Canning Week!

Despite my lack of blog posts, this has not been an idle year for canning. I have done quite a bit, although, I have not done nearly as much quantity as last year. I have tried many different kinds of things in small quantities. I am hoping that by doing some small batch canning I can learn what I like to make and perfect things with out having to eat many, many jars of it. It was very nice when I had my canning partner living out here. I could do full batches of a recipe and split it. It was a good thing to try things at their full recipe to ensure that they had the flavor they were meant to have. Sometimes when recipes are cut, even though the proportions are kept the same, the flavors just don't seem to be quite as vibrant to me. It most likely is just be a personal "perception," not the true reality of the situation. So, in the spirit of trying new things and attempting to get over my want for large quantities of jars bumping around in the water bath, I tried several new recipes this year when the peaches were in season.

I love peaches, and since I missed apricot season this year due to all the traveling, I decided to make extra peach recipes to fill in for the missing favorite of my husband's. I am hoping this stop gap helps me stretch the few jars of apricot that I have left. Often times I can make a one to one substitution for peach jam. This especially works in cases of glazes made for roasted meats. Peach or apricot jam with some soy sauce and freshly graded ginger makes an especially tasty glaze for pork roast or pork chops. A quick filling for crepes, cakes, and jelly rolls, apricot is my go to gal! Peach, however is one of my favorite fruits, so I hope that I can see it into rotation in place of the old family favorite.

Aside from making several jars of plain peach jam, I added some new flavors. One flavor combination I have always enjoyed is peach and ginger. I particularly like peach ginger iced tea. It seemed only natural to try out this combination in jam format. I added candied ginger to a regular peach jam recipe. I mixed up the sugar and peaches, and I cooked the mix until just before the jellying point. At the last most minute, I added finely diced candied ginger. I hoped it would add some nice bite both literally and figuratively to the jam. I have yet to try it, but I will post a Follow Up Friday as soon as I do.

I also made spiced peach jam. I added cinnamon, cloves, and allspice to the jam for this one. I have to say that there is nothing quite like spiced peach jam on a freshly toasted English muffin for a cold morning's breakfast. The warmth of the spice profile on this reminds me of the spiced peach slices I would get in Amish country in Illinois. I tried this one right away as I thought it did not set up correctly. While the set is a bit soft compared to most of my other fruit jams, this is nothing out of the ordinary. My peach always sets a bit loose compared to other fruits. I guess the pectin of the over ripe peaches you get in California farmer's markets must contribute to this, but I would not trade the flavor of the fully ripe peaches for the pectin of less ripe ones.

A new addition to the canning recipes this year was one I found in a Martha Stewart Living magazine. I decided to try out her recipe for bourbon poached peaches. It smelled delicious, and the combination of vanilla and my personal favorite, Jack Daniel's whiskey, made for a good combination. I have not tried any of these yet, but I am looking forward to some peach pancakes. The excess syrup for this recipe tasted wonderful, and I wanted to try to cook it down into a pancake syrup. This turned out to be somewhat disastrous. With the high sugar content, and my patience wearing thing, I tried to cook it down way too fast. I ended up making essentially a hard candy that I then canned into jars. I did not realize the error of my ways until the next day. I tried tipping the jars over to see their wonderful syrup ready for pancakes, but it was solidified in the glass. It almost took a jack hammer to get my jars back, but with enough hot water and elbow grease, I was back to having usable jars.

In the end, I had four jars of wonderfully poached peaches and no jars of pancake syrup. I made sure to cut up the vanilla bean into enough pieces so each jar got one. I hope that this does more than look pretty; I hope it creates an intense flavor of vanilla. I could see this recipe being a great accompaniment to vanilla ice cream or any number of cakes whether they be chiffon, pound, or angel food. As soon as I get a jar open and a good opinion on the recipe, I will also post back with a Follow Up Friday.

I also canned some straight up peach slices and spiced slices. It is a nice change of pace for me to crack open a jar of these summer fruits when in the dead of winter. Having a slight allergy to citrus fruits means that eating seasonally can sometimes be an itchy affair. While I love citrus fruit and do eat it quite often, I can only indulge so much. I have a feeling these will as usual come in handy, especially with that margarita made from peach canning liquid recipe floating around the internet lately.

