Oh thank God. I had written this entire post with pic and everything and then blogger decided to die and everything was lost after all that work. I was cussing up a storm. But lo and behold I just came back and blogger had saved everything. I now have to take every cuss work back. Well this was the blog, read on.....


I almost missed the strawberry season lol. It was one of those crazy windy, and bad storm coming days yesterday. Of course I had to run out and do my errands and beat the storm. Well, I have to have some excitement in my life right? Anyway, I dashed into the veggie stand, got my veggies and a flat of late straberries....

I started immediately, less I procrastinate and loose most of them. I washed and hulled them and washed them again. I only lost about 8 and that's not too bad.

Then I crushed the berries with a potatoe masher, added 3 cubes of lemons (I sqeeze fresh lemons and freeze them in ice trays and bag them). I cooked two patches of jam. I added some natural apple pectin along with the sure jell. I did one with the less sugar jell and one with the normal amount of sugar jell. I can't tell the difference.



Out of a flat of strawberries, I got 13 pints. My cost for the berries and sugar and sure jell, $23.00, not including the jars, which I use over and over and I wish some of my dear friends would bring my jars back or buy me a case of them hahahahhahah...

Anyway, I checked on ebay. One jar of 16 oz. Tennessee strawberry jam sells for 5.49 and 10.49 to ship, wow.

I consider Smuckers a good brand of jam and an 18 oz jar of that cost 7.50 on line. So lets say that my cost would be 2.00 a jar and would retail for 6.00 a jar, I would make a 58.00 profit...would I make them to sell? Nope, I'm retired but I' tickled at the thought to have an "A" class jam for a song and for that I don't mind the work.

I now have in my pantry: Cumquat, Cumquat+Kewi (to die for), Strawberry, Cranberry, Pineapple (from my own yard yet). I still have to do my orange marmalade (from my trees) and blueberries. These and Kwie jam are all I will make, unless some exotic fruit comes along.

I have made pear jam and stopped because my son will eat the entire jar at one sitting and never gain an ounce of weight and that in my opinion defeats the delicacy of having a pear jam so fine and wonderful, now and then lol....it is to be savored not swallowed lol. I would make it again if I found some pears worth the effort.

All my pineapple jam is gone and only have two jars of cranberry left. We do savor those as the cranberries are expensive and you can only get them at Thanksgiving. I missed the blueberry sale at the Mormon church but will try real hard the next time. That is one great jam. No kewi is left either but will watch the sale on those and make some. All my jams are use multi-purpose. I use them to make ice-cream, cakes, jam rolls or just toppings. I have never seen pear or kewi jam anywhere for sale, so they must be a specialty. Kewi jam is to die for.