Romance and canning adventures on the homestead!
It’s that season again at Romance & the Homestead
“What season?” you ask.
Canning season!
“Well, Della, what are you canning?”
“Ah, waterlogged strawberries!”
What’s happening at the homestead first! Then we’ll move on to the Romance part.
It’s been strawberry season for awhile. But crazy me said, “I have enough jams and jellies to last for awhile. I don’t need any strawberries this year.”
And then it happened. I looked for my strawberry jalapeño jam. And there was none!!! I panicked! Strawberry season is almost over!
(I have to put a note here as to why I didn’t have any left. I gave so many jars away at Christmas, I lost count. Which is fine.)
Continuing; The place I aways buy strawberries was down to the last week, you-pick almost over. My husband and I rushed over early the next morning. It had rained for a few days and I knew the berries would be loaded with water. But, what choice did I have? I rushed home to process them.
To process the strawberries I rinsed them thoroughly in a colander. It took several small batches. I de-stemmed them. Guess what? I realized I didn’t get any jalapeños. That’s what happens when you get in a tizzy. Luckily, my son was on his way home and brought me some.
Big sigh of relief! Whew! Now, down to jam business. There are numerous recipes for strawberry jam, but, this one is an adaptation of one in the Ball Blue Book, Guide to Preserving, page 54. For one batch of jam you will need the following:
- 4 or 5 pounds of strawberries
- 6 cups of sugar
You’ll also need 4 or 5 pint jars. The Ball Blue Book listed 4. I always fix an extra as it seems to me that I always have extra jam. Go figure. Or, 8 half-pint jars (jelly jars) with rings and seals (lids.)
I washed and sanitized jars, rings and lids. I put enough water in my canning pot to cover my jars and brought up to simmer. I kept the jars hot in this pot of hot water. I kept my lids in warm water so everything would be hot when canning.
According to the Ball Blue Book you take a potato masher and, one layer at a time, smash the strawberries until you have 4 to 5 pounds. Put your smashed strawberries and sugar into your stock pot. I use a stainless steel.
Here is where I changed the recipe. Because of the water content of the berries, and I’m not an expert, I thought I might need some extra pectin besides the natural one in the strawberries. So I added a tablespoon of organic, bottled lemon juice.
- 1 tlbs bottled organic lemon juice
- 1 cup finely diced jalapeños
At this point, I added my lemon juice and jalapeños to the berries and sugar. If you don’t have soggy berries, or don’t want jalapeños in your jam just skip my added lemon juice and jalapeños and continue on with the recipe, as the Ball Blue Book describes. If you want it hotter you can add more jalapeños.
On medium high bring the berries, sugar, lemon juice and jalapeños to boiling while stirring until the sugar is completely dissolved. Cook rapidly to boiling, stirring until it reaches the jell point of 220 degrees Fahrenheit. Yeah, you can check the temperature if your kitchen thermometer’s battery isn’t dead as run-over frog. Mine was. Had to use a meat thermometer. But we got there!
Again, because of the high water content in my strawberries, I decided to boil mine down for awhile to decrease the water. I periodically kept stirring and condensing for about an hour. You don’t have to do this if you don’t have water-logged berries.
Right now, as you may guess, I’m flying by the seat of my pants. LOL! Then I did the jell test!
“Jell test?” you ask.
Yep! Take a glass saucer, or two, and place them in the freezer. When you think your jam is ready, take the cold saucer and place about 1/2 tsp on it. Then drag your finger through the middle. If the sides come back together quickly. It’s not ready. Keep doing this until your jam doesn’t run back together.
When ready, carefully ladle your hot jam into your hot jars. De-bubble, wipe the rims with a wet cloth or paper towel and put the lids and rings on. Finger tighten only. Don’t crunch down and tighten too hard. Then water-bath the jars for 15 minutes in boiling water. Cut the burner off and wait 5 minutes and carefully take them out and place them in a cool place for at least 24 hours. Make sure they are all sealed. Label them and store them.
This was my crazy canning day with waterlogged strawberries for jalapeños strawberry jam!
A-ah! To be candid, my jam is still a little “loose.” I put it in the fridge, it’ll be okay. LOL again.
This is not a recipe you might want to follow to the letter. It’s intended more towards humor and how crazy my life out here on the farmstead gets. But it is an accurate description of how the whole thing went. And I have jalapeño strawberry jam again. It’s a little loose, but we’re already eating it. Delicious!
ROMANCE
Time for romance. On Romance & the Homestead is where I write my romance novels.
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Sandy Iris and Lucas Sorjen are the two most unlikely people to fall in love. She’s a tomboy that works on tractors. He’s a handsome business man. But when they both find themselves taking care of the snowy Jake & Jewel Ranch, sparks fly and love takes them where they both need to go to heal from the past. Their romance will shock all their friends as Sandy Iris and Sorjen Journey Into Love.
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Find the rest in the Snowflakes Series in Nevada here at Shop-For-Love
Don’t forget to leave me a message. If you have read one of my book, give me a review on Amazon, Goodreads, please.
Thanks for stopping in,
May the love of the Lord take you where you need to go to find healing, rest and peace.
For now, from Romance & the Homestead,
Della
3 John 1:2 Dear friend, I pray that you may enjoy good health and that all may go well with you, even as your soul is getting along well.
Author Della M Strickland 