Annie and I have finally decided to call an end to the major jam production for the year. After canning another 24 jars of jams and jelly this last session, we both came to the realization that we cannot eat and give away this much jam in a year. Therefore, there is only one more canning session for jams left this year due to my want for caramel apple jam. I am really excited about that one! We tried our hand at jelly for the first time, and while not totally clear due to only doing one pass through our "jelly socks" and squeezing for extra juice, I am still quite proud of the product. We chose to call it natural unfiltered jelly, which is kind of silly because jelly is supposed to be clear, but the tasty product we made cannot be beat! I would like to think Dan's apple picks are most of the reason why.

We started with six pounds of rough chopped apples, leaving the skins and cores intact. Next, we cooked the apples with some water. Meanwhile, Annie and I finished off her preparation of the pear and pinot noir jam.



It was quite tasty! We then moved back to the apple jelly. After the cook time was up, we placed the cooked down mush into a pair of clean nylon stocking. Now, you may be scratching your head at this, but there is a perfectly good explanation. I am somewhat cheap, and the jelly bags you can get at many stores are just a bit to expensive when I am trying to be extra thrifty, so the stockings and high necked faucets work just as well as the expensive jelly bag set ups.



The most important thing is to make sure your socks are clean. We washed this pair of hose before cutting them up and placing the food inside. We then hung them over catch bowls and went to get some lunch.





From there we took the collected juice and added our lemon juice and sugar and cooked it all down.



We canned that and moved on to the plum and the peach that I had prepped the night before. All in all we had 24 half pints at the end of the day. I was proud of how much we did in the little time we spent canning. I guess we have our system down now.

Today I hope to get some time in behind the sewing machine. The call of my knitting has been a strong distraction lately, but it is not part of my Christmas sewing or my Fabulous Pants sewing, so I really need to leave that off till at night in front of the television. The black pants will be finished if it kills me today. I am also planning on finishing up this pants repair for a friend's pair of pants. While cool pants, the seams that the sewer used were way too short, so there are lots of little repairs for me to try to fix up the seams. I am taking most of it to the serger. I also want to make a killer fall meal tonight since the weather is so cold. Today was the first really cold morning, so I am even debating washing the quilt for the last time this season and getting out the down comforter. Hum... I think I need to make a pumpkin pie while I think about it. Test out that crust mojo and see if it is still here!

Today I am up and going for a long jam session with Annie! She and I wisely decided to each do some prep work for the session at our own houses. We were hoping to get all the canning in faster than before. Last time we were really flying, and this time with most of the prep finished, we should be able to get most of this done. I am also hoping it is more pleasant out in her part of the bay. The weather for the last week and a half has been in the triple digits and very unpleasant for jam making. The original plan was to make peach with raspberry and cardamon, pear with pinot noir and cinnamon, and then either apple or plum. We decided on apple jelly, trying our hand at jelly for the first time rather than jam. Sadly, though, when I went to the market my favorite plum seller told me this was the last week for them. SO, I decided to tack plum onto our jam making list. We were going to wait until next week for it, but if this is the last week of these wonderful plums, I needed to act. I still have not told Annie. Hopefully she is signed on to the plan! I prepped the peach and raspberry and the plum in the hopes of keeping us on my expanded jam session plans.





Both are already a beautiful color just with the maceration and steep. I cannot wait to see how they look in the jars. The apples have to be prepped at Annie's place, so we can always back out if four jams is too much. We may, however, need more jars. Always need more jars. More pictures of the finished jam tomorrow.

This weekend started off a bit rocky. I was not feeling well on Friday, so I did not get to attend dance class. This was made up for by Dan, who brought me flowers, helped cook dinner, and watched silly movies for me in our summer movie festival. Needless to say we are starting to run out of time and dvr space as the fall television shows are starting up again soon. This set of flowers actually came out well with my arrangement. I took a class in flower arrangement in college, and I never quite got the hang of it. Seeing as my mother and sister are wonderful at it, my mom being a former florist, I though it would come natural. I was wrong. I guess the practice is just finally starting to show results.

This weekend was rainy in the bay area. I loved every minute of it. I woke up on Saturday to a clean feeling world. It had rained overnight, and I also got to hear a few rare claps of thunder as I filled orders in the morning. I was then off to Dublin by BART to join up with Annie for a day of canning. The ride was delightful as I stitched on my canvas and turned up the Celtic playlist on the headphones. It has been a busy canning fall this year, and the pantry is showing it. I worked on some reorganization this morning to fit in today's new project, salsa. This weekend, Annie and I hit the farmer's market in Pleasanton and one of the usual farm stands on the way to her house. The plan was for pickles and peach and lavender jam. We also thought that we could try to fit in plum. When we hit a stand that had wonderful pears, we added a pie in the sky goal to try to get some pear jam in too. We ate a lunch that was not quick enough and ran off to the store for.... more jars! We definitely have a canning problem.



The produce filled one of the counters:



From there on out it was a sprint pace. I started by washing up the plums and cutting them up to macerate with the sugar and vanilla beans. We were using the recipe for plum jam with vanilla and Gerwurstraminer from Christine Ferber's Mes Confitures: The Jams and Jellies of Christine Ferber.



Annie went to work on getting the dill pickles prepped. Pots of brine were started, water for skinning peaches was boiled, and the big canner pot was also started to get the water boiling.



Once the plums were off and macerating, I joined up with Annie prepping the dill pickles. We cut them into spears. The color of the cucumbers was very nice.



