Part 1 of Strawberries up the wazoo: Jam-a-lam-a-ding-dong

Long story short, I found myself with 3 flats of strawberries late on Thursday night.  This is the age old story of Maine summer- that intense need to capitalize on the bounty it offers.  Long mostly sunny days, warm alligator-free lakes, bushels of fresh produce coming at you for a week or two at a time.  As soon as you think to yourself, "I need to preserve some of these berries for the dark days ahead," strawberry season is over.

Maybe because it comes first it seems the most frantic to me.  It is, after all, the first in the list and therefore the one that forces you to dig out your canning supplies, or run around town in search of pectin and quilted jelly jars. Their sweet, ripe moment is so ephemeral that by the 4th of July, you are already forcing yourself to remember it.


Freezing is the easiest method, but freezers require energy, and freezers only hold so much, which brings us to canning.  

Anne-Marie, valuable frienployee and author of the Green(ish) Monkey blog, was kind enough to teach a class at the store that demonstrated how to can a beautiful 3-pint vanilla strawberry jam from Food in Jars and how to use the BPA-free Tattler lids we sell.  As a person who makes tasks too big (i.e. canning always requires cases of jars and hours of time) it was a refreshing approach that made me feel like under present circumstances (mother of two and store owner, generally frazzled) that I too could carry some summer with me into the winter.


I wanted to try canning with honey as it is one of our local sugars and we sell it in the store.  I also wanted to try a low sugar recipe so I chose a Pomona Pectin recipe, requiring only 2 quarts of strawberries and 1/2 cup of honey (or sugar), yielding 3 pints.  I used smaller 12oz quilted jelly jars so I would have some to give away.

The Pomona Pectin was simple.  It is a pectin that binds with calcium, requiring you to mix up a calcium water solution first.  The solution can be stored in the refrigerator for a long time and used throughout the canning season. Then the pectin is stirred into the heated jam solution for 1 minute before jarring and processing.

Simply put:

• wash, dry, hull and mash 4 cups of strawberries (about 2 quarts)
• stir in 1/2 c honey or sugar (more if you wish)
• stir in 2 tsp calcium water
• heat the berries until boiling
• remove from heat and stir in 2 tsp pectin
• place back on stove and bring to boil
• Fill and process jars

What made the Pomona Pectin so cool is that is allows for less sugar and the reduced boiling allows the fruit to retain more nutritional value.

Of course Grant woke up twice while I was canning, and Zoe refused to go to bed (11:00 bedtime 4 nights in  a row), but I still made it happen.  Bring on January.  Not really.  You get what I mean.