I slept late today ;-) Last night was a "rest" - after DD and I got home from parade, she changed and the whole family went to pick up our jars and ribbons, then we met my parents at pizza place for dinner, picked up a cake and ice cream and went back to their house to celebrate my birthday 2 weeks late (we've been so busy have had no time to go to dinner - and now anniversary is coming up, I've got no idea when/how we're going to celebrate that b/c rest of the month looks busy too, with DS's awards - see my brag post - my mom visiting my sister's family for niece's b-days, and then coming back right before my dad has surgery). Anyway, I haven't made the apple-jalapeno (or any pepper jellies except Gold) for a couple years, I can't find the recipe I used, it was mostly apple juice or homemade apple pectin not vinegar so I don't remember how many jalapenos I used, how much lemon juice. There are a few tomato jam recipes on this forum if you search, I've used the Food in Jars no-pectin recipe successfully with cherry tomatoes (lots of skin and not so much juice as heirlooms, don't try it with really juicy tomatoes). The red-ribbon winner was Orange Minsk tomatoes peeled and sugared per Joy of Jams Tomato-Pineapple preserves recipe, but instead of fresh pineapple I used 1C (drained) of canned crushed pineapple, since that has already been cooked it didn't have the enzyme that hinders the set. I peeled (raw, not blanched so lost a little flesh) 3 huge Orange Minsk tomatoes for 2.25 lbs. 2C of sugar, let stand all day, lots of liquid but very ripe tomatoes were falling apart once I started cooking them. Added 4 Tbsp lemon juice, 1 Tbsp lime juice, 4 Tbsp OJ, 1 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp ground ginger, 1/2tsp coriander and 1 Tbsp whole dried birdseye (Thai) peppers. Bring to a boil, add 1/2 a can (drained) crushed pineapple (about 1C). Boil until set. The next time I made this, I put the pineapple (not drained) in the pan first with the syrup from the sugared tomatoes, the lemon and lime juice (skipped the OJ), and brought that to a "hard simmer" and crushed the pineapple with a potato masher b/c I had bought 6 cans of pineapple chunks (in juice, not syrup) from BJ's and that's what DD used in her jam first. The pineapple chunks were a lot harder/bigger than the crushed - tidbits might work best, the crushed was really shredded and I was *trying* for a preserve with chunks of pineapple and whole yellow cherry tomatoes, but the tomatoes keep falling apart on me and I used the immersion blender on the whole pot, pulled out the skins. A food mill would have worked better. Same spices, skipped the hot peppers in that one. A 3rd batch used the Orange Minsk again, with crushed pineapple, same juices (incl. OJ) and spices, so it was jam consistency, but instead of whole birdseye peppers which were really spicy (to me and DS) when you bit into one, I added 1Tbsp of crushed red pepper flakes. But that hadn't set up as well by the time of the fair so I didn't enter that. I'll let you know how that goes. I've still got to work out the tomato preserves, but I think I need to use really firm just-ripe cherry tomatoes and it's the end of the season, I don't have any more. I've also been working on a savory "just tomato" spread using no-sugar pectin but am having a hard time getting a set with the juicy heirlooms I've tried this year.

Haha...Bruce, it's not quite as high-tech as it sounds ;-) And it didn't work any way, so I can't say that I'd recommend it, really. Armac, I'm glad you asked that question. This Thread's about to max out, so it'll be good to have these pics here for posterity. I use two main screening items. The first is a plastic flat from a nursery, normally used for carrying plants. The squares in the plastic are 1/4 inch. I use this to remove the large particles of bark - only the particles that are 1/4 inch or less fall through. I collect everything that falls through the plastic flat into a large pond-basket. The pond-basket has 1/8 and 1/16 inch holes all around the outside and bottom. When I shake or rinse the ingredients, the fine dust and particulate is flushed out the containers. *I also have some aluminum door/window screen that is 1/16 of an inch. I occasionally use this to remove the fines from Turface in particular. The nursery flat and a pond-basket: Set the plastic flat on top of the pond-basket, add a couple handfuls of bark. The appropriately sized pieces of bark fall into the pond-basket where the fine bark dust can be rinsed or shaken out. Josh

Thanks a bunch Johnny! That's alot of seed packs... You'll probably be dreaming about Seed Packs or Peppers jumping over the fence when your done, Haha! ThePodPiper: Nice Pics and setup you've got. Very healthy looking plants too.

((Hugs)) I've been where you are at with so many pregnancies (only have one child to show for them), but no IVF experience. It is so hard, but I have to say with the only pregnancy that made it almost to term for me it was also the only one that just showed a sac that early in the pregnancy and nothing in it, but my OB at that point said it was early and could go either way. Well a week later we had a heartbeat. Although at that point I couldn't get excited at all still as my previous one had a nice strong heartbeat at that time too and then nothing at 9 weeks. Pregnancy to me was just a huge roller coaster of emotions and constant worries. When is the next US, when are we past the most common point of having losses, 12 weeks to measure the neck fold to check for downs syndrome, when are we at 16 weeks to start progesterone shots and incompetent cervix monitoring, 24 weeks when the baby will be saved if born early, and then weekly onward. Then when the baby was born a whole new set of worries. I was a very high risk pregnancy though. My DH didn't get attached at all to the baby until she was born (he made up for it then) and was very distant during the pregnancy. I think his way of dealing with anything going wrong. You are right though, you will always remember this. I wish the u/s this week will show a little seed or even a heart beat and you can at least get a chance to try to relax and enjoy pregnancy instead of the constant worry I experienced. This post was edited by lyfia on Fri, Apr 25, 14 at 8:39