My New Year's Day & Making Jam

On New Year's Eve, Jared and I were in bed by 10:30. We had a lovely evening, but needed a little more sleep than we would have gotten by staying up till midnight. The night before I had some printing for work that I needed to complete, and the printer self distructed! We stayed up until past midnight trying unsuccessfully to fix it and as soon as we turned off the light to go to sleep, Miles started crying. Grr. So we didn't stay up to ring in the new year.


When she was over, Jared's mother had suggested taking my plethora of peppers left over from this summer's plants and making Jalapeno Pepper Jam with them and she was going to help! We decided that we would do that on New Year's Day and while the girls were in the kitchen, the boys had plans to be busy in the garage brewing beer (it's a stinky process and not done in the house). So, the morning of new year's day we got busy working. I really meant to take pics of the process yesterday, but forgot. It wasn't too hard at all, but I would recommend working with a friend. It probably takes more than 2 hands. It started off very slowly. I had forgotten to get cider vinegar until Jared's mom was already over. We quickly ran out to the store to grab some. We had to core and chop the peppers when we got back. This took longer than it might have because mine were dried. It wasn't until after we were almost finished with this that I realized that I had the wrong pectin. I had gotten the powder not even realizing that it came in liquid. So, Jared's mom went to the store to grab the liquid, and I got the cooking part started. At some point my mother took over the stirring (has to be constant because of the sugar content) and I went back to chopping for the second batch. When we got the liquid pectin back to the house we added that and started filling the jars. It was fun and like I said not terribly hard, but easier and more fun with friends.