The strawberry-guava tree in front of the house has started spewing fruits everywhere. I stood on tip-toe and tapped them off the branches into a bag, while Zenny sat beneath the tree loading rotted fruit into a bowl. We carried them back to the kitchen, washed them off, I deftly tossed the contents of her bowl down the hill to start a new generation of trees without her noticing, and it was jelly time again.
Here is my recipe, brought over from the old blog:
1. Gather ye an arseload of fruit.
2. Wash it and chop it and cover it with water in a giant pot.
3. Heat it and run screaming across the house when it boils over and catches your tinfoil oven liners on fire.
4. Simmer for an hour or two, skimming off foam and spider legs as required.
5. Strain. Strain again. Mop up spillage and bandage burns.
6. Get the sugar out of the freezer, pick out all the dead ants you can. Don’t worry, they’ll be sterilized.
8. Match juice cup-for-cup with sugar and pour back into your stock pot (or Mormon-lady pot, as ours is fondly called).
9. Strain again for good measure. Because eew.
10. Boil for another hour or so, until the brew is thick and syruppy and deep in color. But not dark and gooey, because that is turkish delight and we’re not making crickey-a-gogo food here.
11. Boil up your empty jars, even though it feels wrong. Chase away cats and children at this point.
12. While the jars and jelly are still scalding hot, pour the one into the other [jelly first], and quickly top them with lids. Do it, you pansy. Tighten the lids with a rag.
13. Ta daaa! Line them up and enjoy the periodic pinging of sealed lids. Send to relatives. Do not tell them about the ants.
2. Wash it and chop it and cover it with water in a giant pot.
3. Heat it and run screaming across the house when it boils over and catches your tinfoil oven liners on fire.
4. Simmer for an hour or two, skimming off foam and spider legs as required.
5. Strain. Strain again. Mop up spillage and bandage burns.
6. Get the sugar out of the freezer, pick out all the dead ants you can. Don’t worry, they’ll be sterilized.
8. Match juice cup-for-cup with sugar and pour back into your stock pot (or Mormon-lady pot, as ours is fondly called).
9. Strain again for good measure. Because eew.
10. Boil for another hour or so, until the brew is thick and syruppy and deep in color. But not dark and gooey, because that is turkish delight and we’re not making crickey-a-gogo food here.
11. Boil up your empty jars, even though it feels wrong. Chase away cats and children at this point.
12. While the jars and jelly are still scalding hot, pour the one into the other [jelly first], and quickly top them with lids. Do it, you pansy. Tighten the lids with a rag.
13. Ta daaa! Line them up and enjoy the periodic pinging of sealed lids. Send to relatives. Do not tell them about the ants.
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