Mulberry Jam

It has been a while since I posted. Life just got unexpectedly busy over the past few months. In January I had many grand plans for the blog but several obstacles occurred. Mom was quite ill, Dad then fell ill and so did Grandpa Tony. Sadly we lost Tony in February at the age of 83. We were also traveling a fair bit - Las Vegas, Mount Washington, Montreal and Florida. During this time I also sliced my thumb open on a mandolin while preparing carrots. It took 8 stitches to mend it and 3 weeks to heal. Because life seems to be unpredictable lately I am going to refrain from making any strong commitments to the blog. I will post when I can post. Hopefully that will be more often than not.

So I have lived in this house for close to 16 years and low and behold I am in the park across the street the other day walking Zuko and he is determined to walk through the flower garden. As I got closer I realized what he wanted were these berries that were scattered on the ground. There are 2 trees in the garden and when I looked up under the branches they were loaded with berries. They look like miniature black berries. I had no idea what they were so I went home and searched the internet to discover they are Mulberry trees.

The next day off I went with bowl in hand and I picked as many berries as I could reach without trampling the flowers planted in the garden. The trees are so heavy with berries I simply needed to shake the branches and it was raining berries. I managed to collect approx 8 cups worth which is as much as I needed to make one batch of jam.

To make the jam I simply followed the recipe included in the box of no sugar pectin. Even though it states no sugar you can actually add some sweetener. I chose to add 1 cup of no sugar added white grape juice and 1 1/2 cups of sugar. You can also use sugar substitutes such as Splenda if you prefer. The jam is very tasty and not overly sweet. I also strained out some of the seeds. Now I won't lie it was work intensive removing all the stems from the berries. It took approx 40 min.and my fingers are still stained purple a day later, but in the end the result was worth it.

Here is the recipe that was in the pectin package.

Ingredients:

8 cups of Mulberries cleaned and stems removed
1 cup of no sugar added white grape juice
1/2 t butter ( helps prevents foaming)
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 package of No Sugar Needed Pectin


One layer at a time crush the mulberries and if desired you can press half through a sieve or food mill to remove seeds.

In a deep sauce pan combine the berries, grape juice, butter and pectin. Bring to a rolling boil stirring frequently. Add sugar and return to a rolling boil that cannot be stirred down. Boil hard for 3 minutes. Remove from heat and skim off foam if necessary. Fill sterilized jars and process for 10 minutes. Let stand for 24 hours undisturbed.