Written by Grumpy Pumpkin

Strawberry 🍓 Preserves

Canning seems so simple at first, a countrified, backwoods sort of way of preserving stews and things when you are hunting and growing your own food. I am not really sure how canning started, I imagine people in cities and towns who had access to things like grocery stores and commercially canned food soon forgot about canning at home. Victory gardens became a thing of the past for city dwellers. Even today, how many patio gardens do you see? If you drive to any apartment complex where every unit has a balcony, how many edible things are there? Community gardens many times are not filled to capacity, even though they have space. Ever since I started becoming interested in canning and gardening, I couldn’t help but notice how the movie WALL-E really seemed possible should we keep moving away from nature. This is a skill you will retain for the rest of your life, a home grown tomato will taste different than one from the grocery store produce section. One summer of growing will make you a believer. You will see.

So today, after I wrapped up my asparagus post from the canning yesterday, I decided to get started on the case of strawberries I got from the farm down the street. It was way more than I thought and I ended up using about 4 quarts in my strawberry preserves today. Everyone snacked on a quart so I have about 3 quarts left. This might also be the year I try my hand at making strawberry wine. Now I am super tempted since I have so many left. But that will be another post. For now, preserves it is.

First thing you want to do is get your area cleaned up and ready for action. Cutting board, big ass pot, the berries themselves and a pointy knife for goring the stem out. You aren’t slicing, you are gutting!!
Get that pointy bit of the knife in there and get all that hard stem out. Although it’s okay for eating, it’s not good for preserves. If you must use it, save it for the winemaking. No one wants preserves with green chewy bits in it.
Once you get your gored strawberries in the pot, add lemon juice (about 1/4 cup) and pectin if you want. Pectin will help the fruit set up, meaning, go from liquid to jam. I have done it both ways, I have more luck with pectin than without.
Once you get the fruit good and hot, incorporate your sugar in. Ball book recommends 6 cups per 2 quarts of strawberries, but it’s just too sweet for me, so I use about a cup of sugar per quart of berries. This is four quarts of berries, so I used four cups sugar. Once it’s hot and bubbling, the berries need to be crushed. I started with a potato masher and ended with an immersion blender for this big ones that put up a fight.
I boiled in the sugar for about 1 minute of rolling boil, then turned the heat off and stirred firmly for about three minutes. I then ladled off the foam. The foam is totally normal, but you really don’t want it in your finished product.
I heated my jars up with hot water while they waited to be filled. If you’re putting hot liquid in the jars, you MUST preheat them. They can’t go from cool to boiling hot without running the risk of busting.
I used the pot part of my pressure canner, but never put the lid on. Strawberries need a hot water bath, meaning you fill the pot til the water level is higher than the jars themselves and boil for 20 minutes. Super easy.
Once you boil them, place them on a heat tolerant surface and let them cool naturally, don’t try to speed the process or shake the jars up. The liquid inside is MOLTEN LAVA 🔥 hot. They will seal, but not if they’re disturbed. A burst jar will fling that hot syrup everywhere, including on you, which is dangerous.
This was extra and will go in my fridge immediately. I put him in hot because I am using a screw top, so I am not counting on a seal. I am out of jelly and jam, so once cooked, this will go to immediate use.

There you have it….strawberry preserves. Now you could finely strain them and add more pectin for jelly or not so finely strain for jam. But I want the whole berry, the goodness of the entire fruit. There is much nutrition in there and so much flavor, I don’t want it to be lost. Preserves are a great was to begin canning, they are easier to process in the hot water bath, they are much more forgiving as the seal failure rate is less than low acid foods and they are safer between their sugar and acid content. You can literally preserve any fruit, our grandparents grew all sorts of stuff they wanted to make sure they had access to all year long. The vitamin C is excellent for you as well.

I hope this helps at least someone start to think about canning. Start looking for a local farmers market and thinking about obtaining some ball jars….even my husband is a believer now. Give it a try!! 💜🌱💜

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