07/03/09

Today was an adventure sort of a day... I made some jams and fruit butters.

Now, before you go thinking "Wow, Kellie came up with this all on her own and look at what she is doing in her "Betty Crocker" moments this summer..." .... please stop.

Kevin instructed me that this would happen. ha!!! I'm getting ready for the State Fair in October... in July.

Kevin and I have a unique relationship in that whatever the other person doesn't find as exciting to do, the other will make him/her do it!!!

With that in mind... that is how I came to be making jams and fruit butters today. I cannot remember the names exactly because Kevin didn't write them down for me and I am so visual that just telling me does no good.

My first jam has oranges, cranberries and strawberries in it. No pictures of that because I accidentally forgot my camera in the van and Steve ran to the store to pick up some things.


Here is the visual proof of what I was doing today once Steve came back with my camera. (And, I also had my friend Sal stop by so he saw me in the process of it all. lol)

Sliced plums ready to cook up for the plum butter

Concentrating as I take the cooked plums and add them to the food processor to mix up a little more.
I had to have a few creative photographic moments in the middle of my cooking.

I had to make a bag of cheesecloth and fill it with a few cloves and one stick of cinnamon to add to the plum butter while it was cooking.

Aren't these cinnamon just the neatest thing? (Actually, Kevin stated that these aren't true cinnamon but something very close to it because cinnamon is so expensive. It is actually a bark, too!! Learned something new today!)

Kevin told me to hurry up photographing these or my plum butter would stick. lol

The plum butter as it is cooking. We found out with this one that we cooked it longer than needed but it still tastes great!

The next one I made involved peaches and orange juice.

Here I am cutting the peaches. I am so "TYPE A" and a bit SLOW when it comes to anything like this and Kevin told me he would help. Well, we found out WHO could trim off the outside of the peach faster, didn't we Kevin????? hee hee I was so tickled that I was able to do SOMETHING in the kitchen better than him.

My peach butter a cookin'

Ladling the peach butter into the jars

Yes, another creative moment I couldn't pass up. The color was so beautiful so I made Kevin ladle for a bit while I captured a moment.

My last adventure for the day was blueberry jam.

Here it is a cookin'... once it was done, may I just say it was STINKIN' GOOD?

Kevin taught me to put all of the jellies/butters in a "water bath." I then took them to our table and set them out after they had gone through the bath process. It was such a neat feeling to hear the "click" of them sealing!!!

The "fruits" of my labor today. hee hee

As stated right above, yes, we tried them all. They were ALL so good and different from each other. Maybe I should try to make some homemade biscuits to go with all of these good things. Well, maybe I better not push it... lol

Even though Kevin is always coming up with new things for me to do, and sometimes I can have a stinky attitude while preparing to do it, I find that I always walk away with a great sense of accomplishment and fun memories for me and Kevin. I am thankful for the "pushing" he gives me to try new things... I honestly don't think this would come on my list of things to do if he didn't push me. I have also thought today that I ought to try and do this more for my family to enjoy homemade jams/jellies. We have three more to do on another day. I'm sure I will learn lots that day, too. :)

Now I have to wait until October to see what the State Fair judges think. :)