Jam and Jelly - Not Just for Toast

Unless you are a huge fan of toast and jelly, canning your own jams and jellies may not make sense for you.  Or does it?  I used to be very narrow minded when it came to jelly or jam.  It goes on toast.  End of story.  But wait up, it doesn't have to be so cut and dry.  Jams and jellies can also be ingredients in delicious dishes. 

I don't know why I never thought of it before.  It wasn't until a recent cleaning out of the cabinets that I even considered it.  I am currently taking a short break from canning and decided it was time to move this year's jars off the dining room table and into the cabinets. 

This meant evaluating what was left over from last year - a couple of jars of sloppy joe sauce and four jars of strawberry jam. 

The strawberry jam stressed me out a little.  Honestly, I thought what a waste.  We are not big toast and jam eaters so in my mind I already saw myself dumping out the jam straight into the garbage.  Then I started thinking, "What else can I do with this stuff?".  Would you believe that Allrecipes returned 100+ hits to the ingredient search for strawberry jam?  Seriously.  You do have to go to the second page though before you start seeing it as an ingredient.

I decided to make Strawberries and Cream Pie.  It sounded easy peasy and I had most all the ingredients on hand.  Happy to say that it turned out yummy.  

Best of all, I have one less jar of jam to worry about ;)

Not to say that too much food on hand is a bad thing, I just prefer to use up canned goods within the year for best quality assurance.

So now I am wondering what else I can can for this year that would be purposed for ingredients in delicious dishes.  I like having things on hand and canning it up now would certainly make for some tasty future dishes.

Do you have any favorites that you can?