Vanilla Pear Jam

After the family ate their fill of pears, I still had several sitting on the counter from a recent Costco run getting riper and riper by the hour. A little too soft to slice and eat out of hand, they were fine for jam. I followed the recipe on the Food in Jars blog .

The last time I had made jam, I used the requisite amount of pectin and cooked it at a hard boil for a bit too long, resulting in a tasty jam, but with a consistency that was way too hard. This time, I didn't use quite as much pectin and the result is a pretty thin jam. I was hoping to serve this pear jam with cheese and crackers, but I think it's more suited to peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and pancake topping.

The ingredients: pears, sugar, vanilla beans. Vanilla beans are super expensive. I think a little bottle holding two beans are about $12 at the local Harris Teeter. I bought a package of 30 beans on eBay for about that same price. They aren't quite as plump as the ones in the store, but they are absolutely fine and the price is right.

Mashing everything up...

The finished product...

Cherry Picking

Aksel and I ventured up to northern Montgomery County on Friday to pick sour cherries. It was the first day Rock Hill Orchard was open for cherries and the trees were just dripping with them. We picked two buckets full -- about 15 pounds. So far I've made two cherry pies and sour cherry jam. We've frozen a bunch and I still have about 5 pounds still to pit.

Orange Marmalade

9 oranges, 3 lemons, a box of pectin and 9.5 cups of sugar. 9 and a half cups of sugar is only a half cup shy of an entire five pound bag!

Making orange marmalade seemed to take all day. Slicing the oranges and lemons took nearly an hour (I think it's cool how you use the entire orange, peel and all), then they had to simmer in water for over an hour. Bringing the orange and pectin mixture to a boil was another 10 minutes or so and then adding the sugar and boiling and stirring that took at least another 20 minutes. I usually just fill hot, sterilized jars with hot jam, put lids on them and turn them upside down for a several minutes. You then flip them over and as they cool, the lids pop and they're fine. Today, however, after I filled the hot jars I processed them the proper way -- 10 minutes in the boiling water bath.

The jam tasted delicious -- with all that sugar how could it not -- but marmalade supposedly can take up to two weeks to fully set so we'll just have to see how it works out.

DC State Fair

It's not the Iowa State Fair. There is no life size cow sculpted in butter, and there aren't any pig races. But, for a city without any agriculture except for backyard and community gardens, the first DC State Fair got off to a great start. There was a photography contest, largest and strangest looking vegetable competition and contests for home brew, cupcakes, pickles, jam and pie. I had to enter Blueberry Jam, Cinnamon Peach Jam, Bread & Butter Pickles and Sour Cherry-Peach Pie.



To be honest, I didn't think there would be much competition. How many folks in DC actually make jam and pickles? But folks did come out -- dozens of them -- and my jam and plain old pickles (pickled peaches won the blue ribbon) didn't place. I admit I was a bit bummed out and didn't really feel like sticking it out in the heat for the pie judging.

So imagine my surprise when my pie won first place! Slices were sold off for donations to the DC State Fair so this is all that was left of it. The lead judge and sponsor of the competition, Fat Man After Dark, told me my pie was the only one he gave a perfect score. I'm so proud!

Strawberry Jam

After school yesterday, the kids and I went down to Shlagel Farm to pick strawberries. It's become an annual ritual; Malin knows her birthday is when strawberry season is in full swing. We picked about 6 lbs and then ended up buying a huge flat of day old berries for jam. Strawbery jam production began in full force after the kids were in bed. We have eight jars so far and probably enough berries for one more batch, but I'm just too tired right now.