Berry Medley Jam "June Can Jam"

                                                   

I wanted to do more then strawberry jam and

therefore, since that is the only fruit in season,

I opted to buy frozen berries...

I KNOW, I KNOW...

BUT WAIT, ALL THESE BERRIES ARE

                                     NATIVE TO MY AREA!

Here we have the lucious whole strawberries, blueberries,

black raspberries and red raspberries!!  They

truly look (and taste) devine for having been frozen!

RECIPE:

4 cups of mixed berries (crushed, but not pureed)

7 cups sugar

Bring this to a full rolling boil, stirring constantly.

Quickly stir in 1 pouch of Certo pectin

and bring back to a boil for 1 minute.

Ladle into hot sterilized jars (approx. 8 1/2 pints).

Seal and water bath for 10 minutes.

(Recipe taken from the Certo insert.)

As keeping with my tradition, I put the last bit of

jam or jelly in a coffee mug to be used

right away! VeRy BeRrY yUmMy!

I FINALLY Tried it For Myself!!!

Even though I've been canning for a lot of years now, one thing I've always wanted to do, but never tried before was canning my own soups! WELL... I did some research both in my Blue Ball Canning Book as well as online and I came up with this recipe!! I have to tell you... it really wasn't hard at all! What took me so long to give this a try?

I cheated and used baby carrots in order to avoid the step of

peeling them all! I used my food processor and sent through

3 pounds of carrots in no time at all and I did the same

with the celery!

Here we go...  the veggies & chicken meat all ready for the assembly line!

I boiled down the chicken (I used 4 good sized hens) and

picked off all the meat and cut it up into bite sized pieces.

1/2 cup of chicken

1/2 cup diced celery

1/4 cup diced onions

1/2 cup diced potatoes

1 cup sliced carrots

1 TBsp. fresh chopped parsley

and chicken broth (cooked with salt in it)

Introducing the pressure canner....  I have NO idea

how old my beloved canner is, but it is at least

30 years old, since I've

had it for a minimum of 25 years now!!

Depending on where you live (altitude does make all

the difference) will determine how long you cook it

and at how many pounds of pressure.

For me, once it gets to 11 pounds we let it cook for

90 minutes for quarts! IF YOU HAVE NEVER

USED A PRESSURE CANNER... PLEASE

DO RESEARCH AND GET INPUT FROM

                                               OTHERS BEFORE YOU ATTEMPT THIS!

Here are 7 of the 14 quarts of chicken soup

that we made! Can't wait to try it!

P.S. The water bath method is safe for HIGH acid foods (tomatoes, jellies & jams which use sugar, pickles which generally calls for vinegar.) The pressure canner is for LOW acid foods... veggies, meats etc.

Read up on food preservation methods... it can be a wonderful family activity! :)