So, if you are thinking of making freezer jam and are wondering if you can use any old pectin, I have your answer. (Stacey, I'm looking at you!) (Poor Stacey has been combing the grocery stores in California for freezer type of pectin to no avail) (see the freezer pectin here)
First of all, the process of canning jam (or canning in general) is now referred to as FreshPreserving. Who knew. Of course, they have a website, which may answer some of your FreshPreserving burning questions if I do not cover them. Which is likely. See all the pectin products here.
To make freezer jam, you can use regular pectin by combining 3/4 cup water with the pectin and bringing it to a full rolling boil for 1 minute, stirring. Then add the boiled pectin to the fruit/sugar mixture, ladle into jars, screw caps on and put in fridge/freezer.
This is the recipe I used, which is a fairly basic no frills strawberry freezer jam recipe:
4 cups of crushed strawberries (I used the food processor because we don't like big pieces of fruit in our jam, but it's a personal thing. Perhaps you like huge chunks. Go for it. Use a potato masher)
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 package freezer pectin or regular pectin boiled with the water
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Stir together well, put into jars.
It's that easy. It is.
Then take this recipe and plug in whatever fruit you can dream up. Fig? Sure (not the gray kitty kind), strawberry banana (this is my next one, I would add some lemon juice to that one), peach, blueberry, kiwi. Really, if it's a fruit, you can make a jam.
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So there you have it. All you've ever wanted to know about making freezer jam and probably some things you did not want to know.
If you're up my way, stop in for some biscuits and jam.
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Yesterday I received a package in the mail. Bethany warned me that it could be a bomb. And she might have had something because it was a small package, from a mystery person that did not put their name on the label. I opened it up, kind of throwing caution to the wind. I mean, what if it WAS a bomb? It did not explode. Good sign. Inside? A heart box filled with chocolate chips and some cute cute stitch markers but not a card or a note to see WHO sent it. The bomb sender WAS from California though, so that narrowed it down.
Then I noticed that the chocolate chips were not all melty and it was about 120 degrees F (Sure, I exaggerate) and then I realized the WHO and WHAT (I am a regular Nancy Drew myself. Reading those books obsessively when I was younger paid off finally)
It was:
Stacey
with the
Hollyhock seeds
in the
Sandysknitting blog.
Am I right? Do I win??

Not chocolate chips