Strawberry Freezer Jam

This weekend was the strawberry festival in Plant City, Florida. We went last year and had the best time, but since my husband and son had been sick all week, we decided not to go this year. Instead we went to a local u-pick strawberry farm and had a little fun.

It took a little while to get my son as excited about all the fresh berries as me and my husband were. After I finally got him to taste a fresh one right off the plant though, his eyes lit up, and he got super excited. He made it his mission to find the biggest, darkest berries to fill up our big flat. We came home with about 14 lbs of fresh berries. They were so good, we all got tummy aches from eating too many of them.

I knew the first thing I wanted to make out of our fresh berries was some jam. I remember my mom making freezer jam for us when I was really little, but it had been so long I forgot what all the fuss was about it. Since you use alot less sugar and it takes almost no time at all, I figured freezer jam was the way to go so I ran to the grocery store to get some freezer jam containers and some instant pectin.

It was really easy to make. I crushed my berries in the food processor and stirred them in with the sugar, pectin and lemon juice. Then I transferred the jam to these special little containers that Ball makes. There aren’t really necessary though, you can use any type of freezer container you have on hand.

The next morning, we opened up the freezer jam. I had reserved one of the pints for the refrigerator. I could not get over how good it was. It’s so much better than regular jam because it’s fresh. It tastes just like the fresh berries, it’s so amazing.

Freezer jam, after being defrosted, keeps about 10 days in the fridge, and about a year in the freezer.

The directions on the box say not to exceed 6 pints per batch. But I like to break the rules, so I made 10 pints for this batch, and it set up just fine.