chunky fig jam!

ok, it's official, i like making food. who would have ever guessed that would happen? not me. or db. or my mom i bet.

so db and my friend bart has some monstrous fig trees in his backyard and he invited us over to help pick them. there were so many it was insane! we came close to filling a gallon bucket off of two trees. we had serious fig feast over the weekend and monday i christened my new food in jars cookbook, which was an early christmas gift from my mom (she loves gifting books), by making this chunky fig jam.

it was really fun and pretty easy. i can't say really easy because i did stand in the kitchen staring at a pot of boiling figs for long enough to go to the freezer and take a "i'm getting too antsy for this shit!" shot of rumple minze. i guess that's par for the course though, and if i'd have planned ahead i would have probably been discretely guzzling wine the whole time like a real adult. HA! but really, nothing went wrong and the excitement of hearing those six little lids pop was so cool. db even found me a little canning kit at wegman's that had a jar lifter, wide mouthed funnel and some other neat things that kept me from making a boiling water/stickiest jam ever mess. hell yeah. also, label making? so fun. i love using those avery sheets of sticker paper for fun stuff like this. i used it to make custom stickers for the kids at school last year and to make heart stickers for our wedding favors, which just happened to be 1/4 pints of strawberry jam. totally cute, most well received favors ever. i even made a portuguese jam label for my vavó.

let me just say, this book is awesome. i read basically the whole thing just for fun before making this jam and it took a lot of the deep seated fear about canning out of me. there are so many recipes i want to try too, like the pickled green tomatoes, apple pumpkin butter, quince jelly, basic pickled jalapeño peppers, and the sour cherry jam. finally! after over a year of reading the food in jars blog i actually legit canned something! also, just as a note, i wasn't asked to review this book or anything, i just legit think it's awesome.
like my canning passport?