Making Strawberry Topping and Jam

Yep, that's two loads of unfolded laundry sitting there in the background, but I'm trying to keep my priorities
in order, remember? :D
It's been at least five years, maybe more, since I've done any canning, but with a flat of highly perishable strawberries sitting on my counter this afternoon, we made a batch of strawberry topping for ice cream or other desserts and a batch of strawberry jam. Ryan was very excited about making the jam and could hardly wait until I had the jars sterilized, the water bath heating, and the berries washed and prepared.


Crushing berries...fun, fun, fun!
Finally, I was ready and we crushed berries, added sugar (wow, I forgot how much sugar it takes...need to find a low sugar recipe next time!), squeezed lemons and added the juice. The topping doesn't require pectin and is very easy to make, but the jam needs pectin and cooks longer, thus requiring skimming foam and working very quickly getting it into the hot jars. I let Ryan ladle a couple of jars before I finished it off. He was very eager to sample what we made and was disappointed to learn he had to wait till the next day!


To quote Ryan, "Yummo!"
We had a small amount of the topping that wouldn't make a full half pint, so we sample some of that over ice cream that evening, and it was pretty yummy. The next morning, we had our strawberry jam on biscuits as part of our breakfast! It tastes good, though it wouldn't win any prizes at a fair. The fruit pieces ended up a bit small and they all floated to the top...guess I'm out of practice! It was fun nonetheless, and we are looking forward to possibly making another batch next week.