***Thank you all for your kind thoughts and prayers for my hometown last week after the tornado they went through. Please continue to keep them in your hearts as they mourn those lost and as they pick up the pieces to re-build their homes and lives.***

While doing our grocery shopping last week, we spotted a good deal on a flat of strawberries.

Lately I’d been craving some homemade strawberry jam, so I figured what better an opportunity to make some. Growing up, my mom always had a container of strawberry freezer jam in the fridge and several more in the freezer. It’s just so delicious!

The main difference between freezer jam and your regular canned jam, is that freezer jam is much quicker and easier without all the specificity of the canning process and the jam tastes much more like fresh strawberries than with regular canned jam (which tastes more like cooked strawberries). Although, of course, since it isn’t canned and pressure sealed, it must be stored in the fridge or freezer.

It is super simple to make. Just pick up a box of fruit pectin at the grocery store (in the canning aisle) that looks like this:

Inside, you will find a whole little booklet with recipes for every kind of jam or jelly you could think of.

Regardless of which kind you choose to make, you will need containers for your jam. My mom always used small plastic containers, but I don’t like how plastic can crack after its been in the freezer for a while, so I got glass jelly jars (make sure they say freezer safe).

I ended up making two batches since I had so many strawberries (although now I have enough jam to last me the rest of my life) and in my experience, one batch of strawberry jam will fill twelve, 4 oz jelly jars and one 8 oz jelly jar, or if you use all 8 oz jars, it will fill six with a tiny bit leftover. And yes, that does mean that I now have twelve small jars of jam and 7 bigger jars of jam. If you live in the New Orleans area and are fresh out of jam, no worries, I will gladly give you some.

Anyway, here is how you make it:

Strawberry Freezer Jam

2 pt. strawberries, crushed (equal to 2 cups)
4 cups sugar
1 box fruit pectin
3/4 cup water

1. Wash and rinse containers. Make sure you have tight fitting lids.

2. Discard strawberry stems. Crush strawberries, either using a potato masher or a food processor (do not puree!), you want small chunks of fruit.

3. Measure fruit into large bowl. Stir in sugar and mix well. (exact amounts! substitutions will result in set failures) Let strawberry/sugar mixture sit for 10 minutes.

4. Stir pectin and water in small saucepan. Bring to a boil on high heat, stirring constantly. Boil 1 minute, continuing to stir constantly. Remove from heat.

5. Stir pectin mixture into fruit/sugar mixture. Stir constantly until sugar is completely dissolved and no longer grainy, about 3 minutes.

6. Pour into prepared containers, leaving 1/2 of space at the top for expansion during freezing. Cover.

7. Let stand at room temperature 24 hours until set.

8. Refrigerate up to 3 weeks or store in freezer for up to 1 year. Thaw in refrigerator.

Enjoy!

P.S. It was great on my almond flour biscuits!