In Season

One of the great things about living where I live is the fresh produce from farms literally right down the street.  It's awesome.  The sucky part is dealing with the allergies from the pollen but right now even though I can't breathe through my nose until my zyrtec kicks in, I am choosing to focus on the positive.

We hit a strawberry stand on Thursday.  My eyes were way bigger than my stomach which has been a problem for me.  As soon as I got out of the car, I could smell the warm strawberry scented air.  I just stood there and soaked it in for a minute.  When I got to the counter I had already made up my mind that I wanted a full flat.  Twelve baskets of farm fresh literally just picked from the farm strawberries.  Twelve baskets for three people.  As we were driving back home I realized that I bought to much.  Then I felt bad because I didn't want to waste all that goodness.

We had to stop by Osh on the way home to pick up a toilet flapper to fix the ghost toilet.  While we were at Osh I found the canning isle and decided that I could make jam!  I got really excited!  And then immediately really intimidated.  I skipped the canning process and went for freezer jam which is pretty easy to make and I don't have to worry about sanitizing and properly handling jars and boiling and all of that.  What I should have picked up was Pectin.  Since I have never made jam before I didn't realize I needed it.  So in the end I got a thick strawberry sauce/spread.  Which is still very tasty.  

Hull the berries and put them in a pan.  Mash.  I added an apple for natural Pectin and some honey for sweetness.  I cooked until the apple was mush then I hit it with a stick blender.  I added another basket of mushed strawberries back to the mix for some chunkies.

Once it was cooled I added it to the washed freezer jars.

I still had six baskets left.

So I whipped up some cream and we went outside after dinner.  

I've got three baskets left...what else can I do with them?