Strawberrie preserves

This preserves a celebration of spring strawberries 

Ingredients

• 2000 grams or 4 pounds strawberries
• 4 cups sugar
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice 
• 1 vanilla bean

Steps to Make It

• Wash the strawberries and slice off their hulls (the green bits). If the strawberries are very small, leave them whole. Otherwise, slice into halves or quarters. 
  
  
  Put the cleaned strawberries into a pot. 
• Add the sugar and the Vanilla bean .Cover and refrigerate for 8 hours or overnight. This long maceration reduces the cooking time later, resulting in a fruitier, more brightly flavored and colored jam. 
  
  
  Sterilize the canning jarsby immersing them in boiling water for 15 minutes. Do not boil the canning lids but rather drop them into the hot water with the jars after you have turned off the heat.
  
  
  The strawberries will have released a lot of their juice during their maceration. Stir the macerated berries and their juice to liquefy any still-undissolved sugar.
  
  
  Stir in  The lemon juice
  
  
  Place the pot with the strawberry mixture over high heat and cook, stirring frequently, until the mixture reaches the gel point.
  
  
  Ladle the jam into the sterilized jars, leaving 1/2-inch headspace between the surface of the jam and the rims of the jars. Screw on the canning lids.
  
  
  Process in a boiling water bathfor 5 minutes. If you used 2-piece canning lids, remove the jars from the boiling water bath and let cool completely, undisturbed. If you used 1-piece canning lids, do not remove the jars from the pot but rather let them cool completely in the water.