Strawberry Jelly – Blessings Multiplied

Jars of fresh Strawberry Jelly! — Jars of fresh Strawberry Jam / Jelly!

One of the best parts about being a parent is teaching our children. When you have opportunities to show them how them demonstrate positive characteristics it helps teach them valuable lessons plus it brings great joy seeing them get excited about sharing with others. The best part is when they initiate the action on their own, that’s when you know they are “getting it”. We have been teaching new words that go along with positive qualities as a family. One of the words we recently discussed with our girls was generosity. The old saying “it is better to give then to receive” is true, but unless it is put into action in your life and with the kids will they truly believe it. Part of our discussion involved finding ways to put the words, like generosity, into practical use. Here are some of the activities we did with the girls to help them understand the Joy of Sharing:

Picking and giving away produce from our garden to every person on our street. The majority of the families on our street are retired, but they are unable to do a garden of their own this year. Being generous with the neighbors and those in close proximity allowed the girls the opportunity to share and learn more about those who live on our street. They had a lot of fun and told me that they were going to pray for the garden to grow really big so we can do it again. Loved seeing their excitement!
Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive. We had the girls pick out some of their favorite non-perishable food items to put in a bag and had them help carry the items out to our mailbox. These activity provided us an opportunity to explain why we were giving the food away, who the food was going to, and to give praise that we had the extra blessings to share with those in our local community.
Sharing with Siblings & Friends – as a child (and sometimes as an adult) it can be hard to share. Whether it is a toy, book, food, house or really anything. We have been encouraging the girls to share with each other and friends. For example, many times our neighbors grandkids will come over to our house to play after school. One of the first things I do when the girls get home from school is give them a snack because they each lunch at school at 10:30 in the morning. When their friends come over from the school bus they are hungry too and it is not polite to eat / drink in front of them. Sharing their snacks and giving their friends drinks when they come to play is part of being generous.
Picking Strawberries & giving away Fresh Strawberry Jam – our family went strawberry picking one weekend. The following week I made jam while the girls were at school. They had a lot of fun giving the jars full of fresh strawberry jam to friends.

One important lesson to be taught is to be generous with the best. Do we hand our friends the half eaten loaf of bread or give them the freshly baked whole loaf? Give them the fresh whole loaf.

Freshly picked strawberries! — Freshly picked strawberries, ready to make into jelly!

After our family went on a Strawberry picking adventure this past weekend I got together with a good friend, Ashley from Reflecting On The Simple Things in Life on Monday morning and made some of her amazing Strawberry Jelly. The gallon of strawberries we used for the jelly was from Sandy Flats Farm in Taylors, SC. We had a lot of fun catching up while making strawberry jelly. Thankful for friendships and time together making delicious goodies for our families and to share with others. The recipe for the Strawberry Jam is one Ashley generously shared with me. We made 23 jars of Strawberry Jelly in a couple hours. Our cost for the strawberries was $8.00 for a gallon. I went ahead and bought a set of jars since I didn’t have enough, Ashley had the sugar and pectin on hand. If you go to Yard Sales you should be able to pick up more jam jars for a better price.

Ashley’s Strawberry Jam:

Two pounds of fresh strawberries
4 1/2 cups of white sugar
1 box of Sure Jell premium fruit pectin
6 canning jars

Wash and drain strawberries. Remove stems from strawberries and slice. Blend sliced strawberries in blender or food processor. Measure 3 3/4 cups of crushed strawberries and 4 1/2 cups of white sugar. Make sure to measure out the sugar ahead of time because you don’t want to stop in the middle of making the jelly and have to measure it out. The jelly can easily burn.

Stir 1 box of fruit pectin and 3 3/4 cups of crushed strawberries into a large sauce pot on high heat. You can add 1/2 teaspoon of butter to help reduce the foaming if you’d like. Bring mixture to a full rolling boil that doesn’t stop when stirred. Stir in sugar quickly. Return to a full rolling boil and boil exactly one minute. Remove from heat. Pour quickly into clean jars, filling to within 1/8 inch of tops. Cover with lids and screw bands on tightly. My Mom would always finish with putting them into a pressure cooker to seal the lids. I was always scared of pressure cookers because I thought they would blow up on me so she told me that most of the time the jelly is so hot that it will seal the lid on its own within 30 minutes. But to be safe, in case it doesn’t seal, always store the jelly in the freezer. Majority of the time all my jars have sealed but I still store the jelly in the freezer, just in case. This recipe makes about 6 cups of strawberry jelly.