Love, Hate Relationship

So, a few months ago we had an overabundance of tomatoes and we wanted to do something with them besides salsa or sauce (neither of which we can sell at the farmers market). For my birthday I had received an interesting cookbook with a bunch of unique canning recipes (thanks Linda!). It had a recipe for tomato basil jam which was ok if you liked tomatoes. Since this first endeavor into jam making I have broadened my horizons into Carrot Cake Jam, for all the tiny cull carrots that cannot be sold, and multiple jellies with seem to be very popular.

 It gives me an inside activity for the blazing hot afternoons and a little extra money each week.  Unfortunately, a conflict has arose. I love making all the pretty little jars of jams and jellies but I HATE the mess that comes along with it, oh, and when the jelly refuses to set despite doing everything right. With experience I have stream lined the clean-up process much more than my first attempts but I have yet to figure out how to make the jelly cooperate as I want it to. Sofie is of no assistance in this matter. I will continue this side project because there is something very Zen-like about it cooking it and the reward of it doing as it should but some days I will still stomp around the kitchen when failure occurs.

 (Sofie during my outburst following the failure batch of lemon honey jelly)