10 dozen down & my Bell Canada bill

now onto my own jam for the year.  There is actually 9 dozen and a half dozen of raspberry jam and 9 jars of blackcurrant jam.

Dd, surrogate dd and maid of honour are coming over next month to put them in decorative boxes and tie some fancy ribbons around them, so I have been told.  As long as I don't have to do it I really don't care!!


I may make another batch which is 8 jars of raspberry jam for just in case, as we haven't got a full count yet of who will be coming to the wedding; and it's better to have too many than not enough in my humble opinion.


Also look what turned up on Friday morning:

That was pretty fast I thought, also it comes with the bonus digital timer and four mixing bowls, so that was good.  Weighs a ton weight though, luckily for me the UPS guy brought in right into the house for me.

Spent a delightful hour on the phone trying to get my Bell Canada bill cheaper........oh joy!!! After speaking to various people I managed to get and getting no where I ended up at the loyalty department and got somewhere...YEAH!!!  My monthly bill for the tv and telephone prior to me calling was $153.15 plus taxes, after calling $110.65 plus taxes for a savings of $42.50 per month.  I am a happy camper........

Neighbour called by to say he was shooting the coyotes on Saturday that have been hanging around as they are bothering his dogs.  He asked dh if I was feeding them.............I told dh I can be a dimwit but I am not that stupid!!!!

Blackcurrant Jam and Lasagna

are both things I have never made from scratch before.

The lasagna was super simple and I just followed the recipe from the box.  It was supposed to feed 8......4 is more realistic.  Anyhow it was good.

Then after supper on Friday night I made blackcurrant jam. 

Recipe:

2 lbs blackcurrants cleaned....probably take you a couple of hours just to top and tail the bloody things!!
1 1/2 pints of water, around 3 cups
3 lbs of sugar

Bring the blackcurrants to a boil in the water and then turn the heat down to a simmer and cook for half and hour of so until softened.  Add the sugar, and bring up to a boil and boil for a couple of minutes, or until the jam starts to set on a saucer.

Pour into sterilized jars and seal.  I got nine 250ml/1/2 pint jars of jam plus another container.  Can't say if it tastes alright as I can't stand blackcurrants.  So I'll give the Tupperware container to my dad and he can be the guinea pig and see if it tastes alright!!

Got a heck of a busy weekend ahead of us, and the weather is going to be stinking hot....oh joy!!!  Hope you enjoy your weekend,

Gill

Where are the blueberries?

I got this in an email and found it quite interesting:

We all know that real blueberries are full of antioxidents but look at what several BIG food companies are doing to make for huge profits.  Quite the video.

Isn’t this something? Nothing but disregard and greed!   Who would have thought Kelloggs or Betty Crocker products deceiving? Watch for yourself , they are killing us little by little. Here is the link and please watch it and send it to your friends.    http://naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=7EC06D27B1A945BE85E7DA8483025962

 

Seems like I have full blown allergies now, as I am ready to pull off my nose and my eyes are watering, so I am persevering with the Benadryll.  I don't have to drive today, so I can dope myself up with it.  I swear this living in the country will be the death of me!!!

 

Got some helpers coming over today to pick raspberries, so we should get a lot picked.  I also want to get more jam made, so that should keep me out of mischief.  I picked up another 6 dozen jam jars, so that makes 10 dozen, which should in theory be enough..............

25 down, only 75 more to go......

Sunday afternoon I made three batches of jam and managed to can 25 half pint jars.

I have to say I am lucky as I was short around one cup of crushed raspberries, so I just popped outside and picked more rasps, crushed them and made jam, so they were very fresh.

One thing I do is pop a knob of butter in the jam as it cuts down on the foam.

After supper I picked some blackcurrants and then spent a delightful 45 minutes topping and tailing all 12 ounces of them!!!

Due to the fact this is not a job I enjoy I will do a little bit every night until I have enough to make my jam.

Round one to me......only just though

So my dear friend Wiley Coyote had to be chased away a couple of times on Saturday from the raspberry patch.  Dh went after it one time, then I caught him/her back in there later on, so I put my wellies on and picked up the sweeping brush and headed down the field to chase him/her away.  He/her knew I meant business, and I wasn't happy.  Even if there had been a few of them I would have chased them all away.  I was so ticked off.  Any other year I wouldn't mind sharing my raspberries with the wildlife, but I need every one last raspberry as I need to make at least 100 1/2 pint jars of jam for wedding favors.

So after supper when it was a little cooler, still in the 80's though, I went and picked raspberries for around 90 minutes.  Below is what I got picked.

There is enough there for nearly two batches of jam.  I will be outside first thing on Sunday morning to pick more and hopefully on Sunday afternoon I will make a start on making the jam. 

I need to make around 13 batches of raspberry jam and 2 or 3 batches of blackcurrant jam.  So I guess I am going to be busy for the next few weeks................

A busy day around the Acreage

on Tuesday. This week No Frills have baskets of peaches on sale for $1.88 a basket, so I made jam with them, and here is what it looks like. I used the Light Certo, as it only needed 3 1/2 cups of sugar in the mix. It sort of looks like marmalade doesn't it? It smells good, haven't tasted any yet.

We went out in the afternoon as we had to go to Rona, and Home Depot. Anyhow we brought this home from Home Depot:

We got it for the $500 plus taxes which is good. I can even start it myself, which is also good. It sells for around $1,600 new and this one is three years old and as it is a Honda, it should last us for years.

