To our delight, this spring, we found that the strawberries the previous owners had planted were coming back.
Strawberries are one of my favorite fruits. I could probably eat them every day if they were in season longer. When I was a kid, my mom would take my sister and I to the strawberry patch and we would pick berries for hours. I remember my mom cleaning the strawberries, then smashing them, and adding a little bit of sugar, before putting them in the fridge overnight. The next day we would have fresh homemade shortcakes right out of the oven with strawberries and whip cream. Our strawberry harvest would never last long enough.
My husband’s childhood memories of strawberries are very different. He remembers growing and picking strawberries to sell as a summer project for him and his siblings. He still likes strawberries, but can tire of them quickly. And he really hates picking them.
With my chronic back pain, strawberry picking can be quite uncomfortable. So we had hoped that the twins would be able to help us with that. Unfortunately, when the strawberries are ready, there is no waiting. And when the strawberries were ready this year, the only one available to pick them was my husband. He begrudgingly picked strawberries for hours. But it was so so worth it!
We ended up with about 10 quarts of strawberries. He did all the picking, but I helped with the cleaning.
The first batch, I smashed, added sugar and refrigerated overnight. I then made homemade shortcakes that were honestly the most beautiful thing I’ve ever baked. Those strawberry shortcakes were so delicious!
We decided to make strawberry jam with the rest of our haul. Neither one of us had ever made jam before. It was so much fun! We already had most of the supplies and ingredients. Here’s a link to the recipe that we used. https://youtu.be/F5LhDkAfxA8
Note: we reduced the amount of sugar slightly due to diabetics in the family.
We were able to make approximately 13 pints of strawberry jam in just a couple of hours.
We of course kept some for ourselves, but gave the majority of it away to friends and family.
