I think success is in the making everyday, every second, every moment you breath, working hard towards reaching your goals. My ultimate goal is to be able to make jam/marmalade everyday and accompany the fruits of my labor with artisanal delightfulness thus sharing with others the delicious food combinations created from my heart!

Why do I love this journey so much?

Because it has brought me to this point of self gratification that is only comparable to the one time I have ever experienced this kind of fulfillment in life. It was 10 years ago when I met my husband, and I just knew that falling in love with him would change my life and open doors in life for me that if God had not brought us together I would never experience. This journey for me is very unexpected, and due in part to my son. His whole life changed my way of thinking, my way of living, my way of loving, and my approach to the future is forever better. I want to do something that makes me feel as if I am creating from my heart. I am doing that when I create in the kitchen.  Meeting my husband and marrying him was the “CAKE” in life, and the rest is all “ICING” on the cake.

Why fruit?

Its what works for me. If I could encourage anyone to do what they want to do to find fulfillment in life its to do something, anything, that makes you happy. For me its a combination of things. Yes I work 40 hours a week. I am like everyone who has a mortgage, children, and needs to care for the life being lived. Until I can fully envelope my everyday hours work soley around my ideal business, I have to work. Like most. I love working with fruit, so as this journey takes me where it does I plan to keep on building my interest around fruit.

How did I make this work for me?

to be honest I did not really plan to just make jam, I knew when I thought to create Twisted Jam Fruit Co, that this was going to evolve slowly into something bigger, I am 2 years away from really reaching my ultimate dream with this ideal that I have created. I have heard it said that when you d what you love its not work, and this is not work for me, I dream about jam and marmalade combinations. I literally am so excited when I can make something in my kitchen. Its amazing. I welcome the time when I get to do this every single day and share it with others, not just when I can afford to make a batch of jam.

What makes it TWISTED?

The combination of alcohol and fruit. Alcohol only helps create this overwhelming burst of flavor. It desolves in the fruit, and the fruit when cooked after soaking and bathing in the alcohol continues to become even more flavorful, its amazing how it does that, because you would not think it would till you try it. I love for example making strawberry jam, with bourbon in particular. Its literally the perfect marriage of fruit and alcohol. It works so well to pair fruit and alcohol together because its more natural that way, I don’t need to even use more than 2 cups of sugar in 8lbs of fruit when I cook with alcohol, because the alcohol cooks it the same way sugar does. Thus helping reach my goals of natural, organic, wholesome, good quality, full body of taste full of the true flavor of the fruit. People ask all the time, so do you taste the alcohol? and yes you do, but its not as if you are drinking a fruit cocktail, or as if you are drowing a berry then eating it, its the full taste of the berry, then the back taste in your mouth the last taste you taste is the flavor of the alcohol. Yes many cook their jams in alcohol,but many also cook the fruit in tons of sugar and that can make it like jello or too sugary and take completely away from the fruit.

Find me on facebook, and if you like me follow my blog, it helps me to know I have an audience so thank you very much, and keep on reading. JAM ON EVERYONE!!

White-Pinot Grigio

Strawberry- All natural Driscoll Strawberries

Rhubarb-at the peak of its freshness, primal in red coloring.

Jam-So Delicious I can barely stand it!

I am jamming again, in my kitchen, and blogging about it is my joy!

Strawberries, wine, Rhubarb, all a superb choice for making my newest addition to my jam family. Strawberries are amazing, they smell so good when they are cooked, slowly, with quality ingredients, how can one go wrong!

Today has not been an easy day, just been one of those days, and honestly I like others have been having one too many of “those” days. So how do I help myself? I get creative, doing what I embrace to be a quick fix to my mood, almost like a drug, yes, it definitely is an amazing feeling. I feel uplifted. I feel eager. I feel ready to keep going about my day and encouraged to feel positive.  Lots of changes in life keep happening, I am ready to swing and roll along with them, but am never prepared for them sneaking up on me and just bursting into my life. Kind of annoying at times when you least expect it, then BOOM- surprise here I am another challenge presents itself and I just go with it. Thank goodness Jamming calms me down and helps me relax and obsorb.

