Jamming with My Mother-in-Law

Earlier this week, we went over to my in-law’s house. Jellybean (my mother-in-law) knew I wanted to make jam so she invited me over to make jam with her. Not just any jam but strawberry jam! Strawberry jam made with my father-in-law’s homegrown strawberries. I was so excited to make it! I thought I’d show you guys a brief overview of what we did. We didn’t follow the directions exactly. We made some shortcuts.

The main ingredient homegrown crushed strawberries

The rest of the ingredients sugar, pectin, lids and jars (not in the picture).

Jellybean reading the instructions.

Put the lids in water until the lids begin to boil then turn off the heat.

Have the jars clean and ready

Put the strawberries in a pot (with just a little butter. like half a teaspoon) and heat it up until it starts to boil.

Add the pectin as the crushed strawberries heat up.

Just keep stirring, stirring, stirring

Once it is hot enough, add the sugar. Make sure you stir as you add the sugar.

Stir until the mixture begins to boil and stir while it boils for one full minute.

After you take the mixture off the burner, bring it over to the jars and start pouring. Be careful.

Here I am pouring the hot mixture into jars

The mixture is hot so be careful when you pour it.

I’m just filling up the last few jars.

After all the jars are filled, carefully (the jars are very hot) put the lids on the jars very tightly.

After the lids are on tightly, flip the jars upside down. This is a trick she told me to get the jars to seal instead of boiling them in a pot of water, etc.

Picture of all the jars flipped over.

I forgot to take another picture but after the jars are upside down for like a half an hour, flip them upside right. Then you have to listen for the jars lids to make a popping sound. The popping sound means they are sealed. Double check all jars to make sure they are all sealed. If one isn’t, then eat that one first since it will go bad faster.

I had fun making the jam and it was a lot easier than I thought it was going to be. Did I forget to mention how delicious the jam is???? Mmmmm…..