While peach canning season is most likely over for you all, I thought I would just show off what I was doing all those days when nothing was getting posted up on the blog. I have my work cut out for me this week. I, like everyone else I am reading lately, am headed into a week of apple canning. There is sauce and pie filling to be made. Someday, this will include fresh pressed ciders, but until we have a house this will only be a canning dream. I am also excited to try out a new jelly recipe that is apple based. If it turns out how I am envisioning it will, I will have another thing to reside in the half pints.

There is so much to do, and with holiday crafting on the horizon, I am trying to get as much into every day as I can. Things on the agenda today include weeding the garden plot, hopefully some personal sewing, as well as some holiday crafting... yes I really am going to start in October this year! Then there is the matter of preserving the bushel of apples sitting in the kitchen... For now though, I am off to the garden to make sure all is in order there. As usual, so much to do and seemingly no time to do it in.

Raspberry Jam - Hot and Not

One of my favorite things about going to my Uncle Glen and Aunt Chris' house when I was a kid was the raspberry bushes. Uncle Glen hosted a huge garden for the entire family on his farm, and many weekends out of the summer were spent there picking beans, sweet corn, beets, potatoes, zucchini, carrots, and apples. My favorite things, besides the gigantic pumpkins he grew for Halloween, were the raspberry bushes.

Boy do I miss those free berries! I splurged this year and decided to make some seedless raspberry jam for this year. There were raspberries on sale at the store, and I also picked up some more at the end of the day at the Farmer's market on Sunday. I washed the berries in small batches and then put them into a pot. I then heated them through and mashed them down with a potato masher. This made a raspberry slurry that exposed just how many seeds there were.

From there, I took a fine mesh sieve and pushed the raspberry puree through. This was a super time intensive but easy to do task. I was surprised that when I dumped the filtered juice and pulp into the pot for the cook up of the jam there were still some seeds present. They were super small, so I am not sure if they just happened to fit through the mesh or if I was a bit sloppy at some point and lost some seeds into the filtered juice.

I ended up with four cups of juice. I added three cups of sugar and the juice of a lemon to preserve the color of the raspberries into the cooking pot. I learned when doing this jam that it reached a solid jam state two degrees sooner than my usual jams. I am wondering if I would have pulled the cherry earlier if it would have turned out. Perhaps I just cooked that jam too much which turned it into the odd texture it is.

I ended up with three jars of jam. I put crushed red pepper into one of the jars to make a spicy and hot version of the jam. It is great for an appetizer when poured over warmed brie, baked under pastry with brie, or poured over warmed cream cheese and served with crackers. I hope that one jar of it is enough for this year. Two of the jars are plain jam, but one is going off to a friend. That leaves me one highly prized jar for myself. I am thinking about trying a recipe out of one of my canning recipe books that cuts the raspberries with apples to stretch the jam out into a bigger batch without using more berries. It sounds like an intriguing way to make this without the high cost. Things to ponder for next year, till then, I will be hiding this jar away, so I don't open it until I really need a pick me up.

First Day of Fall

I thought I should usher in the first night of fall with an apple pie, so yesterday afternoon, I grabbed one of the jars of Gravenstein pie filling from August and went to work. I made up some pie crust quickly and chilled it while I got some housework done. From there it was as easy as pie! ;) I rolled out the dough, popped open the jar, filled the shell, topped it off, egg washed the top, cut the vents, and added some rough sugar. I thought it looked just as good as a professional pie and tasted wonderful.

Last weekend, while my sister was visiting, I found some Concord grapes at the Friday farmer's market. They were super huge in size and very juicy. I picked up five pounds, so I could make both jam as well as some juice for later this year. It was interesting seeing people taste them at the market. Some knew what they were and expected their tart and sour taste. Others thought they were some kind of black sweet table grape. They were the fun ones to watch as their lips puckered up and comments of dislike followed.

I love these grapes for jelly. Here I have placed three pounds of stemmed, rinsed grapes and a half cup of water into the big stock pot. This mixture is brought up to a boil and then reduced to a simmer for ten minutes. During this time, I use my spoon to separate the skins and their flesh. This results in the green "grapes" that you see in the picture and the purple skins tend to sink to the bottom during this. When they sink, it is easier to see which grapes still need to be separated, so go after those next.

Once the mixture has simmered for the ten minutes, it should look something like this, a bright royal purple mess. There will be skins, seeds, and some still solid pulp. All of this will go into your jelly bag or jelly strainer. I let it strain for two hours, but there was still quite a bit of juice left. I stirred the pulp down in the bag for a while until all the juice was removed from the skins and uncooked pulp.

