Get Ready for a Jamming Post!

Every time I reminded Ian that Sarah and I were jamming on Saturday, he'd make some "really cool" joke about how we could borrow his guitar. Clearly, it wasn't that kind of jamming.

But get ready, because I've got pictures galore to share from our jamming session. It was so fun and we ended up with 8 jars of jam each, which is great!

We started with fruit, sugar (A LOT OF SUGAR), pectin and lots of recipes. Since we were trying it for the first time, we wanted to try a few different recipes and styles, so we could do some taste testing. That way, next time, we'll have the perfect recipe and we'll know if freezer jam is just as good as shelf jam (because if it is, I'm making that from now on. It was way easier). More on the difference later.

Okay, here we are, prepping.

Here is Sarah, lightly chopping (not pureeing, as we were warned several times) the strawberries. We started by making two different recipes of freezer jam, which means we didn't boil it after it was jarred. (And we didn't use wax sealed lids, since it had to go in the freezer and wasn't shelf stable anyway). We tried one from a Frugal Girl, an online blog I follow and one from the pectin box, called "Low Sugar." Not sure how true the name was.

After we mixed the 2 cups of strawberries with 4 cups of sugar (that's right, collect yourself, 4 cups of sugar), we boiled the pectin with water. Here I am stirring it (don't judge - it's a Saturday and I didn't shower or do my hair or put on make-up).

Then we mixed in the berries - this is actually a shot of our 3 berry jam that we made later in the day, but you get the idea.

Up next, ladling! Here I am, putting the jam into jars for the freezer.

Then, I remembered that someone had given me a jamming kit and we busted it out. We discovered a GREAT funnel and tools for making shelf jam, which is coming up next.

For our last project, we made three-berry shelf jam, which means we had to use jars with wax seals and boil the jam for 10 minutes to make sure it sealed, keeping all the bacteria out (hence being able to store it on the shelf).

Here is a photo of some of strawberry jars. Sadly, I didn't get a photo of all 16 jars, but it was quite impressive and so beautiful! Isn't jam pretty?

Our first taster was Mary's daughter Abbie (we were babysitting while she and Mike were working). Her refined palate gave us a big thumbs up. She loved it.

In fact, she licked the spoon completely clean. (Don't worry, I only gave her a tiny amount, given the high sugar content!)

It was SUPER fun and Sarah and I both agreed we would love to do it again. It probably didn't save us that much money and it did take about 4 hours, but 8 jars of jam each is a lot of jam! We both love cooking and experimenting, so we've got big ideas for peach jam later on in the summer.

On a side note, when I was trying to give Sarah her box of jam on Sunday (it had to set overnight, so we didn't want to move it on Saturday), someone at church stopped me and asked how much I was selling the jam for.

Future money maker? Just might be!