Posted on

Jam and Jelly Making

Last weekend we made jam and jelly. The jam is cranberry cinnamon and the jelly is apple. It is a family job with pretty much everyone pitching in. I started the cranberries in the crockpot. Here the cranberries have just been added to the crockpot with brown sugar and cinnamon. The big lump in the middle is the rock hard brown sugar. I have to admit that I didn’t measure it out but just dumped it in.

Jam and Jelly Making

We used our son and daughter in law’s juicer to skip the big long process of cooking the fruit down and then hanging the fruit in the jelly bag. It sure simplified the whole process. We bought a case of apples together and split the jelly and the leftover apples. It all worked out super easy. I was showing my daughter in law how to make jelly as this was her first or second time making jelly. She loves apple jelly so the first batch was apple. We had a leftover pomegranate that we juiced with the apples so that is the lovely rosy-yellow colored jelly.

Jam and Jelly Making

Jam and Jelly Making

Isnt’ it beautiful. The deep purpley red is the cranberry jelly. I tweaked a recipe to come up with it. The basic recipe is this one for cranberry butter. I doubled the recipe, sprinkled 2 tsp of cinnamon (instead of using a cinnamon stick) and then cooked it on high in the crock pot for 5 hours before we put it in the juicer. Then I prepped it just like any jelly. I added 6 cups of sugar and the sure jell. I’m pretty sure that next time I will leave out the sure gel as it is pretty firm but still good.

Jam and Jelly Making Jam and Jelly Making

I don’t own a juicer but I am going to think about purchasing one. It simplified the jelly making and speeded it up by several hours. It is not the way my Grandma made jelly but I know she would approve as it sure saves a bunch of work. We didn’t have to peel the apples before we juiced them, or boil the apples until they produced juice. The flavor is fresher and tastes more like fresh apples.Jam and Jelly MakingWhere did we buy a case of apples in the middle of January? We bought it through Bountiful Baskets.

Talk to you later,

Karen

 

Posted on

Jam, Jelly and a little Pickled Peppers too!

We worked really hard this weekend. Two of the kids mowed the yard which is huge and the other one helped me to create these goodies.

Strawberry jam and Jalapeno jam…

2014-05-24 18.57.14

and we also made some pickled peppers. I have never made them before and was a little nervous. The color isn’t as good as I had hoped for but I will know better next time. We still have apricots to work with but that will have to wait for another day. Why did we have so much produce? We picked up our order from Bountiful baskets. We had ordered in  a flat of strawberries and then our regular order came with a huge amount of sweet peppers.

Talk to you later,

Karen