Have you ever noticed how things you make yourself are inherently better? How the fanciest bakery cakes pale in comparison to the birthday cakes your mom made? Or how you could never bear to part with that slightly wobbly ikea dresser you drank a bottle of wine putting together after you realized you put in all the drawer slides upside down?
There’s a really interesting article on the “Ikea Effect” about why people value things more that they make themselves. But I feel like homemade is legitimately better, almost always.
Case in point, the jam we made the other day is so so good. We’d been too busy to break into a jar, but tonight, Ryan picked up a take-and-bake baguette from Trader Joe’s and we got jammy.
We decided to cook half the baguette to ensure we didn’t eat the entire thing in one sitting. This little guy baked up in less than 10 minutes, and tasted almost as good as homemade. No, that’s a lie. NOTHING tastes as good as homemade bread. Possibly because of how amazing it smells the entire time it’s baking. My mother makes rosemary spice bread that is one of my all time favorite foods. Ever.
You jelly? [ha ha ha]
The jam was pretty runny, which was fine with me, but in the future, I might experiment with adding some pectin. Since this was just refrigerator jam, I wanted to keep it as simple as possible.
Seriously, go make some jam. Now. It’s easy, it’s cheap, it takes basically no effort beyond coring the strawberries, and it’s so worth it. You’ll feel fancy and accomplished. And what’s better than that?
Recipe here, just in case.
Ramblings of a Twenty-Something Writer 