Yes, that is a hokey title.
We decided to make jam. My Mom used to make jam when I was a kid. The Farmer and I gave away mini jams as wedding favors. I remember at the end of the party his Grandfather telling his Grandmother to put as many of the leftover jars as she could in her purse. It was cute.
Anyway, we have not made jam in a few years. Recently the kid has figured out that peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are pretty good. I'm hoping that homemade jam will knock her socks off.
We made a mixed berry jam using: most of a 5# bag of frozen strawberries that the Farmer picked up at Maine's (a restaurant supply store), a bag of mixed berries I found in the back of the freezer, the raspberries we picked this summer, and finally, some of the blueberries we picked at Stan's Berry Patch.
The Farmer also found pectin at Maine's. He called me and was asking what kind to get, but his cell phone kept cutting out in the store so he would go outside to call me back. But, by the time he got out there he had forgotten what the two different kinds were. I was telling him "Why are you asking me what kind to get when you cant remember what they are? Just read the box and get the ones that say jam." My co-workers were laughing at me.
Today, we played with the berry lava. The actual process of making jam is really easy.
1. Prep your jars and supplies
2. Prep your fruit, measure it, and dump in big pot
3. Dump in pectin and bring to a boil.
4. Dump in a ton of sugar and bring back to a boil
5. Jar (the big deal here is that the rims are clean so you get a good seal)
6. Boil the jars and make sure that the lid "pops" down to ensure that it is sealed.
Read the directions. Pay close attention to the stuff that needs to be sterile. But, don't be intimidated by canning. It took us just over 2 hours start to finish, but it did not demand our constant attention. It would have been less time, but we made a triple batch. We ended up with 22 jars. We would have had 23, but for the first time ever, a jar broke while it was in the boil. Not sure what caused it, but if it was meant to be I'm glad it happened in the canner, not on my counter.
It's easy to read a jam recipe and start to go into a hyper-glycemic shock because of the massive amounts of sugar the recipe calls for. They do make pectin formulated for low/no sugar recipes, but in my experience it does not set well. The trick is to mix the two in double or larger batches. A double batch with one of the regular and one of the low sugar versions will cut the sugar in half. Today's batch is a 2/3 regular-1/3 low sugar recipe.
One of the people on our gift list this year is a little boy. I look around at all the stuff our kiddo has. While I'm sure he likes toys, I bet he has lots. I decided to try to give him an experience rather than more stuff. Little kids like to cook, and I already made him a fish hat last year; so this this might be something sort-of-handmade that he might appreciate.
I like this recipe from Food.com because it has the directions for both with and without self-rising flour. I have never used self-rising flour, and I'm not going to buy some special to try out a bread recipe. I used a German Spaten beer because that is what the farmer grabbed when he went to the basement, but I'm looking forward to trying this with other beers. I also cut the butter down to 1/4 cup as suggested and that was plenty. It mixed up in a snap.
3. My 
This weekend was really warm for upstate NY in November. I decided to take advantage of the ability to open windows and make soap. I made a similar batch this summer. The Farmer is using it all up at a rapid pace, so I doubled and tweaked it to work with what I had on hand. This recipe, which is an adaption of Dr. Bob's Aloe Vera and Tea Tree Oil recipe, is probably the best soap I have ever made, and well worth a recap. My goal is to give it away for Christmas and have enough on hand to keep the Farmer happy until spring.
Another adventure in the quest for all things homemade. 
We made a Sheppard's Pie last weekend and I considered writing about it, but decided against it. I thought it was too boring. I regretted the decision when I overheard two co-workers discussing that they had both also made Sheppard's Pie over the weekend. The season for casseroles has arrived. There is something wonderful about meat, vegetables and a starch baked together in layers. 
I used the pie dough recipe from Smitten Kitchen without the sugar. Is it bad that I have it memorized? I doubled it, so it was 10 T of butter and 2 cups of flour blended in the kitchen aide and 2 pinches of salt. I substituted milk for the water. It pulled together as dough with about 1/2 a cup.
This summer I went shopping on-line at Webs. They have 4/8 Wool Mill Ends on cones. It is about 1,000 yards for $15. That's a steal. I picked up a cone of teal green with no particular idea of what to do with it. I finally decided on this felted project. But knitting off a cone is not easy. It falls over and rolls away. It had to be below me or I had to stop every so often to pull the yarn off the cone. I started to think about either rewinding into cakes or buying one of those those plastic yarn jars. Amazon has them for under $10.
The next morning, we realized that it would make a perfect yarn jar. It is tall and has a lid that we cut a slit in and a hole for the yarn to come out of. It does not fall over and the yarn feeds out of it easily. I love it. It was free. Best of all, my daughter made it for me.
