Every day I picked a cookie sheet or more of gorgeous berries, straight from my own yard. They were truly gorgeous. My daughter and her friends picked to their hearts content as well. My daughter also went out in the mornings to pick fresh berries for her visiting grandmother’s breakfast yogurt.
All totaled, I froze twelve single cup servings for winter. I’ll use these berries in coffeecakes, scones, and sauces. They are even really good in pancakes if the blueberries don’t last.
I had only one predicament. My husband’s favorite jam is raspberry, but I couldn’t pick enough berries on any one day to make jam. I had enough frozen berries, and we’d eaten fresh berries to our hearts’ content. I had two or three cookie sheets of frozen berries. I could have vacuum sealed them, but I couldn’t see myself using all of them before next year. I decided to try making jam from frozen berries.
I knew that I’d make freezer jam. I prefer freezer jam to cooked jam for strawberries and raspberries. My recipe for raspberry freezer jam (the one inside the Sure-Jel box) calls for three cups of crushed raspberries. I filled an empty yogurt container with four cups of frozen berries, snapped on the top, and put it in the fridge for a day. The berries slowly melted. The next day, I filled the container to the top again and returned it to the refrigerator. By the third day, I had about three cups of melted berries. A quick stir with a fork made them “crushed”. I had to add a half dozen frozen berries to top of my three cups, no problem. I pulled them from the freezer.
Stir in the sugar.
Cook the pectin.
Add the pectin to the berries and sugar.
Jam is made.
I love my raspberry patch. For the price of some sugar and pectin, I have jam. I have frozen berries for winter. My kids spent the last couple weeks, grazing in the yard, eating until they couldn’t eat anymore.
I love my raspberry patch!
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