07/26/11

First, I do want to comment on my blog from yesterday... Sandy, Sandy, and Rhonda all found what I had changed in my kitchen!!  I was so tickled to see what was noticed.  :)

I believe this is called a pincushion flower... or something like that.  Very pretty and unusual... taken at Monticello.

 

Now on to today's post.

We've been jammin'.

Jammin' with fruit, that is.

I actually did my first jellies... I did a southwest jelly and this jalapeno jelly.  

Below you can see the prettiness of the jalapeno jelly.  :)  You can put this over cream cheese and serve with crackers.  It is some serious goodness happening right here.  It is also not that hot so people who do not enjoy hot things would be fine with this.

 Mikayla did strawberry jam so far this year.  She is entering this in the fair.

Here she is smashing the strawberries while covering the cute little bow in her hair that I used so that her hair would not fall in her eyes because her bangs are growing out.  (Now THAT was a long sentence...)

 Cooking the berries with the sugar and pectin.

 Skimming off the foam

 up close

 ladeled and ready for lids and the water bath

 After the water bath

 Wesley made strawberry/peach jam for the fair.  Here he is smashing all of the goodness out of those strawberries and peaches.

 Ladeled, ready for lids and a water bath

 Setting them out to cool

 Wesley also made peach jam because that boy loves him some peaches.  In this next photo he is stirring the mixture of peaches/sugar/pectin for forever because that is just what you do when making jams.  He gave me one of his crazy looks... and I get these often.  They crack me up!

 Here he is being my "normal" son.

Aren't these beautiful?!!!  They are YUMMY, too.  :)

There will be more jams and jellies in the future weeks.  Gotta get ready for the fair!