Chronicles of the Long Shot Farm

Fruit

More Jam Recipes from our Garden

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Experimenting with different combinations of fruit was a lot of fun this year, since we finally had a nice variety to choose from.  Here are two other delicious blends:

Strawberry-Gooseberry Jam:

  • 2 cups cooked gooseberries (cooked with 1/4 cup of water until soft)
  • 4 cups of nearly pureed strawberries
  • 1 packet of low-sugar SureJell
  • 4 cups of sugar
Follow recipe on SureJell insert for cooked strawberry jam.
Black Currant – Blueberry – Blackberry Jam:
  • 1 cup finely chopped blueberries (nearly pureed)
  • 1 cup cooked black currants (heat currant with a small amount of water until berries are soft)
  • 4 cups seedless blackberry puree
  • 1 packet of low-sugar SureJell
  • 4 cups of sugar
Follow recipe on SureJell insert for cooked blackberry jam.

Mixed Berry Jam

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Raspberries and blueberries are ripening right now and this morning’s picking was perfect for a batch of mixed berry jam.  I use the Sure.Jell low sugar recipe, following basic directions for blackberry jam, only I modified the ingredients to match the fruit I had on hand:

Nearly Seedless Mixed Berry Jam Recipe:

  • 3 cups prepared seedless black raspberry puree  (i.e. heat the cleaned blackberries and run them through a food mill with a berry screen)
  • 1 cup smashed red raspberries (these will have seeds)
  • 2 cups smashed (not pureed) blueberries
  • 4 cups of sugar
  • 1 box of low sugar Sure.Jell

Wash jelly jars, heat lids and have the matching rings ready.

Follow directions for making cooked jam:  measure the sugar and use 1/4 cup of this to mix in with the Sure.Jell powder.  Place all the measured fruit into a large pot, add the sugar/Sure.Jell mix to the fruit and bring it to a full boil (one that cannot be stirred down).  Make sure that the sugar mixture is blended in and that there are no clumps.  When the fruit reaches a full boil, add the remaining sugar and return to a full boil.  Once the full boiling point is reached, boil for exactly 1 minute.

Pour hot jam into prepared jelly jars, wipe rims, adjust lids and place filled jars in a water bath, bring to boil and boil for 10 minutes.  Remove jars and let cool overnight before removing rings.

Yields about 7 half pints of rather thick, amazingly good jam.

Mulching More Elderberries

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We have been planting more and more elderberry bushes along the steep hillside and around the perimeter of the lower pond.  Last fall, we got behind with weed-whipping and a lot of wild brambles started growing up around the elderberries.

This weekend, we thoroughly weeded between all the elderberries, and then added a very heavy layer of wood chips to subdue all weeds and retain moisture.  It looks very “landscaped”, but we hope that it will be easier to maintain this season.  (The forsythia is marking the corner of the elderberry patch)  Hoping for a small elderberry harvest this year!!

Some Jam Experiments

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It was time to clean out the freezer and use up last year’s berries!  We still had several containers of frozen strawberries, and a whole lot of bags of frozen blackberries.  Luckily the strawberries were ready to be used for jam, since we froze them as puree. The blackberries needed to be thawed, heated and run through the food mill to remove seeds before we could use them.

We set all the berries out to thaw on Friday, and Saturday morning at least the strawberries were ready to use. While the blackberries were slowly heating on the stove (in a 22 quart pot), we decided to experiment a bit with rhubarb-strawberry jam.  Roughly we used twice as many strawberries as rhubarb, plus lemon juice – the trick was to know how much total fruit to use in order to get a nicely set jam.  After the initial runny batch, which had the consistency of apple butter, we reduced the amount of fruit by a cup, and ended up with a soft jam, slightly tart, but nicely balanced with the sweetness of strawberries.

Here is our recipe for strawberry-rhubarb jam:

  • 1 and 3/4 cups of cooked rhubarb (chopped cleaned rhubarb is heated with very little water and cooked until soft)
  • 3 and 1/2 cup of mashed strawberries (can use fresh, we used frozen “chunky” puree) 
  • 2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
  • 4 cups of sugar
  • 1 packet of low-sugar SureJell  
We followed the SureJell instructions for cooked jam.  This sized batch made 4 pint sized jars of jam.
The blackberries yielded enough puree for 5 + batches of jam.  We kept the extra out for smoothies 🙂

“Jam” Garden Ready for the Season

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3 rows of elderberries

Tina’s “Jam” garden got a total overhaul today.  It started with thinning out the Elderberry bushes, which are planted in three rows toward the road end of this garden patch.  Next, all the old straw and leaves were raked off the strawberry rows, which then got weeded and edged, before a new layer of straw was put around the plants.  The raspberries were hoed, and tied up where needed, and then got a layer of “mulch hay”.   The gooseberry and currant bushes got the same treatment.  Finally, the three rows of blueberry bushes got a thorough hoeing, to limit weed growth early.  Can’t wait to make jam!