Christmas Jam (Strawberry Cranberry Jam)

I bought some strawberries at the store the other day at a pretty good price. I split them up into 3 batches and made traditional strawberry jam with the first batch. I don't particularly like strawberries myself so I sat down to think about what I could do with the other two batches and remembered I still had cranberries my uncle got me last fall in the freezer. I decided to make a batch of strawberry-cranberry jam. After considering ratios of fruit and sugar for awhile I went ahead and began. I decided to google it to see what other people had come up with and found that this is called Christmas Jam, the name made me smile.

I haven't been canning for 40 years but it's not my first time either and this was the very first jam I ever let boil over. I made a mess, and I mean a huge mess. We had to pull the stove out so I could clean up all of the jam kind of mess. I think it's time I bought myself a proper pot for cooking jam, the ones I use are a little small for my liking. Half of my jam ended up all over the floor and stove but since it wasn't burned, I was still able to put up what was left in the pot and man was it tasty. I figure everyone is bound to make at least one giant mess when canning in their life, right?

So, here is the revised version of my recipe, for a smaller batch, so hopefully it won't end up all over your floor too:

4 c. hulled and chopped strawberries
3 c. cranberries (you can cut in half but most tend to "pop" open when boiled)
5 c. sugar
Pectin (optional)
I had to let this cook down for a long time to get it to the gel point so you may want to consider adding pectin to help it along. Strawberries are naturally low in pectin but cranberries are high in pectin so you can get away without adding more pectin if you want.

Before you start cooking your jam, fill up your water bath canner and turn on the burner, it takes awhile to bring it to a boil. Wash your jars in hot soapy water or on the sanitize cycle of your dishwasher. Put your lids in a small pot and warm them up on the stove so the rubber becomes soft, do not boil them.

Put strawberries in your pot, add sugar, stir. Heat on med, stirring until sugar is dissolved, you want to be careful not to scorch the sugar on the bottom of the pot.

Add cranberries, bring to a boil. As it boils, the cranberries will pop open, releasing juice. Boil until it reaches the set point. A good way to do this is by having a small plate in the freezer, put a little drizzle of jam on it, once it's cooled, if it's wrinkled and not rolling around your plate, it's ready to go.

*If using pectin, follow directions on the box for proper boiling times and when to add the pectin.

Turn off the burner, skim the foam from the top of the jam and fill your jars, leaving 1/4 inch headspace.

Wipe rims, apply lids and bands and process for 10 minutes. When your 10 minutes is up, remove your jars from the canner and wait for the little "pop" that they've sealed. If any of them don't seal (it shouldn't take very long to know if they haven't) pop them in the fridge and use within a few weeks.