So I was Feeling Very Domestic...

I was feeling rather domestic the other day and got a wild hair to try and make raspberry jam. I had been wanting to head back to the berry farm and get some raspberries for awhile so I decided yesterday was as good of day as any. The only problem was I really didn't know how to make jam and I didn't have any of the stuff to do it so I called Andrea to see if she could help me out. They weren't busy so with a quick phone call to Steph to see if Ty could stay with her and Brenna while Gabe and I went to pick the raspberries we were off. I thought that not having Ty with would make things much easier, he tends to wander away and is just in general an ornery little guy so I thought picking would be a breeze. Not so much, my "helper" was not much help, in fact he did not like picking raspberries, he didn't like that were thistles in the rows, he didn't like anything and did not want to be there. Raspberry picking did not end up being the fun activity I had foreseen. It was also rather difficult to find the good raspberries, there were lots but a lot weren't ready yet and the rest were pretty picked over, we must have hit it right at the inbetween time. After finally getting one whole bucket full and part of another I asked Gabe to bring me the bucket to where we were down the row, he proceeds to spill the full bucket we had gotten, raspberries are quite difficult to pick up off the ground. Then we went a little further down the row and Gabe was running around and accidentally kicked the same bucket over a second time. By this time I had enough so we headed back a little short on what we needed. I decided I would get the rest at the store. We picked Ty up at Steph's and then went to Hy-Vee to get the rest of our supplies. Once we got to Andrea's she had the water bath going and after a quick lunch we got started. We put the raspberries in a big measuring cup and made sure the bugs and grass(thanks to the spilled bucket) were out of the berries. Then we added lemon juice to the berries and smooshed them. We also added a little sugar to some sure-gel and measured out 7 cups of sugar(anything tastes good with 7 cups of sugar, I am pretty sure) Then we put the berries on the stove and gradually added the sure-gel and then constantly stirred as it came to a boil, we then added the sugar and again stirred until it came to a boil. When it was done Andrea put it into jars for me(it needed 1/2 inch of space between the top jam and top of jar, she did much better at eyeing that then I would have) Then we put the lids and put them into the water bath. Once the jars had boiled for 10 minutes we took them out of the water bath and listened for the lids to pop. They did and we headed home after a great first jam making experience. We had a partial jar that we just put in the fridge last night and even though it hasn't quite been the recommended 24 hours yet Gabe was begging to try some out this morning at snack. I broke down and let him try it, I think he liked it:)