Summer time = Fresh Strawberry Jam

Ok well it would be nice to say that this was a family tradition, that each year we would pick dozen of strawberries and make jam from the family recipe, but that would be a lie. There is an amazing recipe for apple jam somewhere but I've gotta find it before autumn. My Mum was more the sporty, musical type so we spent our summers playing tennis, swimming, playing outdoors and going to susuki conventions.  We did pick blackberries behind the tennis court and have them with ice-cream which was amazing. However today is strawberry jam and it's pretty amazing also.

This Sunday was amazingly sunny and myself and my friend went walking, then we stumbled upon a berry-picking farm and well what kind of a foodie would I be if I hadn't suggested we go picking. So we each came home with about 2Kg of strawberries and slightly burnt shoulders ; ). I love strawberries and while I could have eaten them all I think I might have turned red. Therefore after some debate I decided to make a small batch of jam. It being my first time and with a severe lack of any jam making accessories the ultimate recipe had to be Jamie Oliver's quick strawberry jam that he made in an episode of Jamie at Home. He crushes together 150g of sugar per kilo of strawberries (with his hands) and cooks this for about 30 minutes, while scrapping off the scum that forms on top. My strawberries weren't quite as perfectly red as I would have hoped and some were less sweet than others so I decided to up the sugar to about 185g per kilo and increase the cook time to 45mins to account for the extra sugar. The jam turned out amazingly and although it doesn't look very thick in the saucepan as it cools it gets to the right consistency pretty fast. As you can see..

 

Any small amount of food photography mojo I may have developed has clearly disappeared but take my word for it the jam is amazing and delicious.  It tastes fresh and sweet like freshly picked strawberries in a jar and not like that crap I sometimes get in the supermarket.