49. We Be Jammin'!

Five glass jars, big and small,
Apricot jam fills them all!

Bob and I just finished making the apricot jam to celebrate the Fourth of July.  Wouldn't that be a great annual thing to do?  It  could represent the full circle our nation has come in what is really important.  During war time people planted Victory Gardens so the farmers could feed the military, during the depression people planted gardens to help stave off starvation.  Europeans have never stopped tending small city garden plots which dot even downtown Bern, Switzerland.  Besides all of the patriotic reasons to go back to our roots and really take care of our selves, fresh homemade food is really good for your body.  It has been manipulated by only you in your own clean kitchen where you know you haven't added anything that you can't pronounce!  What could be better?

Homemade Apricot Jam                                                                                         
5 cups finely chopped apricots
(Bob used the slap chopper)                                                                                 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
7 (I know, I know) cups sugar
1 box of Sure-jell pectin

Boil your jars and lids and keep them in the pot with the water until you are ready for them.
Measure your ingredients exactly or it won't set.
Put fruit and juice in 6 quart pan and add pectin.
Stirring, bring to a boil (a boil that doesn't stop bubbling when stirred)on high heat.
Stir in sugar quickly.  Return to a full rolling boil and boil exactly 1 minute, stirring constantly.
Remove from heat and skim off any foam. You can add 1/2 tsp of butter with the sugar to reduce the foam.
Ladle quickly into hot jars that have been placed on a kitchen towel.  (This keeps them from
possibly cracking-never had it happen, but who knows)
Fill jars to within 1/8 inch of the rim of the jar and then wipe the rim with a damp cloth.  At this
point you could cover them with melted paraffin or you lids.  The recipe calls to set them in a
water bath but in all my years of making jam, I have never done that with jam.  Now, green beans,
that's another story.

This is high in points but once in a while on a toasted English muffin WITH BUTTER and this
marvelous jam, a cup of coffee and...heavy sigh...slowly tasting each and every morsel!

Even as much I as I tout what Weight Watcher's has done for me, it is the meetings and the camaraderie, plus my having to pay someone to weigh me that works.  It's not their food that you can buy.  I also have a real hang up about eating whole foods.  I don't buy non-fat this and sugar free that.  My motto is buy from the perimeter of the store then you won't get in trouble.  Think about it, what is on the perimeter?  Fruit, vegetables, milk products, (especially plain YOGURT! a perfect food) meats, eggs...get the drift?  When my budget allows I buy organic products.  That's one reason that I love Trader Joe's.  Eat good for you and you can eat more.  There are no chips and soda hiding in amongst the radishes, radishes keep better company.

Speaking of radishes, I have discovered them on sandwiches.  Now, you may not consider this a sandwich, but boy do I love this mile-high meal!  Take a fabulous sandwich roll, the sky's the limit, slather it with creamed horseradish (0) (mayonnaise (1 for 1 teaspoon) ( if you like but who can stop at a teaspoon?), one sliced hard boiled egg (2), sliced radishes, sliced cucumbers (my passion are the little Persian cukes from TJ's, soooo crisp) sliced tomatoes as many sliced onions as I can cram in and shredded romaine lettuce (all the veggies (0) .  Top that with a little garlic salt and then your favorite dressing.  Some days I use a sweet poppy seed other days I like Newman's Balsamic vinaigrette (1 for 2 T.)  Mash that sucker down and wrap in a paper towel and mange.  You can have whatever bread or roll you want because the only other thing you have to count as points is the egg (2) and the dressing (1-3).  Lemon olive oil is also killer on it.  On weight watchers this is a way to get your daily healthy oil.  That's 2 teaspoons a day.  Voila!  It takes a while to finish this monster and you really feel like you have had a meal and only 5 or so points.  Even the fanciest roll is about 3 points.  I toast the roll in the toaster oven but I don't butter it.  I only use butter and cheese when I can actually taste it, otherwise it squanders 3 or more points.  I intend to taste my points, each and every one of them.

Now I have to go water my little Victory Garden.  Four hardy tomato plants and one grand basil are the two plants no summer should be with out.  Rubbing tomato leaves between my finger and thumb takes me back to my childhood in Iowa.  You pick a tomato and rub it on your jeans to get the surface dust off, give it a lick so the salt will stick and eat it like an apple.  Trust me, it doesn't get better than that unless you can close you eyes and see a field of corn stretching out before you.