Jam Fest

By now, you must all think I'm crazy for making so much jam!  We use a lot of it on toast, but more importantly, we flavour our homemade yogurt with it each week.  We use on average, 2 jars of jam each week, meaning that we need at least 100 jars of it for our own personal use.  Additionally, I give some away as thank you gifts through the year and my intention is to put together gift baskets full of homemade jams and soaps to give as Christmas gifts.  That's a lot of jam, folks!

I bought peaches on Friday at 76 cents/pound (that's very inexpensive for here!), so those went into a delicious jam flavoured with cloves and a little bit of that blackberry liqueur. Tasty!  

As well, I dealt with that strawberry syrup that I wasn't happy with.  I had popped it into the fridge the other day (instead of water bath processing it) because it just wasn't the right texture for syrup.  I had a few cups of leftover raspberries that I added to it which gave it a nice tang, and with a little pectin and a bit more sugar added, it set up into a delicious jam that tastes much better than the original syrup did.  Whew!  A relief to get that used up and not waste it.

So that was Monday - spent largely in the kitchen, washing, prepping, skinning, cutting, stirring, sterilizing, water bathing and testing.  A long day, but well worth the effort :)  So satisfying to see the pantry fill up!