Gleefully I crowed to my sister about picking 2 quarts of wild blackberries in our brother's backyard yesterday. She said, "You realize you're crazy, right? I've never seen anyone get so excited about foraging."I just can't help myself! Even if I did have to arm myself with gardening gloves, hiking boots, and long pants just so I wouldn't get so many scratches. I mean, I was IN those bushes. I did, at one point, get stuck under a very large and spiky cane and required my sister-in-law's assistance to get out. At which point, I'm quite sure, SHE decided I was crazy, too.
Today's batch is wild blackberry. I even ran 1 quart of the berries through a sieve to get out some of the seeds. It smells heavenly. I decided not to add the sage; I'd been debating this all week, but finally "simple" won. Using the basic recipe in the Certo package, I ended up with 8.5 cups of jam. I'll keep 4 cups and the other 4.5 will go back to my brother and sister-in-law.
And then we'll keep an eye on those Concord grapes....
I love, love, love blackberry picking. Even the scratches don't bother me so much. I like to think of foraging as accepting earth's amazing gifts. The Sure-Jell Less Sugar recipe is my favorite. Just sweet enough with lots of blackberry flavor. Yum.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, a few of them didn't seal. I caught 3 of them, and replaced the lids and reprocessed; they sealed fine. This morning I discovered the 4th didn't seal, so it's in the fridge for us to eat now. That'll teach me to use old lids!
ReplyDeleteYou know some people just don't get it. When I was in San Felipe Mexico clamming, my husband says he type of clamming is going to the restaurant and paying 10 cents a clam, cooked melted butter and served right to your table! I think half the happiness is the journey,
ReplyDeleteI get ya Donna!
MMM, I love picking wild berries, We have a U-Pick place up the highway from us, I used my take-aways for this
ReplyDeletehttp://laelrose.blogspot.com/2010/07/keeping-myself-busy.html
There may be a fine line between being 'crazy' and being passionate about something...but I like to call it passion instead. :-) I love Jeanine's comment "I think half the happiness is in the journey." I totally agree!
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