it's strawberry season!

We are deep in the throes of strawberry season here, where about 60 cents will get you about a pound of strawberries! Samantha is the family's official strawberry eater, and can eat a sinful amount of berries at each meal. It's the time where I scour my cookbooks trying to find fun ways to serve them up, though the are at the peak of sweetness right now and don't need much help to be tasty!

BUT...

Last week at Clara and Chloe's house, Rachel had a surprise for us! We were going to make strawberry jam! I have never made jam, never even thought about making jam...but now I know what I have missed out on all these years! Here's how it goes:

First, start with the raw materials (assuming you don't lose any to little hands, start with 4 cups of strawberries...)

...so that you end up with 2 cups mashed strawberries. Recruit yourself some good mashers and mash away!

Then pour your mashed berries into a big bowl...

Then add 4 cups of sugar (yes, you read that correctly...FOUR CUPS!) and stir well.

Then, I think you add one packet of pectin (this is the part where the other rachel took over and I entertained the kids...by feeding them more strawberries...so I'm a little fuzzy on exactly what the one packet of pectin means, but it sure made it firm up!) After one day of resting, the result was indeed fabulous! Strawberry jam for all!