[upbeat folk music]
- In unison: Hey, little lady!
- I'm so happy to have my cousin Cece
here with me in the kitchen.
She's kind of the canning queen, and every day is more fun
when you have your cousins with you, I think.
- That's right, it is.
- Inga: So, today we're gonna be making a red currant jam.
- Cece Campise: We'll make this jam, and I will
teach you as much as I know.
It's gonna be a pretty fun and easy way to start.
- Great, and it's a great way to preserve summer.
Again, I think when you're eating your homemade jams
in the middle of wintertime when, you know,
we're in the Midwest, it never stops snowing,
to get that little bit of summer.
So, what we already did is we de-stemmed all of the currants,
and that was really easy,
just taking them right off the stem,
washed 'em, and we got our sugar ready.
We measured everything out twice before we started.
That's one thing that I have a problem with
is measuring anything out.
- It's always good to start with everything
pre-measured ahead of time so you're not,
when something's almost ready, you're not trying
to scramble around and find something else.
So, we've got our pectin, our currants, our sugar,
and I always like to add a little bit of butter
more towards the end, 'cause it reduces all the foam
when you're making jam, so it's kinda nice.
- So, first thing, I'm gonna put in the currants.
- Currants first, and then our pectin,
our powdered pectin, and we're gonna cook that down
until it gets to a full rolling boil,
so you wanna throw that in there, too.
- And I just, what does the pectin do?
- It just firms it up.
A lot of times, it's in lemon seeds or apple seeds.
- It's natural, pectin is natural?
- Yeah, it firms up your jams really nicely so they set.
You know, you could also add to this
if you wanted to, a little lemon juice if you wanted to,
or lime juice-- - Or even other fruits, too.
- Or orange peel, or you know, anything you really want to.
You could put raspberries in it for sure.
It would be delicious.
Strawberries would be great too.
Any sort of red fruit like that, you know?
- Mm-hmm.
It's something, I don't think the younger generation
is canning as much as say, my grandmother canned everything,
my mother cans everything, but I think
it's a nice way to kind of reconnect with the food,
with the season, too. - Right.
- 'Cause it's a very seasonal thing.
- For sure, there's something really special
about eating it in the wintertime,
and there's something really nice
about giving it as a gift-- - I know!
- To friends, you know.
- Yeah, 'cause you're putting your heart into it.
- Right.
- So, now this has come to a boil.
- Yeah it's a rolling boil, so now is time
that we add our sugar. - Okay.
- So, it doesn't take very long.
It's pretty quick.
- Okay.
- Lovely.
That is gonna be super tasty.
Okay, so now we got all the sugar in it,
we're just gonna cook it down quickly.
So, you just bring it up to a boil for a minute
and then cut it off, and then we're gonna test it
with our frozen plates.
- When do we put the butter in?
- We can put it on right before we,
we could put it in now, it's fine, yeah, sure.
- And the butter just helps with?
- The foaming, so sometimes when you cook jam down,
it starts to foam, and the butter doesn't make it foam,
and it makes it more of a clear jam, which I like.
- So, what we did is we put some plates in the freezer
so that they're nice and cold,
and now we're gonna test the jam.
And Cece's gonna teach me how to test it.
I never test mine; I always just pray.
- It's easy, it's really easy.
So, what we're testing for here is when we put
a dab of the jam on the plate, if it runs down,
not ready, you have to keep going.
If you put it on and it doesn't move really easily,
then we're ready to go.
- I don't know if the plate's cold anymore.
It's so hot in here.
Okay, so-- - Tip it.
Tip it over.
So, it looks like it's just about ready to go.
We just have to bring it up to a boil and then
we're ready to go, I think within probably a minute or so.
- I wanted to put a little rosemary in.
- Throw it in now.
Throw it in right now.
- I think the herbs and the fruit go so well together.
- I do, too.
- And this'll just infuse it a little bit.
Okay, so now we've got it all boiled down,
now can I start filling the jars?
- Yeah, let's jam.
- Hot jam in hot jars, right? - Mm-hmm.
- Hot jam in hot jars, and I'm leaving
a little bit of headspace.
- Yeah, just until the bottom of the green,
yeah, that's usually a good measure.
- Look at me going.
- And then once you're done, we will wipe off
the rims of those jars so we can ensure a proper seal.
Okay, why don't you, let me tip this up
so you can get the last of that jam.
- Alrighty.
- And if you didn't want to can this,
you could just put it in your fridge
for, I think, up to three months it'd stay good.
- Oh, yeah, for sure.
- But what we're gonna do now is we're gonna wipe those rims off,
we're gonna put the lids on, and then we're gonna
process these in a hot water bath for 10 minutes.
So, let's get all this done, and then, Cece,
I have a little treat for you.
We're having a little farm spa day.
- Oh, how nice!
- We'll see you guys up there.
[upbeat folk music]