jam!!

Look what I have!

 My mom bought me an early birthday present and sent me a pressure cooker. I'm so excited about it. Yesterday my sister came over and we spent the day making jam! (You can use the canner for just a hot-water bath method, by taking off the pieces on the lid that hold in the pressure). We had wanted to find a farm and pick the berries ourselves, but the high temperatures outside really discouraged that. So buying fruit when it's plentiful is the next best thing.

 We made three batches of jam, in quarter-pint jars. (Would have made more but we ran out of jars. I bought all the jars of this size the store had on the shelf.) It was incredibly messy- there were berry splotches and sticky implements all over my kitchen! Isa loved helping to wash the berries, and smush up the blackberries with her bare hands. My five-year old took these following three photos with her own camera:
washed raspberries

sticky pot used to cook the jam mixture

jars inside the canner

I didn't get too many pictures because we were so busy but here's the finished product (all the jars sealed with a nice little ping noise).

Ended up with 44 jars of raspberry jam

and 17 jars of blackberry jam (two are the half-pint size).

Of course we tasted plenty- there were spatulas to lick and half a jar of leftover cooked jam when all was done. It was delicious! When A. came home and saw the rows of pretty little jars and tasted some from the half-jar in the fridge he said wow! That's fantastic!

I was nervous about trying canning before, but now I'm excited to do more. If I get enough green beans I might try the pressure-cooking method to can some of my own, for starters. Reading the little book that came with the canner is even more inspiring- there's recipes in there to make your own pickles from garden cucumbers, to even bake beans or bread in the huge pot, etc. It's a little intimidating but I'm eager to try!

Thanks, Mom!!