After picking our two boxes of fresh strawberries from Huber's, we needed to "put them up", as my grandparents used to say. I was surprised by how many people on our Adventure were intimidated by canning, but then I remembered that was me last year before I learned how to can. There's nothing to it, really. I've not done pressure canning, yet, but I was able to start doing hot water canning with minimal equipment. I've been using the large pots we had on hand along with some jars from your local grocery. Kroger carries the pint-sized jars, but the smaller jelly jars are harder to find. I got a set at Wal Mart. (I know, I know.)

While I did purchase a canning book, this particular batch was made simply using the recipe on the back of the pectin box. Pectin is what makes a jam set up, or stiffen, rather than being runny. You can make it without the pectin, but it takes a lot longer. If you decide to try this, you need to hunt down a real recipe. This is more for demonstration purposes.

The first thing we did is hull the strawberries - basically just pinching off the little stems. Child labor is great.

Then you smash the strawberries about a cup at a time until you end up with 6 cups. Piper was using a pastry cutter to do this.

You put it all into a pot along with the pectin and a little sugar and bring it to a rolling boil. You stir, stir, stir so it doesn't stick or burn. After it boils, you dump the rest of the sugar (4 cups in total) into the pot and let it boil for a full minute. At that point, it wants to boil over so you have to be careful. Here it is while I could still take a quick picture.

Then you ladle it into your prepared jars. Basically preparing the jars means you wash them out and make sure to keep them hot so they don't break when you put the hot liquid into them. I keep mine hot in the otherwise empty dishwasher on plate warmer. That keeps me from having yet another pot of boiling water on my tiny stove.

You lower the jars into the water and let them boil for 10 minutes. Here it is helpful to have a special jar lifter. Boiling water is hot, in case you didn't know. I thought I could handle it with a pair of tongs, but after getting burned enough times I spent the $5 or so on the lifters. 

Then - Voila! You let the jars sit on your counter undisturbed for 24 hours. At that point you check to make sure they sealed properly by removing the screw band and depressing the lid. If the lid seems tight, you lifting them using the lid, supporting them underneath with the other hand in case they fall. If the lid supports the weight of the jam, they should be just fine, according to my book. I've never (knock on wood) have one seal improperly. 

Basically canning is a lot of standing around a hot stove watching things boil. It's not the most fascinating thing in the world, but I feel like I've really created something when I'm finished. It's nice because I don't have to worry about the berrie going bad in the freezer during our next power outage.  

From that batch of strawberries, we also ate several nights worth of strawberry shortcake, we dehydrated several trays of strawberries, I have a good-sized bowl of chopped strawberries in the fridge waiting to top yogurt and:

The yummmiest pie ever.

And two dozen strawberry, chocolate chip muffins (I've stored a dozen in the freezer for later).