7.01.2010

In A Jam

I feel as though I am up to my eye balls in jam and in fact I almost am. For the last several days my sister and I have been smashing, stirring and steaming; strawberries, rhubarb, raspberries and cherries into a sweet decoration for our morning toast. I tried my first batch of freezer jams and it turn out great! I followed the SureGel pectin directions and can't wait to try it. Because the fruit and berry season is at hand, many of preserving supplies are on sale, I found the freezer containers for $2 for 5, not bad. The nice thing about freezer jams is you don't have to process the fruit as mush so the flavor and color hold up much better, the down side is I don't have a lot of freezer space, give and take. My sweet cherry recipe didn't turn out as well, it looks more like cherry syrup. It is so sad when your jam doesn't set, but you know it still taste the same. It usually means you didn't use enough pectin/sugar ratio or you didn't let it stay at a roiling biol long enough. I love to give jam away as gifts and detest buying it at the store and now I have made enough to satisfy both.

Inspirational Growing Quotes

"Gardening requires lots of water-most of it in the form of perspiration."
~ Lou Erickson, www.quotegarden.com