Blueberry jam

Well, that's it. The berry jams are over for the year. I bought about four pounds of blueberries at the Palatine farmers market on Saturday, and I used two pounds to make this jam and froze the rest. (OK, I ate some, too.) Sniff. I know it's officially fall, according to the calendar, but it really isn't officially fall until the berries and peaches are all gone.

But now I have pounds and pounds of preserves in my basement for all winter. Shh, don't tell anyone if the zombie apocalypse happens.

Anyway, now for the blueberry jam. This was supremely easy, but I still managed to screw up the process. BECAUSE I DON'T READ RECIPES. Damnit.

Here's what happened. This jam is two pounds of blueberries, mixed with the juice of two lemons and 2/3 cup water. You boil that for 10 minutes, then add the sugar (3.5 cups). But I'm like, "Boop dee boop dee boop, let's throw it all into the pot at once!" Then I read that the sugar doesn't come in for 10 minutes. Damnit. So here's my dumb ass scooping sugar off of the top of the jam before it soaks in.

Fortunately, I don't think it was catastrophic. Having approximately half of the sugar in the fruit for an extra 10 minutes of boiling might have helped it set up better. (I'm going to pretend that yet another screw-up actually made my dish better.)

After you boil for about two minutes, the water starts getting to be a deep purple. By the time you are done with the full 25-minute boiling process, the mess starts to look like that evil blob thing from Star Trek that killed Tasha Yar.

Anyway, this black goo is pretty amazing. It seemed to set up really well, and I got five full jelly jars out of it. I've got to remember to get the berries off of the freezer tray tonight and into a bag. I've got a bag of raspberries and a bag of blueberries in the fridge, so I'm sure to have some beautiful berry tarts and pies in the winter!