Traditional Strawberry Jam.

It's strawberry jam week here on Trailer Gypsy. I spent last week working up 3 fun jam recipes all centered around strawberries that I'll be sharing throughout the week.

One of my canning books from the 70s has a recipe for strawberry jam and all it says is 4 cups strawberries, 4 cups sugar, process for 10 min. Hysterical. I love how they went into so much detail. I'm sure that recipe would've worked but you would have to process it for a long time to get it to the set point. Strawberries are fairly low in pectin so it's a good idea to add a little. Here is the recipe I like to use for strawberry jam.

6-7 c. hulled and chopped strawberries
4 c. sugar
2 T. lemon juice
1 box powdered pectin
1 tsp. each cinnamon and ground cloves (optional)

Note: I like really chunky jams so I only mash a few cups of strawberries but some people like to leave about half their strawberries chopped and then take a potato masher to the other half. Another thing you can do is macerate your strawberries which is basically letting them sit in sugar overnight. You can use about half of the sugar to macerate, and use the other half the next day while you're cooking the jam. I usually skip this step.

Before you start cooking your jam, fill up your water bath canner and turn on the burner, it takes awhile to bring it to a boil. Wash your jars in hot soapy water or on the sanitize cycle of your dishwasher. Put your lids in a small pot and warm them up on the stove so the rubber becomes soft, do not boil them.

Add strawberries, lemon juice, cinnamon, cloves, and sugar to a large non-reactive pot. Stir so the sugar mixes with the juices from the fruit (it will look like a thick pink mess at first). Cook on medium for about 15 minutes, until it thickens up a little. Be sure to keep an eye on it so it doesn't boil over or burn. Strawberries especially like to foam alot. Sometimes it's helpful to add a pat of butter to help keep the foam down.

Add pectin and let jam boil for 10 minutes. It should be a "rolling" boil, where even if you stir, it's still boiling.

Turn off the burner, skim the foam from the top of the jam and fill your jars leaving 1/4 inch headspace.

Wipe rims of jars with a wet cloth and then dry, apply lids and bands and process for 10 minutes. When your 10 minutes is up, remove your jars from the canner and wait for the little "pop" that they've sealed. If any of them don't seal (it shouldn't take very long to know if they haven't) pop them in the fridge and use within a few weeks.

Easy Homemade Wrapping Paper.

Rocky and Chai trying to guess what's in the package (it's legos).

My favorite way to wrap something is by using a paper bag. You simply cut down one corner until you reach the bottom of the bag, cut out the bottom and then wrap your package as you normally would. It's durable enough to send like that in the mail usually too. The best part about it isn't that you're using something you already have around the house or that it's free, it's that you can draw on it!

Jake's nephew is turning 4 this month so I stamped the paper with cute little woodland creatures and not so scary bears from stampinup! and off it went. It took all of 5 minutes and is sure to get a reaction out of an inquisitive little boy. 

For larger presents, I use a roll of kraft paper which is really inexpensive and allows me to personalize every package, or change the paper with the seasons without having to spend an exorbitant amount of money on holiday wrapping paper. 

Pressure Canning Salmon.

My pressure canner intimidates me. You know, because it can explode, which is scary. Plus, I couldn't find answers to a lot of questions I had online. I thought google knew everything? I tried it out anyway and while I'm less intimidated, it still makes me a little anxious to use it. I used to feel that way about water bath canning too so I'm sure that feeling will dissipate with more use.



The very first thing I canned in my fancy schmancy pressure canner was fresh caught wild King Salmon. None of that farmed fish here on the coast! I got the fish right down at the docks. Since I'm vegetarian and Jake will be the only one enjoying the salmon, I canned it in half pint jars so none will be wasted when he opens a jar since half pints are basically one serving. I learned a lot by reading about canning salmon. You have to descale it but you can leave the skin on, apparently it has a lot of nutrients in it. Also, you can leave in any bones as they'll become soft during the canning process (but not in Halibut, you have to take those bones out). I can't wait until Tuna season, I'm going to can a ton of it, especially if I can get a good deal on it.

The ONLY safe way to can meat/poultry/fish is in a pressure canner. Do NOT water bath can meats.

If you're interested in canning salmon, here are the resources I used:

Always follow USDA guidelines for canning. Section 5 is on meats, poultry, and seafood.

Here is a very boring but informative video that goes through the entire process.

Nifty Thrifties.

