jam? syrup?

Last weekend, Mr. Painted Table and I headed out to his hometown to visit some friends we hadn't seen in a while.  On the way, we stopped to pick blackberries.  It's the first time my lovely husband (still fun to say!) has picked blackberries, and I had something special planned for them.

The next day, I pulled out the blackberries, the sugar, my recipe book, and all my canning supplies.  This was the day I would make my first batch of blackberry jam.

Well...

We got started okay.

Hubby has excellent berry-mashing skills.

Everything was looking good...

This is over half the kitchen in this photo. Close quarters when making jam.

And then...

It turned out to be syrup.

Let's pretend it's syrup on purpose.

Sigh. Oh well.  The syrup is still very very delicious.

Our issue is being able to find the "gelling point" when making jam.  When I use pectin, there are no issues because we can use a timer and it's not based on our combined inability to judge when to take the jam off the stove.

Do you have any hints for us on a better way to tell the gelling point?  The first batch of jam we made without pectin was strawberry, and we boiled it for too long and ended up too sticky and solid to even eat.  This time, we were so afraid of over-boiling, that we under-boiled the blackberries and ended up with syrup.

Ah well.  Just means we'll have to try again!  And eat lots of french toast with blackberry syrup! (Or maybe some buttermilk pancakes?)

xoxo

the future and today

"Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin."

--Mother Teresa

Working on changing my small world this week.  Trying to make a few small changes at a time.

We have only today, and I am so thankful that that is what we have.  Why look any further than today?  Today is what we have.  Tomorrow has enough problems of its own; we can let tomorrow take care of itself.

Just a little thought.

xoxo

a thought to share

"To create something, you must be something."  -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Just a little something to consider today.

daisy chain

Remember my post about Chinese Forget me Nots?  Well, I'm also attempting to grow some Shasta Daisies from seed.

Is anyone else a big fan of daisies?  I think they look so happy! And cheerful!

Eventually, I'm hoping they look a little something like this:

But, over the last couple of weeks with travelling for our wedding and then our absence during the honeymoon, it looks like I've lost all (or most of) the daisies.  I'm mourning their loss and cleaning out the pots.  The silver lining is they cleared out a few terracotta pots for the plants that survived. 

Time to transplant!

Definitely planning to start more daisies from seed next year.  Any tips from you gardeners out there?  Keep in mind, I'm in a cramped place.  Plants have a hard time in my apartment!