Last year while shopping I came across a fancy glass jelly thermometer. It had pretty bold colors with easy to read numbers (I’m getting old!), and it was chunky! Super cute! Now nothing is wrong with my old metal Taylor thermometer, it just didn’t look as cute as this new one. So I convinced the Mister that I must have it, and home we went. Now fast forward to last week….
We had an over abundance of tiny green plums this year. They resemble a green gage, but were much smaller. The kids and dog have eaten a ton of them and I have been searching for a way to put the up for storage. While at the library I found a book on preserves with an interesting recipe of Green Gage plums and Almond jam. So after washing 3 pounds of plums I began cooking them. I then had to put them through a food mill so I could remove the pits, and you can imagine the number of pits that are in 3 pounds of 1-inch fruit. I added my sugar and almonds and got the temp up just right. It tasted wonderful, sweet with a crunch! I had the water bath and jars all ready to go. I pulled out my new fancy glass jelly thermometer and what do I see? The damn thing had busted at the base and I now had no idea how much glass was floating around in my amazing jam. I’ve used this thermometer several times with no problems. But it just goes to show you that the good old metal jelly thermometer that I’ve have for 10 years should have never been replaced by this fancy piece of crap.
