AUGUST - In a Jam, and My Tiny Dancer

We don't have a freezer yet, just a top part of the fridge, and that gets pretty full when I make bread and ice-cubes. Now it seems when I go out, I bring back some more delicious blackberries, and there's a limit to how many I can freeze - so yesterday's batch ended up in a pot for jam.

Now, I used to make tons of jam - back home it was Strawberry,  Partridgeberry, and Bakeapple, if I was lucky enough to get any. When we moved here, I started in seriously with my big pot and my never-ending supply of Certo. Peach, Plum, Strawberry, Apricot, all sealed in pretty little Mason jars with pretty little labels. How pretty they all looked, sparkling their jewel-tones on the counter.

When I brought home some yellow plums a couple of weeks ago, I planned to stew them so they would be a most delicious ice-cream topping. However, when they looked all done stew-wise, I tasted them and they were so tart I almost swallowed my face. So I added more sugar - and cooked it longer. Still bitter. More sugar. More cooking. And I ended up with jam, which was very good, which meant it didn't last long, as each morning it had a pre-date with my toast.

This time, the blackberries were going to be jam. Blackberries have a lot of pectin, plus jam has a way of 'dissipating' (Howard's word, will explain later) so I needed Certo neither for the setting of it nor the keeping the mould away from it. So I just added a wee drop of water and a cup of sugar and turned the stove on low. Bubble, bubble, etcetera. 

After a little while, it looked like jam, so I turned off the top and tasted it. Ew. Bitter. More sugar. Same thing. Tasted again. Ew. Bitter. More sugar. Then I let it simmer while I went tapping - and guess what? A tad overcooked. Thanks, smoke alarm. It wasn't burned though, just a bit thick. I poured (scraped?) it into a  container and put it in the fridge to cool, and that's where it stayed until this morning's toast was ready.

Hm. I've never had a slice of jam with my toast before. So after work, I was determined to fix this. Into the pot again. I thought about diluting it with Apple Juice, but remembered how high the pectin quotient of that would be. The only other liquids in my fridge were milk (nope), Bacardi Lemonade Spritzer (no way), Beer (nuh-uh) and Ginger Ale. So in went some Ginger Ale, and it became a bit sloppy and more jam-like. I'm hoping tomorrow morning I'll have some nice spreadable jam. We'll see.

Yesterday, Lizzie found my wind-up Snow Globe, and used the music for her interpretive dance. She's a lot sweeter than any jam I've ever made.

As to the 'dissipating' word? We had left-over Macaroni and Cheese tonight. Last night, it seemed to be very cheesy, but tonight Howard wanted extra cheese in it. He said the cheese dissipates. I know mayo tends to dissipate in left-over potato salad, but cheese? Can anyone tell me where it goes?