Homemade Strawberry Jam

Our weekend routine is pretty simple. We always shop at Harris Teeter. Now, we pack the boys up and they tag along with us on our shopping trip. Last weekend strawberries were on sale. I could not pass it up. It was so darn cheap. It was buy 1 container get 2 FREE. I'm such a sucker when it comes to these especially with fruits. I was planning on eating a bowl each day for breakfast. Taking care of two baby boys sometimes you forget to eat breakfast. I opened the fridge yesterday and three containers of strawberries where still in there untouched. I felt horrible now that I'm a stay-at-home mommy I should do a better job in using everything we have in our fridge and pantry so I decided to make some strawberry jam.

Perfect breakfast. Homemade strawberry jam with toast.

Strawberry Jam

2 pounds fresh strawberries, hulled (I used 2.5 lbs. instead)
3 cups of white sugar
1/4 cup of lemon juice

Wash and slice strawberries and use a heavy bottomed saucepan. Mix together the strawberries, sugar, and lemon juice. Stir over low heat until the sugar is dissolved. Increase heat to high, and bring the mixture to a full rolling boil. Boil, stirring often, until the mixture reaches 220 degrees F (105 degrees C). Transfer to hot sterile jars, leaving 1/4 to 1/2 inch headspace, and seal. Process in a water bath. If the jam is going to be eaten right away, don't bother with processing, and just refrigerate.

Got this kit from Walmart. It's cheap and totally worth it. Just follow the information from the packaging. It's so simple and easy to do.


Remove the foam from the pan and let it simmer until the sauce thickens. You don't want white foam in your jam.



Testing if your jam is ready

Place three plates in a freezer... after about 10 minutes of boiling place a tsp of the liquid of the jam onto the cold plate. Return to freezer for a minute. Run your finger through the jam on the plate... if it doesn't try to run back together (if you can make a line through it with your finger) it's ready to be canned!

2 1/2 containers of strawberries and look what I got? This is such a great idea after strawberry picking. Next spring I will bring the boys with me at Page Farms and we'll be picking strawberries.

Here's the pretty strawberry jam I made. Ready to be given to my friends. :)