Fresh Picked Strawberries!

So last week the kids and I went out to a local farm to pick strawberries. I was super happy find a place that still had berries available because most of the local farms were already picked out. I had meant to go the week before but I was knocked out by one of the nastiest bugs I have ever had.

It  took us about an hour to pick all this...

I think the boy ate at least a pint and he definitely ate more than he picked. The girl did well picking, a bonus of her growing up a bit but she ate quite a few in the field too :) It was a gorgeous day and we had a blast.

The best part to me about this whole venture was that the kids did all the hulling!

Wahoo!

Yay me!

Thanks kids!











I then made approximately 20 pints of freezer jam... Phew what a day! Last year I managed to stretch the jam out all the way to the end of the school year. Hopefully I can do that again because the kids really love it. Last year I tried 3 different recipes and below is our favorite.

My Freezer Jam recipe. Here is the printable Strawberry Freezer Jam

4 cups of crushed strawberries
1 package of no/low sugar pectin
1/2 cup of honey (local is best)
1 1/2 cups sugar (next time I will try even less sugar)
1/4 cup water

Whir up your berries in a food processor or blender, then put into a heat safe bowl.
Add 2 Tablespoons of Pectin to the berry mixture.
Add rest of pectin to a medium saucepan with the sugar, honey and water. Bring to a boil for 1 minute. You just want to heat it up and get everything blended. Turn off heat and add sugar mixture to berries. Mix well to blend ingredients.
Pour into prepared containers. Let cool for a few minutes before adding lids. I let mine cool completely before I put them into the freezer.



I forgot to take a picture of my pile of finished jam but the bottom of my 10CU ft freezer is FULL!

The jam did not use up all our berries. I filled 2 trays of sliced berries to freeze (what I used for ice cream (recipe to come). We also ate lots with vanilla yogurt or put them on top of vanilla  ice cream. They were so huge and delicious it was well worth the work and effort!