A Love/Hate Relationship

Terral and I love learning new things and becoming self-sufficient. We began bottling last year as we harvested our first garden. My very first project was zucchini relish, which was a recipe Grandma H. shared with me. We also bottled pickles, jalapenos, tomato sauce, salsa (which has bragging rights as being the only salsa Bridger likes), and borsh.

This year we got to add apricot jam to the list. We were so excited when Dad told us Uncle Kevin invited us to Ivins to pick some apricots from his in-laws' trees! We had decided quite a while ago that an apricot tree will be among the first things we'll plant when we get a home of our own (yes, I like them better than peaches), so we felt like this would be a little pre-taste of the joys of that wonderful fruit.

We had fun picking them.

Then we hauled our precious cargo home with thoughts of yummy jam and fruit leather whirling in our heads. I spent all day Monday preparing the fruit. It had been a couple days, so I had to sort out the good apricots from the not-so-good. When I was done with that I had 25 lbs of raw apricots in my big metal bowl. (Actually, the bowl is my friend Kristin's. I really need to get one of those.) I added the sugar and lemon juice and let it sit as the recipe instructed. I needed to cook the apricots, but I didn't have any pots big enough, so I went to Walmart. I was torn about my purchase because the only pot we could afford was made of thin metal, and I was sure it would scald. But it was on sale, and I thought that if I stirred it enough, it might be okay.

To make a long story short, I tried really hard, but despite my best stirring efforts and the sacrifice of my hands to the boiling gooeyness, it burned. And not only did it burn inside the pot, it boiled over at one point and burned on the stove as well. I was uber bummed. (Terral can attest to that.)

And after all of that, the jam was still soupy! So I gave up. I put the goo back in the big metal bowl, and I made four pints of cherry pie filling instead.

It was surprisingly easy! (. . . as pie . . .hee . . . hee . . . )



The next morning we assessed the damage. The pot seemed to be a loss, and I didn't know how we were ever going to get the stuff off the stove without scraping the paint of as well. At this point I will remind you that we are renting.

Here is a picture of the stove after vigorous efforts to clean it.


Thankfully, my aforementioned friend Kristin came to the rescue with some miracle cleaner when I told her my woes. The stove is now back to normal. The pot is so-so.

We tried again. We ended up with 14 pints and 12 8 oz. bottles of burnt apricot jam.

I figure it's almost the same as burnt almond fudge. Terral affectionately calls it "smoked".