Strawberries and fresh food

We went strawberry picking on Friday. It was organized by a homeschool group in the area. The girls and I picked 3 huge baskets of berries. After getting home and washing just one of them I knew we had a lot of work ahead of us:) I wanted to make strawberry jam. We ate the first basket fresh (I brought some over to our neighbor Ms. Nadene and then we brought some over to share for a playdate with some friends from the girls' dance class that afternoon.) The next basket we washed, sliced, and mashed for strawberry jam. I used a product called Panoma's Fruit Pectin that you can get at the health food store. I still had to add sugar but the pectin makes it go a lot faster. Then we let them sit in a water bath for about 5 minutes. Only one of the jars actually sealed properly and I'm not quite sure what I did wrong. I don't think it matters because we are going to go through the other 4 jars very fast because it is sooooo good. I finished cutting up the last of the strawberries this morning for at least one more batch of jam.

We cut our first head of lettuce from the garden this morning. I've been waiting patiently for it to get big enough. We ate it for lunch in a big salad with fresh strawberries we picked and the last of the brocolli from the garden. Daniel made us all some mint tea from our herb garden. He also baked some tempeh with herbs from garden and a bulb of garlic. Then we had bread and jam for dessert. It was a beautiful collection of tastes and colors. Does it sound like I'm bragging? It's because I am a little:) I think people sometimes think we are crazy because we don't eat a typical animal filled diet. But, how can you say we are missing out on anything? We truly enjoy our food. Especially when it is fresh and from our own garden.