Jam Packed!!!

I have defiantly recovered from Friday night's wine!!

I got up early and went car booting with Gem and Milo, a couple of bargains but not as many as my last expedition. A little jelly mold, a couple of old glass medicine bottles, and 3 tomato plants.

I was home by ten, Gav was up so we popped into town for a bit of retail therapy.

1 new top, and a new purse from TKMAXX, a pair of jeans from the YMCA charity shop and a beautiful silver ring from the jewellers. Not bad for a Sunday and all that before 1pm.

I did have a power nap (as Gav calls them) when we came home, think I over exerted myself this morning.

Then came the first try at Strawberry Jam making. My BF Gem came back round and we started the experiment together.

With yesterdays strawberry's all 4lb of of them & 2lb's of Jam sugar and we were off.

I went with the recipe on the back of the Jam sugar and kept my fingers crossed.

I have been collecting Jam Jars since Christmas in anticipation of the summer fruit season, so we got them out and did as Nigella does and ran them through the Dishwasher to sterilize them.

I started by blitzing the strawberry's in the food processor, then putting the pulp into a large pan with the 2lb's of jam sugar. Warmed the pulpy mixture until the sugar had dissolved and then let it come to the boil.

We let it come to a rolling boil for 4 minutes then took it off the heat.

I tested it on a saucer and it set. Hey presto homemade strawberry jam!!!!

We filled 11 Jars, Gav helped with the baking parchment circles for the top and we popped the lids on while the jars were still hot.

Then with my new found burst of energy, I planted my tomato plants and watered the garden.All the plants are doing well, we dug up some more potatoes and I have a few french beans on the bean plants, loads of peas and lots of little courgettes.

Popping noises have been coming from the kitchen all evening from the jam cooling, I did have a little spoon full on a slice of toast just to check it was edible, which it defiantly is.

Thanks to Pixie Dust at Faerie Nuff who gave me the inspiration to go fruit picking and to try my hand at Jam making x

Have a good week xxxxxxx