Plum Ginger Jam

I have a confession to make. I have been a horrible student so I've been having a terrible time with graduate school. I'm not dumb. It's not that I don't understand the subject matter. It's just that for the first time since 5th grade I'm actually doing homework. You hear that mom? I'm doing my homework. Actually my mom knows I'm doing my homework because I keep calling her up because I don't really have too good of a memory of what happened when I was in school. I probably would remember better if I participated in class, went to class, or did the homework.

But what can I say? I was bored. I found the majority of subjects uninteresting, or only interesting enough to hold my attention for the 45 minute class period. In searching for my SAT scores this week (yeah I have NO idea where we put those 20 years ago), I came across a giant stack of progress reports. They all said the same thing. I'm a gem. I'm really good at class discussions. I really need to remember to bring my books to class and get there on time. Oh and it would be great if I wasn't so sloppy and unorganized. And by the way, effort has disappeared and if I don't turn in the 17 missing assignments I'm going to fail the class.

oops.

You would think I would learn to do homework in college when I got to study subjects that were more interesting. Well, I would think that to. But nope. See in college although the material got more interesting, life outside school got way more interesting too. So yeah, I didn't really get any better at doing my homework. I think the statistics professors figured it was a statistical improbability that I could pass the class without doing the homework (we didn't have to turn it in). But I had this great friend Robin, and right before every exam I'd spend the night at her house drinking beer and eating pizza and she would help me learn the important stuff and we'd study together. So yeah, I graduated with my statistics degree after a lot of beer and pizza. And very little actual homework.

Finally, at the tender young age of 36, I'm doing homework. I'm not very good at it. And I agonize over every paper. Agonize. Seriously. But I'm doing that homework. My classes are really interesting and I'm learning a ton, but this homework thing is brutal.

So what does this have to do with food blogging? Well, I am going to be letting Legume Wednesdays slide a little bit. I do still cook with a lot of legumes and you will see many recipes here still that include beans. But lately I've been using the crock pot a lot and although it provides tasty food that's ready for the Brain when he comes home from work and still warm when I get home, the legume recipes for the slow cooker don't look that appetizing and frankly when I get home at 10:00pm, I'm too tired to remember to photograph dinner before eating it and I don't have any good light to work with either.

Molly at Batter Splattered is hosting the Jammin' Jelly Exchange, and in the spirit of going back to school and the delicious peanut butter and jelly sandwich that used to be a school lunchroom staple (although now because of the increase in peanut allergies it is frequently banned from schools), I have made jam. Yummy Plum Ginger Jam. My mom used to make batches upon batches of jams when I was a kid. our fruit cellar was lined with jars of jam. And we'd eat them all up. 6 kids eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches kills a jar of jam pretty quick. In fact I'd never had store bought jam before moving away to college. Store bought isn't the same. And homemade is so easy. And fairly cheap too!

So there's no recipe. Buy a box of Sure-Jell and tear it open in the store. Don't worry, everyone does it. There's a piece of paper inside that will tell you exactly how much fruit and how much sugar you need to use. I believe this jam called for 4 pounds of plums (bought on sale for $0.88 a pound) and 8 cups of sugar. The cool thing I did, is once I followed the regular recipe for jam on the piece of paper inside the box of Sure-Jell, I stirred in 1 cup of chopped up crystallized ginger. Then into the sterilized jars and processed for 10 minutes in a boiling water bath. I got 10 jars and a bowl left over. There is nothing as delicious as freshly made jam. On good bread. Unless it's that peanut butter and jelly sandwich that I'll be munching on tomorrow while I'm working on my homework. It's like being in 5th grade all over again.