Jam, Anyone?

Yesterday a local organic farm was in dire straits due to the ridiculous excess of rain we had this past week. They were trying to recoup any of their losses and sold their typically expensive-but-worth-it local, organic, freshly picked strawberries for a dollar per pound. Yep, you saw that right.

I planned to be there right when they opened and I got there about ten minutes after they opened. Unfortunately the line was already to the parking lot and I ended up waiting just over two hours for my 25 lb box of berries. Supply wasn't able to keep up with demand, so we literally stood in line waiting while the farmers picked the berries for us. Talk about fresh!

I split my box in half with a friend of mine and turned my half into three batches of Ina's strawberry jam. It's the easiest recipe for jam I've ever seen and it's delicious!

I made a double batch and then a single batch- 10 lbs of berries total. The problem was that my single batch pot turned out not to be big enough for a double batch. (I wish I'd known that before I tried it!) Chaos and mayhem ensued, which made me break out in hives.

Once I found my large stockpot and used that, everything was smooth sailing but I sure had a mess to clean up. The jam had even gone under the stovetop so I had to take the burner out and everything. All this with only one and a half hands available! Hives!

The jam ended up being a huge success though and now I've got jam until I'm 40! Next on my list is to actually get it canned so it's preserved (& because I need more canning experience!).