It's all in the Jelly

So as funny as it may seem, I have never taken my family berry picking.  Well, now I have!  Some friends of our were visiting from out of town, and we were looking up some fun activities to do together with all the kids.  Berry picking at Swanton Farm with a visit to a goat farm after lunch was on the agenda.

Now, I'm not really sure what all I expected from berry picking, but the strawberry field was full of plump fresh strawberries!  I think I probably ate as many as I put into the cart, and long after I knew we had enough, I just couldn't stop picking.  Before we knew what we were doing, we had over 25 lbs of strawberries!

Okay, so I tried not to panic, because strawberries, though amazing, don't really keep all that well after picked, so I knew that I was in for a long day of...well something!

But first, we ate lunch and headed to the goat farm. Harley Farm in Pescadero was so much fun! We tasted our way through their whole dairy shop (and I picked up some ravioli for dinner too!) eating their goat cheese.

But, it wasn't until I got home and started perusing my jam book did I come across a recipe for white wine and strawberry jelly.  PERFECT!  Before I knew it, I had strawberries straining of their juice and had corked two bottles of Parducci Sustainable White Wine.  A little bit of pectin later, I was ladling the hot liquid into jars.  The remaining of the strawberries were pureed into a sauce and canned as well. (I guess I should say those that weren't eaten over a little bit of fresh cream!)

Later that weekend while sampling the jelly, I realized it would pair amazingly with the goat cheese from Harley Farm...And I was right.  It was amazing!