This weekend has actually been really good, my kids and I have had so much fun, doing how we do our weekends, and all together to end the weekend on a positive note is great, my kids make my world go round, my husband keeps me above water and grounded to what is important and true, and making jam keeps me sane! My hobby is my passion and it is not cheap. But it is amazing and well worth the effort and money spent.

Recently I borrowed a few books from the library, and I have to say I was happily surprised to find their selection of books on preserving and Jam making, food preservation were all very interesting. I myself enjoy a book that tells a good story, that is a far stretch from just recipe’s and measurements. I took a liking to one particular book, http://www.amazon.com/The-River-Cottage-Preserves-Handbook/dp/158008172X. This book tells an excellent story of Fruit and why cooking fruit to Jam perfection is such a lovely choice!

Keep Jamming everyone

Triple citrus rum marmalade is always a good and fun preserve to make, and honestly the opportunity is always there when spring arrives.  Not only are there terrific sales on citrus, but there is ample options. I call this marmalade triple citrus rum, because it is necessary for me as the creator to be open to the fact that in the area I live in I cannot depend on just assuming that the citrus I used the first time I made this would be available and within my price range. So I designed it so that this recipe was versatile enough to do whatever citrus I can find, and when you put rum + sugar + citrus= endless boundaries of flavor bursting in your mouth and tempting your palate for more!!

This time I went to Trader Joes, found awesome sweet lemons, tangerines, and huge delicious red grapefruit, all ready to be bathed in rum, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and lovely ginger!! can you tell I am so excited about my jams and marmalades.

day one to whatever day I can tell that the fruit and liquor have married enough then I add the sugar or agave (which ever I feel like for the time I am making it), then come the day before I make the marmmy marm marm, lol, jk. the day before then I take my stock pot full of my liquored up citrus and set it out in my kitchen, covered and then add a boquet of spices to it, then let it sit out at room temperature for 24 hours before cooking it on my stove.

The day of cooking, I add about 8 1/2 cups of water, bring it to a boil, for about 1 1/2 hours on high heat. then I slow cook on medium heat for about 8 hours. Long process yes, but till the fruit and escentially the the liquid and sugar condense to what we know as edible preserve you cannot rush the process becasue then you won’t be making marmalade, you would make whatever preserve turned up, and without cooking it slowly and long amount of hours it would not turn into anything but soup.

This particular marmalade is awesome for a dinner such as the following:

rice -brown or white

veggies-my particular favorite to compliment the marm is honestly carrots, mushrooms, snap peas.

I love this with chicken, slather the marm all over  the chicken before marinating it and baking it.

you can use ham, and I have done it on fish, and it is good. I would not recommend cod to marinade with this particular marmalade. 

Aside from  marinading meat, I also love to pair this marmalade with a spinach salad and tuna, or even take some tuna, celery,peas, walnuts, or a nut of your choice and mix well, you can dip with crackers, or you can also load a celery stick, fill a tortilla wrap.

Because the marmalade is made with Ginger it is very versatile for cooking, baking, layered in between two layers of cake, or angel food, in the middle of a shortbread sandwich, baked into your favorite bundt cake, or if you want you can even add it along with any puff pastry, on top of cheesecake, pair it with peppers, or adding it into your protein shake. I love it with my protein powder+rice milk+add a little OJ=BLEND WELL!

Months ago I kept seeing really great sales on Grapes. I had always wanted to attmept making a unique grape jam since the beginning when my interest sprouted to JAM away in the kitchen, which always brings happiness to my heart and endless joy that I can’t explain!

I took the following amount of grapes and macerated them, then put them in a soothing hot sugar bath! lol

really I love making jam, but I also have a bit of fun writing my blog!

