I so love to grow fruit and veg in the garden and whilst I try my best to learn lessons from each previous year and grow the right amount of everything to feed our home, invariably there are gluts. I don’t think it will be long until my kitchen is courgette-tastic again, and I’m quite sure my husbandly one can’t wait for me to be hiding the blighters in everything I cook for him.

Looking back over previous posts a couple of years ago, I could only dream back then of the ‘problems’ with excess strawberries that allotmenteers described (life goals – yes I know I’m sad) but this year I have found myself in the fantastically fortunate position of being that woman who has more strawberries than I can consume, which is a huge triumph for me given that I eat close to my own body weight of the things for breakfast every morning.

Having been away this weekend, I came back home to a fair pile of over ripe strawberries that were just too soft to really to enjoy. Much like pears, there seems to be an incredibly small window for the perfect ripeness (my autocorrect just changed that to right penis and I am chuckling, am such a child) which is something you just don’t get with shop bought fruit… has anyone else noticed that?

There was absolutely no way on this earth I was going to let these beautiful softies go to waste. Anyone who knows me will know how much I absolutely cannot abide waste of anything, especially things grown with time, love and care. It comes from growing up in a single parent family with one very frugal mum.

The two options I could see, were to either freeze them and throw them into smoothies as and when required (I may still do that if I have another big haul) or make some jam to enjoy with scones in the garden over the summer. Or maybe a strawberry liqueur? Note to self: must have a little investigate and see if that would work. Could be nice with a cheeky prosecco?

Anyway, the jam option won my heart in the sunshine of today, and I randomly ended up with 654g of strawberries so threw the equivalent weight of jam sugar into a large pan with a big glug of lemon juice, mashed everything with my potato masher and boiled the buggery out of it all for 10 minutes. It still hadn’t set as much as I wanted so I gave it another two minutes until the jam was clinging to the side of the pan. I have tried every method under the Sun, frozen saucers, and two thermometers, but there is no substitute for practice and just ‘knowing’ when it is right.

I let the jam cool for about five minutes so it wouldn’t erase my fingerprints when I jarred it up and it has all set absolutely perfectly. I find there is no need for any more pectin when you use jam sugar as it’s already in there in the right quantities.

Look at that colour. Am I allowed to say ‘oh my’ with a fifty shades tone in my voice about jam?

Bring. On. The. Scones.