We enjoyed a wonderful visit from my parents the last week in February, but on the day they were flying in from Minnesota, the extra refrigerator/freezer in our basement decided to start giving us trouble. The next day, I discovered that it had given up the ghost completely, leaving me with pounds of thawing meat, vegetables, and blueberries we had picked at a local organic blueberry farm during the summer. I'm so glad my parents were here to help us eat up my thawed stash (we only had to throw two frozen meals away), but what could I do with 9 thawed containers of blueberries? I'd never gotten to make blueberry jam this summer when we picked, so now was my chance.
I found a great lower-sugar recipe here at the Driscoll's site which worked well.
I did find that I had to add an extra cup of sugar to make it sweet enough for my taste, but even with my adjustment, the ratio of fruit to sugar in this recipe (11 c. fruit to 2 c. sugar) is significantly lower than the low-sugar recipe on the packet of pectin I had in the house (1 1/3 c. fruit to 1 c. sugar.) I had to cook it twice as long as the recipe states to get it to the right consistency, but I'm sure that the cooking time varies greatly depending on the water content of the fruit as well as the humidity on the day you're making the jam.
We enjoyed our delicious blueberry preserves on homemade wheat bread toast for breakfast this morning. And yes, the daffodils have been blooming already; we've had such a mild winter they think spring is already here!
Yummy! My girls love it.
Grandma and Grandpa enjoy their time with their granddaughters.
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