Day 173: Jam and Jesus!

I love Sundays in the country. While they are supposed to be a day of rest, they most often turn into a different kind of worship…the kind I do every day. First, since we are staying out in the camper every chance we get, we are sleeping so soundly that it isn’t hard to completely miss online church. However, yesterday, I opened my eyes, smiled at my sweetheart and he said, “Good morning, baby…ten minutes to church!”

I glanced at my cell phone to confirm and hopped right up. When your man is excited for church, you get moving! I was up, dressed, in the house with coffee in hand at 10:00…a new world record, I am sure!

Church was really great, even though they played a repeat of the last sermon of 2019. For one thing, it was so cool to see what life was like just 9 short months ago. A little nostalgic, I have to say. Also, our pastor…as I am sure any pastor would be…was so animated and on fire in front of a congregation without restriction. Next Sunday they are going back to in person worship, but we will stay home and continue to watch online. We just feel safer that way and we still get spiritually fed. This is actually working very well for us under the circumstances but I will look forward to the day we feel it is a healthy choice for us to go in person. In the meantime, we do not feel deprived of the experience.

As soon as church was over, I headed to work in the kitchen. I filled the dehydrator with sliced mushrooms and set it aside to do its thing while I turned to the main task at hand. I had peaches and plums that needed to be made into jam and I could hardly wait to try the new Jam & Jelly Maker. When I preserve food, I set everything out in an orderly fashion so I don’t have to go looking for something I need right in the middle of things. There might be a little wiggle room if you are canning tomatoes or green beans, but jams and jellies are absolutely time dependent.

As I set to peeling the peaches, I asked Mr. FixIt if he would mind filming me while I did it. I wanted to show how easy it is to peel peaches and make jam. It was the first thing I learned to can when I started and anyone can do it…especially with this handy appliance. When Mr. FixIt was in high school, he ran the stage crew so he is quite at home behind a camera. However, from a technical standpoint, we made some errors so there is definitely a learning curve.

For one thing, I not only had the window fan going, but I also had the exhaust fan on over the stove, trying to keep the house from getting too hot. That’s great for temperature…not so great for sound. The second thing we discovered…if you film in portrait view and compose the movie in the app iMovie, it converts to landscape orientation. That’s cool except…it cuts off the top and the bottom of the film. In other words, the top of my head is cut off, but you can hear what I’m saying, so we’ll just take it as a learning experience. Just a head’s up disclaimer if you decide to watch. I’ve added a link to my YouTube Channel. (Yes…I have a YouTube Channel…who knew? lol)

It was a productive day. The Jam & Jelly Maker only makes four jars at a time. If there is a downside, that’s it. However, the upsides are awesome. It stirs itself and the temperature is preset so there’s no scorching. And, while one batch is cooking, you can get the ingredients together for the next batch. It went very smooth once I got the hang of it.

I ended up with eight jars of Peach Jam, but not enough mashed fruit left for a third batch. I pulled the plums out of the fridge and cut up enough to make up the difference and made four jars of Peach-Plum Jam. It was my favorite. The flavor combo was really special. Then I made four jars of Plum Jam but there were not enough mashed plums to make another batch. I put what was left over in a jar in the fridge and will buy some more plums today to add to it. So, sixteen jars of jam and a dehydrator full of mushrooms. Not a bad afternoon’s work.

When we had the kids over on Friday for homemade pizza, I only baked three of the four pizzas. I covered the fourth one tightly and set it in the garage fridge to have over the weekend. It seemed like the perfect time yesterday so after the mess from the jam was put away, I baked the pizza on the pizza stone and I think it was even more flavorful than the others. The flavors had a chance to meld in the fridge and it was really delicious. I’ll do a pizza-making video one of these days!

When all was said and done, I stretched out to edit and upload the video to YouTube. While I waited for the upload to go through, I fell asleep. Who would have imagined such a thing, right? I hate falling asleep that late, but it couldn’t be helped. It was a really good day. Sometimes worship comes in the form of putting food by for a rainy day.

You can watch my “Making Jam with Ginny” video HERE.

❤️