Making Jam

Last week my friend and visiting teacher, Kathy, called to see if we could use some blackberries.  Their early variety is going gang busters, and she brought us two big ice cream buckets filled to the brims with beautiful big berries.  Alex and Anna and I ate some and I made some into jam that very afternoon.  

Aldi has had strawberries for a $1/lb and blueberries for $1.29/pint so, Saturday I bought 8 lbs of strawberries and 6 pints of blueberries thinking I'd make jam over the weekend, but it didn't happen.  I needed to get the berries used up before they spoiled and this afternoon we all got to work slicing, mashing and dicing fruit.  

We made peach, blackberry, blackberry/peach, and strawberry jam.  Then later I made peach syrup and blueberry syrup (which I processed!).  The peaches are white peaches and so delicious.  Kathy's husband brought us two large flats of very ripe peaches that make the best jam and syrup!  Oh, so good.  And the little ones have loved going into the fridge to eat a "lean" peach whenever they want.  [Stephen called them "lean-over peaches" when he brought them by, because you need to lean over when you eat them or you get juice all down the front of you.  

I used low sugar or no sugar needed pectin and had great success with it.  And I love only needing to use 1/4 the sugar traditional recipes call for and still getting a good set on the jam.  I also tested using truvia on batch of strawberry jam rather than cane sugar, it set beautifully, so I'm looking forward to tasting it too.  I think GR's count was 28 jars of jam ... most were pints for us to use, but I also used some jelly jars to give as gifts.    

This day in the kitchen with the kids has brought back sweet memories of making jam with my parents and siblings at my grandmothers home.  My parents discovered buckets and buckets of raspberries in Grandma's basement freezer and we spent the entire week we were there making jam.  


We processed the jam in QUART jars.  Yep, quart jars.  At the time I had no idea what that meant ... I didn't realize the significance of how much work that represented - even though I actively participated.  We'd never made jam before - that wasn't something we did.  Maybe we were using jars Grandma had, or maybe because we were a large family quart jars seemed more efficient?  I don't know.   But no one makes jam in quart jars ... everyone uses pints.  IF you are lucky one recipe yields a quart of jam, plus a little bit.  And we made cases and cases of raspberry jam, in quart jars.  I don't remember how many jars we made, nor do I really remember how much work it took to make that jam.  But we all remember that summer, sitting at stove in the Logan house, cooking raspberry jam.  And we all remember how amazing that raspberry jam tasted.  


As we visited family that summer, we left each family, including the newly married cousins, with a case of the jam.  I don't even remember how many cases we gave away or how many we kept ... maybe someone else remembers?  But I remember when we finally opened the last quart jar of raspberry jam a year or so later, we all savored every bite full!