All is Safely Gathered In
We have an apricot tree in our yard that gave us a ton of fruit (and earwigs) this year. So we decided to be domestic and make and can some jam. So we got online and found somebody's old family recipe and went to town. Nate and I prepped for the first batch the night before we cooked it, and I did the cooking while Nate was at work and Addison was sleeping the next afternoon.
I timed it at the beginning of his nap so there would be no chance of him waking up. Mainly all you do is boil the heck out of it and stir it constantly for 25 minutes. We overfilled the pan, though, so as I sweated and stirred and bailed out bowlful after bowlful of orange foam, I also frantically opened doors to let the billowing smoke out and blew like crazy on the small flame under the burner, causing it to become a large flame. And then Addison woke up screaming. So I sensibly called Nate on my dying phone and asked if our precious jam would be ruined if I stopped stirring it for 20 seconds to run upstairs and grab the babe (I still had 15 minutes of stirring ahead of me.) He assured me that it would be fine.
So I sprinted upstairs, grabbed Add (which scared him even more) ran back down, and plopped the poor little guy in his walker for the remaining 14 minutes and 30 seconds of stirrage. Then I scooped the jam into the jars and turned them upside down to seal (didn't really work - I had to hot water bath them the next day).
Unbelievably, it turned out really good.
That night Nate and I did two more pots full (I burned mine and had to throw most of it away.) And we are now proudly displaying the fruits of our domesticism on our pantry shelf.
We ended up with eight pints of jam and several bottles of syrup. And it is YUMMY! So rest assured, if there is ever a natural disaster and you have nothing to eat, you can come over to our house and pig out on apricot jam with us.
Going off on a little tangent, I am kind of excited about our progress in the food storage area. It's always been one of those things that makes me cringe when it's mentioned because it seems to involve such an overwhelming amount of time and planning and rotating and money. But we have officially started! In our old ward (in Salt Lake City) we had a combined Relief Society and Priesthood lesson from a girl who couldn't be much more than 5 years older than me, and she suggested that we just grab one extra food item each time we go to the grocery store. So several months later, I present our modest beginning:
Here's to preparedness!
I timed it at the beginning of his nap so there would be no chance of him waking up. Mainly all you do is boil the heck out of it and stir it constantly for 25 minutes. We overfilled the pan, though, so as I sweated and stirred and bailed out bowlful after bowlful of orange foam, I also frantically opened doors to let the billowing smoke out and blew like crazy on the small flame under the burner, causing it to become a large flame. And then Addison woke up screaming. So I sensibly called Nate on my dying phone and asked if our precious jam would be ruined if I stopped stirring it for 20 seconds to run upstairs and grab the babe (I still had 15 minutes of stirring ahead of me.) He assured me that it would be fine.
So I sprinted upstairs, grabbed Add (which scared him even more) ran back down, and plopped the poor little guy in his walker for the remaining 14 minutes and 30 seconds of stirrage. Then I scooped the jam into the jars and turned them upside down to seal (didn't really work - I had to hot water bath them the next day).
Unbelievably, it turned out really good.
That night Nate and I did two more pots full (I burned mine and had to throw most of it away.) And we are now proudly displaying the fruits of our domesticism on our pantry shelf.
We ended up with eight pints of jam and several bottles of syrup. And it is YUMMY! So rest assured, if there is ever a natural disaster and you have nothing to eat, you can come over to our house and pig out on apricot jam with us.
Going off on a little tangent, I am kind of excited about our progress in the food storage area. It's always been one of those things that makes me cringe when it's mentioned because it seems to involve such an overwhelming amount of time and planning and rotating and money. But we have officially started! In our old ward (in Salt Lake City) we had a combined Relief Society and Priesthood lesson from a girl who couldn't be much more than 5 years older than me, and she suggested that we just grab one extra food item each time we go to the grocery store. So several months later, I present our modest beginning:
Here's to preparedness!
Congrats on the jam, you are so brave! Don't you love how the one time you need the baby to sleep, they don't!
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