Strawberries

We have a small patch of strawberries this year & they are delicious.

Charlie has been helping me pick the strawberries. Well, he picks one and eats three but he is helping me. He just likes to pick it doesn't matter the size or if they are red he just likes to pick. If you walk in the strawberry patch you will see the not quite ripe strawberries with a small bite taken out of them laying on the ground.

Lee wanted me to make some strawberry jam so I got out my canning cookbook and looked for the simplest recipe I could find. It can't get much easier than crushed strawberries and sugar. So I began the task last night of making my first batch of strawberry jam.

It's not hard to do just time consuming.

Of course, you have to wash all the berries and then cut the tops off (hull). Then you combine the strawberries with the sugar and bring to a boil over medium heat while constantly stirring. Well, I stirred. I wouldn't say constantly but in between changing poopy pants, getting the bath water ready, cleaning up supper dishes, switching the clothes from the washer to the dryer..... you get my point.

I processed the jars in a water bath canner & left them overnight to cool down.

They were all sealed this morning and looked yummy! Maybe we'll it for breakfast tomorrow morning!

I had some strawberries left over so I decided to dehydrate them. You need some really big strawberries to do this! They were good but some of them shriveled up so small that I couldn't get the off the dehydrator tray without ripping them apart.

Speaking of dehydrating things. I tried turnips last week. Don't bother!!

You may ask why turnips? Lee wanted the turnip greens but I did not want the turnips to go to waste so my bright idea was to dehydrate them. I guess from now on I'll see if the pigs will eat the turnips!