Jammin' in the Kitchen

I was oh-so-exuberantly looking for a ham I thought was in the freezer this morning when I nearly squashed the toes on my right foot with a large bag of frozen raspberries that nose-dived out of my grasp. Not having any luck with the ham hunting, I figured I might have better luck with the berries instead. Deciding to make my very first batch of homemade jam, I ambitiously began setting my kitchen to rights.

With the dishes done, the floor swept, and all of my canning supplies neatly laid out on the table, I was ready to go. My berries were all thawed out, the sugar was measured, and that's when I realized I needed another box of Sure-Jell. Oops. Instead of loading V up and driving the the nearest town (all of two miles away), I searched the internet for recipes that didn't need pectin. Luck would have it that I found a one that called for honey instead of sugar (a plus when your hubby doesn't like to eat sugar), and didn't need pectin. Of course this took me almost a half hour to find so it probably would have been faster to go get the pectin in the first place.

One batch of raspberry jam with pectin- Done
One batch of raspberry jam w/o pectin and with honey- Done
Clean-up the sticky, berry-y mess- Workin' on it

We'll see how my jam experiment turns out. I'll try and remember to share the results when we crack open the first jar.

At least all the jar lids popped so I know they are sealed. I did that right, I guess.