Strawberry Jam

I spent yesterday afternoon making strawberry jam from the berries I picked yesterday morning. I again used the Xagave necter instead of sugar. When I looked up several recipes for strawberry jam, they all said to use about 6 cups of berries and 5 cups of sugar. There was no way I was going to do that! (maybe some day I'll try it just to see what it taste like)

I had picked three gallons of strawberries and used about 2 gallons to make jam. I used strawberries, lemon juice, lemon zest and the Xagave sweetener, about 1 1/2 cups to make 8 1/2 pints and 6 four-ounce jars. I calculate that the 1/2 pint jars have about 125 calories per jar.

If you haven't tried the Xagave nectar, I highly recommend it. You can buy it at any of the Cooks Warehouse locations.

I washed and sliced the berries, added the remaining ingredients, cooked it down till it was thick and voila! strawberry jam!
I was busy heating my jars and lids and didn't take any pictures of that. But basically, once the jam was thick, I added it to the hot jars, sealed them and soon started hearing that lovely "pop" sound, meaning the jars were sealing successfully. Yay!

Here are my completed jars of jam. I had some on a piece of pumpernickel toast this morning and it was really delicious.