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Posted in family life, food on Jul 16th, 2006
This morning we all headed out to the Everett Farmers’ Market. I love a good farmers’ market, it is so much fun to see what will be there as it grows each week. We came home with some Rainier cherries from Tiny’s Organics, apricots, whole wheat pitas and hummus and baklava from the Pita King Bakery, flowers . . .
and there were berries everywhere . . . tayberries, loganberries, blueberries, marionberries, and RASPBERRIES . . .
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I love raspberry jam so a 1/2 flat came home with us.  I need to plant some raspberry canes in the back yard, nothing like going out and eating them fresh off the canes.
When we got home I sent Hubby into the garage to pull out my canning supplies and I pulled out the canning books and looked for a recipe for raspberry jam without pectin, I didn’t have any pectin in the house and really didn’t want to run out to the store again.  I did find a recipe in The Ball Blue Book without pectin and as a bonus it used more fruit than sugar, usually it’s the other way around. Bug helped mash the berries and stir in the sugar, but when it started getting too hot I made her ‘Offical Jam Superviser’, at a safe distance.
Apparently, I need a new candy thermometer. Bubba like to take it out of the drawer and play with it. It isn’t registering temperatures correctly so I had to judge the gel point by the sheet method. I suck at this, I so prefer the thermometer. After (hopefully) reaching the gel point I filled the jars and got them into the steam canner, with out too many burns. I love my steam canner, I know some don’t approve of them, but they are so much faster than the water bath. We got up a good head of steam and waited.
Now comes the best part, clean up, also known as licking of the spoons.
For our effort we have 6 1/2 jars of fresh yummy jam.
* Yes, those are my lovely harvest gold counter tops. Don’t laugh, they match the oven.
