Don’t you love this time of year?!
One of our grocery stores is running a sale on strawberries for this ad week – only $.99 a pound. We haven’t seen them that low in a very long time – plus you can get as many as you want! However, they aren’t anywhere near as good as fresh-from-the plant strawberries, but for what I needed them for, they were great.
I felt totally greedy, but this little family that isn’t so little anymore, is beginning to require a bit more food than it did five years ago. We now have four in school, so that is four lunches to make on most school days. And frozen strawberries is one of their favorite fruits to take!
So I decided I didn’t need to feel guilty since I was getting them at an excellent price . . . and I went and bought 28 pounds! That looks like alot when I type it out, but truly it didn’t go as far as I thought it would. That’s why you will find me going back to get more today, unless some other desperate mom gets there first and wipes ’em out clean!
My children follow in their daddy’s footsteps by only liking strawberry freezer jam. I’ve tried to get them to like red raspberry jam since I have enough of my own raspberry bushes to make our own jam from them. But Daddy and the Littles don’t like the seeds all that well. Fine. I’ll eat it all by myself then!
Making strawberry freezer jam is fun – truly it is! I made ten batches which should see us through until next spring.
We washed and stemmed the berries first.
Then we ran them through our blender. Surejell’s recipe says to mash them, but my family doesn’t like chunks of strawberries in their jam, so I went against Surejell’s instructions and pureed them. It still turned out great!
Next we added our sugar. You need to stir it and let it set for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
After that, you mix the packet of Surejell and water, bringing to a boil. Boil 1 minute, then remove from your stovetop and stir into your berries.
Pour the jam into containers and let it set for 24 hours before freezing. They look so pretty!
With the berries we didn’t use for jam, we chopped, sugared, and put into freezer lunchcups for school lunches. Terrel was home from school that day with shingles. Yeah, I know. I thought it was supposed to be an adult disease, too. But he sure came in handy when it was time to chop strawberries!
After washing and cutting in half, we threw them into my roaster and chopped them using a handy food chopper.
Once they were in small enough pieces, we sugared them and gave it a good stir.
Then came the fun part!
We divided them into individual lunchcups and froze them on cookie sheets so none would spill in the freezer. I’m not sure what it is in me, but it gives me such a little twirl of pleasure to see these go in the freezer.
Thanking God for all His bounty and enough food to fill our little ones tummies!
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Cara Lorenz via Facebook says
Love your little ‘lunch cups’ all stacked & ready for the freezer 🙂
Amy @Making a Joyful Home says
Mmm – I love strawberries and that looks delicious!
Found your blog via the Bloggers’ Meet and Greet. So nice to find you – your corner of Idaho looks just beautiful in pictures!