Cherry tree

The cherry tree was covered in honeybees this afternoon, hopefully this means many cherries later this spring :-)  Am eagerly anticipating my first batch of sour cherry jam.

Ice Jam on the Skunk River

Ice Jam on the Skunk River, I managed to get down the rivers edge and was able to get some really cool photos of the ice that was bunched up. Very inspiring for future stitching projects.

Skunk River Ice

Orange Marmalade

Ok after an agonizing hour of boiling it all down I forgot, yes I forgot, to photograph the final result before we put it in the jars. Trust me when I say it was much darker than the photos below and looked like orange Marmalade!

Orange Marmalade

Orange Marmalade

The mixture is covered in water, brought to a boil and then simmered for 5 minutes. It then sits for 12-18 hours and you add the sugar and boil again.

Lemon peels sans the pith and lemon sections on top of the orange sections and orange peels.

Here's a lemon that has been peeled and the pith removed from the sections, I'd never seen a peeled lemon before. Yes I really do need to get out more!!! Dh said the acid from the lemons made his hands burn so you may wish to wear gloves if you are sensitive to these sorts of things.

Oranges cut into sections and the pith removed from the peels.

These oranges came from Texas and were very good! Rio Queen is the variety.

Orange Marmalade in Progress~! This recipe is in the Ball Blue Book.

We stopped at HyVee this afternoon and they had a very good price on oranges 18 pounds for $5.48 I've been wanting to make some for a really long time now but it's hard to find oranges that are not all pith. These oranges were superb in tangyness and in sweetness. We've decided to go back and get another bag tomorrow for juicing. I have plans to make a batch of cranberry orange marmalade as well.

Gooseberry Jam

Purple Gooseberry Jam anyone??? The bushes we picked had a combination of green and purple berries on them as a result the jam came out a purple color. I failed to get a picture of the jam before ladeling into the jars so you'll have to take my word that the jam came out a lovely purple color!!!

Black Raspberry Jam - Done

I tried a new method tonight instead of using the instructions to make jam, the ones that come in the pectin box, I used the BBB's strawberry jam recipe. AND the jam actually set up!!! So I'm quite happy right now especially after my last two batches of jam "failed" to set up, they'll make excellent sauce but I was aiming for jam not sauce.

Black Raspberry Jam - In Progress

In progress my jam making efforts were interrupted last night due to excessive chicken broth canning - some things always take longer than you think they will. So the berries sit in the fridge covered in sugar.

I found it rather interesting the ball blue book has several recipes for Strawberry Jam - the recommended recipe for Black Raspberry Jam is the Strawberry Jam but which one??? I went with the one on page 81 of my book which means not cooking the berries prior to processing them, the flavor is really strong.

Making Broth

Making chicken broth I don't have a steam juicer yet so I'm still doing this the old fashioned way. That's 20 pounds of chicken hind quarters in the pot, one whole onion, four carrots, and some salt and pepper - oh and one huge dollop of chopped garlic! This is John's project, mine will be making jam in the morning, after more berry picking in the woods.

First Harvests

Rhubarb Sauce!

Strawberry Rhubarb Jam this will be really tastey this winter on homemade bread!