I'm kidding with that ridiculous title. The other day I was in a foul mood so I got an iced chai and went to check out some local thrift stores. I found all of these great pillowcases. Jake asked if I was going to use them for a craft project. Umm...no, I'm going to use them as pillowcases. I don't know why but it seems like we're always short a pillowcase, the dryer must be eating them or something. 

I also picked up these sheets. Some of which will be used for craft projects. 

I found this amazing blanket and it's my new favorite. People always ask me why I would buy a crocheted blanket when I can crochet one myself. My reasoning is that this was in excellent condition, cost a lot less than the yarn would to make it and somebody else took a zillion hours to crochet it, saving my fingers all of that work.

And finally, I got this great mushroom canister to put my sugar in. It looks so pretty on my new yellow counter. Also, I got this little yellow fire king dish. It's kind of a metallic gold in real life. I've always had a small obsession with gold colored objects. 

Happy Earth Day!

Happy Earth Day! I hope you all go out and not only do something good for the earth today but that you spend a little time enjoying nature as well. We did just that yesterday when we took the dogs to the beach.

When Jewels begins shedding her coat, you know summer is coming!

Murderous Moods.

This week has just been one of those weeks, you know the kind, where you just want to murder everyone. Well, maybe not murder but definitely maim. Yesterday was especially bad. Remember when I got super mad at Lowe's? Against my better judgement we bought our refrigerator there anyway. They had the one we wanted and Home Depot didn't, that's the only reason why. I really wanted that specific fridge. They were supposed to deliver it yesterday but "forgot" to put it on the truck. Are you kidding me? We waited on replacing the stairway yesterday because we were expecting them and they didn't show up. They didn't even bother to call. I had to call and then the lady promised to call me back by the end of the day and let me know when they'd be able to deliver it. She never did. It's my own fault for buying something there. It won't happen ever again. I gave them a terrible review on Yelp. It's not like it matters but it made me feel slightly better.

Last week one of my World of Warcraft accounts got hacked and I still haven't been able to get it back. It's been 9 days, and many, many irritated emails to Blizzard. It always takes them almost the full 48 hours to respond. It's really frustrating because their responses are never helpful. To avoid bashing my head into the wall I've been emailing all of the responses to one of my friends so we can make fun of them together. Nine days of repeating myself was old about 5 days ago.

My registration expires this month and it's an Idaho registration so I went to the DMV today to see what I need to do to get an Oregon registration. Usually it would be simple but in the move I misplaced the title to my car and haven't been able to find it. I asked the Oregon DMV worker how I should go about replacing my title and she told me I'd have to go back to Idaho to get one. Thanks for that answer, it was super helpful, you are a genius. I mean really, I'm so glad there are people like you to help solve problems. Geez. I called Idaho's DMV, I just have to fax some paperwork and pay $14.

After all of this I was in a terrible mood so I decided to go thrifting. I grabbed an iced chai and off I went. I found some pretty awesome stuff and I'll share that next week. Thrifting can definitely lighten my mood. When I got home I didn't even want to punch people in the throat anymore. Instead, I broke in my pressure canner. More on that next week too!

Pickled Asparagus

Some people can year round but for me, canning season generally starts with pickled asparagus. It's Jake's favorite so I keep an eye out for good prices and try to put up a lot of it. In Idaho you could pick your own all over the place but I don't know of anywhere to do that here. I have been doing some research into local u-pick farms for canning a little later in the season. I'm excited to get into the full swing of canning again this year.

For those of you who aren't obsessed with canning jars, Ball began producing pint and a half jars again, they are pictured above. I am excited about them because they're the perfect size for asparagus and also make great drinking glasses. They're on store shelves now and come 9 to a box.

Crackin' Crab.

I went down to the docks today to pick up some salmon and I decided to get some fresh crab for my dad and Jake too. I just wanted to share my dad's version of a crab cracker with you. Old rusty vice grips seem to do the job.

Our Apartment in Progress: Vol. Three

This week has been all about tile. Our kitchen counters are this lovely yellow color. Originally I wanted a backsplash of yellow penny tile and butcher board counters but in an effort to save money, I compromised on this yellow tile instead. The color makes me really happy and brightens up the kitchen.

Let there be ceiling lights! My dad originally purchased some hideous light fixtures for the place but had second thoughts and decided on these instead. I'm so happy that he did because I didn't have the heart to tell him how ugly the others were. My dad generally has pretty decent taste though.