Grapes-4lbs

water-3 1/2 cups

cranberry concentrate-1 cup

lemon-zest 1tbsp

sugar-2 cups

cinnamon-1tsp

nutmeg-1tsp

boil high heat for 45 min, then slow cook up to 4 hours.

I used my hand held blender, and then cooked the jam down a little longer. Me personally I like my grape jam to spread thinly on whatever I want, so I made this a little thinner. So that was how I cooked it! I do love it!

Reaching goals and enjoying life! Wait a minute, it should be ENJOYING LIFE and reaching goals

Happily I do both already, but 2011 brought along a lot of difficult things to deal with that yes can be apart of life, but man I am happy to not look back and think about them ever again. Problem is knowing myself how I rock and know me so well I know that I may not look back, but will remember whatever it was apart of my 2011 that brought me through to 2012. I think that is important, appreciating where you come from and realizing it has an impact on where you are going in the future. I recognize, but do not want to dwell on it, I think choosing to move forward is an awesome achievement!

One of my goals to reach in order to reach my goal to enjoy life and reach goals is to keep spinning on my spinning cycle, its amazing the amount of strength I gain from it and health is lifestyle, its everyday-not a goal its just what we do everyday in my world.  I also gain other things as well from spinning and choosing to exercise 1-confidence 2-happiness(endorphins) 3-well rounded good feelings about approaching my everyday life which allows me to be a better wife in many ways, and allows me to be a really great Mommy! It also keeps me sane, and keeps me doing something for myself.

2nd goal is to take time to be PATIENT and allow myself to surrender to PATIENCE.

Life is so busy and patience is something I run short on, and it seems to be happening in a repetitive nature seemingly when I am short on coffee, sleep, exercise, and letting my overwhelming creative nature be alive. I am now 32 and learning to embrace the things about me that are good and that make me shine, being creative is something I am darn good at and I am learning to embrace this about myself and to not stop it, to just keep, going and going till I just can’t go anymore, but the truth is I have so much in me to share of my creative abilities that I need to let it out and let it shine. One reason of many why I chose to make jams and marmalades that are unique and distinctive to TWISTED JAM is the growth process for me mentally and physically.  In this process of beginning to learn about Fruit over the past few years  I have learned to trust my own judgement, instincts, and enjoy the growing process in all aspects of my life. I feel as if I am really coming into my own which I know I have mentioned before here on my blog, the person I am to be as an adult, and some say its finding your nitch in the world, well finding my nitch is allowing my creative abilities to flow naturally and choosing to love everything about it! I choose love in so many ways, loving myself and what I am good at. Funny tho. When I was younger I played with babies all the time, dolls. I played and pretended, but never once did I do anything with any dreams other than really pray to God that he would make me a mother one day, and he would help me find myself, but more than anything I wanted the entire recipe and ingredients to feel right, none of that would be possible without my husband, he is the base of all my recipes.  Every recipe needs a good base!  God heard my prayers and  blessed me with Bob, the most wonderful husband/best friend I could have ever asked for and with Bob came 2 blessings and gifts from God, my children Robert and Laney, and with them came the reason I dreamed bigger and wanted better and understood what it was to want more, I tapped into my creative nature and the brewing curiosity  developed Twisted Jam. Because of Twisted Jam I have tapped into my creativity blood line and am  exploring what else I am good at, and thus finding happiness deeper within me feeling more complete and whole.

2011 brought to my family, more specifically what a stroke can do to someone and how it can really rock your world, which doesn’t even describe how it must have felt for Michelle to have this change in her world and her childrens lives.  My sister Michelle and my family have been coping with  this since September 29th of 2011, my beautiful sister Michelle having her stroke has forever changed the outlook on life we all have, but if all those things in my life played out the way they did leading me to where I am now, then why can’t I understand why Michelles life has been given such a life altering shock of having a stroke?

