We're Jammin'

One of the best parts of summer... fresh berries! We have generous friends who live nearby and have amazing, heavenly berry patches. I should've gotten a picture. They're overflowing with berries and invited us to come pick some. We ended up with 3 gallons of raspberries in maybe an hour of picking. Usually I'm a freeze-my-berries kind of girl, but they suggested canning them in a maple syrup/water mixture.

We used a ratio of 1C. maple syrup (that we made) to 2C. water. They also suggested a steam canner. I wish I would've gotten one of these sooner, there's a lot less extra steps than normal hot water bath canning.

The steps I used for canning:

• wash and pick through your berries, wash your jars and lids
• pack the berries into jars
• mix your syrup mixture, put it on the stove to get hot, pour it over the berries
• put lids on and put in steamer (the steamer has a top you put over the jars)
• put your burner on Med. High. Once it starts steaming, set your timer for 20 min. After the time is done, let the jars sit for a couple minutes, then take out.

 

 

 

steamer before

 

steamer after

 

While the berries were steaming I started on the Jam. I LOVE using Pomona's Universal Pectin in replace of other pectin brands. I use honey as the sweetener instead of massive amounts of sugar and it turns out delicious! I follow the recipe on the box.

 

At the end of the day, I ended up with 7 pints of berries in syrup and 12-12 oz. jars, 1 pint and 1-1/2 pint of jam!

 

And while I was working on the raspberries, hubby had this wonderful job... Taking the kitchen floor out which consisted of laminate, plywood screwed every 4 inches, tile, then felt paper on the bottom. But when this is done, most of the demo is done and rebuilding begins!