Hey y'all! What an appropriate greeting for the day I've had. The jet lag has run its course and things seem to be in full swing again, Southern style.
I realize this blog has been entirely travel and adventure so far, but it's been pretty entertaining, and I love to create. So I figured I'd turn things around for a minute and share a new creation with you all: sweet cherry plum jam.
Disclaimer: Pretty much all credit goes to my ridiculously talented mother, who, bless her heart, tries without exasperation to get me to succumb to her domestic teaching and ways. Today I gave in and agreed to try my hand at canning. I am neither a talented cooking woman nor a wannabe housewife; don't let this occurrence fool you. But hey, if anything I'm always up for a new experience and getting my hands dirty!
Specifically, this is how the conversation went down:
Mom: "Look, here's all these fresh ingredients for cherry plum jam! And I got a cherry pitter!"
Me: "What's a cherry pitter? Can I try it?"
Mom: "Okay, now go ahead and do all 150 of these cherries and then slice them up. You need eight cups."
Me: "...But why do I have to learn how to can my own cherry plum jam?"
Mom: "Because, you have to learn how to put up as a housewife someday."And then, there was jam.
(Well, after all this stuff):
First, I got to use the fun cherry pitter, which to make the process more entertaining I pretended was a sort of BB gun shot into the vast wasteland of the tupperware container by the kitchen sink, and then furthered the massacre by chopping the cherries into pieces and staining red everything in sight.
Then, as I took a much needed milkshake break, mom cut up the plums. I think there were 6 cups or something equally as excessive. We then got everything boiling and added you-don't-want-to-know-amounts of sugar.
Here's a super exciting part involving lemons. I learned how to properly "zest" and "juice"...
The next while, for highly impatient people such as myself, was quite difficult waiting on our brew to thicken. So naturally I turned to what I know best (or far better than cooking, at least) and drew out fancy little labels for our fancy little jam jars.
After about 500 years, or 25 minutes, the jam was finally ready and willing to be canned. So, yeah, there you go. I only got reprimanded once for being too messy.
The end! Final, adorable little product:
I hope you all have enjoyed this "recipe" (for disaster) from me in the kitchen and don't expect it often. But do expect a little jar of jam as a gift from me to you, because I have quite a few right now! If this is the absolute last straw of you reading my blog with this ridiculousness, then thanks for your time. If you're thinking, wow, I'd rather be reading about more adventures in Spain, me too. If you're just really bored, congratulations on making it this far. If you love me, stay tuned, because more adventures are to come! I'm hitting the road again tomorrow ;)
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