I am waiting to find the real answer, not going to be easy, but as everything in life has happened as such then the answer comes much later, and sometimes there is no answer. However I am choosing to believe that we have to trust God on this one, and that sometimes things happen to everyone, and all we can do as the non-victim of the situation is to be supportive and loving and be there for the person at hand. The one amazing gift we all have is to pray, pray for healing, strength, and time. Pray for everyone involved, and pray not so much for answers, but that our trust in God leads us further, and for my sister I pray for all that and for my brothers and sisters and our Mom and Michelles Dad. I pray that Michelle finds it within her to keep healing and keep moving forward in her life, so far I have not seen anything but that, but I keep praying for it. Her particular path has an unknown course right now, the only thing I know is that every milestone for her from here on out is going to be amazing, she has surpassed anything I would be strong enough to handle, she amazes me, and my family is amazing.

For me personally and as far as I can see for others I think 2011 was difficult, lots of hard things in life to handle and a lot of people I know lost loved ones, so it seems that 2012 is really about healing. Healing from loss, healing from pain, healing from lifes changes, healing from accepting that we can not control everything, however healing from the aftermath of a tradegy takes time, I think 2012 is the year for it all, a healing year.

Its hard at times to see this, but I am going to keep moving forward, keep BELIEVING that there is better, there is room for growth and improvement, and time for MORE. What the MORE  is in our lives is unforseen, but the adventure in finding out is going to be worth the wait, worth the time and effort, worth reaping the benefits, and worth whatever happens in the process. 2011 had many wonderful good things that happened to, but the things that deeply affected our lives seemed to be hard to deal with and honestly as much as I recognize the good it is hard to ignore the overwhelming amount of trials and tribulations that were experienced in 2011, having said that my post today is about moving forward and recognizing the opportunity to learn from the past so we gain more out of our future, lesson not easily learned but most definelty approachable and worth achieving!

Okay, off my podium, 2012 is going to be about more than goals people, its going to be about FRUIT of course and new journeys!

2012 is another year for me personally that I plan to work really hard on building my business, Twisted Jam will have a few new births, speaking in fruit though, no plans on extending my family as of this year.

I am hoping to create a few new jams and keep recreating the perfected jams and marmalades.

Tonights recipe for dinner is

spaghetti with sausage and what I am going to put to good use is TOMATO JAM!

What I do is take 1 lb of pasta, any kind and boil it perfectly-aldente’

then to the sauce I am going to add tomato jam, and 1 whole softened onion, 3 garlic cloves minced, slow cook to a medium boil, add 1 cup of your favorite red wine, and as the sauce thickens add one bay leaf, 1/2 tsp of nutmeg and 1 tblspn of butter. Add in the sausage and mix accordingly! I will post a picture later when dinner is done -till then, hope you have enjoyed my post and wish you all a happy 2012!!!

Amazing how the holiday season brings out the giving spirit in you. I always have these ideas of what I think people will want and will like, and well truth be told I personally struggle with buying for my secret santa person just whatever is on their list or just whatever because to me the whole point of being a good giving person when choosing to give someone a physical gift means putting thought into it and gifting them with something they really would love!  This item(s) could be something on their list, I just feel like if I am giving someone something I really want it to be something they want, not just whatever. So I did just that and was honestly truthfully excited to give the gifts we chose this year to the people receiving them.  I honestly wish I were better about receiving gifts, I tend to be shy, uncomfortable and well feel as if I don’t deserve it. Honestly its really silly, I don’t know why I can’t just open the gift w/o feeling awkward, and then accept the gift w/o feeling as if I don’t deserve it at all-yep I am crazy! lol, not really just better and more confident at giving than receiving. Not a negative attribute to have if you ask me.

I really wanted to give those who I thought would enjoy it- the gift of good old strawberry jam, a personal favorite to make because you just can’t go wrong with Strawberry Jam!

