Strawberry Freezer Jam.

For most of my life I didn't eat jam. My mom has never really cared for fruit preserves and so I grew up thinking that the most American lunch you could have was peanut butter and honey not a pb and j.

Paul had the complete opposite experience. He said the only time he had honey was on peanut butter and banana sandwiches (I think that sounds yucky!). When we got married, he wanted jam and since I couldn't get the honey I liked out here and I actually like jam (except grape, gag!) I made the switch. I've always been shocked at how expensive jam is but I never really thought about canning my own. Last week someone on Facebook mentioned canning Pear jam and that sounded DELICIOUS so I All-Reciped it. Nothing came up. I changed my search to just plain jam and there was Strawberry Freezer Jam.

Immediately my mouth started watering. On the rare occasion we had jam in my house it was strawberry and of the freezer variety. I can remember being frustrated with the speed the jars would disappear. I hid the jars as long as I could so in the back of the freezer so that we wouldn't run out. I always imagined it to be this labor intensive process that took hours and hours and I thought that once we were out, we were out for good. I was shocked when I saw that it would literally only take half an hour to make a batch of freezer jam- what had I been thinking?

Organic strawberries were extra ripe and on sale for less than regular strawberries this week at Kroger so I got 2 pints and a thing of pectin. Friday, while Pearl was asleep for her afternoon nap, I cleaned my kitchen, picked up and vacuumed my living room, and made jam- I felt like and uber-productive super mom.

I also got to use my favorite freezer jars instead of having to dig the glass pint jars out of the attic. These hold more, stack, and are way cuter.

This is what it works out to: 2 pints of strawberries @ $2 a piece ($4.10)
1 box of pectin ($1)
4 cups sugar ($0.92)

Grand total: $6.02 OR (as I like to think of it) $0.075 a serving :)

If I were to buy Smucker's Strawberry Jam at Sam's Club, it would cost less per serving ($0.054) but it wouldn't taste like sunshine, it would taste like cooked and processed mediocrity. I thought about not making the jam because it would cost a little more but the point of this food experiment isn't to revel in being as cheap as I can be, it's about being frugal (read:cheap) AND happy with what we eat. $0.02 more a serving of jam? Worth both pennies!