Making Jam

It all started Tuesday afternoon on my way home from work. I stopped at the Harward Farms stand near Walker's at the intersection of Geneva Road and Sam White's Lane. I had planned to get 1/2 dozen ears of corn and a basket of tomatoes. They also had a flat of raspberries so I thought to myself - Dave would love to have some homemade raspberry jam, tomorrow's our anniversary, so I'll surprise him with some jam. I bought the flat and went home and proceeded to make the jam. Then I thought - hmmm, we have all those peaches out there and he's mentioned that he thought peach jam would be good. So, I went out and picked some peaches and made some peach jam, too. The girls were over so I had some extra help from the grandkids as I made the jam. That day I ended up with 8 pints of raspberry and 13 pints of peach jam.

Wednesday I stopped at the stand and got 2 more flats and made more jam, Thursday I went out and picked more peaches and made peach jam, Friday I bought 2 more flats and made more raspberry jam. When all was said and done, we ended up with 101 pints of jam - 54 peach, 47 raspberry. Dave had said it would be nice to have a pint a week of homemade jam for a year - I'm not sure he meant a pint a week of two flavors, but oh well - he'll be thinking life is "sweet" for the next year!!

Truth be told, I have to admit, I love to make jam! It's actually pretty easy. The recipes I use are:

Raspberry Jam:

5 cups mashed raspberries

7 cups sugar
1 box Sure-Jell

1/2 tsp butter

Peach Jam:

4 cups finely chopped peaches

5 1/2 cups sugar

1 box Sure-Jell

1/2 tsp butter

2 tbsp fresh-squeezed lemon juice

Stir fruit, butter, pectin (and lemon juice for the peach jam) together. Bring to boil, add sugar, boil 1 minute. Skim off foam, fill jars to about 1/8 from top, screw lid on, turn upside down, let stand 5 minutes, turn right side up, should seal as it cools. Simple - yet so tasty!!