My husband Bob has been happily mixing strawberry jam with Italian dressing and adding onto salads recently and as a dip for veggies, which has been great because the kids absolutely love it!

If you know me then you know in our house we don’t eat as others have the freedom to eat, but we are healthier for it. What I love about how we eat for example our kids actually eat salads as snacks, veggies and fruit are the favorite go to in our home, and we make our own fruit snacks the majority of the time. Any jam or marmalade I make is delicious mixed in with Ranch, Italian, French, Dorothy Lynch Dressing. If you don’t catch what I am saying, well the jams accompany any dressing and helps to accent the food perfectly! Can’t go wrong with that my fellow jammers/foodies!

Today however was a busy kitchen loving day! One of my favorites. Today I made a soup with my homemade vegetable stock, which is a bonus stock because stock is great made with rice, soups, saute’ lightly veggies,  slow cooking, braising, brining, and the bonus is it doesn’t have all those hormones and additives and preservatives, which makes it homemade stock. We definitely put it to use in all our meals. So back to what was made today in the heart of the home. Soup. A delicious meal with Pork and Veggies.

PORK AND VEGGIES

1 Cup of peas

1 cup of carrots

1 Vidalia onion quartered and layered

2 cups of chicken stock (homemade or store bought-when I buy it I purchase free range and low sodium)

1 bushel of broccoli

place in baking pan. season with the following or to your liking:

nutmeg

sea salt

fresh cracked peppercorn

add in 6 whole garlic cloves

2 thin sliced to bite size YUKON GOLD potatoes

1 tsp of olive oil or safflower oil

either really is fine, whatever you have on hand.

place in the oven at 400 degrees for 1 hour or until all veggies are softened.

Pork:

in a fry pan

add 1 tbsp of safflower oil, 1 tsp sea salt and pepper and 1 tbsp of butter

season cubed pork chops with cumin and nutmeg and place in fry pan cooking each side till light golden specs of brown surface then flip to cook on the other side, when done add to the softened veggies and enjoy!

The soup I made was just a simple soup, added in homemade vegetable stock and peas, onion, carrot,and sausage, personally I like to have soup chunky at times so I made this soup chunky!

Its delicious and now we have our lunches made for the week! Easy and simple crock pot soup, just throw it in and season it up and walk away

About 2 weeks ago I made low sugar jam, the plan was to make sugar-free jam, but I made a mistake with some frozen lemon wedges and needed to add in 1 cup of sugar to 8 jars of jam, not much sugar in them, but it evened out the lemon bitterness that was created and then the jam was in my opinion perfect.

LOW SUGAR JAM

CRANBERRY STRAWBERRY BLUEBERRY

2/3 OF 1 PKT OF ALL NATURAL SUGAR FREE PECTIN

SLOW COOK AND LET THE LOW SUGAR JAM COME TO LIFE!

Before I leave you today I must tell you what I was doing in between all the kitchen love that was going on, I was reading endlessly the two gifts I was given by my Big Brother Bill, he had me for secret santa in our family and I literally cried when I saw the books he gave me because yes I am a cheese ball and I really wanted them so bad, but mostly cause his support towards my obsession with being a foodie and being creative in the kitchen meant more to me than anything!

  I love these two books, and am constantly inspired because of all the FEMALE power behind them! I would love to share them with you, but not gonna happen, hope you get your own, you may have to pry them out of my hands if you want to borrow them,lol.

If anyone wants my vegetable stock recipe then please give me a shout and I will post it as soon as I  can, otherwise I plan to post it soon. Time to get the kids ready for bed and into to bed, its been a busy 4 days, but so fun and full of family and love!

Jam on everyone

all it takes is sugar, berry mixture, lemon, water, and a couple canning jars!

         I am hoping soon to pair this with some peaches, ice, and vodka- do a little blending and call it amazing! Its been a very productive day!! Happy creating everyone.