Say it ain't so Strawberry Jam

Do you read my blog? Then you know that I'm pregnant...STILL. I've resorted to "things that I've always thought about maybe doing" list and on that list was making Strawberry Jam the way my Grandma Teresa used to do it. Now I knew this would be a project and I embraced that because I have NOTHING to do.

Step One: Find Ball preserve jars and lids

Now this proved more difficult then I thought - 7 stores later and a Twitter from the very greatest of Matriarch's AndreAnna and I found them at the craft store. But they didn't have new lids and if there is anything I remember about from my Grandma was that you needed NEW lids. On a whim I looked in the hardware store this morning and did you know they have LIDS and the jars and everything. The hardware store that is literally a 10 minute walk from my house could have saved HOURS of hunting yesterday.

Step Two: Find fruit

I went to BJ's Warehouse and they had perfect Strawberries so that was decided easily enough. I had found the Sure Jell that I needed earlier so I was ready to go.

Step Three: Find recipe
My Grandma loved to write down recipes and because of this I have BOOKS and BOOKS of her recipes so I started hunting this morning. I looked. And I looked. Nothing. So finally I called her up at the nursing home...I love my Grandma and we have a load of amazing memories together but she's not altogether present now and she's not big on talking on the phone so I didn't know how this was going to go. So she said Hi and asked how the baby was and I said still inside and she gasped and asked how long I planned on baking her. So she's fiesty today - that's good for me. So I ask her where her recipe is to make Strawberry Jam and she said on the box of the Sure Jell. Rock on Grandma.

Step Four: Prepare to make the jam
This is involved because I planned on "canning" the jam as I didn't want to have to refridgerate all this jam. So you have to wash with hot soapy water everything and then I ran it through the sanitze feature on our dishwasher and then you boil the lids.

Step Five: Chop up your strawberries

I used the food processor because I'm lazy like that and I didn't have a potato masher.

Step Six: Cook with your Sure Jell and 1/4c. Sugar until it boils for a minutes

Step Seven: Add the rest of the sugar (3 3/4c.) and bring to a boil again for exactly one minute. Remove from heat. Skim off foam.

Step Eight: Pour into your jars - put your boiled lids on top of the jam and then screw on the top.


Step Nine: Now if you're going to give it all away or if you're going to keep it all in your fridge you can stop here but I wanted to go ALL the way there so I canned them.

Which basically means you boil the sealed containers for about 10 minutes. If you don't have a "canner" (which I'll be honest I don't even know what a canner technically is) you can just stick a hot plate grate in the bottom of your pan - you just don't want to put your glass jars right on top of the bottom of the pan for reasons that I do not know but Grandma said so lets go with that.


Step Ten: Open up one of the still warm jars while standing in front of the sink and try really hard not to consume the entire jar with the spoon in your hand.


I would love to say that this was SO much cheaper then buying a jar of jam from the grocery store...but it wasn't. In the end each jar ended up costing about $3.00 including the price of the jar and lids so it WOULD be cheaper when (hahaaha with a newborn) I make the next batch of jam. What I will say is that it tasted WAY better then any jam I've ever had before. EVER. Seriously this stuff makes smuckers taste like crap in comparison. Now if you don't mind me I'll be going to make some toast with equal part Jam to Bread.

Hey Good Lookin, Whatcha Got Cookin?

I'm sure there are people out there that have more then a golf ball sized space left for their stomach....I don't happen to be one of them. I have NO space for food and let me tell you it is NO fun. It's no fun to make an entire plateful of s'mores in your toaster oven only to discover you can eat TWO before feeling STUFFED. You eat a third because you think "I'll make the room" but you don't and you end up with a stomach ache.

So the question I have for the group tonight is IF you had a golf ball sized stomach to fill what would you fill it with? We're talking ANYTHING here people - what you got?

A cry for help

This post is completely self serving as I desperately need a good pasta salad recipe that does not include Mayo in the list of ingredients. I happen to love a good mayo pasta salad but the FH and his family do not like the Mayo and as they are coming for picnic on Friday I need a pasta salad sans the mayo.

Anyone? Please? Help?

I have considered MAKING the mayo...you know from scratch and naming it something other then Mayo to get around this but it seems that mayo is as mayo does and it a mayo by any other name is in fact still....Mayo.

I am in your hands.

A brownie cookie to bow to.

Do you read Smitten Kitchen? It's a very fun cooking blog with good recipes...great banter and some really nice photography of food which is something I'm really into lately. Which is why I'm pitching my husband on a kitchen renovation...you know...for the blog...so that the pictures come out better because our kitchen will be from this decade...as opposed to 1973. The things I do for blog readers, really, I should get a sticker or something.

Anyway, I digress, today on Smitten Kitchen they have this brownie roll-out cookie thing that looks so fantastic that I had to share over here - just in case you weren't in the loop. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have 1 day and 8 hours before my May purchase freeze goes into effect and I have to buy at least 4 new cookie cutters so that I can make these brownie cookie wonders.

The Big Breakfast

Each weekend I do one day with The Big Breakfast. In our house it's nothing too crazy, scrambled eggs (and the trick to good scramples is to never stop stirring and stop cooking 20 seconds before they lose that glossy sheen), english muffins, turkey bacon and fresh fruit.

Some Sunday's I'll also do a breakfast cassarole/quiche/frittata thing filled with all the vegetables that I purchased because they looked so good. Vegetables in my fridge tend to go throw this change:
So good I couldn't I leave them in that mean grocery store
to not looking like what I wanted for dinner
to not looking so hot
to oh jeezwhiz if I don't use today I'm going to have to waste them
to I don't want to waste food. There are hungry children within 30 miles of my house.

So the question I pose today is do you do big breakfast during the weekend? If you do what do you make?