The Jam Session!! Literally.

For Christmas, my wife gave me the Ball Complete Guide to Home Preserving and a set of canning tools. Today was the day to try them out.

I didn't have a soup made or I would have tried that. Instead I tried some Blackberry Jam. I used Ball's recipe straight out of the book. Blackberries aren't in season so I used frozen. So far we have success.

Mashed blackberries waiting on sugar.

Getting the jars ready to boil.

Heating the lids.

Filled jars, in the pot to boil for 10 minutes.

10 beautiful jars of sweet berry goodness. I'm listening to the lids pop now.

I've canned tomatoes and other vegetables before but never made a jam. It was fun and surprisingly easy. I'm pretty sure I've got some peaches in the freezer I might have to try next.

A 23qt pressure canner should be here in the next day or so. Then the real food starts going in the jars.

Cool. I've been meaning to try out canning.

Those look great! Watching this thread with interest.

I was hoping for bluegrass.

Alright, I got impatient and popped the top of one and tried it on a yeast roll. It still hadn't set completely, but it wasn't bad. I'll have to try it again in the morning. It should be set by then.

Good stuff.

mtn wrote: I was hoping for bluegrass.

I was expecting Phish or Umphrees.

My wife found some of our last preserves, made from the one batch of plums that blasted tree ever put out. The preserves were good. The tree is gone.

In reply to Toyman01:

Do you have any fruit in your backyard?

After 13 years of not getting anything, I harvested grapes and made jelly. So good.

In reply to alfadriver:

I wish. There are a couple of you pick it farms around that I will visit next summer to stock up. This batch I used frozen, just to try it.

The family farm my parents live on has pears, figs and scuppernong grapes. I'll try some of them as well. I'll be planting some blueberries this spring.

Strawberries are in season! We had a Jam good time this afternoon.

Hulled and ready to crush.

The help was moving so fast I didn't get a good shot of him. Must be all the strawberries he ate while I was hulling them.

Mashed and ready for sugar.

The pot was too small, time for a bigger pot.

One to pull the hot jars out of the dishwasher, me to fill them and one to set the jars in the canner.

The main help when I could get him to stop eating.

In just a few minutes it will be time to pull the jars.

27 jars of sweet, strawberry, goodness.

Oh man my grandma used to make strawberry jam, I could just eat that and bread for lunch, so freaking good. If you need any help getting rid of it.....

The ball jar freezer strawberry jam recipe is quite good, although it uses so much sugar it ends up being more of an ice cream topping and less of a preserve. Still, my daughter loves it.

If you get cherry tomatoes, there is a good cherry tomato/ ginger jam that I've made. It's better than it sounds.

In reply to bastomatic:

I'm using Ball's recipe for liquid pectin. It worked very well on the blackberries I tried. It's pretty sweet too. The 27 jars pictured above, have 10 pounds of sugar in them.

The family farm has about 100 acres of cherry tomatoes planted. I might give you a shout when they come in.

Shut up and take my money!