Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Jam Slam 2011

Max, over at My Roman Apartment challenged herself back in January, to 52 weeks, 52 jams.  That's right, she's been making a different type of jam every week, and all with free fruit to boot!  She's letting the rest of us slackers who manage to preserve a few things a year join in and brag about our exploits too.  I signed up, with my usual plans for food preservation in mind.  I wasn't expecting to actually post on it this early in the season.

One of Max's first jams of the year, a lemon marmalade, sounded intriguing.  However, I don't live in a land of citrus trees, so I didn't think I'd get a chance to try it out myself.  Then my grocery store surprised me with two packs of lemons on the cheap rack, 6 for 99¢.  I bought them both, and I made my first batch of lemon marmalade.
 I used a very simple recipe found here.  Just lemons, sugar, and water.
 I made three 1/2 pint jars.  I don't expect the kids to be big fans, so little jars just for me.  Then I added  2 cups of frozen blueberries, and 2 more cups of sugar.  Brought it all back to a roaring boil, and jarred 2 pints.  Not a lot of jam, considering the time involved.  But it's early in the season, and it was too hot to do much of anything else today anyway.




Instant sense of accomplishment!  Food storage in June for the winter ahead.

I also picked my first batch of rhubarb for the season, which will be combined with a bunch of bad apples for a rhubarb apple sauce tomorrow.  I may freeze some, depending on how much apple can be salvaged.  I've never had good luck with canning applesauce- probably one of those things that requires a pressure canner.

5 more spears of asparagus, for a total of 10.

2 juice cartons of eggs in the freezer for next winter, about 30 each, although I must admit I lost count.

4 comments:

  1. Are you saying you freeze 30 eggs, all in one container? How do you use that many eggs when you thaw them? I joined the Jam Slam, too, and I have not canned one blessed thing. Time to start? Guess so and can doubletime.

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  2. I thaw them in the fridge. Pour slowly and they separate not too bad. Sometimes I get a bit of scrambled eggs in the bottom of the carton, and those I just estimate with. We use 6 eggs at a time for fruit bread (triple batch), and 6-8 eggs at a time for cookies. If I bake pies, it's usually 4 to 6 at a time, so another half dozen or so, depending on the flavours. It's easy to use them up within a week around here.

    I am going to try freezing individual eggs in the shell as well. Heard a rumour that it works, so I have to try it out.

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  3. I heard that freezing in the shell does not work.Let me know.
    I still don't understand. You break shells and drop the eggs into the carton and they come out whole? Or, do you mix/beat up that many and then pour the whole 30 mixed eggs. I cannot imagine freezing that many eggs and having them all thawed at once. But, I don't have the manchild population you do. Or, the urge to bake that much in a week..lol. I beat and froze mine in 4 oz tupperware containers, two eggs (I think) to the container. Then, I froze in half pint Ball jelly/freezer jars--five eggs to half pint---8 oz. I lost them all during the tornado power outage. They were on the door and thawed. I refroze them and later thawed and tossed them.

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  4. Yes, I break them into the carton gently and freeze them whole. Thaw them all at once, and pour them out gently.

    That really sucks that you lost everything.

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