We just had parents’ evening at pre-school. That makes me stressed as I am pathologically shy when forced to Talk To Grown-up People about their entirely normal children.
I got home in need of therapy.
Bargain strawberries (yeah, my bargains come from Waitrose) I used three 400g punnets, and we ate the other one. I liberated the chives from the school herb patch, for my potato salad.
Stalks out, into the pan.
Add all the sugar you can find (791g, for reference.)
Leave half an hour for the juice to run. Isn’t osmosis awesome?
Add a sachet of pectin from the back of the cupboard. Looks dodgy, works like magic.
Use child labour to clean the jars.
Add juice and zest of lemon. Do not zest own thumb.
Heat gently until all the sugar dissolves.
Rolling boil…
…until it smells and sounds different. Six minutes this time, in the interests of scientific blogging.
Sanity preserved.
serendipturas 
And I thought that was Kate Rusby’s own song! Lovely jam, reminds me of my Nan who was always making jam and marmalade and wine and bread and cake… I think it was her that taught me to crochet too.
If you buy frozen strawbs, you can make it all year round! I do – it’s much better made in small batches.
But if you do that, then nothing is special any more. Long live seasonality!