DIY -- jammin'

This summer I'm trying to eat more fresh fruit in season and leave the dried fruit for winter when all I can get fresh are apples and oranges.

Except.

I have a recipe for jam with no water and no pectin.

Basically you sugar the fruit down. Remember to take the stones out of cherries. Mash up your grapes, berries, or cherries.

For apricots and peaches, you need to take the skin off. There's a neat way to do this. Cut an X at the top and bottom of every apricot or peach, or cut the top and bottom off the tomato. Leave potatoes alone.  Put them in a large bowl and boil enough water to fill the bowl up. Pour that over your stuff and let it sit at least a minute, up to 5 minutes. Now pour it off and fill the bowl with ice and water. It's called an "ice shock".  Now use a paring knife to scrape the skin off.  Cut them up, throw away apricot and peach stones, and continue.

Measure your fruit in a cup measure and put it in your pan, then add the same measure of sugar.  Put the pan over 2 1/2 heat. The sugar will melt; stir so it mixes well with the fruit, which will release its juice. When all the sugar is melted, turn the heat up to #4 setting and get the mix to a rolling boil. Now use a digital candy thermometer and start testing the temperature on all sides and the middle of the pan. When it gets to 220 everywhere, turn the burner down to 2 and let it simmer about 10 minutes.

Now turn the heat back up and get it bubbling and boiling again, and stay with it because if it tries to burn over, you want to snatch it off the heat. When it's bubbling, turn the heat off, and let the pan cool on the stove.

Now put it in the fridge overnight. In the morning, if the jam hasn't jelled, boil it again. Three times will do it.

Pour into sterilized glass jars and put on the lid. If you have a pressure canner, you can make this shelf-safe but if not, keep it in your fridge.

I know this is not what you want to be doing on a hot afternoon, so do it early in the morning if it will be hot. I watch the weather closely and so far I've managed to get it done in cool weather.

This will work with large dried fruit like apricots, peaches, apples and figs but not with dried berries or cherries; they dry up to more skin than fruit. Also, the larger fruit has already been skinned. Just make sure and simmer it a long time until you can fork-mash it, let the rest of the fluid cook off, and then put in the sugar.

Can you imagine anything more simple and delicious to use on homemade English muffin or bagels?