I've always wanted to be the gal who had a pantry full of canned fruits and veggies, picked fresh from my victory garden. The breeze would feel so nice on my wrap around porch as I sipped tea and watched the kids play among the drying laundry on the clothesline.
Cue the scratched record....rrrrrrrriiiiippppp!
That utopian country farm is pure delusion, as I live in the city, with about 800 square feet of damaged yard, thanks to a foundation contractor who shall remain nameless. Someday I will regain my front and back yards, and until then I nurse my longing for a garden with some containers of herbs on the back deck.
My parents do have the victory garden, with green beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, onions...you name it. But the most glorious of their crops is the 30 feet or so of red raspberry bushes. Each year the bounty comes in two frenetic weeks of ripeness that must be picked before those plump, sweet orbs go bad. My parents pick buckets full each day and when I am fortunate enough to visit and score some I try to use them asap.
The problem is that it is a challenge to eat or use so many berries fast enough, so this year I attempted to make jam.
Note, all those recipes that say you don't need pectin to make jam are either trying to make you nuts or there is some trick I have not learned. My first attempt to make jam without pectin resulted in a soupy mess. So in the order of making lemonade out of lemons, I strained out the seeds and now have a lovely raspberry sauce for some dessert yet to be named. Makes tasty pancake syrup, too!
Tonight I bought the pectin, followed the directions (novel idea...) and Voila!
I have made one lovely pint of jam. I have the bug, now maybe pickles or strawberry jam, or green beans.....
Mom, I'm comin' over!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment