Recipe: Quick Strawberry Jam, Food Allergy Free

“Too acidic. Too many. About to turn.”

That’s what I saw when I looked at the huge clamshell of organic Driscoll strawberries that I purchased at Costco recently. What to do with them? Easy. Make a quick jam.

Also called a refrigerator jam, these are made with few ingredients, no pectin and no sterilization of jars. This jam is meant to be eaten within a few days of making and trust me, it won’t last longer because you will be gobbling it down and spreading it on everything.

For the OAS amongst us (a nice explanation of Oral AllergySyndrome here on Allergic Living Magazine) cooking ripe fruit in the summer can allow you to eat it without local allergy symptoms. I’m that way with stone fruits: peaches, apricots, cherries, plums, all become more edible, less mouthy-hurty, when cooked.

Here are some recipes for quick strawberry jam. The Kitchn, Martha Stewart and Real Simple Magazine.However, I make these quick james often, without a recipe. And you kinda can’t go wrong. But here’s a loose recipe of how I put it all together.

Quick Strawberry Jam

16 ounces (or 1 light pint) Strawberries, rinsed, topped and halved

1/2 lemon, juiced

1/4 cup of turbinado sugar (start with less sugar, you can always add more)

In a heavy non-reactive pot, bring the mixture to a boil and simmer for about 10-15 minutes. You may mash some of the fruit with the back of a spoon if you like but I like whole chunks and they cook down quite nicely without mashing. After about 10 minutes, taste and adjust seasoning e.g. you might like more sugar than I do. Place into a jar or non-reactive container to cool. Try to avoid spooning 12,000 tastes but do ladle over some buttered bread, yogurt or ice cream just to make sure it’s delicious. (Oh yes, it will be.)

Here’s a lovely article from Epicurious giving you 26 ideas of where to use a jam like this.

I made strawberry yogurt with mine. See above and try not to drool. But go, go cook up some ripe fruit right now.