Strawberries!

Strawberry season in Washington State is short and sweet.  Very sweet :)  The start of strawberry season pretty much coincides with the the Summer Solstice; June 21 (I'd say the start of summer but everyone knows that summer in Washington doesn't arrive until July 12.  You did know that, didn't you?).  So about June 18th or so I start asking my "Local Guy" ... "Are the ready yet?"  Last week I asked on Wednesday and he told me "They'll be here Friday" ... YES!!  I now have 4 flats frozen and another 2 turned in "Food of the Gods" ... Strawberry Vanilla Jam ...

I first found this recipe on "Food In Jars" last spring and adapted it just a bit ...

Ingredients:

8 cups strawberries, halved
4 cups cane sugar
3 vanilla beans
juice and zest of 1/4 lemon

Split the vanilla beans and scrape out the seeds ...

Place the vanilla beans and seeds, the strawberries and 2 cups of the sugar in a zip lock bag

 and allow to macerate overnight.

Hint: prepare several bags, allow them to sit overnight, process one into jam and freeze the rest ... all ready to be processed into jam at a later date ...

The next day place the contents of the bag and the remaining sugar in a heavy bottomed pot and cook over medium high heat until it reaches 220 degrees/gel stage, stirring often ... this will take 2 to 3 hours ... remember "Patience is a virtue."

While the jam is cooking prepare 6 to 8 half pint jars, lids and rings for canning ... I usually end up with 6 full half pints that I process and about 2/3 of another one that goes into the fridge ... 

Remove the vanilla beans from the pot and ladle the hot jam into the hot jars leaving 1/4 inch head space.  Add lids and rings and process in a hot water bath for 10 minutes.

Enjoy!