Strawberry jam and more

I've been seeing strawberries being sold on the side of the road for a couple of weeks now and I finally caved in this Friday. I stopped on  my way back from work and bought not 1, not 2 not 10 baskets...18 baskets is more like it!! The guy looked at me like I was crazy and said: "You sure love'em strawberries!" I laughed and said: "I am making strawberry jam with these so I do need a lot" He smiled and looked at his wife and said:"You wouldn't guess that about her now would you?!" Seeing the confused look on my face his wife leaned and whispered to me: "It's the high heels" We laughed.

I actually bought a lot more strawberries than I needed for the jam, but look at them, can you blame me?!

This jam is simple to make and so delicious, you only need three ingredients and some spare time. Your house will smell amazing while you're making it too!!



Delicious with toast



Ingredients:

8 cups hulled and quartered strawberries

4 cups of sugar

1/2 cup of lemon juice

Directions:

Put your strawberries in a large non stick pot and slightly crush them (I prefer them chunkier) let them simmer over medium low heat for about 10 minutes.

Add the sugar and let them simmer, you will see that they will release a lot of liquid but it will reduce and thicken and this will take sometime to happen just keep a close eye on it and stir from time to time. Don't try to go healthy and reduce the sugar; it is important in this recipe since it helps the strawberries release their natural pectin and that is key to the final result.

After about 30 minutes add your lemon juice and continue simmering until desired consistency is achieved, you will know this by dropping some of the jelly on a cold plate and checking on it after a minute. Don't judge the consistency by what's still in the pot because it is still hot and will look runnier than you would prefer and that's where the cold plate trick comes in.

Skim the foam at the end and store in the fridge for a couple of weeks. Or if you are familiar with the canning process that gives home made jam some shelf life you can go ahead and do that at this point.

Ok, the recipe calls for 8 cups of strawberries but I sure had a lot more than that...Here are a few ways I was able to use those and store them for future use.

First, I made some strawberry orange juice by simply tossing both in the blender. The little ones loved it!!

I made strawberry ice cubes by pureeing them with some water in the food processor; just pour them in an ice cube tray and store them in a ziploc bag in your freezer once they are ready.

Add them to your lemonade for some strawberry lemonade or add them to your favorite fruit smoothie and no ice cubes will be needed!!

I had some leftover strawberries still so I pureed them too but with no water, I poured the puree in Ziploc bags and stacked them in my freezer. I will use them in baking recipes.

I had fun working on my strawberry project this morning and so did the kids; they helped with a few things but enjoyed the strawberry orange juice more than anything else!