Rescuing maple syrup hardened in a jar ~ {bits & pieces} too!
The weekly “little of this, little of that” feature here at Like Mother, Like Daughter!
This post about rescuing your maple syrup has no befores, no process, just the information.
It won’t be of the least interest to you right now.
It is a message to the future, the future over-maple-syruping contingent who are looking for support.
I don’t even have a great picture. (But I did find that little blue-green glass bud vase at the thrift store!)
But — I had a jar of absolutely solidified maple “syrup” (well, it was syrup when I poured it in) and a pretty extensive internet search was really no help at all. This is my way of fixing that for you, next year’s searcher of answers.
Yes, sure, it’s all easily fixable, well, easy-ish, if your cemented maple er… block… is still in the pot. Add water and try again.
But what if instead it’s in a glass Mason jar? Things seem trickier. It’s good and stuck in there. Putting water on top doesn’t do much, and it’s glass!
This year’s syruping was highly successful, even though my stovetop wasn’t functioning, other than the back (small and inadequate) burners, necessitating finishing off what we boiled outside in the Instant Pot rather than my usual 20 qt. stockpot.
And that method actually works all too well. I came in to find my syrup boiled quite down (but not burning or spilling over as it would have on the stovetop, because I had put it on the slow cooker function while I attended to other things).
This was the last of it, and I was pretty stinking tired of boiling by then. I was not in an inquiring mood.
I poured it into a jar that already contained some syrup, sort of… not thinking things through.
Well, when it cooled, it was solid as can be.
Here’s what you do (and yes, it took me two months to deal with this; basically, I half-heartedly put some water in and hoped for something other than mold to happen. Mold happened, so I had to deal.) (You deal with mold by re-boiling, but clearly more was necessary here.)
Pour a little hot water on top of your maple-mess-in-a-jar. Warm the outside of the jar under hot water from the tap. Put the jar in a pot of simmering water that reaches above the line of the contents. You are trying to avoid cracking the glass by creating a huge temperature difference anywhere, and the most likely place would be where the contents meet the air.
Gently heat things up and using a sharp fork (like the one that came with your carving knife — it’s jobs like this that I use that thing for), hack away at the sugar block as it warms, while carefully avoiding hitting the glass. Right? Right.
Keep doing this. Little “weak” spots will develop in the sugar and you can exploit those to loosen things up further. Eventually the crystals will loosen from the bottom and you will be home free.
Pour everything into a pot, boil (watching carefully! It’s nearly at the syrup stage already, remember!) until the tiny bubbles appear (soft ball stage, just under 235° because we are not trying to replicate our sugar cement block again), then remove from the heat, cool somewhat, and pour into a new jar (because the other one will have leftover crystals that will mess you up again).
On to our links!
Kid playing football (who goes on to be an NFL kicker) finds himself asking his buddy “big metaphysical questions” and returning to the Catholic faith— one thing I took away from his story is never underestimate the power of being a good friend or of finding a good friend.
Thinking about the state of health insurance and its effect on actual medical practice (and availability), I found this article informative: A Short History of American Medical Insurance.
The Cornell Collection of Blaschka Invertebrate Models includes hundreds of glass models of sea creatures — teaching tools and works of glassmaking art. You can also see the Ware Collection of Blaschka Glass Models of Plants, the “Glass Flowers” at Harvard’s Natural History Museum. This unique collection of over 4,000 models, representing more than 830 plant species, was created by the same glass artisans Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka, a father and son team of Czech glass artists, who did the sea creatures at Cornell. In case you’re doing an Ivy League road trip or something…
I wrote a post offering tips for reading aloud a while back (link down below) — here is a post from the Community of Classical Educators site — 7 Tips for Read-Aloud Success — that complements it very well.
Charles Murray on the importance of women in the neighborhood. Just a man being appreciative. I wonder if we can hear over the sound of our own shouting…
And one from an unmarried, childless, successful career woman. If you don’t subscribe, here are the money quotes:
I’m not a mother, and at 48 I’m unlikely to become one. My whole professional life, I’ve been leaning in. It wasn’t until things went badly wrong that I realized the human-capital value of a group of women modern society tends to ignore or dismiss—stay-at-home-moms.
*******
When I picked up the phone during that dark time, the lifelines at the other end were married stay-at-home mothers. As I fought legal battles, struggled to save sinking investments, looked for work, and moved back to the U.S., my full-time mother friends saved me from sinking into financial and emotional depression. They took my calls in the middle of school runs and playdates. On different continents, three of them put a roof over my head—free. They made sure I ate regularly, got some sleep and generally took care of myself.
*******
All these women were successful professionals before they married and had children. All chose to stay at home and, as one put it, “invest in the most important corporation—my family.” Another said she realized she was “outsourcing my life, including my family, and I didn’t like to think where that might lead.” She gave up her role at a Fortune 50 company. Their career sacrifice gave their families solid foundations and emotional security.
*******
They are leaning in—to people, not organizations.
If it’s not enough for me to incite outrage with my women-at-home links, I’m also going to post this article about measles. The information in it is from the CDC and NIH, so I’m hoping it can just be a contribution that offers reasonable discussion, not polarization. Full disclosure: I have always been “mildly pro-vaxx” — against immorally derived vaccines, rejecting of “lifestyle” ones given to infants and young children (e.g. hepatitis b, Gardasil), and skeptical of the increasingly intense schedule of vaccines given to infants in this country, but agnostic-to-approving of the others. But the rising hysteria is completely unwarranted by the facts. And the more I find out, the more cautious I am becoming.
Check our comment guidelines before coming at me ;)
Some math and science of knitting.
From the archives:
May is the perfect time to begin living the liturgical life at home with children! Note my new bud vase, the little blue-green glass one, that I recently found a thrift store, in the picture at the top of this post! The world needs more little bud vases, especially in May.
Reading aloud — how to do it!
As you think out your summer plans, consider lining up some leisurely reading aloud with the whole family.
Today is the feast of St. Paschal Baylon.
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