RadioCarla

What did I do?  I took these:

And turned them into this:

That's two batches of blackberry-grape jam to be specific.

If you know a bit more of my growing up years, I guess it isn't too surprising.  I was a 10-year member of 4-H and exhibited at the Illinois State Fair in several areas including flower arranging, arts & crafts and public speaking.  Eventually, I was the judge for public speaking at the state fair one year.  My mom was a dietitian so I learned to cook early in my life.  My brother did too. 

But, it's been over twenty years since I made jam and making jam isn't like making beef stroganoff.  There is special equipment involved and a decent sized kitchen is also a good thing.  A quick trip to our local Ace Hardware took care of the equipment: a canner with rack that Tom can also use for making beer, a canning funnel, a jar lifter, three dozen jelly/jam jars and a couple of boxes of Certo Sure Jel.  The recipe is Mom's.  Follow the instructions from the Certo box, but use two cups of crushed blackberries and two cups of grape juice instead of four cups of blackberries.  As Mom says, the blackberries are too intense unless you cut the taste with the grape juice.  I also needed a 10-pound bag of sugar.  Each batch takes seven cups of sugar!  Diet food this ain't! 

The blackberries were courtesy of a former student and now Twitter/FaceBook friend who spent part of her birthday picking the blackberries.  The first two jars go to her!  Thanks, Natasha!

The process of making jam isn't necessarily hard, but you do need to be fairly precise.  And cleaning up as you go is definitely the way to do it.

You can see the finished product above.  I only did two batches yesterday, but the processed blackberries are in our freezer just waiting for me to make the next four batches.  We haven't tried any yet, but Tom's promised homemade bread for when we do.

The look of amazement and somewhat awe on Tom's face last night was worth any and all effort there was.  It's also nice to still have some surprises up your sleeve after 11+ years.

--- Carla