Jelly

My mom was also a gardener. With 10 kids on the farm, growing vegetables and preserving them for the winter was just another thing she did.  Again - without teaching us how to do it.  I totally understand this - so often it is much easier to just do it yourself when you are alone and don't have extra people crowding the kitchen. I get it.  And to be honest, I find it easier to just go to the store now and buy my vegetables!  My mom also canned fruit. She had home canned peaches in her basement when I was home - they are so yummy.  And you can't beat homegrown/canned tomatoes.  I don't like fresh tomatoes - never have - but I do enjoy them IN stuff. My second favorite comfort food at home:  macaroni-hamburger-tomato hot dish. Back to the jelly:

 

My mom made jelly.  When we were kids Mother would send us out to the orchard/shelterbelt to pick various fruits that grew on the farm. Looking back, I have no doubt she'd send us out on these 'missions' so we would get out of her hair and give her some peace and quiet!  We were loaded on a loader with our plastic cups and buckets to pick chokecherries. We'd team up to see who could fill their bucket first. We picked wild plums and crabapples - all for our mother to make into jelly. Well, now, since my mom was in the nursing home, I took it upon myself to look through her freezer and do some cleaning.  I found a bucket of chokecherry jelly and my sister-in-law assured me: "Jelly? So simple!"  We found the necessary stuff in my mom's house:  pectin (with the recipe my mom used -- right there in the box!), jars, lids, juice (she'd done the hard work of juicing them already), and sugar. Away we went!

Jars must be clean and warm.

Keep the lids warm so they will form a seal on the jars.

Stir the juice with the pectin.  Boil.
Add the sugar and continue to stir and boil.
That pan is the same pan my mom made jelly in...

Put the juice the jar.
See that funnel to the left?  It has to be 50 years old.

Skim off the foam.
Had we added a tiny bit of butter,
we wouldn't have had the foam.

Put the jelly in the jars.
Put the warm lid on top and
tighten with a ring.
Wait for them to seal and give the jelly 24 hours to set up.
I remember having a lot of chokecherry syrup if the jelly didn't jell!