things, but suffice it to say that the kitchen, which was a disaster area, was rearranged in such a way that I could work on the strawberry jam project.
This is how it went:
On Monday I picked up strawberries that had water damage in a weekend storm from a local farm. They needed to be hulled, sliced, and used immediately. In this case I put them in the refrigerator after hulling and slicing to wait until Tuesday for processing. Which turned out to be Thursday...but they still looked happy early this morning so I went ahead with strawberry jam.
Since I was going to can the jam so I could share it with our family later this year (hopefully there is some left...) I got out a sheet pan and placed the glass canning jars on the pan without lids and rings. I placed them in the oven at 250 degrees F so the jars would be hot and sterilized when I was ready to fill them.
Next step I got out the 8-quart Instant Pot and placed the trivet inside the stainless steel liner bowl and filled it with water to the trivet level. I also got out a cooling rack where I would put the hot jars when they were removed from the Instant Pot.
At this point I put the Instant Pot going on the Sauté mode so it would begin to heat up. I did NOT want the pot to be cold when the hot jars were put inside. I had visions of exploding hot jam completely ruined...
Now it was time to make the jam. The recipe I was following includes pectin because it takes less time and the jam will potentially be a little more firm.
The sliced berries went into our large stainless steel pot and were mashed soundly with the potato masher. Just prior to doing that I had put 1/4 cup sugar and 1/4 cup (most of a packet of Sure Jell regular pectin) into a bowl and stirred well. At that point I stirred in 1 cup plain water and made a slurry. Now that the slurry was prepared I mixed it into the mashed strawberries.
The burner was turned to medium high heat and I used a long-handed wooden spoon and started stirring CONSTANTLY until the pot came to a full boil. Now it was time to put in the remaining (3 3/4 cups) sugar carefully into the berries, stirring continuously. It occurred to me to very slowly pour in the sugar so as not to create any splashing...
Stirring until the mixture came to a FULL ROLLING BOIL, then kept stirring for one full minute then shut off the burner and let the pot rest for 5 minutes. Pulling out a bowl from the cupboard I used a perforated flat scoop to skim off the probably-delicious foam from the jam pot. It did not really need to be done but it does make the jam in the jars prettier. PLUS I thought of making some fresh baking powder biscuits for breakfast, whatever time that turned out to be...The strawberry scum would (and did!!) taste good on hot biscuits. (Breakfast was at 10:45 today...)
Removing the hot jars from the oven I put them on the cooling rack still on the pan then carefully ladled the very hot jam into the jars using a stainless steel canning funnel so the sides of the jars did not get sticky. Once the jars were full I wiped the rims and threads with a wet paper towel then put on the lids and rings and set them carefully into the Instant Pot on the trivet which was happily waiting for the jars, the pot steaming with hot water!
To steam can in an Instant Pot you need to press down the "steam" button on the cover top so that steam can escape out of the pot then set the Steam mode to 20 minutes which was how long I wanted the jam to can...overkill because we are so close to sea level but...overkill is almost always a good idea, I think.
You don't really want to walk away from the Instant Pot until the timer starts going down. (I waited until the display showed 19 minutes left then went upstairs for a nap...) This will not happen until AFTER the plug (or whatever it is called)in the cover has risen. Only then will the steam be hot enough to do the correct job. This is something I learned today.
Here is the result, minus the bowl of foam that was skimmed off. THAT is now happily greasing our inwards! The biscuits were light and fluffy and there was only a small batch so we could not over-indulge.
You will note the "interesting" appearance of the jam. I believe the solids part of the jam rose to the top of the jar and the bottom part appears to be strawberry jelly. I think it will still be good but then, we will not know for a while...! I think when you make freezer jam or refrigerator jam this will not happen.
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Easy Homemade Strawberry Jam (with Pectin)
- Author: My Homemade Roots Total Time: 0 hours Yield: Approximately 6 Pints
- 4 pounds of strawberries
- 1 cup water
- 4 tablespoons low or no-sugar needed powdered pectin
- 4 cups of granulated sugar, divided
Instructions
- Wash and hull and the berries. Add them to a large bowl and crush them with a potato masher. Stir water, pectin, and 1/4 cup of the sugar into the berries.
- Pour the crushed berry mixture into a large, deep-sided saucepan or Dutch oven, and heat over medium-high heat, stirring constantly. Bring the jam mixture to a boil, then add the remaining sugar. Stir continuously and boil hard for 1 minute.
- Remove jam from the heat and allow to cool for 5 minutes. Skim off any foam.
- If you are canning the jam, ladle jam into hot clean jars, allowing 1/4-inch headspace. De-bubble and wipe the rims clean. Place lids and bands on each jar and adjust to fingertip-tight. Process in boiling water bath for 10 minutes, adjusting for altitude.
- For freezing, allow the jam to cool for another 10 minutes, and then ladle it into freezer-safe containers, leaving an inch or so for expansion. Freeze for up to 12 months (but the quality is best by 6 months.)
Find it online: https://
Looks Devine. Wish I was close to share with you
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