Summer Jammin'

The strawberries always come first.  Just as school is getting out, the little wooden Spooner Farms stand goes up, stays boarded up and silent for a couple of days.  Soon, the stand begins to talk to us.  "Strawberries Coming" is comforting, but "Berries tomorrow at 9:30 am" is exciting!  I can jam every year.  Everyone else that I know makes freezer jam, which sounds so much easier.  I remain the rebel.  I love how sweet jam smells while it cooks and how beautifully it shines from the jars.

The Lewis Family eats the strawberry jam more so than any other kind of berry.  Also, when we gift the jam at Christmas, I get more comments about the strawberry jam.  I canned 32 half pint jars last week.  Yesterday, I finished off the flat of berries by canning some strawberry syrup for the first time.  Wow.  Delicious.

We all tried the syrup on ice cream - even Robby, which surprised me.  He is usually the least adventurous.  However, he tried and liked the strawberry syrup.  He thought it was great on ice cream, but wasn't sure if he would try it on pancakes, like I suggested.

A great pancake recipe would be a handy attachment on the syrup when we give it away.  Any suggestions?  Got a favorite pancake recipe that I can borrow?  The blog comments don't need a password from you - comment freely!

Strawberry Syrup.

Cooking the berries is a messy job.

Strawberry jam.