The Yum Yum Factor

Did you know that Kyoto is a sister city to Boston? They became sister cities back in 1959 and, in fact, their gift of the Japan House to the Boston Children's Museum is thought to be the most expensive gift ever given to an American community from a foreign sister city. The two cities collaborate on various events throughout the year and are very tight.

I am still trying to get this canning thing down. The Neighbours brought me a flat of beautiful strawberries from the farm and so I decided to make a straight forward jam. I have only made a few jams and they have been fancy pants jams with savoury flavours more suited to eating with cheeses or for roasting meats and I wanted something sweet for The Kid to eat on toast. This recipe from Food In Jars  was prefect for the amount of berries I had to use up and I liked the addition of vanilla. Unfortunately, I realized after it was too late to turn back that I didn't have any more vanilla bean but I did have some nice Mexican vanilla extract and just used a tablespoon of that. I might have used a bit too much in the end and would probably go get some vanilla beans for the next attempt. I have also never used pectin and wanted to try that out as well. All in all, it tastes pretty good, it's not too solid (I like my jams a bit runny) and it was really easy to make. I am going t...