Saved a bit of summer for winter

 A little bit of canned summer I prepared and made from last season. It was well worth it and very nice with my homemade almond and peanut butter spread too. Only I prefer my strawberry and mulberry mixed jam for this. Soooooo good. If only the good parts of life can be saved as well and enjoyed during those times where its not so pleasant.

Here we mostly see some of my process of making peach jam. I had made other type of tasty jam too. 

I basically cleaned and boiled the peaches till they were blanched. About a few minutes in boiling water. Then I took the hot peaches and poured cold water till they were cold enough to work with.

If they were nice and ripe peaches, the skin should slide right off. Cut the flesh off discarding the pit along with the fuzzy skin. 

 

Make sure you clean and inspect your jars beforehand on the day you plan on making your jam. Store them in a heated oven. On the most minimal heat to keep the jars pretty warm to almost hot. Must stay sanitized.

Then measure and grind/crush the peaches according to the instructions on the packet of pectin.

Then I placed the peach mush into a tall pot. I put in a pouch of pectin in. I mixed it all till I had a hard boil for a few minutes.

Then I took the tall pot of stuff off the hot ring to place the many cups of sugar in. Placing only a few cups at a time. Must have all that sugar! No if ands or buts!

 Me putting in all that sugar.🔺

 

After you finish pouring in the sugar. Bring the whole pot to a hard boil again.

Boil away till the mixture rises to the top a bit. Then you know you're done and you can remove it from the heat.

At this point put a table spoon of margarine in. It will reduce the foam to nearly nothing. At least you won't have to skim the top Afterwords. (a pain if you ask me).

Place it in the warm nearly hot jars and close the lid tight! 

If you are going to give the full jars a little rinse because you split some on the jar, make sure you use hot tap water. Don't use warm cause the jar can explode in your hand. Water you use must nearly be the same hot temp to clean as the jam inside.  

Then put the full jars in a canning pot est. This is good for first timers. But I just put the jars upside down in another pot of some simmering/boiling water for a few mins to seal the deal. Then I place them on the table to cool off. Jars must have some time to self-seal. You will know by the button on the lid. It will kind of cave in. Must seal, if not, you may run in to botulism in the future. Which is not a good thing.

An unsealed lid will make a clicking noise when you press the top.

Jam is good for a year and more. I have had some for several years with no problems. 

 Some of my finished peach jam placed in the fridge. 

Some of this year's strawberry and cherry jam with blueberries.  

 

My jams are delicious even if not perfect. Sometimes I do a bit of compromising depending on how much fruit I have and ripeness. The consistency of the jams varies.  Sometimes there's a bit of foam in with the jam too. But it's no big deal. Doesn't change the taste of the jam even it not exactly pretty.

I hope this helps and good luck in making yours. 😊👍

The box of pectin usually has very good instructions in them for beginners. Then there's always the internets for supplementing info.

Enjoy!

 

 

Strawberries on the brain.

Made another nice batch of strawberry jam just the other day and it turned out great.  I think this time it was a bit more soft which I like. But before that I went and picked some more mulberries from the front tree and park across the street.  There wasn’t much left. Kind of disappointing but still its just enough for two more batches of my strawberry jam. Might even have enough for a mixed berry pie if I make one in the future. I think last year there was a bumper crop of mulberries and that’s why there was weeks of picking. As for my peaches, I have a feeling there won’t be any. But maybe some but the squirrels are already picking the best ones even though there not ripe yet. My little jungle tiger needs to be a bit more diligent. Maybe just scare them away. He doesn’t need to eat them. I on the other hand may have second thoughts. I have heard that squirrels are quite tasty.

 Meetso my little jungle tiger watches from his favorite sleeping spot as I pic some mulberries.

 What's this I hear? A tasty toy and snack?

Yum, some tasty mulberries. Gift of the wild birds.  

 Looks a bit like Smurf berries. Don't you think?

Meetso is out of his jungle and out on his grassy plain. " I want a belly rub."

I smell like strawberries!.....

