Homemade Cranberry Jam

Jef and I always try and make a little homemade gift for the holidays - we've made homemade cocoa mix, infused vodka and a 'cookie in a jar' mix. I love the idea of making something and so far they've all stayed w/in a relatively low budget (the vodka was the most expensive - still not much - and it was soooo good).

I been dying to share this year's gift with you, but had to wait until today to post so I didn't ruin the surprise for people receiving it. This year I wanted to use my new found knowledge of canning, so we decided to make cranberry jam! Canning is actually REALLY easy. In fact, this jam is... get this... 3 ingredients! The hardest part is getting yourself organized.

Here are some pictures from the process. I encourage anyone to try it. Even if you can't can it properly in a water bath, you can still make it and pop it in the fridge. It's de-licious.

Homemade Cranberry Jelly

Here's where I got distracted and stopped taking photos, but the next steps are pretty straight forward. Let the cranberries boil until it's a thick sauce (~15 minutes). Straining is optional to remove skins / seeds (I did). Pour the jam into the jars and follow the directions on Ball's website to process in a water bath.

Viola! Jam in jars:

Happy 4th of July!

Jef and I went down to Auditorium Shores to watch the fireworks for the first time since living in Austin. We probably would have stayed home again this year, but my neice, Kayla, is in town for 2 weeks for a summer film program (more on that later).

The fireworks were awesome, and the Austin Symphony Orchestra performed for an hour or so beforehand and they sounded amazing (even from across the lake). And it honestly wasn't that much of a hassle getting downtown (or home afterwards), I'm not sure why we've been avoiding it for so long!