The Lawyer, the kids and I went blueberry picking at Pontius Farms on Saturday. If you haven't been - this is a lovely place owned by very friendly folks. I highly recommend it. We spent about an hour picking - luckily Maya and I found some bushes in the shade as she had a sunburn from daycamp. We found that the straggly looking bushes usually had the best berries and the lush ones with many green leaves not so much. I don't know a THING about growing blueberries. Maybe folks before us just didn't want to check out the straggly looking ones?
We were amazed to find we had picked 5 pounds (EXACTLY) of berries between the four of us. I took them home, washed the ones the kids didn't eat in the car, made a pie and still hadn't made a dent in them. I summoned up my courage, headed for County Market and got pint jars and Sure-Jell (I got the "less or no-sugar" type). The insert in the Sure-Jell package was great! Full of tips and hints and recipes. I followed their recipe and process exactly and ended up with 4 pints of delish blueberry jam. I've always heard that canning is a HOT process and oh my yes it is! Everything went relatively quickly though - I only had to process two batches.
I also picked some rhubarb from the Lawyer's garden and made freezer jelly with that. That was SO easy! Slice up the rhubarb, let it sit overnight in sugar, cook briefly and add some (lemon) jello. I am skeptical about the Jello but I couldn't find any recipes with plain gelatin….. We haven't dug into that yet but I'll keep you posted.
Next time I will get 1/2 pint jars and probably invest in a larger pot to process them in. I used my dutch oven which fit 3 pint jars at once. I may, GASP, even get a canner cause I really want to do some veggies too.
1 comment:
I take the blueberries (after washed and dried well), lay them on cookie sheets and freeze them. Then, I bag them so that I can use them for blueberry muffins, pancakes or to throw in smoothies. I froze about 3 lbs last year. LOVE it!
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