Strawberry Figs

Well, while we were in a fig preserving mood we decided to try another of my mother's fig tricks and make some strawberry figs.  We dug another bag of frozen figs out of the freezer.

We poured them into a dishpan and rinsed them good.

After rinsing, we snipped the stems off them.

Placed them in a colander to drain then weighed them.

To seven pounds of figs we added 6 cups of sugar, and a splash of lemon juice.

While the figs were slowly thawing and warming, we put our jelly jars in a 212 degree oven. We also put the canning lids, rings, a soup ladle, a food funnel, and a pair of tongs into a pot of water that we brought to a boil. All THREE things need to be at the same (boiling) 212 degrees temperature for us to be able to can:

1. the jars in the oven, 2. the lids and utensils, 3. the figs. (or whatever we are fixin' to can)

After an hour or so of slowly warming the frost from them, the figs made their syrup and began cooking.

Once the figs were cooked, we took them out of the pot with a large wire mesh ladle, reserving the syrup.

Then we mashed them with a tater masher.

Since we had 9 cups of smashed figs, when we added them back to their syrup we added three 3 oz boxes of (dry, not dissolved) Wild Strawberry Jello.

  Stirring in the Jello, we let it come to a boil and cook for 7 minutes or so, then went to canning them.  Peggy has canned so many jars of things, she has become a well-oiled canning "machine". I do the lifting, stirring and mashing, but when it comes to canning I just stand back and watch my sweet wife do her thang.

Man, this stuff is good.  No joking, you would swear it's real strawberries right down to the small seeds. 

 A couple helpful tips: 

 1.  Use the Wild Strawberry Jello if you can find it because the strawberry flavor is stronger and more intense.  2: the recipe calls for One 3 oz. box of Jello for every 3 to 4 cups of figs.  After cooking and smashing our figs, they measured out at 9 cups, so we used 3 boxes which probably would have been good for 11 or so cups of figs, before adding any more Jello.  This stuff is well worth a try and we highly recommend it to those of you who have more figs than fig eaters.  It's a wonderful way to turn 1 fruit into 2 different jellies. Peggy, not knowing any better, this being the first time she's ever had this, she thinks it tastes just like strawberry jam, Bless her heart.

Believe it or not, though, it actually tastes as good as it looks.