Strawberry Overload!!!

Strawberries have taken over - well, they did today, anyway.

I have been experimenting with various items that I can put up for when the sequester/furlough nonsense actually goes into effect (apparently letters are supposed to go out at the start of May, but we shall see).  Today, I prepped 10 lbs. of strawberries and canned them all in a light syrup.  

Despite wanting to help (so they said) neither child gave me any assistance, so I was rushing and trying to keep the syrup from boiling down, get the water bath up to boiling, and make sure the lids and bands were in a low simmer.....oh, and according to the recipe, 6-12lbs of strawberries should have yielded 8 pints or 4 quarts....yeah...right....I actually ended up with quite a bit more.  Fortunately, I had plenty of jars to use...lol

Final Product - oh so pretty!

The end result was 16 pints!!!  One pint didn't seal, but that was my fault completely since I didn't add enough syrup.  It all worked out because we had the strawberries over shortcakes.  I topped them with whipped cream and drizzled some of the syrup over the cream....YUM!!!  Surprisingly, DS said that they were too sweet....everybody liked them, but to him they had too much sugar (definitely not comprehending this comment...lol).

the final count - cooling on the kitchen cart :-)

I now have 1.5 shelves completely filled with processed jars.....salsa, grape jelly, and strawberries.  I need to hunt up my spaghetti sauce recipe and go visit my favorite fruit/veggie stand for pickling cucumbers....oh, and now my son says we need to get lots of blueberries and can them.  Yeah, I don't think so.  However, thinking about apples (for apple pie in a jar, which can also be used as filling for homemade pop tarts), spiced apples, fruit cocktail, and a few other things....but not 100% decided on anything beyond the pickles and sauce....