Sweet strawberry vanilla jam

We know that the strawberry season actually is over by now, but we can not withhold you from this recipe. We made it a few months ago, when there were strawberries in abundance in our garden. Now that we have eaten our last jar, we were brought back to reality and realised that we still had this recipe to post! So here it is, our sweet strawberry vanilla jam!

There were so many bruised strawberries this year which we couldn't use on top of a cake or on our bread (what we like so much!) and got overripe after a while because we didn't use them. But the solution for these discarded strawberries is to make a lovely jam of them. The overripeness gives the jam something special: it will become a strong and rich flavour.

So remember that when you have some - a little bit overripe -  strawberries left over, it is the perfect time to make some jam!

Strawberry Vanilla Jam
yield: 3 jars

Ingredients:
1,5 kg little strawberries, chopped roughly
1/4 cup lemon juice
2 cups sugar
1 vanilla bean, scraped

Directions:
Cover your strawberries with the lemon juice and let this chill overnight.
The next day: Combine your strawberries with the sugar and vanilla seeds and bring this mixture to a boil over medium high heat, stirring frequently. Use a fork to smash the berries a bit. Now reduce the heat and let this mixture simmer for about 1 hour. Stir well a few times so that you will end up with an almost smooth liquid. Skim off your foam (on the top) and turn off the heat. Now add your lemon juice and stir gently. Your jam is ready!
If you don't know for sure if the jam is firm enough, you can test it by taking one drop of the mixture and put this on a glace plate. If it hardens after a few minutes, it is o.k., if it keeps running you could better let the mixture simmer for some extra minutes.

When you are canning your jam, use sterilized jars and boil these filled jars for 10 minutes. They will store up to one year at room temperature. If you'd like to store jam in the freezer it will keep for several months and in the fridge it will keep for several weeks.

On any kind of bread, on toast, in your yoghurt, on your pancakes and many more this jam is yummy!