I never "gift" people anything that even I wouldn't eat. (Gave a spoonful of the blueberry jam to my husband; he said "tastes like jam." Well, OK.) Why does my life feel like a long twisty line of carefully-placed dominoes, just waiting for that first one to fall?
Funny, but I often think of the movie "Falling Down." I suspect it resonates with a lot of people. I'm beginning to understand the freedom some folks find in going into senior living while you still can get out, drive around, go do stuff, etc.
Why? Too dark, or too stupid? I empathized with the guy, I enjoyed the movie, but I've not seen it more that twice.
Isn't that the one where he killed his wife and daughter at the end? Just a depressing movie and he was a jerk.
No, he got his ex and his daughter to meet him at a pier, but then suicided by cop. He wasn't a jerk. His wife dumped him, he couldn't see his own kid, he got fired, a bum tried to steal his briefcase, he got ripped off at a quick mart...there's probably more. Now that I type it out, I'm halfway finished with writing a county song. All it needs is a dog and a truck.
Just the unraveling of a "normal" man. I saw it many years ago so I can't remember the ending; I may not have watched it to the end.
Today I made apple jelly, then whole berry cranberry sauce; just got it out of the water bath. The initial taste-test of the jelly was pretty good so I think I'll be happy with this batch. I had 6 bags of fresh cranberries in the freezer; now they are cranberry sauce in jars. So far my favorite is that ATK strawberry jam that's made with a shredded apple in the mix; the jam tastes wonderful and kept the bright red color of the berries. My youngest son gave me a gift card for Barnes and Noble, so I finally used it to buy a couple of canning books. I was happy to see a Cooks Illustrated (America's Test Kitchen) book for small-batch canning. However I'm hanging up my jar grabber for a while and relegating the canning pot back to the garage. I'm tired.
So you think the pectin in the apple kept the berries bright? Something about apples (and carrots) than can enhance foods without their flavor coming through too strongly. I'm lucky in that the church yard sales around here always have homemade jams, jellies and preserves. A couple of weeks ago I bought some pound cake and strawberries, cut up the berries, put sugar on them, let them sit, then mixed in some homemade preserves. It was so good I had to go buy some angel food cake, too. After I ran out of berries, I just slathered on the preserves and gave it a hit of whipped cream.
I don't know if the pectin in the apple affected the berries or not, but it's pretty jam. I have to say, after reading a lot of forums and watching youtube videos on canning I will never eat anything that I didn't can myself. There are a lot of very dangerous (and nasty) people out there with no clue about the science and chemistry of canning. Botulinum toxins are colorless, odorless and presumably tasteless. Some of those youtubers are scary as hell with their "expertise." They usually start out with some bullshit like, "I know this ain't the USDA approved method, but I learned this from my grandma and we ain't dead yet." The newest thing is "rebel canning," where apparently anything goes. There are facebook groups with slogans like "My Kitchen--My Rules" so you know they are a reliable source. My daughter-in-law had been reading one of those sites and oven-canned some green beans last week. (Her first attempt at canning.) She was so proud of those beans but I told her to please throw them out and I would send her a real pressure canner and a good canning book so she won't kill my grandchildren.
Jams and jellies are pretty safe even for novice canners, but you are certainly correct with the green beans. They should always be pressure canned to approved specifications. Even more dangerous are meats and fish. The culture media for growing botulism is canned meat that hasn't been pressured. If there is a lot of botulism in canned goods, the lid will bulge or even pop off--another good reason not to leave the rings on the jars. Just a little botulism is not detectable but will still sicken or even kill people, especially us elderly and children. Much of the botulism we see in Alaska is from people storing meat or fish in zip-lock bags in a non-frozen space.
I've read that a lot of botulism comes from improperly canned potatoes. Since they are grown in the dirt, they must be very carefully cleaned and handled when canning. I'm pretty much just small-batch canning some jellies and pickles. I have no interest in putting up a bunch of foods; too much work.