Strawberry Jam

Today, David turned up with a pot of delicious strawberry jam. I had never met David before.

Before you jump to conclusions let me tell you about freecycle. It is an online forum where people give away and receive unwanted "things". In this fashion, a bookcase, an old computer and others found their way from my cupboard under the stairs to a better home instead of adding yet more to the landfill. It is recycle at its best and you get to meet people like David.

At the moment, their household is jam crazy. That happens to me at times, I love the idea of all theses pots, in reality limited to 4 or 5, lined up nicely in the kitchen waited to be sealed, bliss.

Right, so David, was pot-less after experimenting with "cherry, Port and chocolate jam", "strawberry and sloe gin", "marmalade and cognac". Yes, me too, I spotted the theme .....in their choice of fruits.

So, David posted a message on freecycle, cunningly I offered the pots which are waiting for my "milk jam" (more of this later). A sound recycling act, because not only was I kindly offered a sample pot, but he will at a later stage share the recipe with us.

in the meantime here is the recipe I use, it will make 4 large jars (400g each)

Making Jams can be problematic, too runny, bubbles over, but it is easier than it seems at first

Ingredients:

1kg ripe strawberries

1kg jam sugar

juice of 1 lemon

Method:

• rinse & tail the fruits, if they are large cut in 2,
• layer them gently in a large salad bowl, sprinkle sugar in between layer.
• leave them to marinate over night, or for a least 5 hours, give them a stir once or twice
• pour the salad bowl content in a large non-stick saucepan, cook on low heat, stirring the content but not too much so that the fruits do not get damaged.
• when the mixture is at boiling point, add the lemon juice, turn the heat up and leave to boil for 10 minutes, remove from heat
• pot slowly so that the strawberries do not raise to the surface, leave as little air as possible in the pot

Tips:

select jar which have a large opening as it is much easier to fill them up

the strawberries need to be full of flavour

using labels gives the jar a little extra