This post is a little rusted, its been sitting in the drafts for almost an year. I wasn’t (and still am not) sure how to click inside my not so well lit kitchen without over exposing the shots. The light situation isn’t great – you either have the sun coming in directly or its dimly lit. Diffuser doesn’t help much and stepping into the balcony is not much of an option because of the weather. But worry not, I will find my way through. By that I mean I am planning to keep a jacket in the kitchen than figure out a way to work with the light!

Anyways, let’s get ready for the holidays with some bright red strawberry jam. Its adapted slightly from Aparna’s space. The jam hardly lasted a few weeks. When it was almost over, I remember adding  milk to the bottle and shaking it vigorously with the lid on to make some instant milkshake. The recipe seemed simple enough for me to try and I was glad I did!

Read on for the pictorial. This post goes to Blogging Marathon# 70 .  Check out this page to see posts from other participating bloggers.

Add 5 cups strawberries cut in halves with 2 cups sugar. Mix and refrigerate overnight. The sugar needs to be adjusted depending on the tartness of strawberries. You can add more, if needed, when cooking the jam.

The next morning, you will find a lot of liquid from the strawberries and sugar. Add this to a thick bottomed wide pan tall enough to allow the sugar to froth. Finely chop one apple and tip it in as well.

Bring it to a boil and cook (medium to low heat) until the liquid evaporates and it reaches a jam consistency. About 15 minutes or so, keep stirring in between. Mash a little to break a lumpy jam. We like it with fruit chunks, so didn’t mash a lot.

To check whether the jam is done, do the “plate test”. Bottle the hot jam in sterilized bottles. I got about 2 bottles of 500 gm jars.