I made some strawberry jam today and boy am I exhausted. It wouldn’t have taken me all night had the counters and table been clean. Sadly no one bothers to help on conquering the filth and unorganization of the downstairs kitchenette/laundry room.  Took me twice as long to do stuff because of all the clean up I had to do. Eventually I got to cleaning and preparing the strawberries right after I cleaned some mulberries I had picked earlier. There wasn’t much in the way of mulberries but for the strawberry jam it was just the right amount.  So I finally finished one batch just before 10pm. Ugh! But at least it turned out alright. But I think it could have been better. I have a feeling its going to be a bit more solid that I would have liked.

Another pic of Meetso. I kind of hope to look all rested like that tomorrow when I get up.
I have yet to take a pic of him with his paws over his eyes looking all hammish. Its kind of difficult to do that since my camera is kind of old and the shutter speed is a bit slow for those kinds of cool shots.
Maybe by a freak of nature I’ll get a shot. 

 

Oh yeah here’s a new Make by me.
It’s a recipe I made my own based on a honey brand muffin recipe. Its called Stale Cereal Muffins.
I came up with the idea because there was a cereal that was just sitting in the pantry that I wasn’t too crazy eating as is with milk. So I thought I try making it in to a muffin since you can do that with regular brand cereal. So I tried it out and it came out really, really good. So I thought I share with you. 

 
Hope it turns out for you too. 

You can find the links at Instructables.com and my web site too.

Well, all finished with storing the last of the peaches for this year. I actually have some more still in a basket but no more jars to store any more. Oh well so I guess we’ll just have to eat those in a hurry before they go bad. The few peaches that were left on the tree were squired away by my friendly local neighborhood gray squirrel and a house finch. A small bird that’s a bit bigger then a common sparrow, that has stripes on its stomach and the male has peachy red hood. I kind of think that they plotted the whole thing and shared it with the local robins and yellow jackets. The yellow green grapes are just coming into season and I believe that soon it will be there turn to be visited by the local admirers. Oh and here’s a few pics of the canned and jammed peaches along with our new car.

Pretty typical of me not saying anything for a while but I'm back for a while or maybe not. Who knows? Any ways some of my recent highlights, a few weeks ago the family van broke down. We had that thing since 88. I kind of think it has seen its last road. It was as old as my cat that also recently died. Because we really needed a new ride we got one. A new black Buick with all the extras, like a years worth of GPS and 3 months worth of Sat radio. I'll probably take a few pic when I actually get around to it. My dad put the licence plate with my name on it on to the car. It’s really nice and all but I know it’s really not my car. If I could afford it mine would have been a cute Volkswagen Beetle, either a yellow or a green one. Of course I wouldn't mind a nice scooters, you know one of those Vespas you see in Europe. I saw a cute pink one a few years ago in a parking lot. But for the most part I would rather have a new kitty any day over any of these things.
But one thing that really upset me at the time and made me kind of depressed was that he said that it would probably be the last car he would ever purchase. :_( What a big downer to an otherwise supposedly happy experience. Kind of like adding salt to your jam instead of the sugar. He was always a bit of a downer for the most part.
Its no wonder why my mother went off the deep end like that several times in the past.

Any how, since its once again that time of the year when our peach tree is full of luscious peaches, its time to enjoy them. This year I tried my hand at canning and making jam out of them. I only hope that they turn out tasty and don't turn in to botchelisim. I'm pretty sure I sealed the jars OK I'm using a few of those old-fashioned jars with the flip top lid that later get sealed by means of that clamp. Can't wait to try that peach jam. I'm sure with in a few days, I'll probably be sick to my ears with them.

I opened a Cafepress store just for fun. Good for a side thing and still have to put up a few links to it. I have a few things in there and will add something else for Christmas since I already have it. I only hope people will be interested in my stuff.

Last but not least, went to a cat show yesterday. My first one. I only wish my mom was a bit more understanding since she sort of got me to go at an earlier time. Oh well I told her so. I only wanted to be there for a while like a half an hour but we ended up staying for hours. Totally unnecessary. Oh well, it was cool any ways since we got to see all kind of breeds, some of the judging and the souvenir venders. Pretty well disciplined cats if I do say so my self. I think the most interesting cats were the hairless ones and the Persian. The little white persians had eyes like owls. There was this black a white Scottish fold that reminded me of penguins. Sadly I was not able to take pictures since the room had low lighting and I try to avoid using the flash out of the respect of the animals.