Jam and Chest Compressions

Mom is in town and after hitting an AWESOME sale at the farmer's market I had lots of blackberries just waiting to be made into jam. And who better to show me how to make jam than the jam queen herself? It wasn't nearly as difficult as I thought it might be but it takes quite a bit of time, and lots of organization. And stirring. Lots and lots of stirring. Mom was really patient and we ended up with more than year's supply of blackberry jam, coming in at about $1 a jar. A pretty good deal considering Smucker's Blackberry Jam rings up at around $4 a jar. And don't even get me started on the ingredient list. Here are the ingredients for their blackberry jam from the Smucker's website:

WATER**, BLACKBERRIES+, POLYDEXTROSE**, MALTODEXTRIN**, FRUIT PECTIN, LOCUST BEAN GUM**, CITRIC ACID, NATURAL FLAVOR**, ASPARTAME**++, POTASSIUM SORBATE (PRESERVATIVE), CALCIUM CHLORIDE**, RED 40**, BLUE 1**. 

Here are the ingredients for the jam I made with my mom:

BLACKBERRIES,SUGAR,FRUIT PECTIN.

Why does jam need calcium chloride and food dyes? I think the color of smooshed blackberries is nice without any help from science. Anyway, here's a few things I learned about making jam:

1. You need to work out. Seriously. I've never stirred something so much in my life.

2. Consider protective eye wear and a sweatband. Boiling hot jam can rocket out of your bubbling pot at any time and WILL burn your eye. The sweat from standing over the boiling pot will then run into your injured eye and make things worse.

3. You'll want to invest in a long handled wooden spoon. Once you dump the sugar into your fruit, it foams up and you'll want to be as FAR away from the bubbles as possible to avoid being scalded with wicked hot jam.

4. After filling your jars, wiping your rims and screwing on the lids, don't touch the jars because they will burn your fingers. You just filled them with scorching hot fruit, remember?

 

Smooshing the Berries

 

Stirring, Stirring, Stirring

On a a completely unrelated subject, I attended a CPR training class today, compliments of my hubby's employer. CPR is a useful skill to have, especially when your son eats as many rocks as he does cookies. The class was informative (albeit loooooong) but I really learned a lot. Doing compressions is much more physically taxing than I ever imagined. I also learned how to use an AED (automated external defibrillator) and how to do the Heimlich maneuver on adults and children. Also, new CPR standards do not require any mouth to mouth breaths! It's called hands only CPR. Good news when your victim's mouth is covered with blood or snot or some other nasty bodily fluid. Those little plastic mouth protectors only protect you so much. And hey, less plastic medical wastes cluttering things up, right? Greener CPR! Imagine that...