Strawberry Chia Freezer Jam

Today I'd like to welcome guest blogger Noah Wiebe (age 4), our son!  This past weekend after great friends' recommendation we took a little drive up to Oliver to pay a visit to Covert Farms.  An amazing organic u-pick farm!  We had a blast.   They grow practically everything there...it's amazing and completely worth the drive.  We filled our truck with many amazing things.  One thing we were most excited about was the fact that they still have strawberries!  We completely missed that season in Kelowna this year.  We're pretty sure that next summer we will be making multiple trips to Oliver to visit the farm:)

Our boys LOVED all the picking they got to do!  Strawberries definitely were the hit though...Levi would scream everytime he moved the leaves out of the way and spotted a large strawberry...I laughed so hard!  Noah was a very focused picker and little did I know that he had plans to not only pick the berries himself...but to come home and make the jam from start to finish by himself!  This recipe was a bit of an experiment, but we were very pleased with the results!  Super simple and very quick.  Involves no cooking of the berries so it's safe and easy for kids to help out with...and also helps keep that fresh berry taste that we all love.  If you've never worked with Chia seeds before, you'll see that they act as a thickener.  The seeds loose their crunch once they are put in liquid for about an hour or so, and they thicken everything around them...very handy!  As a bonus, they have huge nutritional value too!  You can buy white or black chia seeds.  I used white for the jam, it's what I had in our pantry, but either would work.  The bonus of the white seeds is that they end up looking like strawberry seeds and blend right in.

The reason why this works best as a freezer jam is that it eliminates the canning part...makes it easier for kids to help...AND...it lets you control the amount of sweetener that you add.  Canned jam has to have a certain amount of sugar in order for the jam to seal properly and not spoil...you don't have that issue with freezer jam.  Any sweetener will work for this!  We sprinkled a bit of coconut sugar in ours...like only 2 or 3 spoon fulls...and then tasted it once it set.  We found it wasn't quite enough so I added 1 teaspoon of honey to each jar and stirred it in before moving the jars to the freezer.

Tip: Using small jars is best since this jam will only keep for about 1 week once it's taken out of the freezer!

This recipe would work great for any berry...or any combination of berries!  We're off to pick up some more chia seeds so we can continue our jam making!

And now...I officially welcome my first guest blogger, Noah Wiebe!

STRAWBERRY CHIA FREEZER JAM
inspired by source
makes one small batch...multiply as much as you desire!

1 cup fresh berries
1 Tbsp chia seeds
1 Tbsp water

sweetener of choice, to taste

We first drove to Oliver to pick lots of berries and stuff.

You put on your 'maker' (aka...apron!) so that you don't get red on your shirt.  Then you measure out the right about of strawberries.  Wash them and pull all the green tops off.

Next was my favourite part.  You get out your masher and squish all the berries.  I let my brother try too.  Add your seeds and water...stir lots.

Then get your green thing out of the pantry.  Put it on the jar and scoop the jam in.

Leave a little space at the top.

Put your lids on.

All done!

 (Put your jars in the fridge for about 2 hours.  This lets the chia finish up the thickening process. Then move the jars to your freezer!)

Eat for lunch with a fresh bun!  ( I think they liked it!)

Thank you Noah!  We look forward to featuring many more of your recipes in the future!

xo, mom!