I've been busy preparing the for the fair, as this year I am making five entries--three of which are in the canning and preserving category. A few weeks ago I started by making strawberry jam.
Washing the jars and canning utensils.
The gorgeous strawberries. I only bought two containers because I couldn't find them at the right sale price. I regret not watching the sales earlier in the year when it was the right season...
Mashing up the strawberries. I use a potato masher and it takes a lot of time and arm strength. I much prefer to have either my dad or brother do this part--but on this day they were no where to be found and it took me a while to get them to the right consistency for jam.
Boiling the jars to sanitize them
The jam cooking on the stove top. It's a taken a few tries with strawberry jam to finally get to the point where I know when it hits the "gel" stage.
Perfect looking jam! It's so exciting when everything goes right and the end product looks like it should. Especially when you know what it's like to fail and have jars full of air bubbles or leaking out the top.
My end result was three jars of strawberry jam, which is a very small batch. I'm required to submit two to the judges (they will sample one jar and put the other one on display), and I have one for myself to taste test.
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