Kid Friendly, Microwave, No Pectin Jam

I had a half of a bag of thawed out strawberries, sitting in my fridge, left over from making strawberry curd. I also have quite a bit of left over strawberry curd, for that matter, but I hope to deal with that this weekend. The mushy, leak prone, strawberries, seemed a more pressing matter.

My first thought was to turn it into to jam, but I'll admit the thought of keeping watch over a hot stove, did not thrill me today. Then, I found a microwave jam recipe, that looked simple enough for the kids to help out with.

Crush 3 1/2 cups of strawberries (the exact amount I had left!), into a 3 quart casserole dish - we substituted a large, microwave safe, mixing bowl.

Mix in 1 1/2 cups of sugar, 1/2 teaspoon butter, and 1 1/2 tablespoons lemon juice.

Microwave on high for 15 minutes.

We actually found it took about 30 minutes of cooking, but I may have misunderstood the directions, there was something about boiling for only two minutes, and then testing again. Whatever the case, we ran our jam for 15 minutes, stirred it, and then ran it again for an additional 15 minutes, testing after 5 minute intervals, until the jam was thick. If children help with the recipe, be very careful at this point, because the jam gets extremely hot.

We poured it into a clean canning jar to cool.

Now the bread maker is humming, and I think tonight's snack will be accompanied by my favorite Russell Hoban story.

It's great to be a homeschooler.