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Apricot Jam? Yes we CAN!

It's summer time, and around here that means lots and lots of fresh fruits and vegetables!  Not only do we have our own garden, but our neighbors' yards are overflowing with produce too.  That's one of the things I love best about living in Washington: food grows on trees!  Seriously!

This week's super harvest is apricots.  Our friend has some over-productive apricot trees, so we "helped" them out by picking a few (20 bags) for ourselves.  We gave away about 15 bags this week, but that still left a whole lot of fruit in our house.  What can we do with all those apricots?  They are delicious fresh, but we can only eat so many so fast.  Last year I tried canning them, but it turns out canned apricots are... well... really gross.  Really, really gross.  So this year I'm trying something new: Apricot Jam.

I've never made apricot jam before.  In fact, I've never canned any type of jam.  But how hard can it be right?  Right.  I looked online for a recipe for easy apricot jam.  It only had three ingredients and didn't seem too tricky, so I went for it.

First I washed and pitted them.  Pitting apricots is so easy.  Just slice them and the pits fall right out.






I boiled a half dozen pint jars in my canner to sterilize them.  Then I chopped up all my apricots into little pieces.





I poured 8 cups of apricots into a pan, along with 6 cups of sugar and a half a cup of lemon juice.  (No this isn't healthy, but it is delicious!)









I boiled the sugar/fruit mix for 30 minutes, stirring most of the time.   It looked SOOO good!  And it tasted SOOO good!  I wanted to just pour it into a pie shell and eat it right then!






I started looking at the apricot pieces and decided they were too big for jam, so I put half of them in my blender to chop them up.  Then I poured them back into my pan of apricot soup.






 Once it was done boiling, I poured it into my little jars, put fresh canning lids on, and gently tightened the rings.






 Then into the pan they go.



After boiling for ten minutes, I took them out to cool.  When the lid pops down, you know they are sealed.






 Isn't this little one so cute!








Happy canning!


Marcia

1 comment:

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