Carrot Cake Jam (Conserves)

I had some carrots left over from when we assembled the freezer meals. Next time, I'll just use them all in the meals, especially because we're not including potatoes, but this time we didn't. I didn't want them to go bad, and they were taking up space in my refrigerator (it's not a full-size fridge), so I found something to do with them!

I found this recipe for Carrot Cake Jam over at the Ball site, and it sounded great! BUT then I read the comments and saw that they recommended this variation from Wicked Good Kitchen instead, so I decided to make that one instead.

I only changed a few things in the recipe:

• Instead of using a fresh apple, I used a jar of apple slices that were soaking in honey mead.
• I didn't have any molasses (nor maple syrup!), so I did what she talks about in the text of her post and used 3 cups of white sugar and 1 cup of brown sugar instead.
• I also took her suggestion and substituted 1/4 cup of chopped raisins for the coconut (I don't like coconut).
• And I took her suggestion (which she says was actually Ball's suggestion) to turn the jam into a conserve and added 1/4 cup of chopped pecans.

Here's a pic from when I first assembled the ingredients:

that's my potato masher making another appearance!

I also used my immersion blender to chop everything up because I didn't want big chunks of pineapple in the finished product.

those big chunks are the pecans!