Every summer we look forward to one thing in particular which is strawberry picking at our nearby farm. We have been doing it for the past 3 years and its a great fun thing to do with family. Acres of farm with fresh strawberries, rasberries, blackberries, gooseberies, and fresh vegetables like carrot, spinach, cauilflower, broccoli and many more things. Every year when I go there I go crazy seeing all fresh fruit and vegetables and I pick and pick and pick and come back home with a truck load of fruits and veggies. Only when I get back home I think " how on earth am I going to store them " ! We somehow try and eat most of the fruits without storing them in fridge but storing vegetables in my small fridge has been a challenge and I end up leaving few veggies at room tempertaure for 2-3 days till I find room for them in the fridge.
This year has been no different and I ended up picking a lot, but I have to say it was not as bad as last year. See, I am getting better ! But still I picked nearly 3.5 kilos of strawberry and while picking it, I must have ate 1/4 kilo from the farm.They say we have to pay for it first before eating but resisting the red coloured fruits while picking is almost impossible and when I looked around almost everyone who was picking was gobbling the Strawberries ! Coming to the point, making jam has been in my" to do" list since a long time and strawberry jam is my favourite so this time I knew atleast half a kilo strawberry is going to used in jam making which by the way I did make the same day. Jam tasted delicious almost like my favourite brand of jam. Making a jam from something you picked and enjoying it a slice of toasted bread is a priceless feeling. If this can give such a good feeling, I wonder how it would be if I made jam from starwberries which I planted :)
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Ingredients
Strawberries - 700 gm
Sugar - 500 gm
Lime juice - from one lemon
Method
- Wash the strawberries and pat it dry.
- Place the stawberries in a heavy bottomed pan and mash them lightly with a spoon or fork,leaving few big pieces.
- Add sugar, limejuice and mix.
- Place the pan on a medium high heat till the sugar dissolves, cook the strawberries for 10-15 minutes stirring continously.When its almost the setting point take a cold plate(keep it in freezer for 5 minutes) and add a little of jam to the cold plate and place it back to freezer for 1-2 minutes. Take it out and when you draw a line it should leave a trail.
- Allow it cool down to room temperature and store the jam in a sterilised bottle.
