homemade ~ laundry soap and jam

I've been wanting to make my own laundry soap for quite some time and now, having done it and seen how quick and easy it is, I'm not sure why it took me so long.  There are lots of recipes out there, for both powder and liquid, but I kept it simple.  I followed a recipe shared in the tutorials page of Amanda Blake Soule's blog, Soulemama.  

It goes a little something like this:

2 cups finely grated castile soap (1 bar of Bronner's did the trick for me)

1 cup borax

1 cup washing soda

1 cup baking soda

*essential oil, if desired (I did, so I added in 12 drops of lavender oil which, it turns out, wasn't really enough to pass the scent onto the clothes, just the soap)

-mix it all together in a big bowl and store in a jar with a tight fitting lid

-this recipe makes 5 cups or 40 regular-sized loads using 1/8 cup per load (which is the same as 2 TB if, like me, you lack a 1/8 measuring cup)  If, like me, you also have a very no-frills washer with only "small" and "extra large" load settings (which I find quite odd), use 1/4 cup (4 TB) for an extra large load.

And now~ jam.  With all of those blueberries sitting around after our little picking adventure last week, we simply had to make jam.  And really, blueberry jam happens to be my favorite.  It had been a long time, maybe 3 or 4 years, since I canned anything.  These last few years I have mostly made small batches of apple sauce and apple butters and have frozen a little tomato sauce, but I think now I may be hooked.  My plan is to pick A LOT of blueberries over the next few weeks and get together plenty of jam for us and some to give away around the holidays. And then after another month or so, it will be time for apple butter and salsa.  Mmmmmmmm.  (So, there it is.  Don't be surprised if you get blueberry jam for Christmas this year, friends.)

I didn't have a go-to recipe for jam, and wasn't digging the ones I found that called for more sugar than fruit (seriously?!), so I opted to use a no/low sugar pectin made by Ball and simply followed the directions on the package.  (I figured they probably knew what they were talking about, being in the business and all.)  Here's what I ended up using:

6 cups blueberries (to yield 4 cups of prepared/mashed fruit)
1 cup organic unsweetened apple juice
1 package Ball no-sugar-needed pectin
1 3/4 cups sugar (optional, though I found the jam to be a bit too tart before adding it)

*I brought all of the ingredients to a boil and held it there for the specified time before filling the sterilized jars with it and processing them in a boiling-water canner.  This made 5 1/2 8oz. jars, they sealed nicely and that 1/2 jar was eaten up in no time.

This made a yummy and not overly sweet jam, still with a little bit of blueberry 'tartness' but sweet enough to please Mike, who has a pretty strong (raging?) sweet tooth.  Claire loves it mixed in with her oatmeal and cottage cheese.

Mmmmmmmm.  That is my idea of delicious.  Toasted sourdough with butter and fresh blueberry jam, along with a cup of good strong coffee.

Oh I can't wait to go picking again~

And a big thanks again to my lovely neighbor, Grace, who came and hung out with Claire after she decided to wake up from her nap just as I was getting things boiling and couldn't really give her all the attention she wanted.......  I called Grace thinking I could get an "emergency popsicle" from her to keep Claire happy as I finished making the jam and instead she came over and played with her.  In the end, I was able to get the jam made and the laundry soap made all in one day~ go team!