Now thats some Mamma Jamma!

 You know when its summer in our house because you can smell it...the jam is simmering!! The sun has ripened the strawberries to the fullest and summer is on its descent....its time for some jam.

Minus this past year and a half, I gave the previous 7 years of my life to school. I had no life or time except for what it allowed. Baking, cooking, and having a personality outside of a studious one was pretty much out of the question. If I got 3 hours a sleep a night I considered myself lucky....does anyone hear that violin?

Well, a person gets used to that kind of routine. Then graduation happens and the blurring motion that surrounded you before comes to a complete stop and your left standing there saying, now what?

I'll tell ya.

LIFE!! WHOOOOO HOOOOOO

It takes some time to realize that the light at the end of the tunnel is indeed not a train but actual sanity!

You get hobby ADD especially bad because you go so long with doing NOTHING that you want to do EVERYTHING. Then the day comes when you stop doing 100 things and your like, hmmm what do i like to do?

Well, besides getting more time with the fam, I took up cooking and baking. (check me out now!, I actually know there's a difference! in your face burnt mac n cheese!!)

I remembered back to just before my master's. The hubby and I would pick a fun recipe and cook it. We would put on some sinatra or jazz, grab a glass of wine, throw on the pots and pans and have some fun.

Those memories are what made me decide to start cooking. I loved every minute of the INSANELY messy adventure.

I have baked bread, not from a bread machine but from actual dough that rises ya'll, sticky buns, french apple tarts, fresh peach cake, peanut butter jelly bars, orange and cranberry scones and well, you get the idea.

sticky buns

For our holiday thanksgiving at work everyone baked a dessert to go with the lunch that was catered and I made pecan bars dipped in a chocolate ganache. These are heavenly. They are made with honey instead of karo syrup and about a million pounds of butter. (I don't even like pecan pie but LOVE these.)

There's actual meal type food in all this baking/cooking too. I've cooked mediteranean, german, seafood, chowders, breakfasts, etc etc etc. I cook all the sweets because I like the way they look but I would have to say that one of my all time favorites to cook and to eat is the strawberry jam. Mmmmmm Mmmmm, summer goodness.

The house smells like strawberries and I'm sure I do to after all of it. Just call me Lotso. (Lotso, for you all out there that still have whatever you want on your tv besides cartoons and are not on the DL, is from Toy Story 3 and is "Lotso huggin bear that smells like fresh strawberries!!" only,...don't hug me)

Now when you think of strawberry jam you probably think of some red gelatinous gunk with seeds (or you hope they are seeds) spread throughout its mixture. I found a recipe that makes the most heavenly strawberry jam with none of the above.

This jam really should be wearing a halo and singing  "aaaaaaaaaaa". Heck I'm writing a hole blog on it so it must be decent.

It is preservative free, pectin free (so apparantley it is safe for vegans..I wouldn't know, I'm a meat and potatos kinda girl) and is made of fresh strawberries, blueberries, apple, sugar, and a final touch of grand marnier......simply decadently delicious.

It is more of a preserve than of a jam. It goes beautifully on belgian waffles, sinfully on ice cream, and somehow a finishing touch on toast.

I gave it out last fall and have had endless requests since. I have spent the final weekends of summer cooking more to hand out again this season. It is lip smackin, welch's grape juice tongue tickling good kinda stuff.

Did i mention i'm a foodie. I know you couldn't tell.