Jam Making

Well...it is officially fall. And, it has been officially CRAZY around our place for weeks! Despite the merry-go-round of life, I have somehow found time for a little berry picking and jam making! Incredible! Several weeks ago, when we first got home from holidays, we would go out berry picking in the evenings until we could no longer see the berries! I am lucky enough to have a husband who loves berry picking... because he loves the finished product! We got about 7-8 gallons of raspberries and 5-6 gallons of saskatoons.

 

We had bought two cases of peaches on our way home from holidays, and Hubby's grandpa brought a few more cases up for us as well. This year we did something different...after berry picking, we promptly started two batches of wine... Peach Raspberry and Raspberry Saskatoon. We won't have as much jam, but I can't wait to taste test the wine!!

I have had a few requests from people who want to learn how to 'can.' It doesn't look like I will be able to get together with anyone this year... but I thought I would do the next best thing... pictures and a tutorial!

Here goes...

For those of you who don't know me... I am rarely without a hot drink in my hand. And no kitchen project is complete without a pretty apron and a steaming cup of tea or coffee. First things first: boil your water and make tea.

Kurt's favourite kind of jam is "Peach Saskatoon" which I accidently made the first year we were married because I didn't have enough of either to justify a whole batch of jam. I have been making it every year now.

You will need to go out and find a Saskatoon bush and spend a couple hours picking berries. You can make a small batch of jam with only 4-8 cups of berries... but I prefer to make lots at once.

Aquire some peaches... either from a tree if you live in the South... or a store or fruit stand if you are a little more Northern.

Now, before you get carried away in the joy of jam making... be sure that you have enough jars and lids sterilized and ready to go. I don't have a dishwasher, so I wash my jars in really hot water and soap, rinse them, and then let them sit in boiling water (or really hot tap water) until I am ready to use them.

PREPARE YOUR FRUIT.

Sift through the berries and remove all of the bugs, sticks, leaves and other junk. Rinse the berries in cool water. Peaches can be prepared several ways... you can use a knife to peal them (tedious and wasteful) or you can use boiling water to 'slip' the skin off in one piece. Boil a pot of water. Place the peaches in the water so that they are covered. Let simmer for 1-2 minutes. Remove the peaches and 'slip' the skin off (don't burn yourself...they are very hot!)

Once skinned, you can easily pit and chop the peaches up into small pieces.

I always make my jam a little different, so this year I did half Saskatoon and half peach. I got a little carried away and used about 10 cups of each (and then had to split it into two pots!).

Now for the fun part...

Pour your Saskatoons into the pot and then proceed to mash/crush them up. For a more smooth jam you can blend/pure your fruit. We like our jam chunky, so I just mash them up.

Pour in your peaches and mash the two fruits together (again, you can pre-blend them if you prefer).

Turn on your stove to medium-high and start cooking your fruit! Depending on how many cups of fruit you used, use the same number of cups of white sugar. (ie: 10 cups fruit, 10 cups sugar). Sometimes you can get away with less sugar than this (I usually do a little less), but your jam will be slightly more runny.

Add Certo (pectin) as instructed on the box (usually one package to every 4 cups of fruit, depending on the fruit).

Bring jam to a boil and let slowly bubble, continually stirring. (DO NOT spill in your burner... especially down the vent hole for your oven. It takes a VERY long time to clean out the vent and inside of your oven...not that I would know...)

In the mean time, prepare your jars. You will need two sauce pans... one to boil the jars, and one to boil the lids.

As the jam boils, it will begin to form a layer of "foam" on top. Scoop this off until it no longer forms. You are now ready to pour your jam into your sterilized jars!

Use a funnel and pouring device to fill your jars. Leave half to a quarter inch head space in your jars and seal by placing the hot lids and rings on your jars. Be careful! Everything is very hot (or should be!) so use an oven mit or tea towel.

 Because the jam, jars and lids are all very hot, they will seal themselves. Leave sitting on the counter for about 24 hours. Press all of the lids to make sure they are sealed, and then store for the winter!

And there you have it... simple, delicious homemade jam! Hope this is helpful... let me know how your jam turns out!

Art Around the House...

I thought I would share some of the art that we have around our house. We don't have a ton of pictures on our walls (my Hubby is a minimalist!!), but I am slowly working at getting more neat art to feature. Maybe one day my walls will be as full as my Mum's.  Doubtful... but it is something to look forward to!!

Here are a few snippets of things that we have hanging about the house...

This first one is a painting done by my late Grandmother Nagel (Mum's Mum). She was a fantastic artist of all varieties. My Mum wrote a very inspirational piece about her that you can view here. Sorry the pictrues are not very good... it really is a lovely painting though!

This next peice is a little picture that my sister-in-law brought back for me from her recent stint in Kenya, Africa. It has wonderful texture as it is made out of grass (?) of some kind. Love it! I need to find a small frame for it so that I can put it in my African themed bathroom without worrying about it getting ruined by moisture. Thanks Sunny!

Here is a peak at my African bathroom... these are all pieces I have collected over the years wihtout even realizing I had an African theme at all. When we moved into our new home and I was unpacking I noticed that they were all the same colours and decided they made a great display. Who knew! The wooden elephant was a gift from a family friend, George Klein, who went to Africa. He brought an elephant back for each of the four kids... I think I was about six or seven when I got this. The wooden boar/pig was Kurt's gift from his sister's trip to Kenya this past winter. 

