Now, regarding the matter of the butterscotch sauce:  what a distaster!  The process itself seemed simple enough - combine some butterscotch chips, water, butter, brown sugar, corn syrup and vanilla in a largish saucepan, melt to blend, cook to thicken and process.  What could be easier?


As it turns out, lots of things.  The actual cooking and processing turned out fine - everything went exactly as the recipe said it would.  During cooling, though, something both unexpected and unwelcome took place:  the sauce separated into three layers, each with it's own color and viscosity.  Not a good sign, especially as I'm pretty sure that the top layer is mostly butter.  Everything blends back up when shaken and the sauce tastes fine so I can probably store it in the fridge, but still... I'm pretty disappointed because according to the recipe the processed sauce has a shelf life of 6 months.  I took some pictures and will post them later, perhaps during nap time.


So I'm on the prowl again for something to go along with the chocolate sauce for gifting.  My mom suggested that I use some of last year's failed strawberry jam strawberry coulis.  We'll see.  I'm also trying to track down a recipe for caramel sauce that I think would be more successful since, like the chocolate sauce and unlike the butterscotch, there wouldn't be anything in it to spoil.


I really had the feeling I needed to reset my canning karma so on Saturday night I made some pickles.  The timing was good because my dill is about to bolt.  I'm going to try and harvest some dill seed, which is always nice to have around, but it's a messy job and I'm not sure how much I'll really get so I didn't mind doing the pickles to make the most of what's left of the season.