This morning I woke up to two hungry kids and a problem, the blueberries were squishy. Let’s be real, I totally fed them Poptarts with actual blueberries on the side, it’s not like I was planning to attempt something homemade this morning.
But like I have said a hundred times, I am cheap, and I also lived with my Mommom for several years while I was in college. As a child of the Great Depression, she thought the worst sin in the world was to let food go to waste. Blueberries are expensive. (unless you pick your own, but we didn’t go blueberry picking this year.)They weren’t moldy or anything, just really too squishy to eat.
So I looked up a recipe for homemade jam. I do not come from a family that does any canning or jam-making of any kind, so I was shocked to discover this “recipe” via Google:
(I’m paraphrasing)
1. Mix 2/3 cup of sugar in for every 1 cup of berries.
2. Squish the berries & sugar together (I used a potato masher)
3. Cook it, stirring occasionally, until it looks like jam.
Seriously?! All I had to do is add sugar and cook it? Why didn’t anybody tell me this before? I am seeing a whole new world of jam-making open up before my very eyes.
For comparison, this is the list of ingredients for the Smucker’s strawberry fruit spread that was in my fridge:
strawberries, corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, sugar, pectin, citric acid, grape juice concentrate, and natural flavors
um…or I could eliminate 6 (two being corn syrup & high fructose corn syrup)and just go with berries & sugar.
Now, I don’t know about that whole canning business, so for now, I am just using one old pasta sauce jar and only making small amounts (like 2 cups at a time)but that is plenty for our little family for the time being. Just be sure to refrigerate the jar after it cools and try to use it within a week or so if you aren’t doing the whole canning process.
It only took 10 minutes and I even did it with a baby on my hip and let her help me stir occasionally. (You know, just to be extra Walton-y)
Happy jam-making!
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