A preserving first: plain ol' strawberry jam for #CanItUp

It's strange but true. Until this month, I had never made strawberry jam. All these other kinds (and more), yes—but somehow good old-fashioned strawberry had slipped past me.

Thanks to the monthly Can It Up challenge on All Four Burners, I made it finally happen.

Of course at first I started consulting my cookbooks, and pinning up a storm with all kinds of flavor variations in mind. But ultimately I was seduced by the simple goodness of the strawberry, and chose to leave it unadulterated.

I was initially planning to go with Strawberry Rose Geranium, but couldn't bring myself to harvest half of the blossoms on my small plant, and something inside was telling me to just go it plain.

I basically used this recipe from Marisa at Food in Jars, sans the vanilla bean. Above is what it looked like after macerating in the fridge for 2 days. Then it was to making jam! I even busted out a strawberry apron for the occasion.

After that we ate jam. (Sometimes French breakfast has to happen). The man of the house is always complaining I don't make "regular enough" jams, but based on the fact we're almost through the second jar that didn't seal (wait, I though I hated when that happened...), clearly going with the straight stuff was not a mistake.

There is always more jam that can be made, after all.