9 July 2015

A berry good time



Jam making is always fun.  Especially with tasty berries up for nibbling.  Then there are smears of cooled jam for tasting, of course.  Always have to taste the final product.  This time we added less sugar than usual, which resulted in a more tart jam.  Surprisingly, the kids haven't seemed to notice.  There have been requests for jam at breakfast, lunch and evening snack.  Funny how that works. 


We are hoping to get in some blueberry jam too when they are ripe to harvest.  Then, I think our jam making days will be over.  But not preserving, oh no.  There are peaches, my friends!  Nothing beats a jar of bright summery peaches on a cold January day.  Just the thing to chase away the winter blues!

Also pickles will be made, and hopefully this year sauerkraut.  I would like to get some beets pickled too.  We tried fermenting our pickles last year alongside using vinegar and it was like night and day.  I'll stick to the old fermenting ways thank you!  There really was no comparison, and they are easy as pie to make.

Here's to summer's bounty!

4 comments:

  1. Yay for jam. I literally just finished a bath of black current/raspberry jam, so good! We will pick more raspberries next week and make more jam, and then like you on to blueberry jam. We also do peach jam.

    Interested in your fermented pickles, care to share more?

    Have a great weekend!

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    1. I love raspberry jam. We made some last year. I don't know if we'll get to do it this year though. And peach jam is a big hit around here. I just want to make sure we have enough preserved peaches before I even think about jam. (Too many projects!)

      I will post more about the pickles, but here is a site that talks about the nitty gritty details:http://www.simplebites.net/make-old-fashioned-brine-fermented-pickles-like-your-great-grandmother/ We leave our pickles whole instead of cutting them in pieces because we found that they stay crunchier. Otherwise, we used the same process using grape leaves with great success.

      Enjoy your weekend and your garden harvesting!

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  2. Oh yummy... we go picking next week and yes, so much strawberry jam in store! Our season is about 2-3 weeks behind and a lot of self-pick farms just finally started producing enough to welcome visitors. Can't wait. In a few weeks, we get to go picking wild blueberries for blueberry-maple jam again. :-)

    Thank you for the fermented pickle site, I'll definitely go check it out. Been wanting to try my hand at some fermenting this year!

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    1. I loved your blueberry jam from last year! We snuck in a round of raspberries today... going to use some for jam, some for eating fresh (preferably with angel food cake and whipped cream!), and some for later... maybe ice cream? The kids snacked and snacked on raspberries. They weren't very hungry afterwards.

      I hope you get the chance to try your hand at pickles. So easy and delicious. We eat them regularly with various foods. Incidentally, if you've ever read "Nourishing Traditions" by Sally Preston, it has some awesome info on the benefits of fermented foods in the diet. Happy pickling!

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