Homemade Challenge: Adventures in canning

Canning fresh produce like strawberries and tomatoes has long been toward the top of my bucket list. Every spring I would think, "This'll be the year," and then after a quick Google search I'd become cross-eyed from discourses on acidity and pressure. I mean, there's a reason I'm not a physicist.

But this year I resolved that I would indeed make and preserve strawberry jam. The impetus is our subscription to a produce-delivery-service which brings all kinds of cool veggies, like kale and bok choy (actually, the kids love kale chips as long as I refer to them as "green potato chips." Bok choy -- not so much). But we also get strawberries -- fresh ones, picked the day before. Between the delivery and picking them ourselves at local farms, yesterday our fridge was sagging under seven pounds of berries. Can or rot!


So I kicked the kids out of the kitchen for safety issues (lots and lots of boiling water), put Dominic down for a nap, read through the recipe about a dozen times, took a deep breath... and an hour later I had four pints of beautiful red strawberry jam cooling in cute Mason jars.

Unbelievable.

And yes, I am totally going to make dorky red-checkered labels for the jars.