How Do You Use Your Jelly Jar?

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By Elizabeth Taliaferro

I love to partake in a little retail therapy almost as much as I love to cook. Being a foodie, I often find myself browsing through new-fangled kitchen gadgetry in housewares when, truth be known, my kitchen is equipped just fine. I might not have the very latest, but I was raised to be resourceful. I can pretty much make anything with the tools I already have.

Case in point: This past weekend, I made the Eggstra Special Sugar Cookies from the March/April issue. (It’s on newsstands right now, and the recipe is on page 72.) I made them in simple circles with sugar sprinkles.

To cut them out, I used a piece of baking equipment my mother used — a glass jelly jar.

For smaller rounds, a stainless-steel jigger did the trick. I use both items to cut out biscuits and bread rounds for finger sandwiches, too.

I know some of you out there are just as resourceful. If you’ve got a tool or gadget that functions great in your kitchen but really wasn’t meant for cooking at all, I’d love to hear from you.

Heather Martin Jeffcoat recalls an early love of being in the kitchen. It developed from the days of being beside her Grandmother Louise as she cooked for everyone who visited her small-town Alabama home as well as time spent baking with her mother, a Michigan native transplanted to the South after marriage. To this day her mother combines the best of Northern and Southern fare. Heather now spends every spare moment in the kitchen. It’s a way for her to relax and enjoy time with her husband, son, and daughter, who often participate in cooking meals at their home. A love of writing steered Heather into journalism school and then into publishing. After several years working in print and online media, she began freelancing for Cooking With Paula Deen magazine, and she was recently tapped to join the staff full time as the managing editor. She has come to realize that her childhood memories cooking in her grandmother’s and mother’s kitchens, full of love and hospitality, have given her the best education she could have asked for.

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Reader Comments:

Jelly jars and Mason jars can be used for all sorts of things - soup mixes, candles, gift jellies/jams, flowers, holding screws/nuts/bolts, etc. If gifts, cover lid with cross-stitched piece and tie with ribbon or yarn. For flowers - other than using as "bud vases" - place ball of florist clay on bottom of jar, cover with moss, clip flower stem very short (so that flower is about 1/2 the height of the jar, stick flower stem into clay, and cover or not.

By Liz on July 04, 2012

yes you can nail the lids to a borad, and put diffrent little things screws or paper clips in the jars and just screw on the lid, on the borad, and all your little odds ans ends are right there , but out of the way

By dewey wingate jr on March 13, 2012

I too have always liked your show, but since I've been watching my diabetic diet, I stopped. Since you too are a diabetic now, why don't you be the first to put on a show with great diabetic recipes and the right portions we should eat. You can be a great role model for us and especially the kids. Your recipes seem to be high in sugar and fat and especially high in calories. Wish you well with your diabetes.

By Marijke on March 13, 2012

Hi Paula, I just love you and your boys....... I saw you on the Chew one day cooking and talking about your diabetes. I have diabetes too and although I love to watch you cook, I know what I can eat and I knew you did too. Shame on all of those people that tried to make you feel bad. Continue to cook with all the butter you want because I will continue to watch.... I LOVE you and your show!

By Robin on March 13, 2012

My mother used to use carnation milk cans with the holes made from he butcher knife on the un-opened end for a biscut cutter! It worked perfectly, and the size was exactly right for southern homemade from scratch biscuts too! Once that can got sort of worn looking. . . she simply made a "new" biscut cutter! I still do this one today, and believe me, we were "recycling" long before the "green folks" arrived on the scene! As Barbara Mandrell sang. . . we were country when country wasn't cool! But NOBOBY and I mean nobody could ever out cook my Mama either! It is now a "Family Tradition", we have a long line of wonderful southern soul food cooks, even in the young generations, and my daughter is still a mere size 5, and weighs 110 pounds, and sister that's after having THREE babies too! If only I could have been sooo lucky! Be Blessed Paula, love you tremendously!!!!

By kay on March 13, 2012

Paula, Love you, your family, your show, your home and everything you stand for. Came to Savannah to see you twice now. Ate at the resturant, Bubba's and shopped at your store. Purchased one mug from Lady and Son's and a cook book. Dream about your measuring utensils. Anxious to come back and hopefully be at the same place you are just once in my life. I have had some say I look like you. God knows I have your hair.just wish I had your beautiful eyes. You and your boys and entire familty are great. Love what you do AND STAY AS YOU ARE. I also had a shitzu just like yours were. Love ya forever, Brenda Foskey #1 FAN

By Brenda Foskey on March 06, 2012

God Bless you! Sorry you have diabetes, hope you can beat it. Or at least get a handle on it. I can't stop craving sugar, had type 2 since 1980! My cousin sent me this. I plan to take time with it in the AM. I just happen to be watching you Opra and Gayle on TV! Thank you Paula, Sharon

By Sharon Nickey on March 06, 2012

Pauladeen.com

How Do You Use Your Jelly Jar?

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