The counter isn't quite finished in the back there as it still needs grout and trim but I'm so happy to have two sinks. It's awesome. One for me and one for Jake.

The shower is so close to being finished. The little cutout shelves just need a few more pieces of tile and they'll be done. The shower is huge. Jake wants to put a bench in there. I think that is hilarious and since we aren't physically disabled, it'd be pretty lazy to have a bench in our shower.

Things are really close to being finished and I can't wait to begin unpacking our boxes and putting things on shelves. We still have a lot to do but it feels so nice to see progress.

Alia Looks Adorable & The World is Frustrating Me.

This is my sister's friend in the scarf/wrap that I made. I knew she'd find some super adorable way to wear it. It looks ridiculously cute on her!

Yesterday was the last day to get studs off your car here in Oregon and I knew the Les Schwab guy was going to tell me my regular tiles were bald. So I went in, he told me, and I bit the bullet and bought new tires. To me, buying tires is really depressing. It's like spending $500 on the most boring thing ever. I know some people are really into their car and wheels and tires but I'm not one of them. In order to cheer myself up I watched a bunch of episodes of Eureka and ate a little cake shaped like an Easter egg.

I did buy a new water bath canning pot yesterday so that made me happy. Mine had mineral deposits in it and was about to have a hole through it so we left it in Idaho when we moved. I was going to can today but the asparagus I wanted wasn't on sale anymore so now it's back to waiting for it to go on sale again. I was so mad at myself for not buying it the first day I saw it on sale. I'll have more to share about canning later in the week!

Catherine Wheel Blanket

Hey guys, I have a confession to make, I hate crocheting granny squares. I think granny squares can be cute but they are so boring to make. I've never been able to finish a granny square blanket, even if it's just one giant square, can't do it, too boring. I love granny stripes and granny ripple and all other granny themed items but I just can't get into the granny square. I know the granny square is pretty much universally loved so I hope you all will still be my friends after that little confession.

Lately I've been working on a little lap blanket using the Catherine Wheel Stitch. I love how it looks and if you want to try it too, there is a ridiculously long but seriously awesome tutorial on youtube. I mean, it's almost an hour long but anytime I had trouble following the pattern, I could fast forward right to the spot I needed, get a little help, and move on. Amazing! That is one thing I absolutely love about the crochet community, everyone is so helpful and just wants to share their love for crochet.

For anyone visiting from Ginny's Yarn Along, I forgot to say that I'm just about to start reading Game of Thrones and I'm excited to start!

What have you been crafting lately?

It's Friday, Here's the Crap we did Yesterday.

It's Friday and I'm exhausted and sleeping in, unless my dad feels the urge to cut tile right outside our bedroom window at an ungodly hour again. I'm okay with that though because the bathroom is almost finished!

In other news, Jake and I went on a little trip yesterday and were really productive.

First we stopped and picked up our tile for the counter tops. I was worried about the color since we chose it out of a catalog and didn't get to actually look at it but I really love it so that's a relief.

Next, we bought our fridge. I didn't want to buy at Lowe's because I'm still mad at them but they deliver to our town (about 1.5 hrs from the store) and Home Depot doesn't and you can be sure my skinny arms won't be carrying a fridge up 3 flights of stairs. Plus, they had the one that we wanted. So we got that ordered and it should be here in 2-3 weeks.

Finally, we went and got a Costco membership and picked up a ridiculous amount of toilet paper and other essential items, including Game of Thrones, which I've been wanting to read.

We don't really have any big plans for the weekend. We'll probably just lounge and work on the apartment. It'll be nice to finally be able to relax for the first time since moving.

Do you have anything fun planned?

Ender's Game.

{via}

Ender's Game is one of those books that I've heard people say is amazing for just about as long as I can remember but I never picked it up until now. The main reason I never tried it out is because for a long time I had some type of prejudice toward science fiction. I had tried a couple of sci-fi novels and found that they really irritated me. I have come to realize that it wasn't the sci-fi that I found irritating but the overuse of detail in those particular novels. Some people love knowing every single detail, I don't. I don't need 700 meaningless characters with similar weird names I'll never remember. The only problem was that the author would make it so I needed to remember which character was which in order to know what was going on. So frustrating.

