In honor of Father's Day, I engaged in a very macho activity: I made homemade strawberry preserves. I know, sooo stereotypical. With so many of the strawberries from yesterday still in the fridge and the rain coming down in buckets, making preserves seemed like a perfect Sunday afternoon activity. I have never actually canned anything before, but you have to start somewhere.
I used 5 cups of crushed strawberries, one box (1.75-oz) pectin, 3 cups sugar, 3 cups brown sugar, 2 Tbsp lemon juice, and 2 cinnamon sticks. I also used this project as an excuse to go out and buy a pressure canner (though I just used it as a hot water bath canner for this project). Tomorrow I will check the seals on the lids and find out if I followed the processing procedure correctly. If I did, we will have 2 and a half pints of strawberry preserves!
I also froze a quart of strawberries. I washed them, trimmed the stems, placed them on a cookie sheet lined with wax paper in the freezer for 4 hours. Now we have just one quart of strawberries left, but maybe we will get more from the CSA on Wednesday.
So, did you do the canning right?
ReplyDeleteDon't keep us in suspense! The first time I canned (funny enough, while I lived in Massachussets), even though the seals were all done correctly, I kept not trusting myself, and expected to see a living laboratory each time I opened a new jar of apple conserve in the months following my canning experience.
I'm enjoying your blog.
Mercedes
Yes, so far so good on the canning. The seals look good, but I won't know for sure for at least another month. If I end up in the hospital with botulism poisoning I'll be sure to post about the experience.
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