I measured out the juice and had the four cups that I needed. My Mom's old Ball Blue book is almost always right about the weight to juice conversion as it was here. I added the three cups of sugar to the juice and started my boil. I have read in some places that it would help to let the grape juice set overnight to be able to remove the solids that contribute to crystals that can form in the jelly. I skipped this step and did not see any form when the jelly was finished. To make the jelly, cook the juice and sugar mixture to the jellying point, or eight degrees above the boiling point of water.

This jelly did not have any foam form as well, so I got four good jars of foam free grape jelly. I was rather pleased. If you find foam on your jelly, skim it off quickly and start to fill your hot, sterilized jars. Fill to a quarter inch of headspace. From there take the jars and place them into your water bath, and process the jars for 15 minutes. Once the process time is over, remove the lid from the canner, turn off the heat, and wait five minutes before removing the jars of jelly.

I finished with four jars of the darkest grape jelly. It is a beautiful purple black. I like that we now have the final store bought jam out of the house. Grape is Dan's favorite, and I had not been able to find the grapes until this year. Now, with the smaller jars, we can hopefully finish the jelly before it goes bad in the fridge. Somehow, with homemade jelly, I do not see finishing them up as a problem.

I also made some grape jelly in the way my mom made it. In the hot, sterilized quart jars, add a half cup of sugar and one cup of grapes. Then, fill the jars with boiling hot water. I did find this to cause some problems. I am not sure if my mother used less sugar or if I just did not have the water fully boiling before adding it to the jars, but my jars had some residual sugar at the bottom of the jars when filled and also after the processing time.

I think the next time I make the grape juice, I will add the sugar to the pot of boiling water and make sure it is all dissolved before adding the liquid to the jars. This will prevent the crystallized sugar from forming at the bottom of the jars like it did this time. I cannot wait for this to finally be ready. This is one of those tastes of my childhood that I miss the most. I hope that I got the sugar to grape ratio correct. I am banking on the thought that my Mom did not use the full cup of sugar that the book says you can use.

Here are the jars after just a few days. It takes a few weeks for the juice to fully be extracted from the grapes that are canned inside of the jars. Once the juice is finally dark in color, it is time to enjoy. My Mom would crack the lids open and use them to strain out the juice from the spent grape pulp and seeds. I can barely wait to see if the juice is the same. I hope it is!

Pickles and Plums

The week before the steam show was not all tomatoes and savory, I did sneak in a jam for my sweet tooth. I love plum jam, and while I like red plum jam a bit better than white plum, this mixed batch turned out quite well. With the plums being $0.75 a pound, it also helps me to overlook the fact that the red plums were in the minority in this batch. I keep the peels on the plums because I like the candied feeling they give to the jam. The plums were also really juicy, so the need to macerate them for a while just did not need to happen. It helped me get much more done in a short time since I did not have much time to spare.

I did let them sit for a bit in the stock pot with the sugar to let some of the juices start to flow before I started the cook. This jam cooked up quickly, and I wished I had made a larger batch. I did temper this desire with a trip to the pantry to look over the large number of other jams that I made this year and to ask myself seriously if I would be able to eat them all this year. My answer was no, and my plan to make a second batch of plum dissolved as quickly as it solidified in my mind.

I ended up with four beautiful jars of jam. I really love the color of purple that this combination of different varieties of plums gave to the jam. I also like the size that I cut the pieces this year versus the last year. The peel pieces last year, while wonderful texture and super candied pieces of tastiness, they were just too big. The peels could become almost distracting to the rest of the jam, so this year's smaller pieces will be better I think. I will have to see when a jar finally gets cracked open.

I also made some pickles on the day that we left for the show. It was a final canning project that I could fit in the morning before our red eye flight to Iowa. I wanted to make several types of pickles this year, so that if I did not like one type I would not be stuck with lots of jars of them for the year. I decided to make a half order of a recipe from a family friend as well as a refrigerator pickle recipe that I hoped would be a good impostor for Dan's favorite commercial pickles.

The pickling cucumbers that I bought were also a great steal at $0.75 a pound. Needless to say I got some great deals that week at the Farmer's Market. For the hot processed pickles, I had to brine them for three hours with sliced onions. While the Pickle Crisp I bought said this was unnecessary, I was worried that if I did not brine the pickles that it would be missing the key ingredient of salt in the pickles. I made sure that the cucumbers and onions did not float to the top of the liquid by weighing them down with an inverted plate. As years of pickling experts will tell you, this is the perfect technique to make sure things stay where you want them to when soaking them.