I bought this awesome painting a few years ago at a garage sale for .10 cents!!! I have no idea where it is from, but I love it!

This is one of my favourite pictures... I have always loved old trucks and this one reminds me of the old grain truck my Dad used to have in Saskatchewan. He would let us ride around in the back of it... ah the good old days! I don't remember where I aquired this print (probably a garage sale), but I really enjoy looking at it every day as I walk through the hallway.

Here are a couple smaller frames that we have in our bedroom. The one is a frame that I collaged on, and the other is a cross-stitched picture of the Northern Lights. My little sister Eliza made this for me as a birthday gift two years ago. A little reminder of home!

And of course, here is the picture that my sisiter painted this past Christmas. We have not hung it up yet, as we are not sure where to put it. We want it in the main living room, but it is too small to go on a wall by itself. Anyone have any art that would go nicely with this picture??

There you have it... a little peak at my walls...maybe one day I'll show you more!

Yard Adventures

Our trip(s) to Dawson last Saturday with our neighbours yielded ALOT of wood. Even with driving the truck down to Dawson twice (diesel is not cheap these days, and we'll need at least one more trip) we will have saved five or six hundred dollars on lumber for our fence!That just goes to prove how greedy and overpriced everything is in Fort St John. Our neighbours all want the same fence which definitely makes things easier and cheaper. We are hoping to get all of the post in the ground this weekend, and then we will be able to slowly put up the fence boards throughout the summer as we have time and money.

Amongst this weekends trips to Dawson and two birthday parties, I managed to plant all of the rest of my perennials. I made another bed along the back wall of our house with all of the plants Jody brought me. I spent the most time on this bed, mixing the soil and making it nice and deep. I will probably have to redo the beds in the front yard next year, but this one will be perfect! A few more weeks and I'll post pictures of the multi-coloured blooms!

My garden is doing splendidly and I already have several large (about 6 inch long!!) zucchini! Oh the joy of planting early indoors... you have veggies that much earlier! My peas and beans are all about four inches high, tomatoes are getting nice and hardy, lettuce, spinach and carrots are popping up all over the place and my broccolli are flourishing! I even have two inch high corn stocks! The only thing struggling are my squash... they are just getting too wind blown, another reason why we need to get our fence up soon! I can hardly wait to be eating fresh veggies from our back yard!

Fantastic Flowers!

To elaborate on the previous post... here are some pictures of my gorgeous flowers...a few more weeks and everything will be in full bloom! As you can see, our grass is coming along quite nicely, though rather patchy in places.

Fuscia are my favourite flower... so I have lots of them in all different colours! They are just so gorgeous! How could anyone not want these hanging in their home or yard?

Never enough rocks...or flowers!

Last night we headed out to Solid Rock Ranch to collect some more rocks for our yard. We got another truck box full that we plan on lining my front and back flowerbeds with and then filling under our front deck. I think it will look superb!
Yesterday at lunch I started turning over the earth where my flowerbed is going to go in our back yeard. It will be right along the house and between the deck stairs and the wall. Jody brought me a bunch more gorgeous flowers yesterday (thanks Jo!!) and I can hardly wait to get home to plant them! I have another bag of peatmoss, some fertilizer, mulch, manure tea and even a little bit of sand all ready to be mixed and made into a little piece of heaven for my pretty plants! They are going to be so happy!
My husband is a little annoyed at all of the flowers streaming into our yard, so I think this will be the last new growth I plant...this year at least! I'll have to let him warm up to the idea of having a nice, lush and colourful yard! He is very proud of our grass, however, which he cut for the first time on Tuesday night. It looks a million times nicer than it did since it was getting rather tall and scraggly, not to mention the weeds and bald patches were more prominent!
We are very proud of our little home... come by for a visit any time!

Perennial Paradise

For the past week we have been getting up at 5am because Kurt has to be at work by 6 am. We get up, have a nice breakfast together, and then I drive Kurt (and our neighbour) to work. Then I have 2 hours to myself before I have to go to work, it is bliss! The morning are so sunny and bright! It is usually much more calm in the morning, and no one else is around. I make my coffee, and then work on whatever I want to!

Yester-morning I planted our front flowerbed with beautiful perennials I got from Brenda. The beds are filled with Japanese Iris, Anemone, Columbine, White Daisies, Pink Daisies and Lupins... all gorgeous and healthy perennials. They look fantastic, and will look even better in a little while when they are all in bloom. Our yard is starting to look established... well... cared for at least!

Rocks, Rocks, Rocks!

 Here are the promised pictures of our new rock garden! We had a great long weekend, despite Friday and Saturday's constant rain, ton of slush/snow and power outages. Sunday melted most of the snow and Monday morning turned out to be beautiful. I cleaned the house, Kurt worked on the construction in our basement and we planted the flowers in our rock beds. We then went canoeing and had a weiner roast with some friends. I also dug a whole bunch of perrenials from some of Kurt's relatives... I can not wait to plant them!

Carefully placing the stones...

Kurt's genious idea of making "flower pots" inside the rocks...

And the beautiful results! There are three little spots with perrenials at the base of the sidewalk/drive way.

Up by the house/walk way we have two spots currently housing annuals. We may change this next year to perrenials, depending on how we like them down by the sidewalk and how well they survive the winter banks of piled up snow on top of them...

Come over and visit to see our lovely rocks in real life!