Thrills and spills in the kitchen

I made a wonderful lunch as planned, farm tomato, farm mozzarella, homegrown basil, sea salt, Tunisian olive oil I'm trying and liking. Chardonnay vinegar I made from leftover wine. And cherries and apricot dessert. Doesn't get much better.

Then I embarked on no-cook apricot jam, using the pectin that's supposed to work. Followed all the directions and ended up with something awful. The sugar had failed to dissolve, and the whole thing didn't work.

 Sooooo I tipped the two jarsworth into a pan and boiled the jam, until I got the metal spoon test working, to show the sugar had melted and the pectin had worked. You know this test? 

When a  big metal spoon, dipped in then held up to drain results in the jam coming off in more than one stream at once, you're done. Sterilized the jars again, just in case, and found that the jam now only filled one. 

 So this is rescue apricot jam! We'll see how it works after a night in the fridge.