I then made up the storing brine for these pickles. It was rather simple, using white sugar, white vinegar, mustard seed, and celery seeds. After simmering that up for a bit, the cucumbers and onions went into the pot to get warmed over before going into the hot jars. For once I was able to pack the jars correctly on the first try so that things were not floating all the way to the top with all sorts of liquid looking lonely at the bottom.

Next, I made up the brine for the refrigerator pickles. I did these as spears, so they would be just like the store bought version. I made up my own version of a pickling spice mix for this. It turned out rather well, and then I threw that into the vinegar, sugar, and added the specific spices to the jar that the recipe needed. The biggest thing was the garlic. We like garlic flavors, so I chopped up a bunch for the two jars. I tasted these earlier this week, and I really like them. While they are not the exact same as the store pickles, I really like them on their own.

Raisin Experiments

Things have been rather hot and steamy here in the Bay Area as we are experiencing a bit of a late summer heat wave. During this time, I have been scaling back the canning because it is no fun in the heat to stand over bubbling pots of hot liquids. I decided to try my hand at drying grapes into raisins. I love fresh raisins from the farmer's market, but often times I just cannot justify the expensive price tag. I thought that perhaps I could get similar results at home with my dehydrator as the grapes dried in the sun.

After a good washing, I decided to follow the guide book and blanch the grapes in boiling water. My dehydration book suggested a three minute dip in the water, but I think this was just too much. The skins of the grapes split open and the flesh started cooking. I think the next time I make raisins I will just not blanch them and see what color loss I have. The split skins made for a sticky finished product.

From there the grapes had to be plucked off of their stems and placed onto the drying sheets. This was made a bit harder due to not only the split skins but the searing heat the grapes retained long after being taken out of the water bath. The nice thing about making my own raisins though is that I can make sure there are no little pieces of stem still attached to the finished product. Nothing is more annoying than eating oatmeal or a cookie or other baked item and finding stems in your food.

The grapes were rather large, so the estimated drying time was quite off. It took nearly a full day for them to dry rather than the 10 hours the books predicted. There were also some still way too hydrated to store, so I just ate them immediately. I am not sure which type we are going to like better. The flame grapes have an almost candy like flavor and texture to them. It is more similar to a date rather than a raisin. I also love their bright pinkish purple color.

The black grapes look and taste more like commercially produced grapes. The biggest problem with them is the size. They were not dry for quite some time, and they also were quite sticky due to the split skins. They are, however, the nice dark color that grapes generally have. I will have to stir some into oatmeal soon to determine if I like them better. If I do, I will be buying end of the day grapes for the dehydrator soon.

I could not leave the canning completely behind. I did do a small batch of Brittany apricot jam yesterday. It was a hot job even in the morning. From there it was on to reorganizing the sewing room. There is a lot of sorting and putting away to be done after the big "renovation" that I did. I had to make room for the new computerized cutter, so furniture was cleared off and moved around the room. I like the new layout of the room much better than any of the other incarnations. The computer is now easier to use as the glare from the windows is no longer a factor, and the sewing table is closer to the windows for some much needed natural light. Now I just need to sort through all these little odds and ends that I have wanted to organize for some time. I think this requires a trip to the store for some organizational bins, my biggest weakness. There is a mess to clean and new software to learn. If you don't hear from me for a while it is because I am cutting up a storm with the new cutter!

Peachy Friday

Today has been incredibly busy, hence the late edition of the blog today. Yesterday was peach day, and today will be peach day again if there is enough time. I underestimated my peach needs, so I only got a few jars of this one. It is alright though as I still have a few jars from last year that need to be eaten still. I also was so busy yesterday that I forgot to take a picture of the peaches before they ended up in the pot, so here they are ready for the jamming process.

I did a full cook on these, and they turned into a beautiful golden color. The two and a half pounds ended up to be four full and one half jar of jam. The refrigerator is starting to get rather cluttered with half jars of jams, so I think I will need to make some refrigerator cookies next week to clear things out. It is so cluttered I cannot even imagine fitting the watermelon I just got in there until some of the space is cleared.

