This year, like many, our families are on strict budgets for the holidays.
My family decided to keep adult presents to a minimum, with a limit of $15 each. We can buy fun gifts for the kids, but what can we get adults for under $15?
Dane and I decided to make our gifts! Yesterday we made JAM! Sounds old-fashioned, but really - who wouldn't like dreamy sweet homemade strawberry jam on their toast or croissant in the morning?
I bought a bunch of strawberries and blackberries from Costco, some jam jars online (Amazon.com) for cheap and one box of pectin. With my sugar from the cabinet, the entire production cost $25.00. I didn't get any special canning equipment: we just used my larger pots and my regular kitchen thongs. We had to be extra careful of the boiling water, but Dane helped mix the berries and the sugar.
I used a recipe that I found and adapted to use with my brand of pectin. Some brands include recipes right in their box. Some of the recipes with pectin use no sugar, and some with sugar don't need any pectin (I learned it really depends on what you are preserving - some fruits naturally have a high pectin level).
All this made 8 full jars of delicious strawberry-blackberry jam. At 1 jar per person, that's 3.16 per person! We still have money left over for some iTunes credits or Amazon gift cards.
Give it a try, I promise, your loved ones will be impressed!
xoxo
Lis
2 comments:
This is a great idea, although I've never made jam, so I'm not sure how it would turn out! Got any advice or trouble shooting tips?
My best advice would be just to start! Read a couple web sites first (the one I have linked in the article). What I found important was to make sure to keep the jars in the hot water after you boil them. Meaning, shut off the heat and keep the jars in the water while you prep the fruit.
THis way, the jar won't break when you hot fill them with the jams.
I also think that if you will make jam w/o pectin, you have to cook the fruit much longer, and perhaps add a little apple cider or orange juice (they both have natural pectin).
Make a small batch first to practice (so you don't waste too much fruit if it doesn't work out).
Also, what I did to start was to take an old jam jar that came from "Bonne Maman" jam. I washed it out and sterilized it (in boiling water), and used that one to practice (this way I didn't have to buy any new jars to start while I was learning).
Hope this helps!!!
If you do make some, let me know how it works out :)
Post a Comment