Strawberry Serrano Pepper Preserves

I found this recipe via Honest Fare and I'm so happy I did. If you're a fan of homemade jam, I highly recommend this recipe. It's the perfect combination of sweet and spicy. 

Ingredients:

• 2 lbs. strawberries
• juice from 1 lemon
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 and 1/2 serrano peppers
• cornstarch (optional)

Wash the strawberries and cut them into little pieces. Wash the peppers, remove almost all of the seeds (about 80% of them) and dice them.

Cook the strawberries and the lemon juice for about 30 minutes in a shallow saucepan over low heat. As you can see, I realized my strawberries were still too big and cut them into smaller pieces before beginning to cook them.

Add the sugar and increase the heat. Cook for an additional 15 minutes. Optional: Add 2 teaspoons cornstarch to equal parts warm water in a separate bowl and then add it to the strawberries for additional thickening. It will continue to thicken as it cools. Add the peppers and cook for another 2 minutes.

Let cool completely and remove any foam from the top before storing in jars. Like Gabrielle mentioned in her post, this stuff goes perfectly with cheese. I used fontina and could NOT stop eating it!