Such a bad blogger!!

Been a while since I have blogged, and I have been trying new recipes and canning!  So much to tell! :)
As some of you know, I found a secret stash of free blackberries here in town.  Granted I have to pick the little jerks, but free berries?? HECK YA!  (the war wounds from the thorns eventually go away!)  Sadly these bushes have not been taken care of and are considered wild!  This means Lots of picking for a little amount of berries!  I had to pick three different times for around 5lbs of berries.
My sister found a recipe on a blog http://localkitchenblog.com/ for blackberry lemon preserves.  The recipe called for 1 1/2lbs of berries for 2 cups of preserves!  (that's two half pint jars my friends!!!)  That's a lot of work for a little profit, but the pics on the blog looked soooo yummy that I couldn't resist! 
The recipe is as follows and is SO easy:
Juice and zest of four lemons

1 1/2 cups of sugar
1 1/2 lbs of berries (you can use fresh or frozen I had some of each, let the frozen ones thaw out for a bit)

The night before you are wanting to can, combine all ingredients in a non-reactive pan

 and cook on med heat until all sugar has been dissolved

 put warm mix in a bowl, let cool for a while then cover and place in the fridge over night. 

They next day take out the mix and strain it into a pot. You will have lots of left over berries in the strainer, these you will add back in so don't you dare get rid of them!  Because these berries are in a strainer make sure you put the strainer in another bowl because the berries will keep dripping :)

Put the pot on the burner on med/high heat.  Bring the mixture to a rolling bowl then add the berries from the strainer back in to the pot.  You will bring this to a boil too, and reduce until it is a syrupy consistency stirring occasionally. You will know that it is done when you scrape your spoon on the bottom of the pan will come clean, and the syrup will reach around 220 degrees.

 

Put the mixture in clean half pint jars and water bath process for 15 minutes. (you may have a little extra preserves that you can't fit into jars!  I highly recommend  making some toast and eating it! You will be hooked!!)

If you have a big enough pan you can definitely double this recipe (which I recommend since you only get 2 half pints from each batch aka two cups of preserves!)

Let the preserves sit for at least 48 hours then crack that baby open and eat on toast, biscuts, peanutbutter sandwhiches, and anything else that you can think of! :)

It really is a perfect combo of sweet and tart! I love it! 

Thanks for reading

xoxo