Strawberries - Yummy treats

We went Strawberry picking this past weekend. It was a blast. It is amazing how different fresh picked strawberries taste from store bought strawberries. Here are a few pictures from our adventure.

Now for the treats. Here is what I did with our strawberries.

I dehydrated some to be used in our granola. Yummy!

I made strawberry rhubarb pie for my father for fathers day. Double Yummy!!

And finally, I made sugar free Jam. Yep, you read right, I said sugar free. Last year I made strawberry jam and was shocked at the amount of sugar that went into it. I went in search of a way to do it with less sugar and found one. Its called low methoxyl pectin. Here is the website where I purchased mine. Instead of sugar, you use honey, juice concentrate or a sugar substitute. I chose to use 1/2 cup of honey for mine.

The verdict: Wow!! It tasted like I had fresh strawberries mashed onto my toast. It was SO good. We will never go back to regular jam again. (unless of course we eat all of the jam I make, which might happen very quickly) Also, the company I purchased it was great. The have a "jam line" that you can call with your questions. I received a call back very promptly and the woman on the phone was a delight to talk with.

Now, as for the price, at first I thought it was more expensive to use this new pectin, but then I realized that one box was enough to make 20 half pints of strawberry jam. I would need four boxes of the regular stuff, plus think of all the sugar you would need to get.

Overall, if you are experienced at making jam, I would give this a try and if you've never done it before, you should look into it. Its really not that hard, teh istructions are included with the pectin and you just need the righ tequipment and you are set to go.