Last weekend was jam making time. Our apricot tree had a pretty large crop this year so I harvested them a couple weeks ago and let them ripen indoors. I would have waited for them to ripen on the tree except the mockingbirds (and perhaps the phoebes) discovered them and waged a massive eating effort. Hence the early picking. I also made apricot-pineapple and strawberry-rhubarb. I just discovered the Irvine Farmer's Market on saturdays which has a ton of organic vegetable stalls. I was in heaven.
If you've never made jam, you'll be amazed at how much sugar is required. I used 7 cups of sugar in a recipe that yielded only 6 jars of jam. Yikes.
The hardest part of jam making is waiting for the jam to set, which can take in excess of two weeks. I'm only through the first week and I'm already itching to open up a jar.