I also got some great deals on end of the day produce today at the Farmer's market in Old Oakland. I need to find out what to make with some of the cauliflower and broccoli that I got for cheap. Of course I got all of this just as the weather warms up, so soup is out of the equation. I also got quite a few O'Henry peaches for canning for this winter along with the watermelon. I also made my first attempt at English muffins today. They look pretty good from the outside, but I have yet to fork one open to see what the insides look like. Hopefully tomorrow I can convince Dan to have one with me for breakfast before we head out for the apple fair. Oh and the apple fair... that means more canning goodness! I suppose I should sign off and head into the kitchen to get some jars clean and some peaches peeled.

Canning Week Day 2 - Apricot Jam

Yesterday was apricot jam day. I got these late season apricots at the market on Sunday and could not wait to get them into their jars. Apricot was the one jam that I did not make enough of last year, and I opened up the last jar of it just a few days ago. I love apricot jam as it is a very versatile thing to have around the house. Aside from the obvious spreading onto toast and English muffins, I also use this jam for jelly rolls, freezer box cookie filling, it makes a great filling between layers of chocolate cake, bbq sauce bases, and glazes for ham or pork roasts.

I think this year's jam will be quite stiff just like last years. The apricots seemed under ripe, so their pectin content was really high. I also figured out why my strawberry was so foamy the day before. I was cooking too quickly and that caused the crystallization problems that resulted in the foaminess. I wished I was able to retain these kinds of lessons better from year to year. I suppose I need to write myself some sort of notes to keep around and review from year to year to ensure no knowledge is lost from the year before. It is kind of like sending a kid on summer vacation, and they remember the big concepts but lose the finer ones until they are back in the swing of things again the next school year.

This year's jam is a bit more golden than last year's deep orange color. I used a different lighter variety of fruit, so I am sure most of that is from the fruit selection. I have found out that apricot is my brother-in-law's favorite jam, so I will be making another batch to share with him if the Brittany apricots come in late this month. If not, I guess it will have to be a rationed out product this year. I am really banking on those Brittanies as they made stellar jam with just the right amount of sweetness and tart undertones.

Today I am tackling the peach jam. I am also hoping to hop on the sewing machine as I did not get to that yesterday. I want to get this project finished and some notes written up before I share the project with you. It is a fun one and also eco-Friendly money saver if you are into that. Well there are the first round of peaches to peel, so I am off.

Rainier Cherry Jam

Last week I finished off our cherry picking adventure by making jam out of the Rainier cherries. It was interesting as I was worried the cherries would not have enough pectin to gel the jam completely. I am not sure if the pectin or the complete and total boiling I did of the fruit and sugar that made it actually solidify into a jam. If it were not for the peels I left in the jam, it would have been outright jelly.

Making this jam was interesting as it foamed and would boil up quite high in the pot. It would rise so quickly that I had to lower the heat under the pot resulting in a really long boil time to reach the jellying point. The fruit, for the most part, disintegrated into juice only and there seems to be no real body to the jam aside from the peels, which are what is floating to the top of the jars. The jam also was really runny for a while, and I was concerned that I would have cherry syrup rather than jam. As the jam cooled it did solidify, and now it is a very solid jam that does not move much, so I guess those fears were unfounded.

Last week was spent mostly at home in Illinois visiting family and friends. It was great to get to see some of them and spend some real quality time talking and catching up. It was also nice to get in some Midwestern things I missed. I ate at Portillo's and listened to song birds. I dug in the garden with my parents and went to Grandma's house. I even got to have my storm, and while I did not want to be caught in it during my 14 mile walk with Christine, it was still nice to hear thunder and see lightning.

I was proud of myself for mostly keeping up with the running plan while on vacation. While I was not able to keep the food end of my getting in shape plan, I did run on Wednesday and try for a long walk on that Saturday. I came back and moved on to week 4 yesterday in the couch to 5K plan. It seems like such a big step up, but I am determined to not back down like I usually do. I am going to keep going on week four and then move on to week five next week. Today I am watching World Cup games and trying to get some personal sewing projects started for Chaos Wars. Well the Brasil/North Korea game is starting, so I am off.

Canning Projects

The last few days have been filled with spring cleaning and the beginning of a new canning season. It all kicked off on Monday with a trip out to Brentwood for a canning and baking session with Annie. We have both been busy, and she is currently wrapped up in research and moving plans, so the girl day was just what we both needed. We worked on the strawberry and rhubarb jam that is pictured here. It was a recipe that called for pectin, and while no longer my favorite jam method, it was nice to do a quick batch over the long cook method. I have to say, though, that I enjoy the flavor of a cooked to the jelly point jam over the commercial pectin flavors. I also like the looser texture of the jam over the pectin. I feel that the powdered pectin makes a jam that is a bit too stiff.

