Mint and Jalapeno Jelly the Quick Way

Mint grows like crazy in our back yard.

Mint jelly with lamb is OK, but how about a sweet jelly with a little more kick?  Maybe adding a jalapeno would bring up the heat and tone down the sugar.  It would be tasty with meat entrees, and a kick over a block of cream cheese. (My husband remembers pouring a jar of salsa over a block of cream cheese, but he is much older than I, so I don't recall that particular little party treat.)
   
A Google search for mint and jalapeno jelly came up quickly.  Here it is:

2 cups spearmint leaves, chopped fine, divided
2 jalapeno peppers, seeded, diced
3/4 cup white wine vinegar
2 Tbs lemon juice
3 1/2 cups sugar
4 Tbsp. freezer pectin (this is my variation on the original recipe since it called for regular pectin) 

In a small saucepan, heat 1 3/4 cups mint leaves with 1 1/2 cups water, bring to boil, shut off heat and let steep for 30 minutes. Strain mint infusion into large saucepan, squeezing out mint leaves to extract as much mint as possible (I used a coffee filter in a small colander for straining). Discard boiled leaves.

...(recipe continues for Hot Water Bath canning)

Here is what I did to make it a quick freezer jam:

Instead of boiling it all together for what would have taken forever, I just stirred it all for three minutes, added about 7 drops of green food coloring, added a few cleaned mint sprigs to each container, then ladled it into the plastic freezer containers.  Done.  -- It has not been thawed yet, so perhaps the mint leaves might wither.

This is my third recipe for making freezer jams this spring.  We have strawberry, blueberry and now mint jelly in our freezer.  The first batch with strawberries was too sweet, so I cut down the sugar when I made the blueberry jam, and also cut down the sugar on this mint/pepper jelly.  We liked them all.

And here, in all its glory, is a picture of the mint jelly slathered over a block of cream cheese.  It tasted surprisingly refreshing with just a little bite to it.

Does that picture above remind you of James Lilek's Gallery of Regrettable Foods?

Says Lileks:

Freud never had to ask what men want. Men want liquor. They want a pistachio cordial that matches their ties, matches the coffee cups, and matches the salad and the relish. AVOCADO GREEN, the rutting stags demand.

To remind them they're men, make sure to embed a batch of wriggling, erect wieners in a sea of beans.

James Lileks has so many funny stories and books.  Take a look.  He makes our childhood foods look downright...well, unappealing. His Gallery of Regrettable Foods is here.

Preemie Hats - Let's Make Some!

From a blog called Calvin's Hats, the purpose of creating tiny baby preemie hats is summarized here:

Calvin's Hats is offering to grieving parents a gift which can bring a small amount of comfort and peace... a hat tiny enough to fit right on their precious child's head and something to hold on to when their child is no longer here.

Our wish is for these hats to bring a small amount of healing."

A couple of weeks ago, Raveler Annie said this:

When Calvin's Hats first started in February of 2009, it was with the hope that we could provide some hats to families who were leaving the hospital with empty arms. We had one knitter (Sarah DuVal) and a website with a limit of 3 pages. We were sending out one or two hats per month and thrilled to be blessing those families.

About 6 months ago, something changed. I'm really not sure what it w as that spurred it on, but our goal of getting hats into hospitals was finally working. Since that point, we've sent out a large number of hats. ... but never once has my hat drawer been completely empty. I don't suppose tiny knit hats can really compare to the Bible story of Jesus feeding the 5,000 with a couple loaves of bread, but that's how it feels sometimes.

If you want more information about Calvin's Hat , Annie's blog can be found here, along with some easy preemie hat patterns.

Here is my first finished hat that took only 90 minutes to complete.  It would fit on a tangerine.

Chemo Hats and Interpreting Sickness in a Unique Way

This is the second one off the hook:

The same pattern of crocheted hat finished this week from this free Bernat pattern:

Here is another:

These hats are, of course, for my daughter Julie.  Julie had her first chemo treatment this week, along with the requisite anti-nausea drugs.  After three days post treatment, she is still not keeping anything down. Sigh.

And speaking of sickness and how we deal with it, I am borrowing this from Abigail at Abigail's Alcove:

...When I found out that my newborn needed emergency abdominal surgery, I immediately asked to have her baptized. If my baby girl had to undergo all of that suffering, I wanted it all to mean something. I wanted her incorporated into the mystical body of Christ. I wanted her hurt to save souls.

A birth defect is different from the ordinary effects of sin. My baby girl didn't get hit by a bullet or poisoned by an environmental toxin. The Creator of the World, the One who lovingly knit together my baby's body in the womb decided in His infinite wisdom to drop a purl stitch in the formation of my baby girl's intestine.

Futher reading can be found here by Abigail about her infant daughter's sickness.  It is well worth the read, and gave me pause after digesting her interpretation of why this birth defect happened to her child.  I hope you take the time to read it.