Day 65

What do you say when someone says, "want to learn to make jam?" You say "Totally!" because let me tell you, you are in for a good time. This is what I did yesterday: I learned to make jam (which actually only took about half hour). Then we played dice for about 3 hours (I won both games, thus being named Zilch Queen), then we steamed for about 2 hours. So, want to learn to make jam?

Here's how Esther Thompson gets her jam on.

Measure out 4.5 cups of your favorite fruit, as Andrea demonstrates. (We have fresh cranberries.)Then crush them with a slicer thingy, the kind that's kind of circular but has a bunch of blades on it and you go crush crush crush in a big ol pot.
Then you put the pot on the stove and add 7 cups of sugar. Stir and cook until it's boiling violently like a "volcano" make sure it gets really "angry" then it's ready for 2 packets of Certa (stuff that makes it jell). Cook and stir until it is dissolved into the berry slurry.

Then comes the really intense part! You have to pour the slurry into jars as quickly as possible! This recipe makes about 4 jars. We used a measuring cup to dunk in the berries and pour into the jars. Make sure the mouth and threads of the jar are clean, then put the lids on and turn them upside down. FAST! Go FASTER! Leave the jars upside down for exactly 7 minutes, then turn them right side up. Wait a little bit and the jars will seal themselves!

Woo! I'm telling you, that last step was frantic. But, the dividends were rich, we had delicious cheese cake (Esther makes some killer cheese cake!) topped with our fresh cranberry jam and we each got a jar to take home with us.

So, I have a lot of work to do today because I played all day yesterday. Bleh.

In other news, it's cold but deceptively sunny. We had volleyball games this weekend, I was a line judge, we got our butts kicked by the other village. We also had a staff volleyball game Friday night, it was awesome. School was crazy Friday, the kids were so full of it.

I bought plane tickets, I'll be in Michigan from December 21 until January 2nd. Let me know if we can hang out!