We also worked on some pickled asparagus. It was pretty easy after doing the dill pickles last year. The method is pretty easy, and our skill at properly packing jars has increased immensely. Seven pounds of asparagus is quite a bit, but cooked down into six pint jars. We pickled the spears with some green and red pepper, jalapeno, and garlic as well as dill and mustard seed. I am wondering how these are going to taste, but I have to wait for a month before I can find out. Pickling takes time, and I would like to make sure they are mellowed and fully pickled through before I try them. I am not sure how to use them other than adding to a salad or in a Bloody Mary or eating straight from the jar, so any suggestions for cooking with these would be welcome.

Yesterday, Annie came over to work on some sewing lessons, as it was too rainy for her to check traps. It was fun getting together two days in a row to work on things. After she left, I took to canning up some oranges that I bought on Friday. I made an orange dessert sauce. I sliced the oranges up as thin as I could on the mandolin, and then they were heated through in a syrup of water, sugar, Grand Marnier, and white wine that was spiced with cinnamon sticks and cloves. I got a bit gun shy after seven oranges were cut out of the nine that the recipe called for, so I quit early. That was a bit of a mistake as I would have been at the called for eight half pints. Instead, I canned up the remaining syrup in the empty two half pints. I figure I can boil them down into a glaze for an angel food or pound cake sometime for a quick dessert. The orange slices can be used for cake, or as my recipe suggests, for an ice cream topping. They turned out a little more yellow than I expected, but I figure it is more of the syrup's doing that than the oranges themselves.

All in all, it has been a busy last few days. I am looking forward to finally getting to sit down and finish off that personal choli. There is so little left to do that it is kind of embarrassing that it is not done yet. Then I am going to work on the new fabrics I have gotten in to make up a prototype of the new products. Hopefully I can round out the day with some deep kitchen cleaning. It isn't that I want to do it necessarily, but it has been put off for too long and just needs to get done. Right now though, the rainy day outside is screaming for some hot tea and sewing at the machines.

Quince Jam

Yesterday was kind of a comedy of errors. I went to go and get jars as soon as I cleaned up from my breakfast and blogging, and I walked to my local hardware store in the district to pick up a flat. The last time I went to get jars in August, they were stacked floor to ceiling. There were several types of half pints there, both wide and regular mouth. Jelly jars were also there in plentiful supply. I figured there would be no problem because hey, how many people in this urban setting are making jam? Well I was shocked to get to the store and find they only had a few flats of quarts left. No pints, half pints, or jelly jars to be seen. This made even the store manager scratch his head. He said they would get more in this Friday, but my quince would not make it that long. So, I thanked him and left to ponder my options. I have learned recently that my time is much better spent calling around rather than trying to navigate around via public transportation and walking from place to place to find out they are also out of what I need. I made calls to many stores to find the same thing, sold out. Finally I found some in the city, and my awesome husband swung by the store on his way home and picked me up a flat. We had a wonderful dinner out and then he headed to a guy thing, so I went home to jam it up.

I washed the quince that are pictured above of all their fuzzy outside layer. It was an interesting texture and feeling. Kind of like wiping felt fuzz off of a waxy floor. They were yellowish and smelled very floral, like perfume, and the smell was quite pleasant but strong. I then started to cut them, and myself, over the next hour. Granted our knives are not as sharp as they could be, but this was beyond ridiculous. The quince, while ripe as far as I can tell from my research, were like cutting a butternut squash. I expected something more like an apple, but the texture is quite firmer. When I cut them open, I revealed a beautiful arrangement of little seeds.



I then worked on cutting out bad sections, cores, and paring up the fruit into smaller pieces. Then the fruit, water, lemon, zest, and sugar went into the pot, and the cooking process began.



It was a long one for this, and I am sure I could have taken it further to get a more rosy red jam. I was, however, quite fearful of breaking my pectin down and having a sauce rather than a jam, so I cut it off. I ended up with nine full half pints of jam. They look good, and the few tastes of the jam I had while doing my jelly test revealed a sweet, but perfume smelling jam. It is very similar to rose tea in the flavor, and I can see why this is good with cheese.



Today I am planning on getting all the things done that I did not accomplish yesterday due to the jar debacle. I also have the possibility of disappearing from the blog for a while. I am performing my civic duty by attending jury duty this week, so if I am not here, you know where I am.