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July 27, 2012 By headchef

Fantastic Thursday is still up. Link up what you have been up to and see what others have been doing.

  Remember the apricots we got from my parents tree? We dehydrated some, made apricot crisp with some and we even froze some apricots to make apricot crisp later. We STILL had more so Little Chef A was amazingly helpful and made apricot jam with me. She stayed with me from beginning to end! She was VERY proud of herself for this accomplishment!  She is the one who takes a PB&J; sandwich to school everyday! She usually prefers grape jelly, which we also make, but now she already has a plan to alternate grape jelly with apricot jam!  Helping in the preserving process gives her ownership and she is VERY protective of her jelly already! I know she will be just the same with her jam. She thinks it is THE best ever!

  Now that she is a pro at cutting apricots I set her loose again and let her do the work! I love reaping the rewards of teaching a great skill!

  Instead of chopping all the apricots we decided to take the easy route and use the pulse feature of the food processor. This saved A LOT of time. Little Chef A said she does not like the big chunks of fruit so she made sure to pulse until the fruit were cut into small pieces.

  We followed the directions found in the pectin box. Little Chef A was the official stirrer the entire time! She said her arm hurt she was stirring for so long! Notice the double hot pads to protect her hands and arms from the heat and any drops that might jump out of the pan.

  When the jam was finished cooking I poured it out of the hot pan into a large glass measuring bowl. It was very easy to then pour it into the smaller glass jars. It does dirty one more pan, but it is well worth it. I do not have to use the ladle and the mess is a lot smaller.

  Little Chef A very carefully wiped the edges of the jars, then we put the lids on and let them be.

  I love the look of finished jam in the jars. We usually keep the jars on the counter for a few days just to admire our work! It gives us such a sense of accomplishment. Of course we couldn’t wait to try it so we opened up a jar right away. Actually, Little Chef A was the first to try it because  she licked the stirring spoon while I was filling the jars!

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