Jam Swap

Hello everyone, Ian here!
Do you like jam? I like jam, alot. Unfortunately the most common kinds involve strawberries, and as I am allergic to them, I am usually scared to eat any red jams haha. So when Aimee from Under the High Chair extended an invitation to Christie and I to attend and participate in her annual Jam Swap event, we were, to say the least, very excited. The requirements were simple enough, make Jam, bring said jam, and exchange said jam with others at a fun get together. Sounds simple enough? Yes, though quite quickly afterwards, Christie and I realized that neither of us had ever made any jam.

Our first idea was to make batches of Christies homemade chocolate & hazelnut spread, though we realized that the sterilization and jarring process was going to be 50% of the challenge of making a jam. After a nice weekend visit to the Atwater market that weekend, we decided to change the original plan once we laid our eyes on some local cranberries. Neither of us had any idea that cranberries were produced locally, and were quite happy to discover that there were abundant amounts apparently. Christie and I have been doing our best to select as many locally grown/produced food products as possible, thus using local cranberries made far more sense to us than imported chocolate and hazelnuts.

Cranberries chosen, Christie and I settled on her classic Cranberry and Port sauce, which, although technically not a jam, was acceptable as the Jams were varied from classic fruit jams, to delicious salsas, mmmmmmmmm (can you tell that I loved the salsa?). Making the sauce itself was alot of fun, as we had never made that much of it before. The jarring process seemed intimidating at first, and our first test attempt failed, though we quickly realized that this was due to a small amount of sauce being found on the rim of the jar when we screwed the lid on before the boiling process. Once we had found that out, each batch went swimmingly.

Needless to say, the jam swap went really well, there were so many absolutely delicious creations there, with my favorite easily being one of Aimee's amazing pumpkin preserves. If you ever have the chance to try this, jump on it, you wont regret it. Christie made sure to get me some, and I am hoarding the stuff.

On a side note, please take a moment to visit Aimee's wonderful website (link at the bottom of this posting), you really wont regret it.

Thank you very much again from Christie and I to you and your family Aimee for the wonderful hospitality! Hope everyone enjoys the photos as much as we all had fun at this event.

Ian



























Under the Highchair