Microwave Strawberry Jam

"Do you ever buy more strawberries than you can eat? It happens to me often enoughduring berry season, especially when I see huge tubs of berries on sale. The problem is that often when they are on sale, they don’t have many days left in them, so you need to use them up right away. My mother, bless her heart, has the perfect solution for too much fruit. She makes small batch jams in her microwave. She does it with the plums and figs from her trees (see her Microwave Fig Jam). This week I had a big container of strawberries that needed to get eaten or used, so I decided to use mom’s microwave method to make a quick batch of jam. Excellent! It’s so easy. All you need are strawberries, sugar, and lemon juice (I added orange zest because it gives the strawberries some lift). And you need a large Pyrex or microwave safe mixing bowl. After you’ve let the strawberries sit for a bit in the sugar to draw out their moisture, it only takes 15 minutes in the microwave on high to make! 2 1/2 cups of quartered berries will yield about 1 1/2 cups of jam. No candy thermometers needed, or big canning pots. No making dozens of jars to store for the winter or give away. This approach makes a really small batch. But sometimes (usually) that’s all we need!..."