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| My smallest Honey Berry Bush* |
If you cook it too long, it gets too thick--as in turns to hard-stage candy. I've not made cooked jam before, but my 1 3/4 cup yield from these honey berry bushes said it was time to start. And I cooked it a little too long. No problem. I added a bit of water, and the most delicious of Things I get to do today is frequently remove my little jar of jam from the fridge and stir it. The delicious part is that the spoon or fork must then be licked well. With 10 oz. being the total jam for this year from my new babies, not one drop of this is wasted.
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| Funny, lumpy, blue and sweetly tart |
I followed the recipe in Joy of Cooking which is so perfect for the beginning jam maker who is wildly eager with even the smallest container of berries. The sugar is added in proportion to the amount of berries. Some recipes would say to start with 4 to 6 cups of berries. Well, that puts my jam into next summer, and I just won't wait that long.
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| Lick, lick, lick,lick! WOW! |
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| Time to turn off the heat. |
The end results in flavor are over the top--tart, sweet, exploding with exciting hints of all sorts of the best fruits--the extreme opposite of bland.
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| I'm thinking (hoping) that the cute little pink points on the stem by each leaf will be next year's place to bloom and fruit! *I found these plants at One Green World (onegreenworld.com). |
