Strawberry Picking, dip and jam

The girls and I went Strawberry picking at a local farm last week. We went with some friends and it was such a beautiful, sunny, hot day. We picked over 12 pounds of strawberries! It was hard to make ourselves quit picking, there were so many gorgeous, juicy berries to pick!

The moment we got home I washed and sliced a large bowlful of them, mixed up a super simple dip, and we headed out to the deck to enjoy. You should have seen the 3 of us with our forks - we were like savages and within a few minutes the whole bowl of berries and the whole bowl of dip were long gone!

Here is my super simple fruit dip ...
Take a container of flavored yogurt - my personal fave to use is KEY LIME but I also think LEMON would be yummy and refreshing.
Add a couple large scoops of cool whip {or the whole container if you're serving a crowd}
Mix the two gently together and serve!

Then DIP, DIP, DIP your berries directly into the yummy dip!

YUM!!!!

With the remaining 11.5 pounds of fruit I made some freezer jam. It's soooo simple and easy to make!

The best thing to do is just buy a box of SURE JELL pectin. You can find it at the grocery store or sometimes Walmart. It's the size of a box of Jello. Inside it gives very simple instructions for making freezer jam. They have all kinds of recipes for different kinds of fruits - but make sure you buy enough SUGAR and SURE JELL for the amount of fruit you've got!

And if you think you have enough sugar, go buy more ... because with strawberry jam you use 4 cups of sugar for every 2 cups of fruit! I kid you not. And don't even think about changing the recipe to make it less sugary - it won't set right if you adjust the amounts. Just go with the flow and know that it's still healthier than the store bought jams you could be buying. =)

I bought 3 boxes of SURE JELL and should have bought about 2 more. So you really can't buy enough if you have a LOT of berries like we did.

So, just to be sure you have everything on hand before you get started - make sure you have:

*Sugar

*Sure Jell

*Berries or other fruit

*Clean containers to put jam in. {I love using mason jars but was too cheap to buy them this year so I simply got plastic rubbermaid containers}

In the middle of winter there is nothing I love more than having some fresh strawberry jam over my hot pancakes ... helps me remember those long, lazy days of summer!

Jams I'm hoping to try later in the summer are:

Blueberry

Raspberry/Peach

Grape

I better find a bigger freezer!