About once a month, my friend and I get together for a lady date. It usually consists of one of us going to the other's house for dinner, and then we knit and talk for a couple of hours. I LOVE it.
But this time around, I wanted to do something different. And this something I wanted to do I just knew my husband wouldn't really be in to, so I suggested it and my friend was all on board. We invited another cute girl to join us and had a blast. As we were doing it, we found out that everyone's husband was relieved to be 'off the hook' for that particular activity.
We went berry picking at the Fruit and Berry Patch. I've always wanted to do berry picking and was super happy that the other ladies were on board. We have plans to go back when it's blackberry and peach picking time, too. But this post is not about berry picking.
Its about what I did with the berries.
It was strawberry picking time when we went. For quite a few years, I've been wanting to be a 'better' homemaker, but really just want to be more self-reliant and frugal. I pinned stuff on Pinterest to help me out.
One of the earliest things I pinned was a Freezer Jam recipe. And that is what I had in mind for these strawberries from the get-go.
I followed the directions, that I understood. The first step was to cut the tops off the strawberries:
Then I was supposed to put them one layer at a time in a bowl and mash them. This is the direction I didn't understand, so I just dumped them all in at once and mashed away. I later realized that this direction meant I needed to put just a few strawberries at a time in the bowl, so none were on top of each other. My brain hasn't been functioning much lately.
I boiled the apple juice and pectin on the stove, while repeatedly telling my husband in my teacher voice that if he got in the way when I removed it that I was not responsible for any injury or death. (We have a very small kitchen and he followed me around in there!) I added some sugar as well, and made sure that it all boiled for a minute or so.
And added it to the mashed strawberries. After stirring vigorously for a minute or two, I poured the mix into the containers I had bought for this sole purpose. I bought the amount the recipe said I would need and that would fit all the jam.
The recipe was wrong. Not only did it fill those four cute containers, there was a TON left over. It filled a ziploc reusable and half of a clam chowder container. I would say there was at least double what the recipe claimed it would make. And yes, other than adding sugar and not mashing the strawberries one layer at a time, I made the recipe with exact measurements.
I actually waited a couple days before being brave enough to try the jam, and once I did I was pleasantly surprised that it actually was edible. I have never made jam of any sort before and wasn't sure I was doing it right, or that it wouldn't be sweet enough since some of the strawberries were a little past being ripe and some were not quite ripe yet.
I would count this one a Pinterest success.
