Homemade Blackberry Jam
We picked three quarts of blackberries this summer. The berries sat in the freezer while the wild fires filled the air with smoke. The air today is not the best quality either, but with mask in place it was jam making day. After a bowl of freshly steamed quinoa with a dab of butter and slippery elm honey, I called our friend Anza and asked if we could borrow her water bath for canning jam. "I'm not home but Marc is. I'll ask him to put it on the back porch for you." That worked out. I drove myself to their farm and found a friendly note left on the lid, "Enjoy, Mokihana!" it was signed Marc. Such a neighborly thing: borrow a pot, find a sweet note.
Pete cleared our outdoor kitchen 'counter' and re-assembled electrical cords so I could get our hot plate burners preparing jar lids; after the water bath filled with water came to a boil four pint jars needed to be sterilized for 10 minutes. The blackberries were smashed and to the five cups of fruit I added pectin and sugar, and than more sugar for our son's birthday later this month. Christopher's gramma would have made jams and jellies though I don't remember eating them, but do remember her Christmas cookies. Tins of them (sugar cookies and Russian tea cookies stored in the freezer and eaten with glasses of cold milk). She was a Whidbey Island-born woman of the early 1900's. A true homemaker.
These three pints (the three quarts of smashed berries did cook down) are my first batch of slow food homemade jam, and fittingly they are Whidbey Island Blackberries. Sugar is not on our everyday eating list, but to make jam I went for sugar.
I used the recipe right off the box of Sure Jell for a less-sugar jam, but did some reading here before hand to get myself primed for a first time experience.
This is not fast food and even with less-sugar the three pints of jam called for 4 cups of sugar. The jam will cool over night and we'll pack them up and ship them off to Hawaii next week. It was a full afternoon of concentrated measuring, preparing, cooking, stirring, timing and infusing the slow food with 💗 ... worth every moment. We have lots of love to share, and the gratitude I feel for the community here on Whidbey has made all the difference. Slow food for fast times a sweet memory made to remember later.
xoxo
Mokihana and Pete
* The link attached to the cackling voice in the video will take you to another Whidbey Island inspired Medicine Story, one that braids more magic, grace and humor. (The ingredients that reach places deep like slow food in fast times.)
We picked three quarts of blackberries this summer. The berries sat in the freezer while the wild fires filled the air with smoke. The air today is not the best quality either, but with mask in place it was jam making day. After a bowl of freshly steamed quinoa with a dab of butter and slippery elm honey, I called our friend Anza and asked if we could borrow her water bath for canning jam. "I'm not home but Marc is. I'll ask him to put it on the back porch for you." That worked out. I drove myself to their farm and found a friendly note left on the lid, "Enjoy, Mokihana!" it was signed Marc. Such a neighborly thing: borrow a pot, find a sweet note.
Pete cleared our outdoor kitchen 'counter' and re-assembled electrical cords so I could get our hot plate burners preparing jar lids; after the water bath filled with water came to a boil four pint jars needed to be sterilized for 10 minutes. The blackberries were smashed and to the five cups of fruit I added pectin and sugar, and than more sugar for our son's birthday later this month. Christopher's gramma would have made jams and jellies though I don't remember eating them, but do remember her Christmas cookies. Tins of them (sugar cookies and Russian tea cookies stored in the freezer and eaten with glasses of cold milk). She was a Whidbey Island-born woman of the early 1900's. A true homemaker.
A Border Witch at the Spoon ... *
These three pints (the three quarts of smashed berries did cook down) are my first batch of slow food homemade jam, and fittingly they are Whidbey Island Blackberries. Sugar is not on our everyday eating list, but to make jam I went for sugar.
I used the recipe right off the box of Sure Jell for a less-sugar jam, but did some reading here before hand to get myself primed for a first time experience.
This is not fast food and even with less-sugar the three pints of jam called for 4 cups of sugar. The jam will cool over night and we'll pack them up and ship them off to Hawaii next week. It was a full afternoon of concentrated measuring, preparing, cooking, stirring, timing and infusing the slow food with 💗 ... worth every moment. We have lots of love to share, and the gratitude I feel for the community here on Whidbey has made all the difference. Slow food for fast times a sweet memory made to remember later.
xoxo
Mokihana and Pete
* The link attached to the cackling voice in the video will take you to another Whidbey Island inspired Medicine Story, one that braids more magic, grace and humor. (The ingredients that reach places deep like slow food in fast times.)
No comments:
Post a Comment