Friday Jam Making

In anticipation of starting my new blog, I made sure I took pictures during my annual jam making. I always know summer is here when my freezer no longer has homemade strawberry jam stuffed in every available nook & cranny. So, Andy went to the Cooley Farm and purchased 10 quarts of strawberries for me to have oh, so much fun with. Of course, I forgot to take a picture of all those strawberries before I started work. Luckily I had a friend helping and she washed and cut the tops off the strawberries. However, here is a picture of part of the process:

I really don't mind mashing all the strawberries, that's the easy part. Actually the whole thing is pretty easy, but when you've done 5 batches of regular jam:

And two batches of sugar free jam:

And we can't forget about the strawberry pie I made at Andy's request:

You tend to get a little annoyed with strawberries. That did not however, stop me from trying the pie, and I must say it was the best I've made so far.

All this took about 6 hours. Yes, 6 hours of standing in the kitchen and over the stove. It's a good thing we have central air and that my children are pretty good at entertaining themselves.

I hope everyone has a great holiday weekend! Part of our weekend includes Andy finishing up the deck in the back. I'm sure I'll post the results of that project on Monday.