Over the last few summers, I’ve been experimenting with preserved (canned) food, and this season I decided to pick up a few fresh quarts of strawberries while they’re in peak season and turn them into jam. I went to Weston’s farm in Fryeburg, who was selling unlabeled but local berries in the range of $5/qt.

If you know me well, you know I don’t follow recipes too perfectly, but I basically followed the recipe found here: http://www.pickyourown.org/strawberryjam.htm. I used Whole Food’s organic cane sugar, but now I want to keep bees so we can have homegrown honey in there too!

I had the canning equipment, jars, and screw caps, so the only additional supplies I needed were self-sealing lids (Fryeburg True Value, about $3) and some pectin (Spice and Grain, $4.50, plenty of extra left). In all, I think I probably broke even cost wise, but I used local ingredients and kept my food supply chain short on this one!!! Plus, I already have everything I need now for some batches of raspberry in a couple of weeks!