From my childhood, I can remember hot summer nights where my mom would throw a colander at me and send me outside to pick from our bountiful backyard garden. Little did I know, this would translate into a love of fresh food, which fed into a love of gardening.

Where I live now, in the foothills of Alberta, the growing climate is a little iffy, but since that time I have become an active member of the local community greenhouse, and I started preserving and canning wonderful BC fruits that I have picked up by the caseload from our farmer’s market.

Canning to me always seemed like a long process with little reward, but in my quest for fresh, I have developed some recipes that are quick & simple. With two small children, my time is usually limited so I must be able to do it during a naptime (1-2 hrs) or be able to leave it itself with a kitchen timer.  One of my favourites is quick strawberry jam (this can also be modified into whatever fruit you’d like to use).

Quick Strawberry Jam

Ingredients

6 cups of strawberries
4.5 cups of granulated sugar
1 tsp butter
1 pkg of Certo Light Pectin
6-250ml mason jars with lids

Directions

1. Put jars & lids in dishwasher. Use sanitize cycle (or a hot cycle) on your dishwasher. Leave jars in dishwasher to keep hot until ready to use.
2. Fill your canning pot with warm water & set on high on your stove.
3. Use juicer to extract strawberry juice from berries. If you like a chunkier jam, stir extracted seeds & skin also. (In lieu of a juicer, you can also use a blender).

4. Put strawberries, 1 tsp of butter and 1/2 cup of sugar into a large saucepan and turn on high heat.
5. Stir in the rest of the sugar.
6. Bring to a boil and let the mixture hard boil for 1 minute.

7. Remove from heat and skim off foam with a plastic spoon for 5 minutes.
8. Ladle hot liquid into jars leaving 1/4″ of headspace. Wipe any excess jam.
9. Add rings & seals until finger tight then add them into the canning pot to process. (How long you need to process depends on your altitude. See chart here.) Set your timer.