Synopsis, straight from the back of the book:

"Intense is the word for Ender's Game. Aliens have attacked the Earth twice and almost destroyed the human species. To make sure humans win the next encounter, the world government has taken to breeding military geniuses--and then training them in the arts of war... The early training, not surprisingly, takes the form of 'games.'...Ender Wiggin is a genius among geniuses; he wins all the games... He is smart enough to know that time is running out. But is he smart enough to save the planet?" -The New York Times

I'm just going to say it right out, I loved this book. I stayed up later than I should have to read it all in one sitting. Ender is a very young boy who was bred by the government when his siblings showed promise but didn't have the right personality characteristics to be the one to save Earth. At a very young age he is taken from his family and put into a school for geniuses where they play games in a zero gravity room, trying to outwit their opponents. The world created by the author is fascinating and I'm sad that I can't play the game in real life. It sounds really fun. I think one of my favorite things about the book is how everyone is manipulating each other. The government is manipulating Ender and Ender knows it. Ender's siblings are manipulating the masses and world leaders. I will tell you right now, the part that should be the climax ends up being a little anti-climactic but I sort of liked it that way and I especially loved the last couple of chapters. I can't wait to read some of the other Ender books.

Holy crap, they're coming out with a movie with an awesome cast. Hopefully it turns out well, it should be interesting to see how they translate this into a motion picture. 

My Pets Say Hello.

I'm Riff. 

And I'm Chai.

And we're... The Super Lazy Sleepy Pet Brigade.

Custom Orders Are FUN!

One of my sister's friends saw something online that she really wanted but she doesn't know how to crochet so my sister got ahold of me and I did the crochet part so that she could have her lovely wrap. I'm sure she'll come up with some really cool and pretty ways to wear this. I only played with it for a quick second before shipping it off. It's really soft and I was starting to really like it so perhaps I'll have to make one for myself.

The only buttons I could find were hideous plastic things so Jake found these in the woodworking section of Michaels. I stained and sealed them and then Jake drilled holes in them for me. Voila, buttons!

I wrapped it up and off it went! Good-bye little wrap, I'm sure you'll love your new home.

Pattern for wrap can be found here.

Thrifting/Antiquing.

We stopped at an "antique mall" in Newport, Oregon and ended up spending at least a few hours there. That place was gigantic and had two levels. Not everything in there was antique, or even old but we sure had a lot of fun digging through the vendor booths. The way it was set up was like little tiny cubicles of different vendor's items. Each tiny section varied greatly from the ones next to it. I'll have you know that doily love is alive and well in Oregon. I've never seen so many doilies in my life. I will say that I generally like thrifting better than going to places that know the value of what they have because with thrift stores I always feel like I'm getting an awesome deal, antique stores, not so much.

I bought this Needlecraft magazine from 1931 because I liked the image on the cover and we have a lot of wall space to hang things in the new apartment. I liked it even more when I opened it and found patterns for crochet and aprons and all kinds of cute things.

Don't they look so chic? I like the two on the far right the best.

I bought this red floral scarf to wear in my hair and I couldn't pass up this super inexpensive little piece of embroidery.

I got this little pitcher for maple syrup. At least, that's what I'm telling myself. When I go thrifting I try to make sure I don't buy a bunch of stuff I don't need just because it's cute. That's how you end up on Hoarders.

Then I immediately broke my own rule and bought this pyrex baking dish, even though I have a ton of this type of dish. I call them brownie dishes, my mom calls them casserole dishes, potato, potato. Ha, that doesn't come across at all when you type it out. Potahto?

Woo hoo!! I love old canning books. They have so many great recipes in them. I just always make sure that they're still safe and viable recipes. Nobody wants botulism.

This little treasure is for my niece. Little Golden Books have the cutest illustrations (see below).

Have you found any great treasures recently?

Week In Review.

A picture from my trip to Italy in 2006. I think I'm due for another vacation. 

- Last night I went out for my friend's 30th birthday. Jake stayed home and played video games. I think he was the smart one because I haven't been able to sleep at all due to the instant hangover I got. I've only drank a couple of times in the last two years so my body did not appreciate it at all. Also, I have the hiccoughs/hiccups. I never know how I should spell that word. Anyway, I had them for over an hour, I got a few hours respite, and now they're back.

- We now have some very pretty lights in our bathroom and my dad started tiling the shower. YAY!

- Burger King's breakfast burritos are disgusting. I advise you avoid them, even though they're only a dollar. I usually don't go for any fast food other than Taco Bell and I'm going to stick to that from now on. 

- Our bathroom has tan tile on the floor, counter and the shower. There are no windows. I need to decide on a paint color. I'm thinking something light since there is no natural light. Any suggestions?