Sunday, October 11, 2009

Jam making

Well, for not having gotten up until noon today, I still managed to accomplish two things on my list. So in addition to having caught up on my sleep, which was sorely needed, I made Honey-Wheat bread, with sunflower and pumpkin seeds in it (which, as good as it smelled, will have to wait until breakfast tomorrow to be sampled - I was just too full from dinner tonight to try it), and I made the house smell yummy from making Carrot Cake jam. I think that might be a good combination to try for breakfast tomorrow - a large Mobil coffee, and homemade honey wheat bread with carrot cake jam! Unfortunately, the jam does NOT look like it thickened as well as it should have, which seems to be a common jam-making fault of mine. I don't know why. And I don't know if there is any correction to it once it's been jarred, and canned, or not. I read somewhere about recooking it, but I don't know if that would really help, or not. We just get used to eating soupy jam here, and no one here really seems to mind. I only feel badly because I intend to use a lot of it as gifts this year, and soupy jam seems less than a perfect gift.
So today I made a list of the things I still need to make/can for Christmas, and it seems that if I do a couple every week, I'll finish it all.
- What I have already made: spaghetti sauce (still need to make home made noodles, right before Christmas to go with it, and bread then, too), blackberry cinnamon jam, blueberry peach jam, concord grape jam, apple pie jam, and the carrot cake jam.

- Still on my list to try: autumn cranberry pear jam, cinnamon pear jam, strawberry kiwi jam, strawberry margarita jam, cranberry orange jam, kiwi jam, kiwi daiquiri jam, pumpkin butter, apple cider butter, zesty peach barbecue sauce, sundae in a jar, black forest preserves, praline syrup, and spiced honey.
Tomorrow, I need to make the cinnamon apple slices to can, not just to eat!, and put a lot more sauce in the freezer.
I love this time of year, and love making jams and sauces, and love thinking about giving them away for Christmas. I hope people enjoy eating them as much as I have had fun making them. Oh, and then there's the wine, too - newly bottled: Merlot that is too sweet for me, but others will like it, and my favorites, the Red Raspberry, and Cranberry. It is time to go get more juice from Walkers, too, for next years wine! Fall really IS a good time of year!

2 comments:

From the Country Farm said...

cranberry orange jam!!!! never tried it but sounds delish!

Kimberlee said...

Wow! You listed a ton of jams that I've NEVER heard of, but would LOVE to sample! I bought about a dozen tiny jars of jam from a woman in Nova Scotia when I biked there. Other people's stuff always tastes better than anything I can come up with. Wish I could taste some of your concoctions. Are they your original ideas or have you found recipes? It really does sound like fun!