You can do that at home?

Well, today I got busy doing a few things that needed to be done. Cleaning out clothes that don't fit the baby biscuit anymore and other house cleaning (still tons to do).

I also made some jam because we ran out. I had some no-sugar added pectin on hand and frozen mixed berries from Costco. I tried the freezer jam recipe and since I had never made it that way before, I wasn't sure what to expect. The Sure-Jell hot line apparently has only one person who answers and if the line is busy, you just have to call back. So after multiple 1-800 calls, I decided to try to go for it. I boiled the pectin for the prescribed time and mixed it into the prepared fruit. I stirred for 3 minutes, as directed, and got what can only be described as globules of pectin interspersed with the fruit. It was not looking good for the home team.

Back to the phone - busy again - apparently this was a busy canning/preserving question kind of day - OK, how can I salvage this? Well, I resorted to doing what I know to do. I transferred the fruit/pectin globules into a larger pot and cooked just until it came to a boil. After stirring and stirring, I could no longer identify any globules, so I transferred it into a cleaned out Costco sized jelly jar. *If I had planned on storing this, I would have used a water bath canner and followed directions, but we'll be using it up right now, so it's not necessary to seal it.*

Today is a fasting day, so I haven't tried it, but by this afternoon, it had set (much to my relief) and I gave the big biscuits a spoon full. They both loved it - and little do they know that it has minimal sugar (like 2T instead of 7 cups) and tons of wonderful fruit.

Since the Hubbs isn't home for dinner tonight, I think we'll have a PB&J.


I also cut biscuit boy's hair today (see above). I used the clippers and I carefully trimmed the neck and sideburns and over the ears. I was pretty happy with it, he was pretty happy with it and his big sister didn't think I actually did it. He's told me several times he likes his new hair cut. This was the best cut I've ever given, usually it looks like he's got the mange. Maybe it's because he wasn't screaming and crying and I wasn't going as fast as I could while trying to distract him with a Wiggles video and lollipops. I like it when he sits still.