I went to Kroger for eggs and came out with 4 quarts of strawberries.

It was a good deal – $3 for 2-quart packages, so I bought two.

Fresh Strawberries

Strawberries are by far my favorite fruit. I enjoy making sorbets with them, butters for yogurt and breads, and now I’m going to make a Strawberry Vanilla Jam from Food in Jars.

I’ve gotten antsy about kitchen-doings lately, making baked eggplant and chocolate chip zucchini bread in the same night. I think I’m getting faster at cooking and much better at handling multiple tasks at once. With practice I think I could really do anything in the kitchen, as long as I’m willing to try. That’s my attitude and motto towards canning.

One complaint about this recipe is that it requires liquid pectin. I’ve read up on substituting liquid for powder, but in order to stay true to the recipe I wanted to do what Marissa did. This stuff is NOT EASY TO FIND. You can get it at Whole Foods, Fresh Market, Kroger, Walmart, Marsh, Meijer and O’Malia’s. And it was expensive, $5.15 per box of two packets and you use both, even though the box says to use one.

Another issue I had is that in the last step you heat the jam to 220 degrees, and mine never got there. It was bubbling and spitting up like crazy but JUST under 220 degrees. I was afraid that I’d boil the pectin away so I just went ahead and canned the jam as is. It did in fact set and is ultra yummy, but looking back on it I wonder if I forgot a vanilla bean because the vanilla flavor isn’t as prominent as I want it to be.

In respect of the book I won’t reprint the recipe. I printed the pickled red onions recipe but I asked myself would I want someone reprinting recipes from my cookbook? Anyways, my last review recipe will be the Classic Dill Pickles before I give the book a full review.

Strawberry Vanilla Jam