Canning some wicked jam.

The holidays are over, but citrus season is not. Because money isn't falling out of my ears (that would be gross anyway), I decided to get super crafty this year when it came to gifts. I recruited a special pal who has experience canning jam. FYI, non-perishable jam needs to be sealed and all items needs to be sterilized. My friend had doused her kitchen in boiling water and I brought the sharp knives. We ventured out to Berkeley Bowl for some fruit, in this case about 8 lbs of blood oranges and a 1/2 lb of Meyer lemons. After returned to her house, we rinsed the fruit and using a vegetable peeler, cut the colored part from 2 lemons and 4 oranges.

Then we finely diced the peel and put 2 tablespoons of the lemon peel and 6 tablespoons of the orange peel and 1 cup of water in a 6-8 quart pan. The rest of the peel is unnecessary.

With a sharp knife, we carefully peeled all of the white crap off of the fruit and cut the lemons and 10 oranges into chunks, trying to keep all of those pesky seeds out of the "good" bowl.

Take the fruit in the "good" bowl and puree them in a food processor until you have 2 cups that are smoothly blended. Pour this into the pan with the diced peel. Puree remaining fruit and put it through a fine strainer to extract juice. Juice the rest of the fruit until you have a total of 4 cups. We had to go get more fruit at this point because some fruit aint so juicy! Take this pan and boil it on high heat stirring a LOT until it's reduced to about 5 cups total, or for about 10 minutes. Now the pectin, mix it (a 1.75 oz pkg) with a 1/4 cup of sugar and add it to the pan. Stir on high until it starts to boil rapidly. Add 4 cups of sugar to the pan and stir until it returns to a boil. Now watch the clock for one minute and remove it from the heat.

Now using a sterilized spoon or ladle, scoop the mixture into clean canning jars.

Leave about 1/8 inch of room at the top, wipe jar rims clean and set a sterilized flat lid on each jar, screw on lids. All of these pieces should have been resting in a boiling pot of water and using tongs and a towel you can make this happen without burning your paws. Beware of splattering boiling water or fruit. OUCH. Let the jars rest on a towel for 5 minutes and turn them rightsideup. Let it cool there for 24 hours and by now all seals should have popped in. When you press on the top it shouldn't budge.

JAM!

We be jammin.

So, I am unemployed again. My brief stint as a member of the temporary work force was like a bad date. I was out of the house, but I wasn't in love. So, here I am with an abundance of free time. I recently ate a cherry and an almond in the same bite and was like "I want to make a 100% homemade pb&j!" I executed (literally, so bloody!) step one in this process by making cherry jam. Here is my step by step recipe that I stole and adopted from other recipes on the internets. First you want to purchase cherries and wash them. I got bing cherries for $2.99 a pound at my local corner farmer's market store in the Mission. Very cheap and delicious.

Then you want to, well first you want to buy a cherry pitter. Highly recommended $13 purchase. You can also use it for olives. Anyway, pit all of your cherries. And make sure that all of the pits actually shoot through the center of the cherry. I had a few hangers on that I discovered later.

You also want to add a good amount of citrus. I didn't have a microplane for zesting so I peeled just the yellow part off of two lemons and finely diced it. I also squeezed their juice which I added to the pot. My jam came out really lemony which I like but you can cut that down to 1 lemon if you like.

You want to chop about 3/4 of your cherries and put them in a big stock pot (it gets real bubbly so you want room) with the lemon stuff. I added about a cup of rum. Some other recipes recommend kirsch at the end of the recipe but I mixed it up. That will need to cook for about 15 minutes until everything is all soggy. Stir frequently. Then you want to add what looks to be an absurd amount of sugar. I had 3 lbs of cherries and I used about 3 cups of sugar. It will get very bubbly, keep stirring on medium heat for about a half hour. I heard about an "am I done" test where you put a white plate in the freezer for about 10 mins. Put a teaspoon of the jam on the plate and put back in the fridge for 5 mins. If it looks jelly-like you're good to go.

The problem I had was that no one told me that it wouldn't actually look like jam when it's done. It will still be "wet." It will jam up in the jam jar. When it's still warm put it in your previously boiled jars (just put all of your jars and lids in another big pot and boil for a bit. Leave fully submerged in water until you're ready to fill the jars). Put the lids on and refrigerate forever.

Voila!