JAM!

Josh's Mum hankers after being a housewife - you know the type, able to bake, make jam, make clothes, keep the house looking wonderful at all times, have time to spend with Josh (and me!) - but sometimes life gets in the way.  However, today was a good one for her!  She saw me sneaky pinching some blackberries from the garden so declared that we could make jam...I love JAM!

The first thing we had to do was wash our hands!

Then it was time to sample the blackberries!  BUT they were frozen!  Yep, she really had put them in the freezer - they were hard as bullets!  It transpires (big word!) that last year there was an absolute glut of blackberries - so Josh's Mum left some for the birds and picked some for the freezer - oh and used some for jam!  These are some of the ones from the freezer - they have to go to make room for this year's berries!

I smooshed and smashed them until they could go in the microwave - because today, we are going to try making jam in a microwave - first time for both of us!

While the berries were thawing out in the microwave, we found the "cheater's" sugar!  It is jam sugar, so already has pectin in it!  So - we weighed it out ready to go into the fruit when it was thawed.

When we had added the sugar the whole lot went back into the microwave to "jam up".  Josh's Mum asked me to take the lids off the jam jars so that she could put them into the oven to sterilise (another big word - means to make them really really clean!).

You can see the microwave next to me - and that is all the counter space in this tiny kitchen!  Really!  The other side is taken up by the fridge, cooker and sink!

Yummy - it smelled so fine when it came out!

Josh's Mum wouldn't let me decant (oh yes, another big word!) it into the jars in case I burnt myself.  She was also muttering about me dropping the whole lot and making a mess - but I am sure it was just because she didnt want me to get burnt!

I mean - if she had been bothered about a mess, she wouldnt have made this mess would she?  I have no idea what was going on with this photo - I just leaned forward to get a better angle....oooops!

Here I am with my special bread!  I can't wait until the jam is set and ready to eat!

Josh's Mum said she knew I wouldn't be able to wait - so she left some in the bowl for me to have when it cools down a little!  Yummy - you can see the stuff at the sides "jamming up" already.

Thanks for stopping by

Monkey Monkey x