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!

 

 

It’s been awhile I know. I spent most of August making peach jam from our tree, which had less peaches compared to last year. But because I didn't can any this year, we had just enough. Some thought maybe, too much. They got tired just watching me apparently and yet no one offered to at least help me prepare them. Turned out really nice n tasty. I had a combination of hard and soft jam but I prefer the soft more liquidly jam since its multi purpose. Good on ice cream, good on bread and yummy in desert. I gave a big jar of it to my favorite hairdresser who in turn gave me a jar of rich green pesto. A few weeks later I decided to try out the pesto in some pasta. I was unsure how this extremely green glop was going to taste like, but I have had weird things to eat and weirder looking food still so I thought what the heck. I cooked some pasta in the shape of shells and when that was done, I poured in half of the pesto and after mixing the now green pasta I took a taste. It really didn't taste like much but only looked ferociously green. So added some garlic powder, some margarine and some salt to taste. Did I mention it was green? I guess it was ok now. It was edible but my dad seemed to like it more then me. Most recently went to a green house and then a zoo. The green house is not what it use to be but is more of an arcade with lots of kid games and crappy imported souvenirs made from China. But there are still plenty traditional things you see and experience like the plants, organic food and the petting zoo, but it was better when my aunt came to Canada to visit. I took a few pics of the petting zoo so I’ll be posting you some little picture moments and yes even some of the zoo in the next few posts. As for today I enjoyed the last of the rotisserie barbequed chicken with my homemade stuffing. Every one seems to think it turned out really nice, hence the lack of leftovers. Darn, I’m hungry oh well. I hope every one had a nice n happy Labor day.
This poor gal wanted so much attention she would make such loud squawking and wing flaps to get us to come back.
This guy was looking for some lady fingers. ;)

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.