Apricot-Pineapple Jam

This morning Jeff and I went off to storage and retrieved some of our canning supplies. We were still missing some of the tools, but we had enough to actually do some canning today. I made three batches of Apricot-Pineapple Jam.

I almost never follow recipes for making jam. I tend to reduce the sugar well below what the recipe calls for. I also never use pectin anymore, I don't feel the need. Most of the time the jam sets up without it and when it doesn't, I don't particularly care if my jam is a little runny since we tend to use it mostly on pancakes and waffles anyway. I also cook the jam for a long time to cook off the liquid so it is usually pretty thick.

The recipe I used for inspiration today was Easy Apricot Jam (No Pectin). I liked the suggestion about mixing in pineapple so I gave it a try. I can't really give an exact recipe of what I did, because I didn't actually measure the fruit. I just blended two food processor bowlfuls (it was probably about 8 cups) of apricots, a 20 oz. can of chopped pineapple (also run through the food processor) plus 3½ cups of sugar. I also stopped adding the lemon after the first batch, because I used the pineapple juice in place of it.

I also added the step of processing the jars in a hot water bath. We learned how to can fruit out of cookbooks, and they always say to process in a hot water bath so we just always do. Better safe than sorry.

The jam turned out a beautiful shade of apricot and it tastes delicious. It has just a bit of kick from the tart pineapple. (I actually had intended to make the third batch without the pineapple, but by then I had gotten so used to using the pineapple that I threw in the can without thinking about it. Oh well.)

We also tried, for the first time, reusable canning jar lids, available from Lehmans. We bought these a couple of years ago, but never got a chance to try them last year because we had no kitchen. The jars looked like they sealed, but these plastic lids didn't produce that reassuring pop that the metal lids do. But it will be nice to be able to reuse these from year to year. We'll report back if they don't work.