Jams - the Good, the Bad, and the Thrown Away!!!!

Well, here's the story that I promised for yesterday! lol  It really might not be all that worth waiting for...you don't get to taste it after all!

BUT YOU COULD!!!!  Really, it wasn't that hard.  I made some Banana Jam and I cannot recommend it highly enough.  But...beware (insert scarwwwy music here)...it's not for the faint of heart!

Ok, maybe it is.

First, you must get yourself a jam bible.  I recommend



It is cool, concise, and listed in alphabetical order by fruit.

So, let us begin at the beginning, eh?!  First...get book!  Next...go to B for nanners!  Then...realize you have nothing to make said nanner jam with...so GO SHOPPING!

Ok, maybe not everyone gets excited about shopping, especially shopping for fakeAmish stuff like canning equipment, but hey...I get no kick from champagne...alcohol doesn't thrill me at all, but I get a kick out of SHOPPING! lol  (I warned you in the side bar...I really am a bit of a nerd.)  For making this jam, you'll need nanners and assorted food type stuff.  A big bowl to mix stuff in.  A big pot, like you'd make spaghetti sauce in (or at least the size I'D  make spaghetti sauce in, lol).  You'll need some half-pint jars with 2 piece lids.  And a chilled plate (trust me on the illedchay ateplay).  You'll really only need the canning equipment if you're planning on keeping the stuff for a while.  You can certainly make a batch, put it in the jars, and frig it.  From the recipe, you'll get about 6 half-pints.  You'll want to give some away as I don't think anyone likes nanna jam enough to eat 3 pints of it in a month...unless you're a park ape!

(For the purposes of political correctedness...there's nothing WRONG with being a park ape and no slander, libel, illwill, antipathy, animosity, or general emotional stifling was meant or implied in the above comment. The writer of this here blog will be shortly sacked. Thank you - The Management)

(There are also banana jam recipes online so you could go there too...but I like having the book.  Books make me happy!)

Now look :



See that???  That's what you get when you combine the skills of a doctor, a card shark, and a chief cook/bottle washer ...bet you didn't even realize you needed 3 different people to make jam, didja?  That friends, is about 7 or 8 medium sized bananas with some sugar and some raisins, and some lime juice and zest, covered and resting overnight on the counter.

Or, in MY case, resting in a partially open oven so my nitwit cats (Flourish and Blotts) don't decide to paint the house banana yellow while I'm safe in the arms of slumber.  (Don't trust them slinky cats...they'll get'cha everytime dagnabbit!)

So...now on to the cooking...




This is what happens after a good amount of time and a fair amount of nanna mashing. I wanted sorta smooth jam like stuff so I mashed the crap out of it. You know, just a hint to the masses here...it's rather hard to mash raisins so be prepared you're gonna have SOME nuggets in there!

How can you tell it's done you ask? This is where the chilled plate comes into play. I put a saucer in the freezer when I started so the plate would be good and cold. Put a bit of jam on the plate (while it's cooking) and put it in the freezer for a minute. When you pull it out, it should be thick and mounded on the plate, not running all over. I also dragged a finger thru it and the jam leaves that clean streak in the middle. It won't fill that space back in. This shows it's gelled right.

Now from here you get to pour into fresh clean jars...



This is after jarring and cooking in the hot water bath to preserve them. You don't have to do that though, like I said.

Then YOU EAT! We had it on vanilla ice cream. Nothing better I tell you...unless it's that same said vanilla ice cream with blueberry jam on it, even if the blueberry jam is a weeeeeee bit stiff, lol.

Hmmm? What was that? Something about bad, thrown away jam? Well shit, you would have to remind me of that, wouldn't you. Just rub my nose in it while you're at it why dontcha? Bitches, all of you.

Ok, you wanna make me feel bad! FINE!



THAT is what you get when the aforementioned doctor, card shark, and chief cook and bottle washing mother get together to cut up the most perfect of sugar baby watermelons fresh and direct from a wonderful local farm market that's been here longer than I have (Carmen's if anyone would like to know...on Rt 322 fairly close to the Hamilton Mall here in south Jersey). It turns bad and gets thrown away when someone (ahem...coughdoctorbubbleheadcough) decides to try to speed the process along and BOIL said lusciousness to thicken the syrup instead of gently simmering for HOURS like the bible said to do.

Yeah, fuck you all...YOU'D have tried to speed up the process too! Hours man, HOURS, just simmering away looking all shiny and liquidy and not getting thick and all jammy preserve like.

So...my plans for this weekend you ask...it may include going BACK to Carmen's to check if they've got any more sugar babies, dammit! I'll get back to y'all on that one.