Apricot Jam

Yesterday I made some delicious apricot jam. My friend Lillie brought over some apricots that she picked from a neighbour's tree. She didn't have time to use them up, what with family reunions and packing to move.
They were so small and delicious! I had to quickly make them into jam before you-know-who ate them all up. He already had eaten 14 since the day before. It doesn't matter if you say that he will enjoy the end product even more...
I found a fantastic recipe online for this jam and it doesn't require pectin or boiling jars in hot water once they are filled. That's a great thing for me, since I don't really have any canning equipment. I just bought these jars at the grocery store. I didn't really have a big enough pot to cook the jam in either. As you can see, I had to use two pots at first, when the jam started boiling over!
Let me just warn you if you want to make jam too, it makes a really big, sticky mess in your kitchen. The jam was splatting all over the place when it was cooking, including my arms, clothes and feet. Ow! Its really burning hot! And the recommendation about getting a wide funnel to put the jam in the jars? Great advice. I think I'll follow it next time.
I ended up with five 500 ml jars full of delicious jam, and a little extra kept in a container in the fridge. And instead of adding the little kernel inside each jar, I added a smidgen of almond extract to the whole batch after boiling it. Almond and apricot pair really well. In the end I also had a few apricots left over so I made some muffins, but I found that recipe online and it wasn't very good. Too bad!

Well, what have you been making this summer? Anything delicious? Something beautiful? Feel free to write something in the comment section!

xo Nicole