Jelly Jelly who's made the jelly......

MMMMMgood... eldest daughter and i made 17 pints of blackberry jelly.... took 2 days and some work but all done.. i'd post a picture but it's at her house, setting and 'relaxing'... can't wait to put it on the shelves.. there is something so rewarding about having shelves lined with homemade preserves, pickles, jams and jellies, veggies... mmm makes my mouth water... i'm a foodaholic i guess, with a survivalist mentality and a mild case of hoarding... actually i think my obsession with canning/preserving etc., goes back to my childhood... my parents were settlers, we lived in a remote area of coastal British Columbia, where access to anything was by boat, no power abet a generator that they ran 1 hour a day, enough to supply simple lights... a kerosene fridge, a wood cookstove.. and the list goes on... was a wonderful life for a child... sometime i'll tell you 'some stories'... wintertime, when the gardening is done, a cup of hot chocolate in hand..

anyways... fast forward back to 2009...

more jelly..... Red Pepper Jelly..... i had a find at the the local farmer's market, a big bag of sweet red peppers, they are semi local, within 100 miles and mixed with mine.. made enough for 3 batches or 12 pints! the first batch was an 'oops' i only put in 1 pkg of pectin, so will be syrup for glazing but the other 2 batches worked out fine... i have 8 pints of mild spice and 4 pints of FIRE... sometimes one just has to have a kick in life...

the recipe i got from Fast Recipes because i couldn't find mine .. i liked the recipe because it measured the liquid and then you added the ground peppers to make 4 cups... so it was a no brainer of how many peppers to use..

Red Pepper Jelly

5 To 6 red bell peppers
1 c Cider vinegar
1/2 Lemon juice
5 1/2 c Sugar
1 ts Salt
1 ts Chili powder ( i used my hot peppers with seeds)
6 oz Liquid pectin

DirectionsWash and seed peppers; chop in food processor or grind in blender or meat grinder. Add enough pepper pulp to the vinegar and lemon juice to make four cups. Mix in a large kettle with sugar, salt, and chili powder. Bring to a full rolling boil, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and add liquid pectin. Return to heat and boil hard for 1 minute; turn heat down to simmer. Stir and skim off foam for 5 minutes more as mixture boils gently. Pack in hot sterilized 8-ounce jars; seal and let cool on counter top. Store in refrigerator up to 1 year.
Makes eight eight-oz. jars. (8 half pints)

also at the farmer's market i got a watermelon.. just the cutest little thing...i was skeptical to its flavour, but when i cut it open last night... absolutely delicious.. and grown within 100 miles... since we have a cooler climate i was amazed at it's flavour... i'm going back there to see what variety it was and will post it...