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Jammies
August 11, 2008
As a stay/work from home mama, I frequently find that 8 or 9 am rolls around and I am still in my PJ's. Both the boys are dressed, everyone has had breakfast, yet mama hasn't had time to even change clothes. Some mornings I realize this practically as hubby is walking out the door. The result is me asking him to watch the boys for a minute while I throw on my uniform, jeans or shorts and a T-shirt. I love my jammies, but I've never been a spend-the-whole-day-in-my-PJ's kind of person. And this post is not even about that kind of jammies.
Last week the berries at our house did triple duty in two days. I started with two pounds of strawberries and a pint of blueberries. I washed and dried all of them, and I quartered the strawberries. The addition of one freshly squeezed lime and some honey made a berry salad that I served to friends as an afternoon snack at our place and then walked out the door, berries in hand, to a dinner at my in laws. The left overs came home and went in the fridge. The next day I added three oranges, 1 cup of sugar and another half cup of honey to what was left. After cooking with 2 T butter to prevent foam and a pouch of Certo, I jarred and processed the three jars of jam you see up there.
This was really an experiment on many levels. Don't get me wrong, I wanted jam, but I needed to know if I could make jam with two kids. Awake. Turns out, I can. And I needed to know if I could pull off a small batch with no recipe. Yep, I can do that too.
That probably leaves you wondering why this information is important. Well, I read a post from the Chicken a while back (like more than a year ago?) about an article in one of her local papers. The article was about small batch preserving to save what you don't eat from your CSA membership. We've never done a CSA because hubby doesn't eat much produce, and I could never eat it all by myself. But I want to join a CSA; it's such a good thing for us health wise, for local growers, and for the environment in general. And there's always the added bonus of really awesome, good tasting produce all season long.
I had planned on finding one to join for this season, but I was really worried that an infant at home would make the preserving I needed to do almost impossible. And it very well may have for the first few weeks or even months, but now, well, I think we're ready. And come this winter, I'll be hunting for a good, reasonable, organic CSA near where I live.
BTW, strawberry, orange, blueberry jam is good. Especially fresh and warm on whole wheat graham crackers.