Does anyone know why berries have been so affordable this summer? It's been great, even organic ones have been a steal often enough that we've had some variety of fresh berry in our fridge pretty much since May.
Yesterday in our kitchen we had 416 oz of berries. Our local market had all varieties of berries on sale AGAIN and this time they were
SO affordable it was worth it to stock up and make some more jam. We
needed to make some more jam because the boys in this house seem to think that it's OK to put heaps of jam on everything and the stash we made this spring is seriously depleted. Not only that, but since the last batch we've all kind of gone off store bought jam, it just doesn't taste as good. Poor Travis was reduced to
Welch's one day in his PB&J and you'd think I made him eat bugs for lunch.
So, I bought 16 pounds of strawberries and 8x6oz boxes of blackberries to supplement the 8x6oz boxes already in my deep freeze. Let the jamming begin!
No strawberry
jammer should be without this nifty tool. It gets the hulls out in record time and doesn't take much flesh with it. It's cute as a button, too.
Several hours later (things moved along faster after Travis came home and I had a second set of hands to help) we had JAM! Lots and lots of strawberry, and some blackberry. The blackberry is seedless, so we have more waste along the way, but I really dislike blackberry seeds in my teeth.
Think this will last those boys through the winter? Yup. And I might even be able to give some away without Travis giving me dirty looks!
The first morning we woke to find a buck nonchalantly nibbling the tree next to our tent.
Since we were hiking with a three year old we chose to stick to the south rim trail, along the top of the canyon, and not venture down into the canyon itself. None of us was interested in hauling a pooped kiddo uphill when he gave up. However, he maintained full steam for our entire hike along the rim.
"C'mon Aunt Karen, this way!"
I tried not to panic about edges, and the rule was that off the path FFM had to have hold of someone's hand. He was excellent about remembering it, much to the relief of all in our party. Often the edge of the canyon was steps from the path!
Way, way, way down there you just might be able to see the mighty Colorado River (it's green). While I wouldn't rank the Grand Canyon as the prettiest canyon I've ever seen (it is good looking, though - I took plenty of photos!) it's vastness is astounding.
Hey, look, here we are at the Grand Canyon!
So, I bought 16 pounds of strawberries and 8x6oz boxes of blackberries to supplement the 8x6oz boxes already in my deep freeze. Let the jamming begin!
Several hours later (things moved along faster after Travis came home and I had a second set of hands to help) we had JAM! Lots and lots of strawberry, and some blackberry. The blackberry is seedless, so we have more waste along the way, but I really dislike blackberry seeds in my teeth.
Think this will last those boys through the winter? Yup. And I might even be able to give some away without Travis giving me dirty looks!
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