Brian's Blog » jam http://blog.briangallimore.com Esse Quam Videri (To be, rather than to seem) Tue, 07 Feb 2012 04:36:26 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Is your time worth $72 per hour? http://blog.briangallimore.com/2011/08/is-your-time-worth-72-per-hour/ http://blog.briangallimore.com/2011/08/is-your-time-worth-72-per-hour/#comments Mon, 15 Aug 2011 03:33:21 +0000 Brian http://blog.briangallimore.com/?p=4643 Continue reading →]]> I did the math behind making your own jam and now I think making your own jam is one of the best uses of your time possible.  It is easy too!  As an added bonus, you know exactly what ingredients are going into that jar:  there are only 4 ingredients.  I wrote more about it on the North Texas Vegetable Gardeners post “The Economics of Making Your Own”.

]]> http://blog.briangallimore.com/2011/08/is-your-time-worth-72-per-hour/feed/ 2 Strawberry Jam http://blog.briangallimore.com/2010/07/strawberry-jam/ http://blog.briangallimore.com/2010/07/strawberry-jam/#comments Thu, 29 Jul 2010 03:53:11 +0000 Brian http://blog.briangallimore.com/?p=3342 Continue reading →]]> Sprouts is selling strawberries for $0.97/pound right now. This is what $6 of strawberries + $5 of sugar + $3 of pectin, and several hours of my time yielded tonight.

12 half-pint jars and 3 3/4-pint jars. It took me two batches. The last batch has 1/4 tsp of fresh ground black pepper. I’m curious to taste that one. Jars of homemade jelly generally sell for $5 each, so we have about $75 worth of jelly, for about $15 in materials and a few hours of time.

]]> http://blog.briangallimore.com/2010/07/strawberry-jam/feed/ 0 Plum-Flavored Sugar, Hold the Worms http://blog.briangallimore.com/2010/06/plum-flavored-sugar-hold-the-worms/ http://blog.briangallimore.com/2010/06/plum-flavored-sugar-hold-the-worms/#comments Sun, 06 Jun 2010 00:13:51 +0000 Brian http://blog.briangallimore.com/?p=3126 Continue reading →]]> I’ve quickly moved through the 5 stages of grief since finding that my precious plums were playing host to some very rude and uninvited worms.  A few people advised me to just cut out the bad parts of the fruit and use what was good.  That is what I decided to do.   I had a good deal of satisfaction washing those worms down the drain, ending their happy future as plum-egg-layers.  I felt good that I was able to still use the fruit, rather than just throwing it all away like I was intending to do last night.  I learned a few things while cutting up the fruit:  1) it is actually easier to pit a plum with a worm living in it.  2) birds can eat a worm out of a plum through a single tiny hole.  3) cutting up a bunch of plums is time-consuming work.

After I got all the fruit cut up, I only had 2 cups of fruit, far from the 6 cups the recipe called for.  After some advance math, I figured out how much sugar I needed.  The process of making jam is super easy.  You just heat it up, stir in the pectin, stir in the sugar, and keep stirring.  The only hard part is getting the water, jars, lids, and fruit all hot at the same time.  This is one time a big stove would be handy.  I came out with 4 half-pint jars of jam.  The taste taste results were outstanding, but I don’t know how you can go wrong with anything with that much sugar!  I’ll be able to use less sugar once I get a pressure-cooker though.

]]> http://blog.briangallimore.com/2010/06/plum-flavored-sugar-hold-the-worms/feed/ 2 My First Canning FAIL http://blog.briangallimore.com/2010/06/my-first-canning-fail/ http://blog.briangallimore.com/2010/06/my-first-canning-fail/#comments Sat, 05 Jun 2010 04:18:19 +0000 Brian http://blog.briangallimore.com/?p=3123 Continue reading →]]> I was excited to see that my plum tree is full of fruit that is ripe or near ripe. I decided to seize the moment and go ahead and make some plum jam tonight. I was missing a few things, lemon juice, pectin, and a tray for the jars to sit on in the water bath. Bryson and I went to the Super Target to get these things. Turns out Target has a few items for canning, but mostly worthless. Next stop, Wal-Mart. I couldn’t find a canning tray there either. They had a kit that came with a plastic basket, but it would only hold 3 jars and looked like it would last about 4 times. I decided to make my own using a stove burner cover by drilling holes in it. At $4, I wouldn’t be too upset if it didn’t work out.
We got home with just enough light left in the day to get some fruit off the tree. I picked what I thought would be enough and came inside to get started. I drilled a bunch of holes in the burner cover, then decided I needed to sand it a little to remove all of the sharp burrs that were created by the drilling. As Murphy’s law dictates, I cut my finger while doing this.
Moving on, I got the jars set up in the water bath to heat up, lids ready for heating, tools cleaned and ready, and started cleaning my fruit. Guess what? EVERY PIECE OF FRUIT HAS A WORM LIVING IN IT! I little research tells me it is too late to do anything about it, all the fruit is infected. You have to spray very early to take care of this problem. I’m very disappointed to say the least!

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