From there we packed the jars with the spears and added all the spices into the jars:



Next we added the brine, and then the jars went into the canner for processing. Meanwhile, we started up the peeling of peaches. Let me say, it is really difficult to peel peaches by any other means than a knife when they are rock solid unripe! We ended up getting some of the skins to slip with the boiling water, but the rest had to be carefully peeled by knife. Once that was done, it was time to remove the pickles and let them cool and seal.



We counted the pops until they were all sealed down. The peach jam was started and the steeped water from the lavender was added. It was a great smelling jam. Sadly we were too busy to take any pictures of that one. We then started up the second pot of plum jam as we realized we were rapidly running out of time to get the jams done and me home "on time". The wine was added to the plum instead of feeding up the whole time. Perhaps this is the secret to us getting so many things done in so little time! I would like to think we are getting better systems down and more accomplished at the canning process. The peach finished off and went into the canner to process. Then, we only had the plum to contend with. It was at that time that the canning staff got to finish off the remnants of the wine! The plum jam made the most beautiful purple garnet color that I have ever seen.



All in all, we got a ton done in a little amount of time. The take was, as always, pretty awesome! Two quarts of pickles and seven half pints of jam.



It was a full day! I came home late though. I never seem to be able to get things done quickly enough! We missed a party with friends, but hopefully I can make it up to them by going out another time.

Sunday was spent getting the kitchen restocked here for the week from the Farmer's Market. I also got all the supplies for making salsa today. Dan worked on some IT problems I have been having. We moved out the wireless access point into my office so it is closer to the living room and also helps out my computer more since I am not directly connected into the network. We also worked on fixing our Nokia 770. I use it to listen to internet radio, mostly Radio Paradise on the stereo. We found out that the cure to the networking problems with the 770 could be cured by using a high tech system of our metal mixing bowls to block out a network that was confusing the poor thing so it could not find our network. High Tech indeed! I guess I need to make sure that I don't use those bowls in the kitchen when I want to tune in the internet! We also got to watch some football and listen to the rain outside. It felt like we were back in an Illinois fall day. I loved smelling the rain and hearing it fall outside making the dust fall out of the air after a long spring and summer with out it.

Well today is off to a slow start, but it is time to get things accomplished. I hope to get the salsa made and canned before lunch. I also want to move onto sewing up those black pants finally. Tonight Dan and I have a Long Now talk to attend as well. Pictures of the salsa making tomorrow!

Today is delightfully cloudy and misty. I call them Seattle days because they really remind me of the times I have spent up there. It was the perfect day for some tea with work. I had to take a picture of the tea pot on its stand. I know that it did not come through well in the picture, but the steam rising up from the spout was fun to watch and very beautiful. Today I am still working on the fortune cookie promos. There are so many of them, and seeing as I am doing over 200, it is taking a long time. At most I have only done around 150, so this is a big step forward. I hope it pays off.

I have been thoroughly enjoying reading The Gentle Art of Domesticity and have found it quite inspiring. It has also helped me feel even more grounded in my decision to remain a stay at home wife with a small home business. This weekend I made orange marmalade because I was so inspired with the idea of being a domestic artist.



Dan helped out with some of the stirring in the two day process and serves as a hand model in this picture. I was trying to cook up the jam using the natural pectin of the oranges. On day two, I chickened out a bit. I thought about it and decided that I probably took too much pith off the fruit for natural pectin alone, so I used some Sure Jell to make sure that it was a solid jelly instead of runny. For my first canning project, I think it went really well. All my jars sealed with only having to reprocess two cans. I am pretty sure they did not have the right amount of head room for an easy seal. I also found that the recipes in my 1964 edition of the Ball Blue Book are way bigger than they say they are. The original recipe said this would yield 7 half pints. I ended up with 12.



I hope that we can get through all this in time for next year. I am sure that my Dad will want some when my parents come to visit. Who knows, perhaps it will turn into some hostess gifts as well. I just need to make sure that it is jelled and not liquid before I give any away. The remainder of the jelly that I had left in the pan has really jelled up in the fridge, but the jars still seem pretty liquid. Time will tell. Well, the cookies are calling my name. I need to get them off in the mail tomorrow to meet the deadline. Time for some gluing action!

The fog has once again returned to the Bay Area, and I could not be happier. I am not sure what it is about the fog here, but I love it. It is a thick fog that stays high most days, but sometimes envelops the entire landscape so you cannot even see out the window. Today was a high cloud type of fog, and it also had a fresh sea smell today. Love it!

Yesterday was exceptionally busy, so I did not have any time to write. Between trying to work on promos and going into the city to tutor at 826 Valencia there was not much time. I also was invited out to lunch by my husband. It was a nice cafe style lunch at a little French bistro in South Park. It was rather romantic. In an attempt to get a ton of work on the promos done, I set up a work station in front of the television, so that after dinner viewing would still be possible.



I just do not trust myself to sit on the white couch and use permanent inks. I stamped my little heart out both on Wednesday and Thursday. I also worked on cutting all my wires and ribbon. Sadly I figured out late last night, read 1 am, that I do not have enough ribbon. *sigh* So, I need to make a run to the craft store today. I foresee my goal of mailing these out today slipping to tomorrow.

I also replanted all the new herbs into the window box. I love how it looks now, so lush and green.



So now I can just go to the window to get most fresh herbs. The only thing I use often that I do not have is cilantro. It just does not work out very well in the window. I also have a tomato finally growing in the Aerogarden. Sadly, though I am going to have to do some pruning. I put it off as long as possible, but the plant is dangerously growing into the light.

On the plate for today, Laundry! Yep, Friday=Laundry day. I also want to finish up all the promo cookies. I will try to pile them all up on a table or something and take one big group show. I also have lessons at Fat Chance this evening. Dan and I also are planning on working on orange marmalade part one tonight. Hopefully that all goes well. I will keep you posted.