This week’s theme over at WFMW is: Summer Recipes!

Not that hard; it’s summer here all year long (thereabouts) so just about anything we do is fair game. The “recipes” the kids come up with every Saturday during our picnic playdate and lunch – usually involve stacking, smashing and rending lunch into objects of art for the eyes, then stomach.

But my favorite summer recipe this year is Freezer Jam. Most of the fun of a dry run on canning, without the greater chance of my lack of lots of experience giving us botulism.

It started out with a trip to the cousins’ house, where they’d just gotten in a huge batch of strawberries from the co-op.

The general recipe we followed was printed on the pectin packet:

* Strawberries (fresh, washed, topped, chopped, smashed)
* Sugar (usually a couple of cups per pound of diced berries)
* Freezer jam packets (we used Bell from the grocery store, though you can find it here online).

Smash and mash, smash and mash those strawberries. We gave kids turns using the potato masher (and knife, when age appropriate). Mixed in the sugar and pectin, then filled sterilized jelly jars near to the top. Capped lightly with sterilized caps. Wrote the date on the caps, and put each jar in the freezer to set. Once frozen (or set in the fridge if not freezing), capped tightly and label.

When the kids got tired of mashing and pouring (less fun, more work), we set them to work on making sleeves for the jars out of paper and crayons. The eldest cousin measured the jars and cut the blanks; the rest of the kids colored and decorated the blanks. Once the jam had set, each jar got a slip-on label (removed for defrosting, and put back on once condensation fears had passed).

Empty jars (we’ve never thrown out jam for not using it up within the three weeks the pectin package suggests as open shelf life) go back into the honeycomb box for the next run, wrapped in labels so we’ve got an idea of what to put in them next time. Maybe next summer we’ll try a couple jars of pantry jam.

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