Berry Jam and Salsa

What to do with all those berries!?

With 9 pints of berries, I had to think of ways to use them before they go bad. I’m not sure I could eat them all in the next few days, at least not without a belly ache and several trips to the bathroom, so I decided to whip up some blackberry freezer jam and raspberry salsa.

Freezer jam is a piece of cake. All you need is jars, fruit, pectin, and sugar.

I mashed up about 3 cups of the blackberries, mixed them with pectin and sugar, and stirred it all up. Wahlah! Blackberry freezer jam! I sterilized some jars by dipping them in boiling water and poured the jam inside. One jar in the freezer and one ready to eat now!

With several blackberries left, I kept a pint in the fridge to eat fresh and put the other 3 in the freezer for a special treat later....perhaps blackberry pie or crisp or cobbler or ice cream or margaritas...the possibilities are endless! Stay tuned!

Now, on to the raspberry salsa. I didn’t really have a recipe so I played with a few different ones online and basically made my own.

Ingredients:

5 1/2 cups tomatoes (I used local heirlooms. YUM!)

2 1/2 cups raspberries

1 1/2 cup onions

4 or more cloves garlic

2 habenaro peppers (I only had 1 but added habenaro hot sauce)

2 T Honey

2 t salt

2 T lemon juice

Method:

I was hoping for a more roasted flavor which I’m not sure I achieved but I decided to roast the tomatoes, garlic, and habenaro pepper in the broiler until they were slightly charred. Next, I chopped everything up and put it all into a large pot.

After bringing the salsa to a boil and I let it simmer for about 30 minutes. I think it’s gonna turn out pretty good, if you’re into the fruity spicy salsa flavor. It's in the fridge now waiting to be dipped into with a salty corn tortilla chip.

This recipe made 4 pints and I should be able to plough through and share them before they go bad. You can obviously adjust this recipe to your taste buds and I probably would tweek it a bit next time depending on how it tastes after sitting for a bit.

There was also the option of canning but because I don’t have a canner and my pot wasn’t big enough to give them a hot water bath I’m kinda outta luck. I have actually never canned before so I will have to make that another project in the future. I was thinking of trying some pickling.

Yesterday I was dreaming of owning a big community industrial kitchen......awwwwww....keep dreaming...just for a little while :)

Yeah! I am so excited to be back into the making of local creations. I haven’t done anything like this since my Santa Cruz days and it feels so great! Can’t wait for apple picking!