Elderberries!

The mockingbirds have graciously allowed me to pick enough elderberries to make enough jam for 14 jelly jars.  I knew they had been ripening for the past couple of weeks as I had seen the birds flitting about the tops of the bushes and a couple of slender branches had snapped under the weight of the clusters of berries.  Sunday, I set up camp under the branches and hauled one of the stackable deck chairs over to a nice shady spot and grabbed my big mixing bowl and a pair of snips.  It was a fairly easy job of cutting off the low hanging clusters; and then sitting and stripping off the berries into the bowl.

Over two picking sessions, the last being this morning, I managed to get four quarts of elderberries.  For whatever reason, probably because I didn't want to run into town and get some muslin, or cheesecloth, I decided I would make Elderberry Jam.   I've made tons of jelly, and cordials and elderberry tinctures and compotes, but never have made any jam.  The recipe looks ridiculously easy, and so I mashed, boiled, strained and sieved.  Sterilized my jars.  Measured out sugar and had the liquid pectin ready to go and off I went!

It's been a while since I've used the liquid pectin and so I went over the directions with an eye to time increments, as to how long, how much, and how long again, before adding what and when at the crucial time.

Not to mention it was hot.  And humid.  The kitchen was like a sauna.   Gave a new meaning to "hell's kitchen".  Dante would have been right at home!

This was pretty much a no frills recipe.  Fruit, sugar, pectin.  Pretty basic.  I water bathed the jars for 15 minutes and set them out on the counter and counted pings.  I waited and waited for that last ping and it never came.  The one jar I did as a last minute add into the boil, did not seal, so into the frig it has gone and we'll start on it in the morning.  I did the sneaky finger dip taste test and it was pretty good!