I spoke to Staples about my laptop, as that is still away for repair......yes even I can't believe it. It went in for repair on the 17th of August. So I had a little chit chat with the manager of the store and he couldn't see why I was "upset" that its taken so long!!! Apparently Dell won't let the Staples repair depot keep spare parts, so they are too order in and that is why there has been the delay....I am NOT impressed.

Wednesday is going to be a busy morning in the attic helping dh!!

I had a good day on Thursday......

I got the deal of the week this morning, I called in at No Frills to pick up some pectin, and they had a canning kit (photo below) for $1.99 Can you believe that? I mean the the tongs alone are $6.99 at Canadian Tire. I saw the exact same package in Canadian Tire for $13.49 just the other day.

So I decided to make some jam today and used the light version which only uses 4 1/2 cups of sugar per 6 cups of crushed raspberries, and the "light" pectin. It only made four jars, but it looks and smells good.

I then made Raspberry Muffins using this recipe. I will be making this recipe again, as its simple and foolproof.

I also made a Raspberry Coffee Cake, using this recipe. Again simple recipe, and one that I will make again.

Finally I made some Blackcurrant Jelly, and to cut a long horrible story short, which included it boiling over on my stove, still haven't got that mess cleaned totally off the stove top. The jelly could be used as glue, plus it is only half the amount it should be. Can any expert jam/jelly makers tell me what I should do? As I have no idea what I should do, as I can't even spread it. It wouldn't be so bad, but I don't even like the rotten stuff!!!

I wish I had taken a photo, but I didn't. I picked up a roast of beef On Thursday when I was in No Frills, it should have been $8.89, and it had a $5 off sticker on it, so I put it in the crockpot using the recipe below.

http://thatbritishwoman.blogspot.com/2008/09/crockpot-cola-beef-and-yorkshire.html

Anyhow, neither me nor dh are big meat eaters, but when this roast had cooked, there was just enough for me and dh. I don't know how people who are big meat eaters can afford it? We had Yorkshire Puddings (recipe also on the above link) with carrots and gravy. There are enough Yorkshire Puddings and gravy leftover for my lunch on Friday, which will be tasty.

So all in all I had a good productive day, though I was pooped by the end of the day.

I saw a Northern Flicker in the garden also on Thursday night, but I couldn't get a photo, as it flew away. Here is a photo of one, taken from this site:


Also at the end of the field, I saw a wild turkey with her young. Again I went to photograph them, but if course they disappeared!!! Here is a site with more info on them.

Sharing with your neighbours and are you a "local?".......

I picked a pile of raspberries on Tuesday and was going to take them down to "B" to sell. However he didn't open up on Wednesday, so I decided to take some of the raspberries to the four neighbours closest to us.

I have met two of the neighbours before, but haven't met the other two yet. One of them turns out to be a 72 year old farmer who is a widower and such a super nice guy. Has only been on the farm for the past 40 years, so a bit of a "newcomer," to the area........LOL

The other neighbour wasn't in, so left them between the doors, with a note, saying they were from "Gill at the old "Perry" place"; as anyone who has lived around this area, knows it as "The old Perry Place." Even the farmer was saying although he has lived at his farm for 40 years, it still goes by the previous owners old name when talking to the "locals!!" So I am guessing I won't be classed as a local anytime soon!! I wonder how long you have to live in a place to be classed as a local?

I dropped off a larger container to the neighbour behind us, as he scraped the driveway for us. He also offered to help us spread the gravel on the driveway when we get it. That was super nice of him, wasn't it?

I have decided I am going to make jam with the rest of the raspberries I picked as they are really ripe. I may also pick some blackcurrants and make some blackcurrant jelly, if I have enough sugar. I bought a jelly bag especially for this job, but I needn't have bothered, as when I was talking to my mam about it, she said they always used a pillow case tied up to strain the berries. I could have saved myself a little money there.


On the allergy front, the medication he gave me to take on a night for the allergies, is much too strong for me, I spent Wednesday in a complete daze and half asleep. I did sleep like a log though, but got barely anything done, which is no good at all. I did get the rest of the attic vacuumed out. Got a little bit of grass cut and did laundry. Here's hoping Thursday will be a better day.

Things happen for a reason.........Raspberry Jam.

I have been thinking about making raspberry jam as one, we love raspberry jam, and two, I have seen other people making it on their blogs and thought the photo's looked really good. A couple of things have been putting me off. I have an invisible sign on my fore head which says "EAT ME", only mosquito's can see it, and it makes raspberry picking totally miserable for me. The second thing is the price. To be fair I have no idea how much it costs per pound to pick your own raspberries, but figured it could be as cheap to just buy the jam, and we only go through one pot of jam a month.

So on Saturday while I was in A & P, I stumbled upon a lot of raspberries that were all reduced to 99 cents per container. I decided that this was a sign from above, and ended up buying 11 containers of them.



I bought a box of Bernardin Liquid Pectin which had two pouches in it and the recipe was this:

4 cups prepared raspberries
6 1/2 cups sugar
1 pouch liquid Pectin
1/2 tsp butter



Now I seem to have more jam than specified in the recipe? Also my jam seems to be separating? Anyone have any ideas why my jam is separating? I did the recipe twice so in theory I should only have 6 500ml jars, I have 8, plus a bowl??? I followed the recipe to the letter. I pray and hope this sets, otherwise I will have a lot of raspberry syrup!!!



Oh and half of the jars, have wax seals and plastic cellophane tops from England, that I had in my drawer, as my metal lids had rusted?

They do look good though.

Update: The jam seems to have set.