I'm terribly sorry for not posting in my own blog for over a week! Such a bad blogger.. me! Heh heh!
I've been making more candles and now I've also made tarts as well. I've given a candle and few tarts to Dawn, my intervenor, that comes every Wednesday. I have Dawn for three hours every Wednesday and let me tell you this, she is a lifesaver!
Dawn helps me a lot in many ways that I couldn't do with an interpreter. She is both my ears and eyes whereas an interpreter is my ears. Dawn helps me with driving, shopping and this accomplishes a lot more. Dawn is also a good friend of mine now as well. I feel so at ease with her to sit down and chat. This is what I really like. FIKA'ing with her at Starbucks and so on (She has the most incredible animated facial expressions that I adore!) Mosey loves her and if he could, he would pack up his treats and move in with her if he had the opportunity! I kid you not. He lays on his back to invite her for a tummy rub. (Mosey is the cat.. if you were wondering!) :o)~
Yesterday and today I've been doing canning & I just love it. Although the heat in the apartment is hot but I just love the feeling of accomplishment! Yesterday I made 4 plum jellies and today I made 2 crazyberry jellies & 4 crazyberry jams.
I had yellow plums from Food Basics as it was on sale, just did not like the taste of it. It was too sour for me so I boiled the plums to take the skins off and mushed them up to take the seeds out. For 3 cups of plum mush, I used 5 cups of sugar. I also made sure I used lime juice. (I didn't have lemon juice) For this kind of fruit, you do want to use citric juice to prevent fruit browning. You could use Fruit Fresh powder but personally I prefer citric juice as it's much more pure and it's natural. (It's much more cheaper to use any citric juice as well!)
For today I used 2 cups of cherries, 1 cup strawberries, 1 cup blackberries, 2 cups raspberries and an apple juice drink box. (Yes, an apple juice drink box!) This way I reduce the sugar content I put inside the jelly and jam. I put only 4 cups of sugar inside the jam/jelly mixture because of the apple juice drink box. The apple juice naturally sweetens when cooked and it is really delicious!
For the jelly, I used muslin cloth to sieve out the seeds and used 2 jars for the jelly. I used the remaining 4 jars for jams but removed the thick chunks and left in the tiny bit of berry seeds.
I'm not fond of chunky jam and seed jams as well. I love jellies more than jams.
The next jelly I will make is cherry jelly and this is very easy to make as I will use apple juice concentrate to naturally sweeten the jelly.
Last week I made candles and tarts. They were quite easy to do. I had Chris take pictures for me because I wanted to show the belly bands I sewed as well.
Belly Bands for incontinent dogs
Front
Back
Velcro Snap
The liner insert
The candles and tarts I made last week
A freebie tutorial for you!
To grubby/grungy up your vases- save metal or glass cans (use spaghetti glass jars)
Wash them up well and let dry. Use Modge Podge as they work best. Coat Modge Podge on your glass really well. Cover the area with unused coffee grounds. (I added cinnamon to the mixture for scent) Do not bang the jar otherwise the mixture will fall off. Allow time for the mixture to adhere. 24 hours is best. Bang jar lightly. Coat Modge Podge on the jar for the glossy finish. Allow 24 hours for the coat to dry. Tie with ribbon.
1 comment:
the skins off my plums. I found a recipe that said to leave the skin on and boy did it turn out sour. I had about 4 1/2 cups of chopped plums( whizzed them in the food processor) and originally 7 cups of sugar and 1 pack certo. Well after it set I tasted it and it had major pucker power. So I melted it all down again and added 2 1/2c more sugar to make it sweet enough. I also didn't put any citrus and it came out about the color of apricot jam.
Your mixed berry jam sounds really yummy. I will have to try he apple juice trick because I just can't stand the jam made with splenda.
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