Sunday, June 6, 2010

Pickin' Berries to Make Jelly

 Yesterday A & I went out to a local farm to pick strawberries. I remember doing this as a little girl with my grandparents, but it has been many years since! It was a very warm day but we stuck it out and picked out berries!
Finding the perfect berries 
Working on my first quart

Delicious looking berry.

Done picking! Ready to go home and make some jelly-just like my grandpa used to do! 

6lbs of strawberries

A quick photo of everything you need. 

First you have to mash them up-enough for 2 cups

Then you add 4 cups (!!!) of sugar and mix together. Let it sit for 10 minutes-stirring occasionally 

Then add one packet of pectin (I used Certo) and 2 tablespoons of lemon juice (mix together in a separate bowl then add to the berries) Once you mix in the pectin and lemon juice  mixture stir the berries for 3 minutes.

Add the jelly to your jars.

Seal the jars and let them sit at room temperature for 24 hours. After that you can either put a jar in the fridge (good for 3 weeks) or freeze them (good for a year). We did this 4 times. 6lbs of berries made about 14 jars-all varying sizes. This was so easy to make! I can't wait to make jars using other fruits. Have you made any jellies before? What's your favorite home-made jellies?

We grew up on this jelly-I will only eat PB&J's with strawberry jelly and A thinks that is weird =). I can't wait to try it, I'm sure it will bring back childhood memories. 


1 comment:

Mere said...

I used to pick strawberries as a kid too. I haven't done it in years. And I am with you on strawberry jelly only for PB&J. Yum!