Outta Jam

Not too long ago I ran out of jam: I finished the last of a huge batch of orange marmalade that I made last year, gathering oranges from a friends tree. I eat jam every day and have insisted the jam I keep in my house be homemade for a while now. Making jam is a big project that I love dearly; fruit all over the kitchen, water bath boiling, ladling hot fruit into hot jars, the table filled with upside down jars - popping one after another. My grandmother taught me how easy it was to make jam and chutney but I taught myself how to process the jars in the hot water bath. It is now one of my favorite things.

But, last night feeling the urge to have jam back in the house and not a lot of fruit I made some blueberry-lemon jam. With 2 cups of blueberries, 1 1/2 cups sugar and the zest of 1 lemon, I made jam. There is no need for pectin, cooking the berries and sugar until it coats the back of a spoon will be fine. I never use pectin, if I had an apple I would have grated some of it and used it. Since I am using this right away - I poured it into 2 jars and let cool and put into the refrigerator. So there's my emergency jam. I will do more canning later~