There aren’t too many people I know that don’t like strawberries. In our family, strawberries are one of the 4 main food groups. So when a friend of mine saw me at Walmart last week with almost 20 quarts of these bright red, fragrant fruit in my cart, she commented that she wasn’t surprised. What she didn’t know is that my husband and son were just a few yards away with almost 40 quarts of strawberries in their own cart! Leaving that afternoon with exactly 80 quarts of strawberries (and 8 quarts at home already in the outside refrigerator) might lead you to believe we go a little overboard….and you might be right, except we were also buying strawberries for two other families in our little rural town.

I sure hope you live in an area that runs in-store specials like this, because at just $1.00/quart, you can’t grow them that cheap! We did need to drive to a Walmart about 30+ minutes away, but that’s OK! We were thrilled! In case you’re wondering if they were ‘on the verge of spoil’, they definitely were not, and there was very little waste from bad spots when we cleaned them. They were sweet and full of flavor. I didn’t bother to ask the produce manager why they were so cheap, we just decided to act fast.

Finding the best prices on the jam ingredients:

So what did we do with all those strawberries, you ask? Well, for the last few years, Rachael and I have this deal going that I buy the ingredients (most of them, at least) and she makes the strawberry jam. It’s the best strawberry (freezer) jam that I’ve ever tasted, and it’s an arrangement I know I’m on the better end of!  Since strawberries are really only a small part of the jam-venture, we found Foodland had a special on sugar, $1.39/4# of sugar, and Save-A-Lot had pectin for $1/box. Fred’s had jars for about 1/2 of what Walmart sells them for, which brings me to realize the reason Walmart sold the strawberries so cheap. If we bought the canning ingredients there – it  ‘just happens’ that the jars and pectin cost almost double than other stores right now. Oops. Sorry, Walmart, it’s economic survival these days.

Anyone had success with a low-sugar strawberry jam?

FYI, we did enjoy several quarts of these strawberries just as God intended, plain and un-sweetened, and froze no less than a dozen quarts for other uses throughout the year. Jam takes an awful amount of sugar, and we’ve yet to experiment with a low sugar recipe. Research tells us that reducing the sugar even a little affects how the jam turns out. We’d love to hear from anyone that’s had success with alternate recipes. The only ones I found used artificial sweetners (both Rach and I do not tolerate that well, at all!) or strawberry jello, complete with red coloring, no thank you.  I’d love to use stevia, but it tends to be very bitter in larger quantities. We’ll let you know if any of our experiments were successful.

After all, in just a week or two, the local strawberry farms open for picking!

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