Jamming with strawberries!

I live half a mile from a strawberry grower, Ouki Strawberries. I look forward to their opening day each year in late March, and mourn their closing after Labor Day weekend. But in between opening and closing, I get to enjoy the biggest, sweetest, and prettiest strawberries around. 

Of course, I make jam! This year I picked up a full flat and immediately set about washing and hulling those delicious red berries, flash freezing half for making smoothies, and cooking the other half with sugar and lemon and cinnamon for a delicious jam to enjoy throughout the year, and to share with friends! 

I have improvised over the years, but by now I have a real canner stock pot with a canning rack, plus a wide funnel, and jar lifter, magnetic lid lifter, and tool for knocking downthe bubbles and measuring headspace, and the very best tool... a strawberry huller! I also found some Pioneer Woman brand jar labels that stick well, yet are easy to remove later. 

I also use the strawberries and a variety of other ways, like making strawberry pie. I have also tried dehydrating them in my food dehydrator. Dried strawberries are really dangerous because you can actually eat about a pints worth of strawberries without even thinking about it. I also freeze whole strawberries on a cookie sheet, then put them in a ziplock bag and enjoy them all year long in my smoothies. 

Perfect PB&J

There's nothing better than a perfect peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Creamy peanut butter, lots of sweet, lumpy jam, smeared with a butter base, and the perfect bread. 

My favorite bread is Von's Signature Select Nuts and Grains. It's soft and chewy with crunchy nuts holds up well to the peanut butter and jelly filling. My husband prefers a white bread, either potato bread or buttermilk bread. 

Our preferred peanut butter is Skippy brand and our preferred jam is anything homemade! Since we live a couple blocks from a wonderful strawberry farm, I get fresh strawberries there every year and make a few cases of jam. I love a good fruity, strawberry jam, and I have been experimenting by flavoring my homemade jam with cinnamon or lemon, and most recently, jalapeno. But we recently became taste testers for a friend's homemade jammin' business, so right now we have about 12 different flavors of her wonderful jams in the fridge. I felt obligated to have jam and toast or a peanut butter and jelly sandwich almost everyday. 

Building the sandwich takes a special technique. You have to start with softened butter that you spread on the jam side of the bread. 

Then you put a couple of generous tablespoons of jam on top of the butter. You spread the creamy peanut butter on the other slice of bread, not too thick. Then you put the slices together with all that yummy filling trapped inside the bread. If you're a kid, I'll usually cut it into quarters for you. If you're my husband, I'll cut it in half, but I like mine whole. I like to start at the corners and work my way into the middle of the goodness. You have to chew each bite slowly and savor the perfect combination of flavors. 

Yup, nuthin' better!