That's My Jam!

I've been wanting to try my hand at canning for several years now, but I never quite got around to buying the equipment...plus I have an extreme fear of giving myself food poisoning from not doing it correctly.  I've pumped my husband's grandma for information on canning over the years in an attempt to find out how not to give myself botulism but it wasn't until I got my hands on this book 

that I felt confident enough to try it out.  

This is an amazing and beautiful book on canning! 

For the actual recipe, though, I turned to this book that I just bought at our local hardware store.

Who needs a bookstore when you have a hardware store?

There are tons of recipes in this book....although I'll withhold judgement on how they taste until I've actually had some of the jam that I made.

I ended up choosing just a basic strawberry jam since the season for most fruits is drawing to a close and the pickings are a bit slim. 

As for the actual process, it looks like I had everything under control right?

Don't be fooled.  About two minutes after this picture was taken, the strawberry mixture boiled over all over the stovetop (thanks to my soux chef/husband for helping me clean it up).  Oh, and have I mentioned the lovely layer of stickiness all over our floor?  

But I did end up with four lovely pints of strawberry jam!

Shhh, don't tell anybody...I actually don't even like jam!

Tomorrow I get to test the seals to see if the whole canning process actually worked...wish me luck!