MMMMM Summertime means sTrAwBeRrIeS, lemonade and pbj’s (because it’s way too stinking hot to cook!)

Brent and I both had the day off yesterday. The 24th of July is Pioneer Day, a state holiday in UT. It’s the day we celebrate the pioneers settling in the Salt Lake Valley back in ooooh, way back when… 🙂 But it was cool to have the day off with Brent, spend some time together and get a few things done around the house.

Most of the morning was spend making homemade strawberry jam. I usually make homemade freezer jam, but this year I decided to make home canned/bottled jam. It will last longer and doesn’t take up precious real estate in my freezer. Brent even helped out! He was so excited to see all the finished bottles lined up on the counter cooling. Each time a lid would POP (seal), he’d keep count… POP! – “Three”, POP! – “Seven!” LOL!

We tried two recipes… one with pecitin and one without. They both taste fabulous, but the Pectin recipe was a LOT faster and the color was much prettier. You have to cook the non-pectin recipe a lonnnng time and it gets really dark and almost looks like raspberry jam instead of strawberry jam.

We ended up with 21 half pints of strawberry jam. We made one batch (see left photo), then had a ton of strawberries left, so Brent ran to the store and picked up more half pint jars.)

This is WAAAAY more than B and I will eat in a year. Perhaps I will have to create a cute little tag or something for a couple jars and give some away… hrmmmmm…….