Plum-Cherry Jam (with Pomona pectin)

1 Tbsp Pomona pectin powder
1/4 cup granulated sugar
3 cups pitted, chopped damson-type plums (NOT peeled, a lot of the flavor is in the skin)
2 1/2 cups pitted sweet cherries (if you hate pitting cherries you can use one 12-oz bag of frozen cherries)
1/4 cup lemon juice (bottled/frozen OK)
1/4 cup orange juice (bottled/frozen OK)
1 Tbsp fresh/frozen grated lemon zest or 1 tsp dried
1 Tbsp fresh/frozen grated orange zest or 1 tsp dried
1/2 tsp sea salt
1 cup honey (hint: coat the inside of the measuring cup with cooking spray - the honey will slide right out!)
1 vanilla bean, halved lengthwise and scraped OR 1-2 tsp vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste
4 tsp calcium water (see Pomona package)
OPTIONAL: 1/2 tsp butter or 1/4 tsp grapeseed oil (this minimizes foaming)

Shelf life of opened preserves with Pomona pectin tends to be very short (2-3 weeks), so I suggest using 4-oz jelly jars unless you know you'll finish a larger jar quickly. (Although you may just end up diving in with a spoon!)

Have your calcium water made up and waiting before you even start, mixed per the instructions on the Pomona package. I keep it in a baby food jar in the fridge, it lasts for months.

Pomona pectin is not simply interchangeable with other pectins such as Sure-Jell, although you can use the Ball low/no-sugar pectin in the jar and follow the procedure on the label. For this quantity of fruit you would need approximately 6 Tbsp Ball low-sugar pectin. In my opinion Pomona does not make a very good freezer jam (and I'm not personally very impressed with the "instant pectins"), so if you're not in the mood for canning, you can leave out the calcium water and pectin and cook the jam down the old-fashioned way.

Foamy jam/jelly/preserves is not just unsightly and texturally undesirable, but the air bubbles permit mold and other spoilage sooner than if the air is not present. Skimming is a pain in the kiester and wastes product (although some people quite happily eat the skimmings) but I want my jam in my jars so I take steps to prevent foam. This tiny dab of butter or oil isn't enough to create rancid flavors with extended storage but it sure does wonders for the foam.

A $1 wide-mouth canning funnel and $3 jar lifter are, in my opinion, the main "must-have" tools specific to canning. Almost everything else can be faked. Some people use regular tongs to handle jars - I scalded myself and broke two jars of preserves that definitely cost me more than $3 (dropped one jar onto another taking it out of the pot) before I relented and bought the jar lifter. The funnel is useful for more than just canning, and it REALLY minimizes waste and mess - no dribbling jam down the sides of your jars! It is assumed that you have the basic kitchen tools like a timer, ladle, stirring spoons, heatproof rubber scraper, etc. You can drop a round cake-cooling rack in the bottom of a smallish stockpot, as I did, rather than purchase a "canning pot" with a special rack/basket thingy - you just need to have 2" of water depth over the jars without overflowing.

Don't throw away the vanilla bean pod! Rinse it well and allow it to dry out completely. There are many uses for "used" vanilla bean pods, they still have a lot of vanilla flavor/scent to them. (By the way, if you like using vanilla beans but don't like to pay those nutso prices at the grocery store - $5 for ONE dried-out, sorry-looking little vanilla bean?! - I recommend "Vanilla Products USA" instead. They have a website but I use their eBay or Amazon storefronts for simplicity.)

Line a cookie sheet with several layers of newspaper to make cleanup easier. Put a saucer in the refrigerator. Start your canning pot heating (my 12qt stockpot takes about 20 minutes from warm-tap-water to hard boil on my sorry excuse for a stove).

Stir together pectin powder and granulated sugar, set aside.

Combine plums, cherries, juices, zests, salt, honey, vanilla bean pod and seeds (if used), calcium water, and butter/oil (if used) in a nonreactive pan. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low, and simmer gently 8-10 minutes, until fruit is soft but not disintegrating. Stir often, it wants to stick.

The water bath should be just about boiling now, so put the jars in to sanitize and dip out enough water to cover the lids in a heatproof bowl. Also dip your funnel and ladle in the boiling water and set on a clean plate.Turn burner off for now, leaving pot covered.

Bring fruit mixture back up to a full boil. Stir in pectin-sugar mixture and boil, stirring constantly, for 2 minutes. Remove from heat. Skim off any foam and fish out the vanilla bean. If you did not use a vanilla bean, add vanilla extract/paste now. Taste - carefully! Put a little blob on that chilled saucer, that will cool it quickly enough to check texture and flavor. If it "needs something" give it another teaspoon or so of lemon juice and a pinch of salt, that will usually do the trick.

Remove jars (carefully!) from boiling water and set on newspaper-lined cookie sheet. Use funnel and ladle to fill jars to 1/4" from top. Wipe jar rims, set lids in place and screw on rings.

Boil jars - hard rolling boil - 10 minutes at sea level, turn off the burner and let the jars sit in the covered pot another 5 minutes. Meanwhile, discard the top layer of newspaper if you've dribbled any jam on it, and clean up. (If you're canning more than one thing, which is the most efficient way since it takes quite a bit of electricity/gas to heat up all that water, get the next recipe going while this batch is in the water.) Lift the jars from the water and set upright on the cookie sheet (the newspaper absorbs drips). Do not invert jars. Use the cookie sheet to carry them to an out-of-the-way spot away from drafts to cool, setting them on a dry towel on a cutting board or upside-down cookie sheet, or a cooling rack, and do not touch for _at least_ 12 hours, preferably 24. Listen for that wonderfully satisfying popping sound as your jar lids suck down and seal. :) Check your seals after 24 hours. If a jar didn't seal, refrigerate and use within 3 weeks, or transfer to a freezer container and freeze for 3 months. Store in a cool, dry, preferably dark place for up to 1 year.

Yield: 6 cups and a little more, depending on how much your fruit breaks down - nutrition info calculated as 96 1 Tbsp servings