Tea a drink with jam and bread

Doe a deer a female deer
Ray a drop of golden sun
Me a name I call myself
Far a long long way to run
Sew a needle pulling thread
La a note to follow sew
Tea a drink with jam and bread
That will bring us back to doe -oh oh oh

And now that I have planted that song into your heads for the next few hours, ha ha ha, I mean my apologies, I will explain the song. For many weeks now I have been exploring things in the kitchen that I have usually been, not so much afraid of,more like reluctant to try, and so armed with the knowledge of a few recipes from the Internet I bravely tiptoed into the world of jam making. Previously I have read that you need to do all this preparation to the jars before you even begin to make the jam and that unless you followed a rigorous schedule and did not follow the instructions to the letter that you would end up with a messy, sticky, yucky, inedible mess that would go mouldy to boot. So after an exhaustive search for a recipe that was so simple a child could do it I walked into Battle Jam!

Many recipes begin with the jam jars themselves, in the past it has been a long and involved process where you must wash the jars in boiling hot water and then dry the jars out in the oven so that they are dry as a bone inside but roasting hot when you put the jam in, it all has something to do with the hot sugary jam exploded whilst going into glass jars and the mould that will grow if you don't get it to the right temperature and you are planning on keeping the jam as a gift for Auntie Beryl at Christmas.  One of the sites that I came across simplified the process for those of us who want to eat the jam and not keep them for a few months, it involves placing the jars into boiling hot water from the jug, lids and all, and getting them to sit there for a good while to sterilise them whilst maintaining the original heat, I kept topping it up with freshly boiled water to make sure that I kept them constantly boiled, when you are ready to use them make sure you do not touch the inside of the jars or the lids that way you are super sterile -the same way you are when you have a baby and are looking after their bottles and sippy cups.

Now onto the super hard bit! Are you ready? It is really, really tricky! Okay hull your strawberries, wash them before you chop their little heads off so they don't absorb the water, put them into a saucepan, mash them with a spud masher and chuck in sugar that weighs half of what the strawberries do, a freshly squeezed lemon and just for luck I chucked in a splash of vanilla. Now turn the heat on and let it boil for 10 minutes. You will need a big saucepan because it bubbles up really high for what is in there, stir it every minute or so and after 10 minutes it should be golden, I mean you are golden not the jam it will be berry coloured! You can check by placing a spoonful of the jammy mix onto a frozen plate and if it wrinkles it is good, but I had no room in my freezer for even the smallest of plates so I kinda winged it. Yeah not really tricky is it, I didn't think so either. I waited a wee bit before I poured the the jam into the jar because it took me a minute of two to get the jars out of the water and put them onto a towel so they didn't burn my counter or fall over as I was filling them up. Do not be tempted to put your finger in the jam cause it will burn you like there is no tomorrow, remember boiling sugar sticks to whatever goes into it! Once you have put the jam into your jars and put the lids on turn them upside down for a few minutes and they will magically seal themselves, and then chuck them into the fridge (the right way up) and in 24 hours Voila! Jam!

This was my breaky this morning, that is my tea cup with the funny face on it -it looks just like me first thing in the morning! It was yummy, better than shop jam and I might even break my habit and have bread again tomorrow!

Until then my lovelies have a wonderful Saturday!
xoxoxoxoxoxxoxo