Raspberry Peach Jam

I woke up this morning, at 5:30, and couldn't go back to sleep. Thanks Bel. It was a day where I didn't have any appointments of any kind, nowhere I needed to be, nothing I needed to do. Just relax, fold some laundry, and hang with my girls. It was the type of day I always look forward to.

I have known for some time, that I would be running out of homemade jam. Since I didn't get grapes that were edible this year, I found myself in a bit of a fruit bind. I did make some blueberry jam, and that was good. I just didn't get the quantity I prefer to have, which is enough to eat for a year, share, and gift away. Not even close. I never thought I would really depend on those grapes to turn out good. No thanks to all the extra rain last year.

So I battled with having to buy fruit, which is expensive when you buy large quantities to make a lot of jam or jelly. But it had to be done. So I found a recipe that I felt pretty good about, and it had half the amount of sugar than your average recipe, which I always end up doing on my own. So hopefully, I wouldn't have to make any changes and could just cook and can away without a care.

So here are the peaches. I couldn't find fresh peaches anywhere, so I went with canned which scares me but, it's better than buying jam at the store. So here I am mashing them.

Here are the raspberries that I had in the freezer. Rinsing and thawing out.
I combined that raspberries, peaches, unsweetened apple juice, and the juice from half a lime. Bring that to a boil, while stirring regularly.

But wait! Don't forget your pectin and coffee!

It's just impossible for me to do the rest and get pictures so we'll skip ahead a bit. I boiled it, added the pectin while stirring constantly, brought to a rolling boil that could not be stirred down, added the sugar, continued to stir, brought back to a rolling boil, timed 3 minutes of constant stirring while boiling and melting the skin off my hand, and this is what I get; 8 half pint jars of raspberry peach jam. All jarred and going into the boiling pot.

One recipe was only suppose to make 5-6 half pint jars. Well, I know better than that and was glad that I prepped 10 jars ready for use. I was pretty heavy handed on the fruits, using almost 2 cups (whole) more than called for. Less sugar and more fruit will always make for better jam. I put some on a plate and threw it in the fridge to harden faster, which is how you taste test. I am pleasantly surprised how well it turned out. Must be in the genes. I plan on making at least 3 more batches of this.

Last night I made miso soup, shrimp pad thai, and white rice. Something I'd made before and it all went well until we finished grace, and dug in. Oops! Before we knew it we had 2 screaming kids at the table. I used cayenne pepper instead of chili powder and it was pretty spicy! Delish, but hot. So there I was making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches as fast as possible while my husband tried to calm the girls down. They ate their miso, and a little bit of rice but I have this huge container of leftovers that I have every intention of devouring here soon for lunch.

One last bit, I finally did the paint touch ups in the play room. I bought a sample can of the color, which is really all I needed. It went on funny, and knowing well that it always dries differently, gave it a bit of time. Once dried, I was kinda mad. It's a very light beige, not the pale sage it should be. I'll give them one more chance to get the color right, and if they can't do that, then I'm just gonna re-paint the whole room. Which I don't mind because I LOVE to paint walls.