Whether you garden and have a small batch of strawberries you’d like to preserve or you’ve gotten a great deal on strawberries at your farmer’s market or grocery store, making small batches of delicious homemade jam is far easier than it looks.

If you’ve never done any canning or preserving before, making a small batch of homemade strawberry jam can be a fun and affordable way to get comfortable with the process.

Using the easy method shown in the video below by Marge Braker for Cooking Up a Story, you’ll be able to make small batches of jam to enjoy on pancakes, toast, or use as an ice cream topping. It also makes a special gift for birthdays and other happy occasions.

Making your own jam is also a nice way to get your children more interested in cooking and preparing food as well as an enjoyable way to celebrate and extend the fresh flavor of strawberries throughout the year.

To make this recipe for strawberry jam you’ll need:

3 cups fresh strawberries, sliced (about 1½ pint baskets or 4 cups whole berries or 1 pound)
1 cup sugar
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
Optional: Add a tablespoon or two of diced candied ginger if you prefer your strawberry jam on the spicy side
A few mason jars and lids

Unlike many more elaborate jam recipes, this one doesn’t need pectin since you use a wide pan which speeds up the gelling process.

You can see the homemade strawberry jam recipe video here.

The text version of the Small Batch of Strawberry Jam Recipe is here.

Also, at the bottom of this article are some links to other wonderful recipes that use strawberries.

You can see other recent Weekend Video Spotlight Videos here.

You can also see HuggingtheCoast.com’s growing collection of food, cooking, and travel videos here.

Please join us tomorrow to see this week’s Hugging the Coast.Com Week in Review, an overview of last week’s special food features (as well as selected previews from the week to come).

If you liked this video on HuggingtheCoast.Com, you might also enjoy:

• Strawberry Waffle Ice Cream Milkshake Recipe
• 40 Gourmet Ice Cream Recipes to Celebrate National Ice Cream Month
• Sweet Fruit Pie Recipe Ideas For Party Friendly Dessert Inspiration
• Celebrate the 4th of July With These Wonderful Red, White, and Blue Recipes

(Photo Credit: Hello, Beautiful! by josh.liba on Flickr.)

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