Canning is something that I think is really important, but I also find it to be extremely intimidating. One of my friends has a cousin who a few months ago got the chance to ask our beloved Prophet, Thomas S Monson, what one thing that members of the church really need to be working on. His reply? "There is no greater time in the history of all the earth where having an adequate food storage has been so important." Yep, leave it to a prophet of God to lay down the law, and scare the pants off of you. Since hearing that counsel from my friend this has been something that I've really been trying to work on.
Since moving to North Carolina we've been really good at just stocking up. We have freezer meals in our freezer. A 10lb sack of flour, a 10lb sack of pancake mix (cause if the world is going to fall to pieces you at least want to make sure you have some pancakes to eat while it's all going to heck) and then other staples such as sugar, yeast, and spices. Clearly we're not prepared for probably any longer than a month. But it's a start. For more information of food storage and how you can become more prepared for an emergency, please check out this website published by my church that has great resources on how to protect your family when disaster strikes.
The newest addition to our food storage has been homemade jam. I was really surprised at how simple this is. It was also really inexpensive. I paid $4 for the strawberries, and then $5 for a huge sack of sugar, and then $3 for the pectin. And I now have 4 large jars full of jam! That's $12 for everything you need and then you'll obviously have leftovers of the sugar cause the recipe doesn't call for 10 pounds. It would cost over $20 for 4 jars of smuckers at the store, and it definitely doesn't beat the taste of homemade jam.
The one downfall to this was that I really wanted to make raspberry jam because that's Derek and I's favorite, but unfortunately, it would have been $42 for all the berries which was ridiculous compared to the $4 of strawberries. So the compromise was worth it in my opinion.
Ingredients:
2 cups crushed strawberries (buy 1 qt)
4 cups sugar, measured in separate bowl
3/4 cup water
1 pack pectin
Directions:
Rinse jars and lids with boiling water. Dry thoroughly. Cut stems off berries. Crush strawberries thoroughly (a potato masher would make this easy, I didn't have one and mashed them with my whisk and Kitchen Aide). Measure exactly 2 cups prepared fruit into large bowl. Stir in sugar. Let stand 10 min., stirring occasionally.
Mix water and pectin in medium saucepan. Bring to boil on high heat, stirring constantly. Continue boiling and stirring 1 min. Add to fruit mixture; stir 3 min. or until most the sugar is dissolved. (A few sugar crystals may remain.)
Fill jars immediately to within 1/2 inch of tops. Wipe off top edges of jars; immediately cover with lids. Let stand at room temperature 24 hours. Jam is now ready to use. Store in refrigerator up to 3 weeks or in freezer up to 1 year. (If frozen, thaw in refrigerator before using.)
You don't have to worry about putting them in a bath to seal the jars because the heat of the jam does this automatically. It happened for all 4 of my jars within 15 minutes! So no worries there!
You can get these mason jars
on Amazon right now for a great price!
Yummy! I have also done sugar-free freezer jam, and it turns out great and has a lot less calories. Just use a sugar substitute and the sugar-free pectin (in the pink box). (It's basically the same as this recipe.)
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