My mom is an educated woman with a Bachelor’s of education and a Master’s of Special education and works full time for the local school system. She takes care of the house with the necessary duties of cooking, cleaning and gardening, but my mom has spoiled my sisters and I for our entire lives with homemade meals. I despise the taste of canned vegetables, store boughten relish, microwave meals and baked jelly. My mom takes the extra time to prepare a meal everyday, prepare fresh veggies down to freezing fresh corn each summer, canning relish every year and my favorite making jam each summer when the strawberries are ripe. Living in suburbia and being a full-time teacher and housewife this kind of stuff doesn’t happen often any more, and spending four years at college I was deprived of a good hearty home cooked meal all from fresh ingredients made from my mother’s hands.
Mom took my two nephews, who were more hinders than help, to pick the strawberries and came home with cartons upon cartons of strawberries. Now my mom would not just go to the store and buy the California strawberries, no no no they do not taste the same and do not work as well as the local strawberries in her yearly process of making jam. The local strawberries were tinier, but full of flavor and just right.
All of our strawberries are turned into our favorite strawberry foods of strawberry delight, strawberry shortcake and strawberry jam. Dad and I helped make the jam this year, well Dad only smashed the berries and ate them, and we smashed and stirred and waited then stirred some more and poured them into containers for the perfect jam. We make just enough to have several extra for when summer rolls around again and it’s time to make another batch to freeze. Now when each of my sisters and I leave the house to our new homes, one of the things we alwasy remember to take, because we would never be caught buying the store bought kind is Mom’s Strawberry Jam.
Just in case anyone is feeling adventurous it’s a simple recipe that you can find on a box of Certo, but I’ve added it below:
1. Mash strawberries in a large bowl. (We use a potato masher and leave some bigger strawberries just for more flavor)
2. Measure 2 cups of crushed berries and set a side
3. In seperate bowl measure out a precise amount of 4 cups of sugar and add the 2 cups of crushed berries together. Stir together well and let sit for 10 minutes while stirring occasionally.
4. In a small bowl mix together 2 tablespoons of lemon juice and 1 package of Certo.
5. Combine lemon juice and Certo mix with Strawberry and sugar mix and stir constantly for 3 minutes.
6. Ladle your jam into your desired container (we use old frosting containers or small mason jars) let sit out for 24 hours.
7. Enjoy your jam or freeze the extras!
Life, adventures and new beginnings 