This is the recipe I use minus the fruit fresh. Banana Jam 4 cups prepared fruit (about 11 fully ripe medium bananas) 1/2 cup fresh lemon juice 1 tsp. EVER-FRESH or Fruit Fresh Fruit Protector (optional) 1 box SURE.JELL Fruit Pectin 1/2 tsp. butter or margarine (optional) 6 cups sugar, measured into separate bowl MASH bananas thoroughly. Measure exactly 4 cups prepared fruit into 6- or 8-quart saucepot. Stir lemon juice and fruit protector into prepared fruit in saucepot. STIR pectin into fruit in saucepot. Add butter to reduce foaming, if desired. Bring mixture to full rolling boil (a boil that doesn't stop bubbling when stirred) on high heat, stirring constantly. STIR in all sugar quickly. Return to full rolling boil and boil exactly 1 minute, stirring constantly. Remove from heat. Skim off any foam with metal spoon. LADLE quickly into prepared jars, filling to within 1/8 inch of tops. Wipe jar rims and threads. Cover with two-piece lids. Screw bands tightly. Place jars on elevated rack in canner. Lower rack into canner. Water must cover jars by 1 to 2 inches; add boiling water if needed. Cover; bring water to gentle boil. Process 5 minutes. Remove jars and place upright on a towel to cool completely. After jars cool, check seals by pressing middle of lid with finger. (If lid springs back, lid is not sealed and refrigeration is necessary.)

From Baking 911 Each type of fat used in cookie recipes separately affects the cookie's texture and taste. Generally, the use of butter means a flatter, crispier cookies because it allows the dough to spread as it cooks on the hot cookie sheet. Cookies made with shortening will not spread, however all shortening will give you a cookie without a lot of taste. This approach gives you the best of both worlds: shortening is not as sensitive to shifts in temperature and the butter gives a lot of flavor. Shortening: Least spread / Least flavor, however can use butter flavored. Because of its higher melting point (98 to 100 degrees F) than butter, cookies keep their shape as it bakes, yielding a puffier more cake-like treat. Stick Butter: Medium spread / Best flavor. Because of the lower the melting point of butter (92 to 98 degrees F) than shortening, cookies spread and become flatter and crispier as the result. To help reduce cookie spread when using butter, freeze the formed dough on the cookie sheets. When you place the frozen cookie dough immediately in the oven, the fat will stay colder longer and when baked, the cookie will retain its shape better. For flavor, there is no substitute for butter. Cookies made with butter have outstanding taste and a finely grained, often crisp texture. Butter also helps cookies to keep well and maintain their flavor. I recommend using unsalted butter in baking. Stick Margarine: Most spread / Some flavor Vegetable oils: cookies are softer than those made with butter or margarine.

I keep it simple, and use just one sort of butter for almost everything. Unsalted American butter. Land O Lakes, usually, because someone showed me, 30 years ago, that if you take two Land O Lakes packages, cut the maiden's knees from one package, and glue that piece onto the chest of the maiden on the other package, her knees look just like breasts. It was a silly little gag that got me thinking about subliminal advertising and still makes me giggle today. So I guess the advertising worked. Sometimes I buy a European butter, for spreading. But practically all of my butter use is for cooking. I don't eat buttered toast or croissants but once in a blue moon.

Horti - Sure, I'm happy to elaborate. Yes, moisture meters do work in gritty/porous mixes, but maybe not in the way you would expect. All of them essentially rely on sensor contact area, which can vary depending exactly how the probe went in. The instantaneous number is not helpful alone, unless you know the moisture trend for that particular location and sensor. Ability for plants to absorb water roughly follows a decaying exponential curve, which is very predictable. So if you want to use a moisture meter, I recommend sticking it in one spot and monitoring it for several weeks. Even if you don't have a logger, you can build a correlation between when your plant needs water (by observing its leaves) and the moisture value given. Once you get a feel for the numbers, then you can get into the habit of "watering the day before it's required". With this knowledge, you can better maximize your plant's growth potential. That is, you can anticipate your plant's need before it has to display drought response. It works the other way around as well. Things have been too busy and I know I am now 2 days past due for watering: 1 day past will result in slightly shriveled leaves, lost growth opportunity. 2 days past will result in leaves being absorbed beyond point of recovery (lost leaf for many plants). 3 days past will result formation of air roots. My Crassulas, Haworthia, and some Mesembs are most notably suffering, so tonight I HAVE to water. I know I will lose one leaf from my Haworthia 'Tenac', which makes me quite sad: Weight to determine when to water is pretty effective. A couple of my pots are in natural light only and I am not monitoring their moisture. Handling those pots is the easiest way to check moisture levels, along with plant response. Those plant are not as important to me, so I am not so picky in making them flourish. I believe the Parrot Flower Power uses dielectric constant/capacitance for EC measurements. This is because the device requires several full waterings before reporting EC levels. My assumption is that it is performing a calibration on the soil medium during that time (which is the preferred method). For my succulents, the soil EC meter is not so useful because my target is around 0.06mS/cm. It's hard to read anything below 0.1mS/cm with the soil EC meter. Therefore, I am occasionally checking my substrate EC with the Pour Thru method and a liquid EC meter. I fertilize every other watering, which helps smooth out the available nutrients in my soil mix. Otherwise it's a larger swing between nutrients provided and leeching out by watering. This is measurable with my soil EC meter and my liquid EC meter. This fluctuation is shown in a graph in my second post of this thread: Succulents Before and After 6 Months For my outdoor garden plants my target was around 2mS/cm and the soil EC meter was very helpful because for that I use water-soluble powder that fluctuates greatly after big storms/heavy rains. Wish I could say more definitively how the moisture/soil EC sensor works in my device, but the algorithms/sensors seems proprietary. The different sensor technologies measurement units, and significance of them are not so straightforward and not many people are discussing them online (probably due to cost). Hopefully that helps answer some of your questions and you didn't get too bored reading my response. =)