This year the Chaos family has suffered greatly as we ran out of strawberry jam in January. Imagine the incredible hard ship that we all endured as we had to buy jam from the store.

I vow that I will not let that happen again this year.

This year I have 30 lbs of strawberries to make into jam. I feel like I cheated a little though, I ordered them through the local Rotary Club. The strawberries were washed, hulled, sliced and packed in their own juices. Huge time saver, and it cost less than buying two 15 lbs flat! And non of the work.

After making a batch of Strawberry Rhubarb with Certo, I found them way too sweet for our taste. They set well and will for sure get used up before next summer. But I am not sure that I will go that again.

Next I tried the Natural Summer Fruit Jam recipe from The Bernardin Complete Book of Home Preserving. With this recipe you make your own pectin from Granny Smith apples and lemons. After making that into a sauce you add it to the berries along with sugar. When not using store-bought pectin the boiling time is substantially longer. It have to stay at a rolling boil for 20 minutes. Let me tell you, this batch is SO GOOD. I cannot wait to slather it over fresh bread.

Through out the summer and fall there will be much more canning happening up in here. I will post pictures and thoughts along the way.